Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 601-630

601

Recent Proposals for the Pastoral Care of the Divorced
and Remarried: A Theological Assessment
John Corbett, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

Andrew Hofer, O.P.

Dominic Legge, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

Kurt Martens

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

Paul J. Keller, O.P.

Thomas Petri, O.P.

Athenaeum of Ohio
Cincinnati, OH

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

Dominic Langevin, O.P. Thomas Joseph White, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

POPE FRANCIShas convoked an extraordinary Synod of Bishops

for October of 2014, and an ordinary Synod of Bishops for the fall
of 2015, both on the theme of “Pastoral Challenges to the Family in
the Context of Evangelization.” Some initial proposals have emerged,
most notably those outlined by Cardinal Walter Kasper in his address
to the extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals on February 20, 2014.
There, he analyzed the state of the family, concluding with two specific
proposals concerning the divorced and remarried for the Synods’ consideration. Soon after, his address was published in Italian, and then
in the form of a small book (with a preface and additional reflections)

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in English and German.1 His proposals are similar to those that have
appeared in the media in recent months as discussed by the German
Bishops’ Conference.
Although relatively simple in themselves, proposals such as these
raise a wide array of important theological questions. As Catholic theologians serving on Pontifical Faculties or in other ecclesiastical institutions, we seek to offer an assessment of them from a theological perspective. Our goal in doing so is to aid the Church’s reflection on these
key questions. Consequently, we have endeavored to make our analysis
of each question brief and concise, akin to an encyclopedia article, rather than a lengthy study. We hope that this assessment can thus serve as
a scholarly reference for the Church’s pastors, and a starting point for an
ongoing discussion on an issue of major significance.
For ease of reference, our analysis is subdivided as follows:
A. Summary of Present Proposals
B. General Principles
1. Sacramental Marriage Is Indissoluble
2. The History of the Definition of Adultery and of Church
Teaching on Divorce
3. Marriage Is Essentially Public
C. Analyzing Proposals for Holy Communion for the Divorced
and Remarried
1. Despairing of Chastity?
2. The Precedents from Early Councils and the Church Fathers
3. The Eastern Orthodox Practice
4. These Questions Were Decided in the Reformation Controversies
5. The Precedent of the Modern Anglican Communion –
A Slippery Slope?
6. Spiritual or Sacramental Communion for the Divorced and
Remarried?
7. Forgiveness Is Impossible without Repentance and Firm
Purpose of Amendment
8. Consequences of Taking Holy Communion while in Grave Sin
1

Walter Kasper, “Bibbia, eros e famiglia,” Il Foglio, March 1, 2014, Vaticano Esclusivo
I-III; Walter Kasper, The Gospel of the Family, trans. William Madges (New York:
Paulist Press, 2014); Walter Kasper, Das Evangelium von der Familie: Die Rede vor
dem Konsistorium (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2014).

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9. Reviving a Rejected Moral Theory?
10. Admitting the Remarried to Communion Would Cause Grave
Scandal
D. Analyzing Proposals to Change the Annulment Process
1. Is Authentic Faith Necessary for a Valid Marriage?
2. Annulments Cannot Be Granted Absent Canonical Expertise
and Procedures
3. The Impossibility of Subjective or Personalized Judgments in
Marriage Cases
E. Elements of a Positive Proposal for the Upcoming Synods
A. Summary of Present Proposals
We take Cardinal Kasper’s recent book (based on his Consistory address)
as typical of the proposals on divorce and remarriage on offer for the Synods’ consideration. Since this text was carefully prepared and has been
published widely, it can serve as a clear and well-known point of reference. It contains two specific proposals.
First, it states that a valid marriage requires that the parties have faith
in “the mystery that is signified by the sacrament,” and since this is often
lacking, that many marriages are not validly contracted even though they
follow the correct ecclesiastical form. As a remedy, it proposes that, instead of following a “juridical path,” “other, more pastoral and spiritual
procedures” be used. Alternatively, it suggests that “a bishop could entrust
[the decision about the validity of a marriage] to a priest with spiritual and
pastoral experience as a penitentiary or episcopal vicar.”2
Second, it addresses the case where there is “a valid and consummated marriage between baptized individuals, for whom the marital life
partnership is irreparably broken and one or both partners have contracted a second, civil marriage.” Pope Benedict XVI encouraged such
persons to make a spiritual communion instead of receiving the Eucharist, which suggests that they are not “in contradiction to Christ’s commandment.” It then discusses various practices from the Patristic period.3
Finally, it proposes that such persons be admitted to Holy Communion:

2
3

Kasper, The Gospel of the Family, 28.
Ibid., 29-31.

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If a divorced and remarried person is truly sorry that he or
she failed in the first marriage, if the commitments from the
first marriage are clarified and a return is definitively out of the
question, if he or she cannot undo the commitments that were
assumed in the second civil marriage without new guilt, if he or
she strives to the best of his or her abilities to live out the second
civil marriage on the basis of faith and to raise their children
in the faith, if he or she longs for the sacraments as a source of
strength in his or her situation, do we then have to refuse or can
we refuse him or her the sacrament of penance and communion, after a period of reorientation?4
We will address these proposals in reverse order.
B. General Principles
B-1. Sacramental Marriage Is Indissoluble
Christ elevated marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, and it signifies his
spousal love and his unbreakable fidelity to the Church (Eph 5:32). According to the Lord’s own words, “whoever divorces his wife and marries
another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband
and marries another, she commits adultery (Mk 10:11-12).”
Between two baptized persons, natural marriage cannot be separated
from sacramental marriage.
The sacramental nature of marriage between the baptized is not
an accidental element that . . . could just as well not be, but is
rather so tied into the essence of it as to be inseparable from it. .
. . [T]he Church cannot in any way recognize that two baptized
persons are living in a marital state equal to their dignity and
their life as ‘new creatures in Christ’ if they are not united by the
sacrament of matrimony.5
4
5

Ibid., 32.
International Theological Commission, “Propositions on the Doctrine of Christian
Marriage” (1977), in Texts and Documents, 1969-1985, ed. Michael Sharkey (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), nos. 3.1, 3.2.

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A ratified and consummated marriage between two baptized persons
cannot be dissolved by any human power, including the vicarious power
of the Roman Pontiff. Pope John Paul II, citing a long list of his predecessor’s statements, taught that this point is settled. He concluded:
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, with the great doctrinal
authority conferred on it by the involvement of the whole Episcopate in its drafting and by my special approval . . . read[s]: “Thus
the marriage bond has been established by God himself in such a
way that a marriage concluded and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved. This bond, which results
from the free human act of the spouses and their consummation
of the marriage, is a reality, henceforth irrevocable, and gives rise
to a covenant guaranteed by God’s fidelity. The Church does not
have the power to contravene this disposition of divine wisdom.”6
Consequently, the Church insists (even in the face of great pressure) that
where a valid bond exists, no second marriage is possible during the life of
the first spouse. (For an analysis of the early Church’s practice, see section
C-2, below.) Even before Nicaea, this teaching was enshrined in formal
declarations.7
Finally, the papal Magisterium has clarified that private judgments
or an individual’s personal conviction (e.g., that one’s previous marriage
was invalid) may not form the basis for setting aside a marriage’s validity. A judgment about the validity of a sacramental marriage “belongs to
the Church by divine institution,” and so “reference must be made to the
judgment correctly emanating from legitimate authority” according to
objective norms.8

6

Pope John Paul II, “Address to the Roman Rota” (Jan. 21, 2000). St. John Paul added:
“[A] ratified and consummated sacramental marriage can never be dissolved, not
even by the power of the Roman Pontiff. . . . [Pius XII] presented this doctrine as
being peacefully held by all experts in the matter.”
7
See, e.g., Can. 9 of the Synod of Elvira (300-303), in Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium
of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, 43rd ed., ed.
Peter Hünermann (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012) [hereinafter, “DH”], no. 117.
8
John Paul II, “Address to the Roman Rota” (Feb. 10, 1995). Cf. Code of Canon Law,
c. 135 §3; c. 1085.

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B-2. The History of the Definition of Adultery and of Church Teaching
on Divorce
The Sixth Commandment states: “You shall not commit adultery (Ex
20:12).” Jesus gives the definitive interpretation to this commandment.
“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery,
and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery (Lk 16:18).” Indissoluble marriage was intended by God from the beginning; the Torah permitted divorce only as a concession to the hardness
of the human heart (Mt 19:8). Christ does allow the separation of spouses
“due to unchastity [mê epi porneia],” but the Church, the infallible interpreter of sacred Scripture, has always understood this as permitting separation in cases of adultery, not remarriage (unless the first marriage was
invalid).9 In fact, given the Jewish practice at the time of Jesus, his teaching and its shocking novelty (even his disciples found it difficult) would
make no sense unless he were articulating it in just the sense in which the
Church has always understood it.
The prohibition of divorce and remarriage is clear even in the earliest
official pronouncements of the Catholic Church. 10 Since the Reformation,
Popes have repeatedly reaffirmed it. For example, in 1595, Pope Clement VIII issued an instruction on the rites of Eastern Catholics in Italy,
noting that bishops were in no way to tolerate divorce. Similar teachings
on the impossibility of divorce for Eastern rite Catholics were reiterated
by Urban VIII (1623-1644), and Benedict XIV (1740-1758).11 In eighteenth-century Poland, the abuse of annulments was particularly widespread, prompting Benedict XIV to address three strongly-worded apostolic letters to the Polish Bishops to correct it. In the second of these, in
1741, he issued the constitution Dei miseratione, requiring a canonical
defender of the bond for every marriage case.12 In 1803, Pius VII reminded the German bishops that priests could in no way celebrate second mar9

On the united testimony of the Latin Fathers regarding this interpretation (which
anticipates the doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church), see G. H. Joyce, Christian
Marriage: An Historical and Doctrinal Survey (London: Sheed and Ward, 1948), 30431. See also section C-2, below.
10
See, e.g., Synod of Elvira (c. 300-303), DH 117; Council of Carthage, Canon 11 (407);
and Council of Angers, Canon 6 (453).
11
Joyce, Christian Marriage, 400-401.
12
Benedict XIV, Dei miseratione (1741).

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607

riages, even if required of them by civil law, since this would “betray their
sacred ministry.” He decreed: “As long as the impediment [of a prior bond
of marriage] endures, if a man is conjoined to a woman, it is adultery.”13
Permissive practices by Eastern rite bishops in Transylvania gave rise to
an 1858 decree of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith underscoring the indissolubility of sacramental marriage.14 Finally, Leo XIII’s
teaching against divorce in 1880 in Arcanum, his encyclical on marriage,
could hardly be stronger.
As this history shows, the proclamation of Christ’s teaching on adultery and divorce has always been difficult, and calls every epoch to conversion. That it remains so in our age is unsurprising. This is all the more
reason for the Church to bear witness to this truth today.
B-3. Marriage Is Essentially Public
Some proposals for the Synods would move assessments about the existence of valid marriages into the subjective sphere of conscience or into
private judgments, rather than addressing marriage as a public reality.
However, marriage has an essentially public nature, in three respects: (1)
it is a public contract between the spouses; (2) it serves the public good
by providing and educating children; and (3) the sacrament is a public
witness and sign of Christ’s fidelity and love for his Church.
First, marriage is a covenantal contract between a man and woman.
This contract is, and must be, public. There are witnesses in every marriage ritual; being married imposes duties on the spouses as well as giving
them rights and benefits. Among these, it entails that spouses are faithful
to each other (especially in their conjugal life), that they will help and care
for each other in good times and in bad, and that they will cooperate in
raising their children. What is more, they are, and should be, treated as
a unit under law: they form a single marital community with common

13

Pius VII, Brief Etsi fraternitatis to the Archbishop of Mainz (1803), DH 2705-06. The
latter quoted sentence is not reproduced in Denzinger; we have translated the Latin
text reproduced in Joyce, Christian Marriage, 407 n. 1.
14
Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, Instr. ad Archiep. Fogarasien. et Alba-Iulien. Non latet (Mar. 24 1858), in P. Gasparri & J. Serédi, eds., Codicis Iuris Canonici Fontes (Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1923-1949), doc. no. 4844.

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resources, empowered to represent each other, and with the right not to
be separated nor positioned against each other.
Second, marriage serves the common good inasmuch as married
couples bring children into the world and commit themselves to raising
them. Admittedly, it has become controversial in many places to teach
that a central good of marriage is the procreation and education of children. It is even regarded as a form of prejudice by those who advocate legally-sanctioned homosexual unions. Yet if the Church acquiesces to the
growing pressure to fall silent about this public dimension of marriage,
it will be taking a step towards these negative developments, and will be
abandoning an essential element of and reason for marriage. Where marriage is no longer identified as a public institution worthy of legal and
cultural support, it becomes little more than a personal profession of love.
Third, the sacrament of matrimony perfects the marital union of baptized Christians. The indissolubility of this union is not only central to
God’s divine plan for man and woman (Mt 19:3-10), but it allows their
permanent and faithful love to serve as a sacramental sign of Christ’s love
for and fidelity to his bride, the Church (Eph 5:32).
The Church now stands as one of the few remaining voices in Western culture that faithfully proclaims the truth about marriage. Her theology, law, and liturgical practice highlight the importance of marriage
and family in society and in the Church. Married couples cooperate with
God in the creation of new life, are the first teachers of the faith, and thus
participate in the generation of new adopted sons and daughters of God
destined to share in his eternal inheritance. In their fidelity, they are public witnesses to Christ’s unwavering fidelity to his people.
C. Analyzing Proposals for Holy Communion
for the Divorced and Remarried
C-1. Despairing of Chastity?
At the heart of the present proposals is a doubt about chastity. Indeed,
removing the obligation of chastity from the divorced is their principal
innovation, since the Church already permits the divorced and remarried
who, for a serious reason (like the raising of children), continue to live
together, to receive Communion if they agree to live as brother and sister,

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609

and if there is no danger of scandal. Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI
taught this.
The assumption of the present proposals, however, is that such chastity is impossible for the divorced. Does this not contain a hidden despair about chastity and about the power of grace to conquer sin and
vice? Christ calls every person to chastity according to his or her state in
life, whether unmarried, celibate, married, or separated. He promises the
grace to live chastely. In the Gospels, Jesus repeats this call and promise,
along with a vivid warning: what causes sin should be “plucked out” and
“cut off,” because “it is better that you lose one of your members than that
your whole body be thrown into hell (Mt 5:27-32).” Indeed, in the Sermon
on the Mount, chastity is the heart and soul of Jesus’s teaching about marriage, divorce, and conjugal love.
This chastity is a fruit of grace, not a penance or a deprivation. It refers
not to the repression of one’s sexuality, but to its right ordering. Chastity
is the virtue by which one subjects sexual desires to reason, so that one’s
sexuality serves not lust, but its true end. Its result is that the chaste person governs his passions rather than being enslaved by them, and hence
becomes capable of a total and permanent gift of self. In short, it is indispensable for following the way of Christ, which is the only authentic path
to joy, freedom, and happiness.
Today’s culture claims that chastity is impossible or even harmful.
This secular dogma is directly opposed to the Lord’s teaching. If we accept
it, it is hard to see why it should apply only to the divorced. Is it not equally
unrealistic to ask single people to remain chaste until marriage? Should
not they too admit themselves to Holy Communion? The examples could
be multiplied.
Some civilly-remarried couples do try to live chastely as brother and
sister. They may find it hard, and may sometimes fall, but, moved by grace,
they rise again, confess, and start over. If the present proposal were accepted, how many of them would give up the struggle to be chaste?
Of course, many divorced and remarried persons do not live chastely.
What distinguishes them from those who try for (and sometimes fail at)
chastity is that they do not yet recognize unchastity as seriously wrong, or
at least do not yet have any intention to live chastely. If they are permitted
to receive the Eucharist, even if they go to confession first, intending all
the while to live unchastely (a radical contradiction), there is a real danger

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that they will be confirmed in their present vice. They are unlikely to grow
in their understanding of the objective sinfulness and gravity of their unchaste actions. One might wonder whether their moral character will be
improved, or whether it is more likely to be disrupted or even deformed.
Christ teaches that chastity is possible, even in difficult cases, because
God’s grace is more powerful than sin. The pastoral care of the divorced
should be built on this promise. Unless they hear the Church proclaim
Christ’s hopeful words that they can truly be chaste, they will never try.
C-2. The Precedents from Early Councils and the Church Fathers
The nearly universal witness in the early Church affirms the unicity and
indissolubility of marriage as the teaching of Christ himself, and is what
distinguishes Christian from Jewish and pagan practices. Divorce and remarriage was out of the question; indeed, even whether one could marry
after a spouse’s death raised serious concern. St. Paul allows this second
marriage “only in the Lord,” but encourages the widow to “remain as she
is” (1 Cor 7:39-40). The great patristic writers, following Matthew 19:1112 and St. Paul’s exhortations, generally emphasize the good of virginity
and chaste widowhood as preferable to the good of marriage.
Recently, it has been claimed that the First Council of Nicaea (325)
addressed the admission of the divorced and remarried to Communion.
This is a serious misreading of that Council and misunderstands the second and third century controversies over marriage. Various rigorist and
heretical sects in the second century forbade marriage in general, in contradiction to Christ’s teaching (and to St. Paul’s). Others in the second and
third centuries, especially the Novatianists, forbade a “second marriage”
after a spouse’s death. Canon 8 of Nicaea I aims precisely at the error of
the Novatianists about a “second marriage,” commonly understood to be
after a spouse’s death.15
15

Council of Nicaea (325), Canon 8, DH 127: “It is fitting that they [the Novatianists]
profess in writing . . . to remain in communion with those who have been married twice and with those who have lapsed during persecution.” Cf. Henri Crouzel,
L’Église primitive face au divorce: du premier au cinquième siécle (Paris: Beauchesne,
1971), 124. Thus, St. Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403), writing against the Novatianists,
explains that the clergy may not remarry after a spouse’s death, while the laity may.
The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, trans. and ed.
Philip R. Amidon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 205.

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This is confirmed in the Byzantine interpretation of a fourth-century
canon on “second marriage” and the reception of Communion. The canon was applied specifically to young widows and widowers who, induced
by “the arising of the fleshly spirit,” remarried after a spouse’s death. They
were criticized for this “second marriage,” but were nonetheless permitted
to receive Communion if they completed a period of prayer and penance.16
There are some ambiguous fourth-century texts dealing with divorce and an adulterous second relationship. They speak of admitting
one who has entered such an adulterous relationship to Communion
only after a lengthy period of penance (e.g., seven years). It is implausible, however, that they permitted that second relationship—which
they expressly condemn as adulterous—to continue. The more natural
reading is that repenting of adultery formed a part of the penance necessary for Communion.17
In sum, the Church Fathers and the early Councils bear a very strong
witness against admitting the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion.
C-3. The Eastern Orthodox Practice
In the early Church, it was disputed whether one could remarry after a
spouse’s death, but divorce and remarriage was forbidden (see section C-2,
above). Some Eastern Fathers (e.g., St. Gregory of Nazianzus) preached
against lax imperial laws permitting remarriage. Gregory called subsequent unions “indulgence,” then “transgression,” and finally “swinish.” 18
These were not permissions for divorce and remarriage, but attempts to
curtail subsequent unions, even after a spouse’s death.
Over time, and under pressure from the Byzantine emperors who
16

Matthew Blastares, The Alphabetical Collection, Gamma (chap. 4, about Laodicea 1),
in Patrick Demetrios Viscuso, ed. and trans., The Alphabetical Collection of Matthew
Blastares: Selections from a Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedia of Canon Law (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2008), 95.
17
See, e.g., St. Basil the Great, Canon 77, in St. Basil’s Epistle 217. In St. Gregory of
Nazianzus’s Oration 37.8, Gregory is most likely preaching before the Theodosian
court in Constantinople in order to change the lax laws on marriage of the Empire.
The ambiguity in Gregory’s preaching is clarified in his Epistle 144, where he calls
divorce “completely disagreeable with our laws, even if those of the Romans [of the
Empire] judge otherwise.”
18
Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 37.8.

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asserted an aggressive authority over the Eastern Church, Eastern Christians came to conflate “second marriages” after a spouse’s death with divorce and remarriage, and to re-read patristic texts in this light. In the
tenth century, Byzantine Emperor Leo VI effectively forced the Eastern
Orthodox to accept divorce and remarriage.19 Their present approach
permits, by the practice of “economy,” second and third marriages after
divorce, although with wedding rites outside the Eucharist. Since these
unions are not considered adulterous, the divorced and remarried are admitted to Communion.
This practice diverges from the clearest tradition of the early Church
common to both East and West. As the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith declared in 1994: “Even if analogous pastoral solutions have
been proposed by a few Fathers of the Church and in some measure were
practiced, nevertheless these never attained the consensus of the Fathers
and in no way came to constitute the common doctrine of the Church nor
to determine her discipline.”20 Such a determination accurately reflects
the historical record.
Further, the Catholic Church has repeatedly determined that it cannot admit the Eastern Orthodox practice. The Second Council of Lyon
(1274), specifically addressing the Eastern Orthodox practice, declared
that “neither is a man allowed to have several wives at the same time nor
a woman several husbands. But, when a legitimate marriage is dissolved
by the death of one of the spouses, [the Roman Church] declares that a
second and afterward a third marriage are successively licit.”21
What is more, present proposals advocate what even the Eastern Orthodox would not accept: Communion for those in unblessed civil (adulterous) unions. The Eastern Orthodox admit the divorced and remarried
19

Concerning Emperor Leo’s Novella 89, Orthodox theologian John Meyendorff
laments: “the Church was obliged not only to bless marriages which it did not approve, but even to ‘dissolve’ them (i.e., give ‘divorces’). . . . The Church had to pay a
high price for the new social responsibility which it had received; it had to ‘secularize’ its pastoral attitude towards marriage and practically abandon its penitential discipline.” John Meyendorff, Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective, 2nd ed. (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1975), 29.
20
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic
Church concerning the reception of Holy Communion by the divorced and remarried members of the faithful” (1994), §4.
21
Profession of Faith of Michael Paleologus, DH 860.

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to Communion only if their subsequent union has been blessed in an
Eastern Orthodox rite. In other words, admitting the divorced and remarried to Communion would inevitably require the Catholic Church to
recognize and bless second marriages after divorce, which is clearly contrary to settled Catholic dogma and Christ’s express teaching.
C-4. These Questions Were Decided in the Reformation Controversies
The Reformation directly contested the Church’s teachings regarding
marriage and human sexuality, using arguments quite similar to those
used today. Clerical celibacy was said to be too difficult, exceeding what
fallen human nature can bear, even under grace. 22 The sacramental nature
of Christian marriage was denied, as was its indissolubility. 23 Civil divorce
was introduced in Germany with the argument that the state could not be
expected to privilege, promote and defend life-long marriage.24 In effect,
the Reformation radically redefined marriage.
The Council of Trent responded to this crisis in four ways. First, the
Council dogmatically defined the traditional teaching on the sacramentality and indissolubility of Christian marriage, explicitly identifying remarriage as adultery.25 Second, the Council made mandatory a public, ecclesial form of marriage, correcting the abuse of private or secret marriages. (In such cases, one spouse sometimes abandoned the marriage based
only on his private and subjective decision and then remarried publicly.
The Council forbade this subjective and privatized approach.)26 Third,
Trent defined as dogma the Church’s jurisdiction over marriage cases, requiring for the sake of the integrity of the sacraments that they be judged
by objective standards in ecclesiastical courts.27 Fourth, the Council ex22

Martin Luther, An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality, III, 14; John
Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV, c. 13, nos. 15, 17.
23
Martin Luther, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, §5.
24
See, e.g., Martin Luther, Brief an den Rath zu Danzig; Philip Melanchthon, De Conjugio, cited in Joyce, Christian Marriage, 409-29. See also John Calvin, Institutes of the
Christian Religion IV, c.19, nos. 34-37.
25
Council of Trent, Decree and Canons on Marriage (1563), DH 1797-1812. On remarriage as adultery, see Can. 7.
26
Council of Trent, Decree Tametsi (1563), DH 1813-16.
27
Council of Trent, Canon 12 on Marriage, DH 1812. Pius VI later clarified Can. 12’s
meaning: “these cases belong to the tribunal of the Church alone . . . because the

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pressly taught that adulterers lose the grace of justification: “Adulterers”
and “all others who commit mortal sins,” “even though [their] faith is not
lost,” lose “the grace of justification” and are “exclude[d] from the Kingdom of God,” unless they repent, give up and detest their sin, and make
a sacramental confession.28 (Elsewhere, Trent decreed that they may not
receive Holy Communion until they do so.)29
It is simply not possible to admit those persevering in adultery to Holy
Communion and also to affirm these conciliar doctrines. Trent’s definitions of adultery, of justification (which implies charity as well as faith), or
the meaning and significance of the Eucharist, would be changed. Neither
may the Church treat marriage as a private matter, nor one to be adjudicated by the state, nor something to be decided by individual judgments
of conscience. After long debate, these issues were clearly resolved by an
ecumenical council in the most solemn manner. Those declarations have
been repeatedly reiterated by the contemporary Magisterium, including
the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.30
C-5. The Precedent of the Modern Anglican Communion
– A Slippery Slope?
Over the past century, the Anglican Communion has largely followed a
practice of pastoral accommodation to the changing social and sexual
mores in Europe and North America. It has liberalized divorce, allowed
contraception, admitted those engaged in homosexual activity to communion and even (in some places) to the ordained ministry, and begun
to bless same-sex unions. Some of these changes were initially justified on
the pretext that they would apply only to rare cases, yet these practices are
now widespread.
This has caused bitter divisions and even open splits, if not outright
schism, in the Anglican Communion. In the same period, its active memmarriage contract is truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelical law.” Pius VI, Deessemus nobis (1788), DH 2598. John Paul II reiterated this in his
1995 Address to the Roman Rota.
28
Council of Trent, Decree on Justification (1547), c. 15, DH 1544; on the need to
confess, see c. 14, DH 1542-43.
29
Council of Trent, Decree on the Eucharist (1555), DH 1646-47.
30
Lumen Gentium (1964), §11; Gaudium et Spes (1965), §§47, 49, 50; CCC, §§1415;
1640, 1650. See also John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio (1981), §§13, 19, 20, 83, 84.

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bership in England and North America has collapsed dramatically. While
the cause of this collapse is debatable, no one can reasonably argue that
accommodation has helped it (or other Protestant denominations) to retain members.
The Catholic Magisterium has not taken this path. Already in 1930,
Pope Pius XI foresaw the serious threat posed by contraception, divorce,
and abortion,31 a view reaffirmed by Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, and
Vatican II.32 John Paul II reiterated the Church’s teachings on divorce, contraception, homosexuality and abortion,33 underscored the reproductive
end of marriage, and offered a theological grounding for the Church’s
teaching in his catechesis on the theology of the body. The Catechism of
the Catholic Church repeats these perennial teachings, treating human
sexuality in light of the virtue of chastity.34 And in 2003, the Congregation
of the Doctrine for the Faith declared that legal recognition of homosexual unions can in no way be approved; this is part of the moral law, accessible to reason by way of the natural law.35
Thus, the Church has borne a consistent witness in the contemporary
world to the full truth about human sexuality and the complementarity of
the sexes. The good of human sexuality is intrinsically related to its potential to generate new life, and its proper place is in a shared life of mutual,
loving fidelity between a man and a woman. These are saving truths that
the world needs to hear; the Catholic Church is, increasingly, a lone voice
proclaiming them.
Although the present proposals concern only the divorced-and-remarried, adopting them—even as a “merely” pastoral practice—requires
that the Church accept in principle that sexual activity outside of a permanent and faithful marriage is compatible with communion with Christ
and with the Christian life. If accepted, however, it is hard to see how
the Church could resist admitting to Holy Communion unmarried co31

Pius XI, Casti Connubii (1930), DH 3715.
See, e.g., Pius XII, Address to Midwives (Oct. 29, 1951); John XXIII, Mater et Magistra (1961); Gaudium et Spes, nos. §§48, 51; Paul VI, Humanae Vitae (1968).
33
John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio (1981); Veritatis Splendor (1993); Evangelium Vitae (1995).
34
CCC, §§1621-65; 2380-2400.
35
Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith, “Considerations regarding proposals to
give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons” (2003).
32

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John Corbett, O.P., et al.

habiting couples, or persons in homosexual unions, and so forth. Indeed,
the logic of this position suggests that the Church should bless such relationships (as the Anglican communion is now doing), and even accept
the full gamut of contemporary sexual “liberation.” Communion for the
divorced-and-remarried is only the beginning.
C-6. Spiritual or Sacramental Communion
for the Divorced and Remarried?
It is argued that divorced and remarried Catholics with a valid first
marriage might receive Holy Communion, according to the following
reasoning: (1) Pope Benedict XVI suggested that such persons should
make a spiritual communion; (2) but a person who makes a spiritual
communion is also worthy of receiving Holy Communion sacramentally; (3) therefore, the divorced and remarried should be admitted to
Holy Communion.
The problem here is an ambiguous use of the phrase “spiritual communion.” Depending on the context, it may refer to either (a) the ultimate fruit or effect of a sacramental reception of the Eucharist, namely, a perfect spiritual communion with Christ in faith and charity; (b)
the same spiritual communion with Christ, but without a sacramental
Communion (e.g., a daily communicant who misses a weekday Mass
and so renews, by an act of living faith, the perfect communion with
Christ previously received sacramentally); or (c) the desire for Communion of a person conscious of grave sin or living in a situation that
objectively contradicts the moral law, who does not yet have a perfect
communion with Christ in faith and charity.36
This third meaning is very different from the other two, because the
person desires the Eucharist without yet renouncing a grave obstacle to
perfect communion with Christ. (In the first two cases, “spiritual communion” refers to the accomplishment of this perfect communion.) It is
very good for such a person to foster this desire, since through it, and
with the help of grace, he may finally be converted from sin and restored
36

See Paul J. Keller, O.P. “Is Spiritual Communion for Everyone?” Nova et Vetera (English) 12 (2014): 631-55. Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole, O.P., “Communion sacramentelle et communion spirituelle,” Nova et Vetera 86 (2011): 147-53. See also St.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae [ST] III, q. 80, aa. 1-4.

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to the fullness of ecclesial communion and the state of grace (faith vivified through charity, and thus a full communion with Christ). But—and
this is the key—this desire is valuable precisely insofar as it aids him to
renounce the obstacle.
Were he admitted to the Eucharist without renouncing the obstacle,
the situation would be worse. He would make a sacramental Communion while unable to receive Christ in faith and charity, because of his
ongoing attachment to grave sin or to an objectively disordered living
situation. He might be lulled into thinking his situation is unproblematic. Clearly, Pope Benedict encouraged the divorced and remarried to
desire the Eucharist so they would align themselves with Christ’s teaching on marriage, not so that they would dispense themselves from it.
Moreover, to receive the Eucharist, the sacrament of charity containing Christ himself, while conscious of grave sin, is itself a grave sin
(1 Cor 11:27-31). The divorced and remarried who remain bound by a
valid first marriage are living in objective contradiction to Christ’s command; conjugal acts in such a relationship are adulterous, a serious sin.
Such persons may not receive Communion.
They should, however, be encouraged to desire union with Christ
and to pray for the grace to conform their lives to him. Assisting at Mass
will help them on their journey away from sin and towards new life in
God and in the Church. Premature sacramental Communion will only
hinder them from arriving at a true and perfect spiritual communion
with Christ.
C-7. Forgiveness is Impossible without Repentance
and Firm Purpose of Amendment
It has been suggested that a divorced and civilly-remarried person, while
remaining bound by a valid first marriage, nonetheless could be admitted to the sacrament of Penance (and then to Communion), if he or she
“is truly sorry that he or she failed in the first marriage,” if the first marriage cannot be restored nor the second relationship abandoned “without new guilt,” and “if he or she strives to the best of his or her abilities to
live out the second civil marriage on the basis of faith and to raise their

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John Corbett, O.P., et al.

children in the faith.”37 No mention is made of living as brother and sister; although the words “repentance” and “conversion” are used, it seems
implicit that conjugal life would continue in the second relationship.
According to Christ’s words, “whoever divorces his wife and marries
another, commits adultery against her (Mk 10:11).” If a first marriage is
valid, then one who knowingly and freely engages in marital acts with
another (even after civil remarriage, and even assuming the mitigating
circumstances mentioned) commits adultery. Objectively, this is grave
matter and leads to mortal sin.38
To posit that such a person could receive forgiveness in the sacrament of Penance without repenting of and confessing this sin is simply
incompatible with definitive Catholic doctrine. Indeed, the Church has
solemnly declared this as Catholic dogma and a matter of divine law. As
the Council of Trent’s Canon 7 on the sacrament of Penance says:
If anyone says that for the remission of sins in the sacrament of
penance it is not necessary by divine law to confess each and all
mortal sins that one remembers after a due and diligent examination . . . let him be anathema.39
Scripture teaches that repentance is necessary for the forgiveness of
sins and communion with Christ: “If we say we have communion with
him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the
truth (1 Jn 1:6).” As St. John Paul II wrote: “Without a true conversion,
which implies inner contrition, and without a sincere and firm purpose
of amendment, sins remain ‘unforgiven,’ in the words of Jesus, and with
him in the Tradition of the Old and New Covenants.”40 According to
Trent, one must “detest the sin committed” and “resolve not to sin any
more” to be forgiven.41
37

Kasper, The Gospel of the Family, 32, 45-46.
CCC, §§1856, 1858, 2380-81, 2400.
39
Council of Trent, Canon 7 on the Sacrament of Penance (1551), DH 1707. See CCC
§1456, which repeats Trent’s text verbatim. See also Trent’s Decree on Justification
(1547), DH 1542-44, which also affirms this.
40
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Dominum et Vivificantem (1986), §42.
41
Council of Trent, Decree on the Sacrament of Penance (1551), c. 4, DH 1676. See
also CCC §1451.
38

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Regardless of which sacrament is involved (whether Penance or the
Eucharist), Catholic doctrine excludes the possibility of the forgiveness
of sins without contrition for all mortal sins and firm purpose of amendment. To suggest such a possibility to the divorced and remarried would
lead them astray from the truth, with potential consequences for them of
the utmost gravity.
C-8. Consequences of Taking Holy Communion while in Grave Sin
The Eucharist is holy, and it demands holiness. We reverence and adore
this sacrament because it contains Christ himself. St. Paul cautioned
against its unworthy reception: “Anyone who eats and drinks unworthily,
without discerning the body of the Lord, eats and drinks judgment upon
himself ” (1 Cor 11:29). The Church has always applied this to those in
grave sin. As Trent declared: “those whose conscience is burdened with
mortal sin, no matter how contrite they may think they are, first must
necessarily make a sacramental confession if a confessor is available. If
anyone presumes to teach or preach or obstinately maintain or defend
in public disputation the opposite of this, he shall by the very fact be
excommunicated.”42
The reason for St. Paul’s “fearful” warning (as Trent called it) is simple:
the sign and meaning of Communion is that one is united to Christ. One
who lacks faith animated by supernatural charity is not, and cannot be,
united to Christ. By definition, a person in mortal sin lacks this charity.
Were he to receive the Eucharist, his act would contradict what the sacrament itself signifies. This is, properly speaking, sacrilege.43
The proper sacramental remedy for one in grave sin is confession,
where the sinner expresses his repentance and his firm purpose of amendment. In Ecclesia de Eucharistia, St. John Paul II explains this at length.
“The celebration of the Eucharist . . . cannot be the starting-point for communion; it presupposes that communion already exists, a communion
which it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection.”44 He quotes St. John
Chrysostom: “I too raise my voice, I beseech, beg and implore that no one
42

Council of Trent, Canon 11 on the Eucharist (1555), DH 1661.
See CCC, §2120, which identifies it a sin against the first commandment; see also ST
III, q. 80, a. 5.
44
John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003), §35.
43

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John Corbett, O.P., et al.

draw near to this sacred table with a sullied and corrupt conscience. Such
an act, in fact, can never be called ‘communion,’ . . . but ‘condemnation,’
‘torment’ and ‘increase of punishment.’”45 John Paul II solemnly concludes: “I therefore desire to reaffirm that in the Church there remains in
force, now and in the future, the rule by which the Council of Trent gave
concrete expression to the Apostle Paul’s stern warning when it affirmed
that, in order to receive the Eucharist in a worthy manner, ‘one must first
confess one’s sins, when one is aware of mortal sin.’”46
It is hard to imagine how this teaching could be modified without
undermining the doctrine of the Eucharist. Rather, as the International
Theological Commission wrote (speaking about admitting the divorced
and remarried to Communion), “if the Church could give the sacrament
of unity to those who have broken with her on an essential point of the
mystery of Christ, she would no longer be the sign of the witness of Christ
but rather a countersign and counterwitness.”47
C-9. Reviving a Rejected Moral Theory?
Consider a divorced and remarried couple who acknowledge a first marriage as valid but nonetheless are freely living together as husband and
wife. This amounts to an admission of adultery and hence of mortal sin.
According to the Church’s teaching, the couple should be helped to see
that in such a spiritual state they must abstain from the Eucharist.
Is there another alternative? Could we admit that the first marriage
was valid and that the couple’s current sexual relationship is morally
problematic, or at least not in full accord with the Gospel, and yet hold
that, at least in some cases, this does not reverse their belief in and love
for God, that they are still in friendship with him, and thus can fruitfully
receive the Eucharist? Perhaps such individuals should even be encouraged to receive Communion, on the theory that the Eucharist will fortify their relationship with God with new graces and help them grow as
Christ’s disciples.
This point of view depends upon a broad version of “fundamental
45

Ibid., §36.
Ibid. (emphasis added).
47
International Theological Commission, “Christological Theses on the Sacrament of
Marriage” (1977), §12.
46

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option” theory, which claims that one can distinguish a person’s concrete
behavior from his or her basic orientation towards or away from God.
Couples should be warned away from the false comfort of this approach,
on two grounds.
The first is the teaching authority of the Church itself. St. John Paul
II’s encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor condemns just such a “fundamental
option” approach, denying that one “could, by virtue of a fundamental
option, remain faithful to God independently of whether or not certain
of his choices and his acts are in conformity with specific moral norms.”48
“With every freely committed mortal sin, [one] offends God . . . ; even
if he perseveres in faith, he loses ‘sanctifying grace,’ ‘charity’ and ‘eternal
happiness.’ As the Council of Trent teaches, ‘the grace of justification once
received is lost not only by apostasy, by which faith itself is lost, but also
by any other mortal sin.’”49
The second is internal to fundamental option theory: a fundamental
option is likely in play when one makes basic decisions about the orientation of one’s life. A decision regularly to engage in sexual relations outside
of a valid marriage is surely such a decision. It is a chosen habituation
and a way of life. It is hard to describe this as a fleeting sin of weakness or
passion.
Of course, there is no problem with the remarried couple who try to
live as brother and sister and sometimes fail. These can (and do) confess
this; in principle, they can receive Communion. The problem arises if they
have no intention of foregoing sexual relations. In this case, it is not a matter of struggling to live continently. Admitting them to the Eucharist will
not help them overcome their attachment to sin, but will likely confirm
them in the option they have already chosen.
C-10. Admitting the Remarried to Communion
Would Cause Grave Scandal
“Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person
who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter.”50 One person’s bad example misinforms the intellect or weakens the will of another, leading to sin.
48

Veritatis Splendor, §68.
Ibid.
50
CCC, §2284.
49

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John Corbett, O.P., et al.

The Church has been constant in teaching that divorce and remarriage cause grave scandal. Vatican II called divorce a “plague,” and decried
the “obscuring effect” that it has upon the “excellence” of “marriage and
the family.”51 As the Catechism explains: “Divorce is immoral . . . because it
introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings
grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its
contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.”52 Remarriage
after divorce magnifies this scandal.53
Some may argue that the greater frequency of divorce in our age and
its widespread acceptance diminish any scandal, and therefore are reasons
to admit the divorced and remarried to Communion. “Would anyone be
shocked by it today?”
This misunderstands the evil of scandal, which is not a psychological shock but a temptation to others to sin. The offender need not intend
to tempt his neighbor; the temptation is an effect of the sin itself. When
sins become socially common, the scandal grows instead of shrinking.
With each new person who gives in to it, the resolve of others to resist
is endangered and the social pressure to accept is increased. Indeed, the
Church teaches that widespread acceptance of sinful behavior creates a
social structure of sin, an institutionalization of scandal.54 The Christian
finds it increasingly difficult to live in such a society without cooperating
in or tolerating the sinful behavior. The Church exhorts the faithful to
resist such structures of sin.
In Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II named scandal as a reason that
the divorced and remarried cannot receive Holy Communion: “if these
people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error
and confusion regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility
of marriage.”55 To depart from this traditional prohibition would tell the
faithful, at least implicitly, that divorce and remarriage are acceptable. It
51

Gaudium et Spes, §47.
CCC, §2385.
53
CCC, §2384.
54
Gaudium et Spes, §25; John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (1984), §16, and
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987), §36. On such structures and Christian marriage and
family, see Familiaris Consortio, §81.
55
Familiaris Consortio, §84.
52

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would also raise the question why others in grave sin could not receive
Communion too. The scandal would increase.
Receiving Holy Communion is, objectively, a sign of communion
with Christ and thus with the Church. It publicly proclaims that the recipient is living in accord with the faith and with good morals. To admit
those in a public state of sin to the Eucharist would lead others to conclude that the Church’s teaching on that sin is not of grave import and that
the sin can be tolerated. This is the essence of scandal.
D. Analyzing Proposals to Change the Annulment Process
D-1. Is Authentic Faith Necessary for a Valid Marriage?
It is sometimes suggested that when a couple marries in the Church without an authentic commitment to the Church’s faith or without an understanding of marriage’s sacramental dimension (for example, a poorly catechized couple who are Catholics in name but lack a personal engagement
with the faith), something is defective in the sacrament itself, despite their
valid consent according to the Catholic form. This argument is incompatible with Catholic doctrine and pastoral practice, for three reasons.
First, the Church teaches that sacramental, indissoluble bonds of
marriage can be contracted between Catholics and baptized non-Catholics (e.g., Orthodox or Protestants).56 In such cases, the non-Catholic does
not profess the Catholic faith in its full integrity. Likewise, when a Protestant couple becomes Catholic, the Church regards their marriage as sacramental and indissoluble, even if, at the time of their wedding, they did
not believe marriage to be a sacrament and intended only the natural ends
of marriage.57 Yet the above argument suggests that professing the integral
Catholic faith is necessary for sacramental validity. This would effectively
make all mixed marriages and non-Catholic marriages non-sacramental.
Second, this argument would undermine a central pillar of the sacramental economy: valid sacraments do not depend on the minister being in the state of grace (something ultimately unknowable) but on the
56

Benedict XIV, Matrimonia quae in locis (1741), DH 2515-20; Code of Canon Law, c.
1055 §1, c. 1059.
57
See Matrimonia quae in locis, DH 2517-18; c. 1099.

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John Corbett, O.P., et al.

correct form and matter. The spouses are the ministers of matrimony. If
they lack faith formed by charity (i.e., if they are not in a state of grace),
then they may not benefit from the graced effects of the sacrament, but the
sacrament itself is valid, assuming they exchange valid consent and intend
to do what the Church does, as Benedict XVI clearly taught.58 Indeed,
this question was resolved in the fourth-century controversy with the Donatists, who had claimed, like the argument above, that ministers not in
the state of grace could not validly confect the sacraments.
Third, this argument would change the Church’s express teaching
that a valid marriage requires only that a person intend the natural goods
of marriage. As John Paul II explained, “the Church does not refuse to
celebrate a marriage for the person who is well disposed, even if he is
imperfectly prepared from the supernatural point of view, provided the
person has the right intention to marry according to the natural reality
of marriage. In fact, alongside natural marriage, one cannot describe another model of Christian marriage with specific supernatural requisites.”59
In fact, in his address to the Roman Rota in 2013, Benedict XVI responded directly to the argument that defective faith invalidates marriage, and
pointedly reaffirmed the teaching of John Paul II that intending marriage’s
natural ends is sufficient.60
D-2. Annulments Cannot Be Granted Absent
Canonical Expertise and Procedures
The process for the declaration of nullity of marriage is not just another
procedure: it is essentially connected with the perennial teaching of the
Church expressed by canon 1141: “A marriage that is ratum et consummatum can be dissolved by no human power and by no cause, except death.”
Underlying this canon are two rotal allocutions of Pius XII and, above all,
Gaudium et Spes §48. Moreover, marriage possesses the favor of law: the
58

Benedict XVI, “Address to the Roman Rota”( Jan. 26, 2013): “The indissoluble pact
between a man and a woman does not, for the purposes of the sacrament, require of
those engaged to be married, their personal faith; what it does require, as a necessary
minimal condition, is the intention to do what the Church does.” Cf. c. 1060; CCC,
§1640.
59
John Paul II, “Address to the Roman Rota” (Jan. 30, 2003); “Address to the Roman
Rota” (Jan. 27, 1997).
60
Benedict XVI, “Address to the Roman Rota” (Jan. 26, 2013).

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validity of a marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven (c. 1060).
The procedure for the declaration of nullity of marriage aims at the declaration of a juridic fact (cf. c. 1400 §1) and is a search for the truth. The
judge must have moral certitude about the marriage’s nullity in order to
pronounce the sentence (c. 1608 §1). The norms of the Code of Canon
Law and of the instruction Dignitas connubii 61 safeguard this search for
the truth and protect against the false mercy St. John Paul II and Benedict
XVI warned against in their rotal allocutions of 1990 and 2010 respectively.
The best guarantee that marriage cases will be handled with both justice and efficiency is for the procedural and substantive norms of canon
law to be followed faithfully, and for them to be undergirded by a proper
theological understanding. This, however, depends on a proper canonical
and theological formation of the tribunal’s ministers, who must sentire
cum Ecclesia.
The lack of these basic requirements is often a major source of problems with the annulment process. For example, the Roman Rota is sometimes criticized for taking years to decide cases, but the problem usually
originates in first instance tribunals where cases have not properly been
instructed and the procedures have not been followed. It is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to correct at a higher level what has been done
improperly at first instance. Basic formation and continuing education are
therefore key to a well-functioning process. This is why ministers of the
tribunal must be degreed canon lawyers (cc. 1420 §4, 1421 §3, and 1435).
Further, ministers of the tribunal need sufficient time to dedicate themselves to the cases assigned to them and should not be overburdened with
other time-consuming tasks.
If cases are properly instructed, the requirement of the double conforming sentence is not an obstacle but a guarantee of justice. The procedure is fairly simple, and the mandatory review of the first decision is a
practical incentive for the first instance tribunal to follow the law carefully.
Abandoning this second review will surely lead to a loss of quality at the
first instance tribunal.
A pastoral approach is often seen as opposed to a canonical one. This
61

Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, “Instruction To Be Observed by Diocesan
and Interdiocesan Tribunals in Handling Causes of the Nullity of Marriage,” Dignitas Connubii (2005).

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John Corbett, O.P., et al.

is a false dichotomy. Benedict XVI exhorted seminarians “to understand
and—dare I say it—to love canon law, appreciating how necessary it is and
valuing its practical applications: a society without law would be a society without rights. Law is the condition of love.”62 A canonical approach
is pastoral in essence, because it lays down the conditions necessary in
truth for changing hearts. Where this does not happen, canon law itself
has been misunderstood. Unfortunately, what is often called a pastoral
approach leads to arbitrary and thus unjust decisions. That is the imminent danger when one considers abandoning the procedures outlined by
the law.
D-3. The Impossibility of Subjective or Personalized Judgments
in Marriage Cases
Could a more pastoral approach to annulment cases replace a juridical
process? It is sometimes alleged that the present canonical process is impersonal, bureaucratic, and insensitive to the unique personal dimension
of particular situations. Further, some of the divorced and remarried are
subjectively convinced in their conscience that their previous marriage
was invalid. Their pastor may agree. In such cases, why not permit a determination of nullity in a personal discernment involving an individual
and his or her pastor, or with a priest named as a special episcopal vicar
for such matters?
There is a long history behind these questions. During the Reformation, various Protestants proposed that, in some cases, one could divorce
if a divorce decree were granted by civil authorities, irrespective of the
Church’s tribunals. The Council of Trent condemned this view: “If anyone says that matrimonial cases do not belong to ecclesiastical judges, let
him be anathema.”63 Pope Pius VI later clarified that such cases belong to
Church tribunals alone, since sacramental validity is at stake.64 The recent
Magisterium has definitively ruled out subjective or internal forum resolutions of annulment cases.65
62

Benedict XVI, “Letter to Seminarians” (Oct. 18, 2010): AAS 102 (2010) 796; English
translation in Origins 40/21 (Oct. 28, 2010): 323-24.
63
Council of Trent, Canon 12 on Marriage (1563), DH 1812.
64
Pius VI, Deessemus nobis (1788), DH 2598.
65
Thus, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith rejected an “internal forum

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Why cannot decisions about one’s freedom to marry be decided in a
private process? First, even on a natural level, marriage is a permanent,
public act between one man and one woman that establishes a family,
the basis for society. There are therefore no “purely private” or “purely
internal” resolutions of marriage cases. Second, the marriage between two
baptized persons is a sacrament. The reception of any sacrament is an ecclesial act, never totally private. And it is proper to the Church to judge the
validity of the sacraments according to objective criteria.
Moreover, following a personalized process could easily produce injustice. Consider a husband tempted to adultery. He could make a private
judgment based on an erroneous conscience that his marriage was invalid
and that he was free to depart and even to marry the second woman. His
pastor might not learn the whole truth without making an inquiry, for
which some process would be necessary. This is precisely the task of a
marriage tribunal, which is better situated to carry it out with appropriate safeguards for all concerned. Further, the man’s wife and family have
rights that the Church is bound in justice to uphold. Even setting aside the
implications for the integrity of the sacrament, permitting an erroneous
judgment to issue from a private process would do grave harm to his wife,
his children, and, indeed, the whole community.
Finally, disorder would result. If one priest rejects a “solution” but another approves it, or if a couple is not known to be married but acts as if
they are, the Church’s life will be marred by confusion and scandal.
E. Elements of a Positive Proposal for the Upcoming Synods
The Church’s teachings regarding marriage, sexuality, and the virtue of
chastity come from Christ and the Apostles; they are perennial. They
cannot be changed, but they are always in need of being articulated
anew. Given the crisis of marriage and the family in our epoch, this task
is particularly urgent. To this end, the following points seem promising
to us.
solution” for annulments, with the express approval of Pope John Paul II, in the letter
“Concerning the Reception of Holy Communion by Divorced and Remarried Members of the Faithful” (Sept. 14, 1994), in AAS 86 (1994): 974–79. See also Pontifical
Council for Legislative Texts, “Concerning the Admission to Holy Communion of
Faithful Who Are Divorced and Remarried” (June 24, 2000); English translation in
Origins 30/11 (Aug. 17, 2000): 174–75.

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John Corbett, O.P., et al.

First, renewing and deepening the understanding and practice of
the virtue of chastity would be an important positive step towards rebuilding family life. There is a veritable crisis of chastity in the contemporary world, and it plays no small part in the crisis of marriage
and family life. Today’s secular culture misunderstands what this virtue
is about and doubts that it can be lived. Indeed, this is even the case
for some couples married in the Church and for some of the clergy, as
recent scandals manifest. A defense, explanation, and instruction regarding the practice and freedom of the life of chastity—and even an
“anthropology of chastity”—would be a major contribution. Addressing the epidemic of pornography, the dangers it poses to the family, and
making practical recommendations for a pastoral response for those
afflicted by this plague, would also be of great value.
Second, it would be valuable to articulate anew the transforming
love and mercy of God, which does not stop at forgiving past guilt but
transforms the person from within, so that he or she may live in freedom from vice and sin. That God’s grace not only forgives but heals and
elevates its recipient is a classic mark of Catholic teaching. Explaining
how this works in the individual sacraments (especially Matrimony,
Penance, and the Eucharist), revitalizing catechesis on this point, and
encouraging the practice of regular and worthy reception of these sacraments (especially Penance, without which it is difficult to uproot vices and cultivate virtues), would be another considerable step forward.
This good news about grace and mercy is a dimension of the full
truth about marriage. When the Gospel is proclaimed with love and
hope, its truth has the power to bring the hearer to encounter Jesus
himself, and thus to be changed by his grace. The truth that Christ
teaches—including the truth about human sexuality—liberates the sinner and provides, by grace, a way out, a path of hope.
Third, with respect to the divorced and remarried, the Synods could
investigate how to build pastoral structures to implement the teaching
of Familiaris Consortio in the concrete. The divorced and remarried
should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to attend
the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute
to works of charity and to community efforts in favor of justice,
to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the

Assessment of Proposals for the Divorced and Remarried

629

spirit and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day,
God’s grace. Let the Church pray for them, encourage them
and show herself a merciful mother, and thus sustain them in
faith and hope.66
What can be done on the diocesan and parish level to facilitate a deeper
pastoral solicitude for those living in such a situation? Offering Communion is, in a certain sense, both too much and too little. The truth about
the situation must be acknowledged, with compassion and mercy, with
prayer and patience.
Fourth, in many places, the preparation for marriage needs to be
greatly strengthened. In reality, building healthy marriages also depends
on a good preparation for the sacraments of Penance, Holy Communion,
and Confirmation. Renewing and augmenting sacramental preparation
would be a great help.
Fifth, marriage tribunals of the first instance need to be strengthened.
They perform an essential service that cannot be transferred to others
without causing even greater problems. Ministers of these tribunals need
an adequate canonical and theological formation, and should follow a regular program of continuing education (as is common among civil lawyers).
Tribunals need to be adequately staffed and supported so that cases can be
treated with dispatch while following sound canonical norms and procedures. Those assigned to tribunals need sufficient time to carry out their
duties and should not be saddled with other time-consuming charges.
Finally, the Synods might articulate anew why the Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality does not involve prejudice, bigotry, or the
condemnation of persons, but rather aims at the authentic good of all
persons. This is particularly needed with regard to homosexuality, since
many contemporary Catholics face immense pressure to conform to a
secular, permissive ethos that regards all opposition to homosexuality as
irrational. (Offering practical strategies for the appropriate pastoral care
of persons with homosexual tendencies would also be of great value.) To
exposit the truth of the natural law clearly, and in relation to the universal
vocation of Christian love, would shore up the family against the powerful
destabilizing currents that prevail in many places.
66

Familiaris Consortio, §84.

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John Corbett, O.P., et al.

F. Conclusion
The Church is aided in every age by the Holy Spirit, promised to her by
Christ himself (Jn 15:26). Therefore, whenever the Church faces great
challenges in evangelization, she also knows that God is willing to accord her the graces needed for her mission. Many of our contemporaries find themselves in the midst of great suffering. The sexual revolution
has caused millions of casualties. They have deep wounds, hard to heal.
Challenging as this situation is, it also represents an important apostolic
opportunity for the Church. Human beings frequently have an awareness of their failings and even their guilt, but know of the remedy offered
by the grace and mercy of Christ. Only the Gospel can truly fulfill the
desires of the human heart and heal the deepest wounds present in our
culture today.
The Church’s teaching on marriage, divorce, human sexuality, and
chastity can be hard to receive. Christ himself saw this when he proclaimed it. However, this truth brings with it an authentic message of
freedom and hope: there is a way out of vice and sin. There is a way forward that leads to happiness and love. Recalling these truths, the Church
has reason to accept the task of evangelization in our own age with joy
N&V
and hope.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 631-655

631

Is Spiritual Communion for Everyone?
Paul Jerome Keller, O.P.
Athenaeum of Ohio
Cincinnati, OH

PERHAPS ALL BUT FORGOTTENby many Catholics (and un-

heard of by most) until Cardinal Walter Kasper’s recent reference to it,
the notion of a spiritual communion has made headlines in the Catholic press of late. The Cardinal addressed an extraordinary consistory of
cardinals on marriage and the family on February 20, 2014, in anticipation of the Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will take up the theme of “pastoral challenges for the family
in the context of evangelization.”1 Among other things during the last
part of his talk, the Cardinal wondered about the possibility of those
who are divorced and remarried being reunited with the Church and
permitted to take Holy Communion. Referring to the 1994 Letter to
Bishops from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concerning the reception of Holy Communion by the divorced and remarried,
Cardinal Kasper reflected on the option for the divorced and remarried
to participate in a spiritual communion on account of their inability
to receive sacramentally. The Cardinal admits that spiritual communion does not apply for all divorced people, but only those who are
well disposed. But, he asks, if a person who receives spiritual communion is one with Jesus Christ, how can he or she be in conflict with the
commandment of Christ? Why, then, cannot the same person receive
1

The announcement of the Cardinal’s address is found at the website of the Vatican
Information Service, Holy See Press Office, February 20, 2014.

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Paul Jerome Keller, O.P.

sacramental communion? The Cardinal alludes to the answer when he
subsequently wonders about the possibility of the divorced and remarried returning to the sacrament of penance and communion.2 However, it is the question of the meaning of a spiritual communion that is at
stake, first and foremost. In light of Pope Francis’ statement during his
interview with Corriere della Sera, regarding the importance of intense
discussion about Cardinal Kasper’s propositions, I seek to clarify, in
this article, the significance of spiritual communion and its relation to
sacramental communion. Then we will be able to see what truly would
be necessary for divorced and remarried persons to receive the graces
of Communion. Third, I would like to consider an allied issue: the importance of fulfilling the precept to attend Mass on days of obligation,
even for those who are not properly disposed to receive Holy Communion. Finally, I propose that the Church’s age-old and constant teaching
on being properly disposed to receive Holy Communion is an aid in
bringing the sinner to repentance in order to benefit from a proper
Eucharistic reception.
The Theological Meaning of “Spiritual Communion”
In his twelfth century Sentences, Peter Lombard begins his tract on the
2

The Italian text of the Cardinal’s address, upon which I base my remarks, is found in
the on-line version of Il Foglio Quotidiano: Vaticano Esclusivo 19, no. 51 (March 1,
2014): “Un avvertimento ci ha dato la Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede già
nel 1994 quando ha stabilito – e Papa Benedetto XVI lo ha ribadito durante l’incontro
internazionale delle famiglie a Milano nel 2012 – che i divorziati risposati non possono ricevere la comunione sacramentale ma possono ricevere quella spirituale. Certo,
questo non vale per tutti i divorziati ma per coloro che sono spiritualmente bene disposti. Nondimeno molti saranno grati per questa risposta, che è una vera apertura.
Essa solleva però diverse domande. Infatti, chi riceve la comunione spirituale è una
cosa sola con Gesù Cristo; come può quindi essere in contraddizione con il comandamento di Cristo? Perché, quindi, non può ricevere anche la comunione sacramentale? Se escludiamo dai sacramenti i cristiani divorziati risposati che sono disposti
ad accostarsi ad essi e li rimandiamo alla via di salvezza extrasacramentale, non
mettiamo forse in discussione la struttura fondamentale sacramentale della Chiesa?
Allora a che cosa servono la Chiesa e i suoi sacramenti? Non paghiamo con questa
risposta un prezzo troppo alto? Alcuni sostengono che proprio la non partecipazione alla comunione è un segno della sacralità del sacramento. La domanda che si
pone in risposta è: non è forse una strumentalizzazione della persona che soffre e
chiede aiuto se ne facciamo un segno e un avvertimento per gli altri? La lasciamo
sacramentalmente morire di fame perché altri vivano?”

Is Spiritual Communion for Everyone?

633

Eucharist by noting that while baptism cleanses us from sin, the Eucharist perfects us in the good; it also restores us spiritually. The Eucharist
is a “good grace” because, besides increasing virtue and grace in the
recipient, one also wholly receives “the fount and origin of all grace.”3
However, not all partake of the Eucharist in the same way. He explains
that St. Augustine taught that there are “two ways of taking the Eucharist: one sacramental, namely the one by which the good and bad
eat of it; the other spiritual, by which only the good eat.”4 Elsewhere,
Augustine explains that to eat Christ is “to remain in him, and have
him remain in oneself.”5 “For he eats spiritually who remains in the
unity of Christ and the Church, which the sacrament signifies.”6 On
the contrary, Augustine says that to receive communion but not to be
in “concord with Christ” is to eat unto one’s own condemnation7 and
“he acquires a great punishment,”8 “for a wicked person receives a good
thing wickedly.”9 Peter Lombard insists that those who are good, that is,
disposed to consume the Eucharist worthily, receive Christ’s Body both
sacramentally and spiritually. He refers to Pope St. Gregory the Great:
“The true flesh of Christ and his true blood are indeed in sinners and
in those who receive them unworthily, but in their essence, not in their
saving effectiveness.”10
In the next century, when St. Thomas Aquinas takes up the topic of
spiritual communion (spiritualem manducationem) he refers, first and
foremost, to something that is meant to issue from the sacramental recep-

3

Peter Lombard, Sentences, bk iv, d. 8, ch. 1. We call to mind the words of the Fathers
of the Second Vatican Council in Lumen Gentium §11, which describes the Eucharistic sacrifice as “totius vitae christianae fontem et culmen.”
4
Peter Lombard, Sentences, bk. iv, d. 9, ch. 1, 1, quoting Augustine, Sermo 71, c. 11, n. 17.
5
Lombard, bk. iv, d. 9, ch. 1, 1, quoting Augustine, In Ioannem, tr. 26, n. 18.
6
Lombard, bk. iv, d. 9, ch. 1, 1.
7
Lombard, bk. iv, d. 9, ch. 1, 1, quoting Augustine in Prosper of Aquataine, Sententiae,
n. 341.
8
Lombard, bk. iv, d. 9, ch. 1, 2, quoting Augustine, Sermo Mai 129, n. 2.
9
Lombard, bk. iv, d., 9, ch. 2, 2, quoting Augustine, In Ioannem, tr. 62, n. 1. Augustine
is drawing, of course, on the teaching of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:27ff concerning
those who receive the Eucharist unworthily and draw condemnation upon themselves, which is discussed further below.
10
Lombard, bk. iv, d. 9, ch. 2, 1, quoting Lanfranc, De corpore et sanguine Domini, ch.
20, after the words of Gregory, Dialogi, bk. 4, 59.

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Paul Jerome Keller, O.P.

tion of Holy Communion.11 Only secondarily does Aquinas understand
spiritual communion (voto) to refer to an interior desire to be united to
Christ (73, 3). This is an important point, for it is the actual eating, consuming, of the Body and Blood of Christ that integral to the Eucharist,
just as Jesus himself taught as recorded in the sixth chapter of the gospel
of John. Nevertheless, the physical eating has spiritual effects.
Aquinas distinguishes two ways of eating (modi manducandi) the
Eucharist.12 The perfect way is the actual reception of the Sacrament
such that by consuming it one receives its effect—namely, spiritual nourishment as we journey through life on our way to the glory of heaven.13
In this way of receiving, we are joined to Christ in faith and charity. For
just as we take natural food to sustain the life of the body, the Eucharist
sustains the divine life of grace in the soul, which is begun in us at our
baptism and which can be lost only by committing mortal sin.
A second way of taking (eating) the Eucharist is without receiving its effect. This is an imperfect reception of the sacrament, Aquinas
notes, as when the recipient is impeded from being joined more perfectly in faith and love to Christ. One might think here of situations
whereby a person receives the Sacrament distractedly, or unaware, or
even after unrepented mortal sin. St. Thomas is very clear: it is possible
that no spiritual reality, grace, is received even though one has partaken
of the Eucharist. In other words, the reception of Holy Communion
necessarily requires proper preparation and disposition, including, at
least, both the ability and the intention to receive the grace it contains.
The increase of grace in the soul is not automatic, and it certainly is not
magical. Just as in human relationships the bond of friendship grows or
diminishes based on whether the persons involved are actively seeking
each other’s good, the grace of deeper friendship with Christ in Holy
Communion presumes our hungering for Christ, which is itself a grace
from God.
It is important to recognize that Aquinas is making a distinction
about what takes place in the act of receiving Holy Communion. In
other words, one receives the physical species of the Eucharist in or11

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (ST) III, q. 80, a. 1, ad 2.
ST III, q. 80, a. 1.
13
ST III, q. 73, a. 1.
12

Is Spiritual Communion for Everyone?

635

der to obtain the spiritual reality of loving union with Christ and the
Church. The possibility of receiving the Sacrament without the effect
should be an anomaly, not the norm. Otherwise, the purpose of receiving Holy Communion becomes pointless. The corrective is to remedy
the situation by removing the obstacle to an effective reception, namely
by giving proper attention to Christ’s presence while taking the Sacrament in a worthy state. This last point is paramount. Before turning to
it, however, let us see what Aquinas has to say about the other sense of
the term “spiritual communion.”
Today, what we commonly call “spiritual communion” (see page
638) is, for Aquinas, a communion of desire (in voto). It is distinct from
a spiritual reception, which, as seen above, is the intended effect of actually receiving Holy Communion. Aquinas compares communion in
voto with baptism of desire (flaminis). The baptism of desire is typically understood in the context of a catechumen, who, dying before
being baptized with water, but explicitly desiring baptism, is assured
salvation (CCC, §1259). However, like baptism, communion in voto is
an exception to the divine plan for our participation in the Body and
Blood of Christ. In other words, Christ established the sacraments to be
taken in reality, and not only, or even principally, in voto.
Aquinas says that communion in voto happens when a person earnestly longs for the actual sacrament. Such a person receives the effects
of Holy Communion before receiving it actually or sacramentally. Examples might include the person praying before the Blessed Sacrament
outside of Mass, or the person confined to a sickbed, or a prisoner confined to prison cell, etc., yet who devoutly desires union with Christ in
Holy Communion. Such a reception, in voto, though, is secondary to
the sacramental eating because it is the actual consuming of the Eucharist that produces in us a greater effect than the effect that comes by
a communion of desire.14 At the same time, the person who devoutly
desires the Eucharist, though unable to receive it sacramentally, may
obtain the graces of the Eucharist, including: a deeper spiritual union
with Christ; healing of the effects of past sins and protection from future ones (venial and mortal); forgiveness of venial sins; a closer union
with all the members of Christ’s mystical body; and an increase in char14

ST III, q. 80, a. 1, ad 3.

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Paul Jerome Keller, O.P.

ity that shows itself in caring for the those in need.15 In short, it is our
preparation for heaven, where we will enjoy Christ directly and live in
perfect love for all eternity.16
The Council of Trent on Spiritual Communion
Calling on the teachings of the Fathers, the Council of Trent explains
the tri-fold distinction concerning reception of Holy Communion.17
One may receive
only sacramentally because they are sinners. Others receive it
only spiritually; they are the ones who, receiving in desire the
heavenly bread put before them, with a living faith ‘working
through love’ (Gal. 5:6), experience its fruit and benefit from
it. The third group receive it both sacramentally and spiritually
(can. 8); they are the ones who examine and prepare themselves beforehand to approach this divine table, clothed in the
wedding garment (cf. Matt. 22:11f).18
In the chapter just prior to this teaching on Eucharistic reception,
during its thirteenth session, the Council insists that the Holy Eucharist may only be received worthily. Given the holiness of this sacrament (and, indeed of all sacraments), the Fathers of Trent reiterate the
warning of St. Paul that anyone who eats and drinks of the Eucharist
unworthily “eats and drinks judgment on himself ” (1 Cor. 11: 29). No
one aware of personal mortal sin is to partake of Holy Communion
without first having made a sacramental confession, a practice for all
Christians, including priests.19
Canon 11 of the same session of the Council of Trent is even more
explicit on the matter of receiving worthily:
15

See Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§1391-1401.
Aquinas also allows for a spiritual communion (voto) to take place in anticipation of
the sacramental reception of the Eucharist.
17
There appears to be no direct conciliar teaching about spiritual communion prior to
the Council of Trent.
18
Council of Trent: Decree on the Sacrament of the Eucharist, session 13, ch. 8, DS 1648
(all emphases original).
19
Ibid., DS 1647.
16

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637

If anyone says that faith alone is sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist, let him be anathema. And, lest so great a sacrament be received unworthily and
hence unto death and condemnation, this holy council determines and decrees that those whose conscience is burdened with
mortal sin, no matter how contrite they may think they are, first
must necessarily make a sacramental confession if a confessor is
available. If anyone presumes to teach or preach or obstinately
maintain or defend in public disputation the opposite of this, he
shall by the very fact be excommunicated.20
The Catechism of the Council of Trent, issued by Pope Pius V, explains
that those who receive only sacramentally are “sinners who do not fear
to approach the holy mysteries with polluted lips and heart.”21 Quoting
Augustine, the catechism continues: “He who dwells not in Christ, and
in whom Christ dwells not, most certainly does not eat spiritually His
flesh, although carnally and visibly he press with his teeth the Sacrament of His flesh and blood” (In Joan. Tract. xxvi, 18). Those who receive the Eucharist spiritually only are those who “partake in wish and
desire” though not sacramentally and who receive “if not the entire,
at least very great fruits.” To receive both sacramentally and spiritually one must approach the Eucharist with great preparation, wearing
“the nuptial garment” (Matt. 22:11) and thus “derive from the Eucharist
those most abundant fruits.” To deliberately satisfy oneself with only
a spiritual communion is to deprive oneself “of the greatest and most
heavenly advantages.” Among the necessary preparations, the catechism includes personal discernment (acknowledgement) of the Real
Presence, being at peace with our neighbor, humility, recollection, fasting, and being free of mortal sin through contrition and confession.22
This teaching has been maintained in the Catechism of the Catholic
Church.23 It is worth noting that the German bishops had taken up the
20

Ibid., DS 1661.
Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests, Issued by Order of Pope Pius V,
trans. John P. McHugh, O.P., and Charles J. Callan, O.P. (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1934), 245-246.
22
Ibid., 247-48.
23
See §1385, 1415.
21

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Paul Jerome Keller, O.P.

matter in their 1985 catechism for adults, highlighting the triple form
of reception of Holy Communion.24 Stating that “unworthy reception of
communion by the sinner, whose heart is not prepared for union with Jesus Christ, works not salvation but judgment,” the German bishops insist
that “for a spiritually fruitful reception of communion there must be an
examination of conscience and a careful preparation.”25
The Meaning of “Spiritual Communion” in Recent Documents
It is something of surprise to find no mention of eucharistic spiritual
communion in either the four constitutions of the Second Vatican Council or the Catechism of the Catholic Church.26 It is, perhaps, for this reason
that the notion of making a spiritual communion is not a familiar option
for the faithful of our day. When spiritual communion is mentioned in
official Church teaching, it seems to be solely in terms of a communion
of desire. For example, Pope John Paul II makes reference to the teaching
of St. Teresa in his 2003 encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia when he
writes about attaining perfect union with God:
Precisely for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin
of the practice of ‘spiritual communion,’ which has happily been
established in the Church for centuries and recommended by
saints who were masters of the spiritual life.27

24

Originally published as Katholischer Erwachsenen katechismus: Das Glaubensbekenntnis der Kirche (Bonn: Verband der Diözesen Deutschlands, 1985), the English
translation appeared as The Church’s Confession of Faith: A Catholic Catechism for
Adults (Communio Books) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987). As David L. Schindler, the general editor for Communio Books notes in his opening remarks, the German catechism for adults was “authored largely by Walter Kasper under the aegis of
the German Bishops’ Conference” (6).
25
Ibid., 292.
26
However, the catechism of the German bishops instructs the faithful about “two
ways of communion. There is a simultaneously sacramental and spiritual communion, in which the body of Christ is received bodily and taken into the ready heart at
the same time, and also a purely spiritual communion, in which there is union with
Jesus Christ through the longing in faith for communion (DS 1648)” (The Church’s
Confession of Faith, 292).
27
John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §34, AAS 95 (2003), 456 (emphasis in original).

Is Spiritual Communion for Everyone?

639

St. Teresa of Avila is one of the masters that Pope John Paul II has in
mind. Her teaching is set in the context of instructing her sisters about
how to receive more perfectly the fruits of Holy Communion. In her Way
of Perfection, St. Teresa writes:
When you do not receive Communion, daughters, but hear
Mass, you can make a spiritual communion. Spiritual communion is highly beneficial; through it you can recollect yourselves in the same way after Mass, for the love of this Lord is
thereby deeply impressed on the soul. If we prepare ourselves
to receive Him, He never fails to give in many ways which we
do not understand. It is like approaching a fire; even though
the fire may be a large one, it will not be able to warm you well
if you turn away and hide your hands, though you will still
get more heat than you would if you were in a place without
one. But it is something else if we desire to approach Him. If
the soul is disposed (I mean, if it wants to get warm), and if it
remains there for a while, it will stay warm for many hours.28
An even earlier reference to St. Teresa is found in Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger’s 1994 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church Concerning the Reception of Holy Communion by the Divorced and Remarried
Members of the Faithful, which serves as the basis for Cardinal Kasper’s
question about Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried. In
his letter as the Prefect for the CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger upholds the
constant teaching of the Church that members of the faithful who live
together as husband and wife with someone who is not a legitimate
28

St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 35,1, in The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, vol. 2, trans. Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. and Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D.
(Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2000), 174-75. Santa Teresa: Obras Completas,
ed. Tomás Álvarez, (Burgos: Editorial Monte Carmelo, 2009), 606-7: “Y cuando
no comulgareis, hijas, y oyereis misa, podéis comulgar espiritualmente, que es de
grandísimo provecho, y hacer lo mismo de recogeros después en vos, que es mucho
lo que se imprime el amor así de este Señor. Porque aparejándonos a recibir, jamás
por muchas maneras deja de dar que no entendemos. Es llegarnos al fuego que,
aunque le haya muy grande, si estáis desviadas y escondéis las manos, mal os podéis
calentar, aunque todavía da más calor que no estar adonde no haya fuego. Mas otra
cosa es querernos llegar a Él, que si el alma está dispuesta – digo que esté con deseo
de perder el frio – y se está allí un rato, para muchas horas queda con calor.”

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Paul Jerome Keller, O.P.

spouse may not receive Holy Communion, but are to be instructed in
the various ways that they should participate in the life of the Church.
This does not mean that the Church does not take to heart the
situation of these faithful, who moreover are not excluded from
ecclesial communion. She is concerned to accompany them
pastorally and invite them to share in the life of the Church
in the measure that is compatible with the dispositions of divine law, from which the Church has no power to dispense. On
the other hand, it is necessary to instruct these faithful so that
they do not think their participation in the life of the Church
is reduced exclusively to the question of the reception of the
Eucharist. The faithful are to be helped to deepen their understanding of the value of sharing in the sacrifice of Christ in the
Mass, of spiritual communion, of prayer, of meditation on the
Word of God, and of works of charity and justice (cf. Apostolic
Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, 84).29
The theme of spiritual communion was taken up by Ratzinger again,
this time as Pope, in his 2007 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. He addresses the issue in the context of actuoso
participatio, or fruitful participation in the Sacred Liturgy, a matter of
cultivating the proper inner disposition for worship. The Pope explains
that, while the fullest participation in the Liturgy normally involves
29

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “Epistula ad catholicae ecclesiae episcopos de receptione
communionis eucharisticae a fidelibus qui post divortium novas inierunt nuptias,”
§6, AAS 86 (1994): 977 (emphasis mine). Cardinal Ratzinger mentions St. Teresa’s
teaching on spiritual communion in footnote 13 of his Letter. He also refers to St.
Alphonsus de’Ligurori’s Visite al SS. Sacramento e a Maria Santissima. St. Alphonsus briefly recalls the teaching of Aquinas on spiritual communion and then gives
examples of non-sacramental spiritual communions in the lives of various persons,
including St. John of the Cross, Bl. Agatha of the Cross, and St. Peter Faber (made a
saint by Pope Francis in December, 2013, using the “equivalent canonization” process), the first companion of St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Alphonsus recommends making a spiritual communion during visits to the Blessed Sacrament and during Mass.
The remainder of his treatise includes meditations and prayers concerning the Holy
Eucharist. It should be noted that Pope John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation,
Familiaris Consortio, makes no reference to a eucharistic spiritual communion for
divorced and remarried persons in the entirety of the document.

Is Spiritual Communion for Everyone?

641

the reception of Holy Communion, not all may approach the altar as
though Eucharistic reception is a right or even an obligation. Speaking
about the faithful, he says that
care must be taken lest they conclude that the mere fact of their
being present in church during the liturgy gives them a right or
even an obligation to approach the table of the Eucharist. Even
in cases where it is not possible to receive sacramental communion, participation at Mass remains necessary, important,
meaningful and fruitful. In such circumstances it is beneficial
to cultivate a desire for full union with Christ through the practice of spiritual communion, praised by Pope John Paul II and
recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life.30
As he had done in his 1994 Letter, Pope Benedict references St. Teresa of Avila, and mentions that “the doctrine [of spiritual communion]
was authoritatively confirmed by the Council of Trent, Session XIII, c.
VIII.”31 The Pope also refers to the teaching of Aquinas, which we have
discussed above.
Perhaps there have been, as Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole,
O.P., puts it, “signs of an insufficiently precise drafting” when it comes
to recent texts dealing with the issue of spiritual communion (and to
which we will return later).32 It is in this framework that we may proceed to examine Cardinal Kasper’s query about Holy Communion for
30

Benedict XVI, Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (February 22, 2007), §55, AAS 99 (2007): 148: “Attamen cavendum est ne haec iusta affirmatio forsitan introducat inter fideles quendam automatismum, quasi quispiam
ob solam praesentiam in ecclesia, liturgiae tempore, ius habeat, vel forsitan etiam
officium, ad Mensam eucharisticam accedendi. Etiam cum non datur facultas ad
sacramentalem Communionem accedendi, participatio Sanctae Missae manet necessaria, valida, significans et fructuosa. Bonum est his in rerum adiunctis desiderium plenae cum Christo coniunctionis colere per consuetudinem exempli gratia
communionis spiritalis, memoratae a Ioanne Paulo II et commendatae a Sanctis
vitae spiritalis moderatoribus.”
31
Sacramentum Caritatis, n171: “Qui sunt exempli gratia S. Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologiae, III, q. 80, art. 1, 2; S. Teresia a Iesu, Iter perfectionis, cap. 35. Doctrina
haec confirmata est auctoritate Concilii Tridentini, sess. XIII, c. VIII (DS 1648).”
32
Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole, O.P., “Communion sacramentelle et communion
spirituelle,” Nova et Vetera 86 (2011): 152.

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the divorced and remarried, making clear what is at stake concerning
spiritual communion.
Who May Make a Spiritual Communion?
When Cardinal Kasper wonders if a person who is able to make a spiritual
communion (in voto) cannot also receive sacramentally, we must respond
sic et non. Yes, on the one hand, a person who makes a spiritual communion may also receive sacramentally, provided that he or she is properly
disposed. But, no, the improperly disposed person may not receive communion sacramentally or even spiritually.
As we have seen, when Aquinas refers to spiritual communion as a
communion of desire (in voto), he says that it is very much akin to the
catechumen desiring baptism (flaminis). To desire the sacrament truly is
to desire its effect, which, in the case of the Eucharist, is a union of love
with Christ and his Church. This union of love necessarily entails, then,
desiring and loving all that Christ and the Church desire and love, while at
the same time being transformed interiorly, becoming what we consume.
The effects of a spiritual communion (voto), Aquinas says, are the same as
those of sacramental communion.
Cardinal Kasper intimates something similar when he asks how a
person who makes a spiritual communion and is one with Jesus Christ
can be in contradiction with the commandment of Christ.33 The Cardinal
has come to the heart of the problem: one must accept Christ in his entirety in order to be in communion with him. Since Christ has established
the sacramental matrimonial bond as indissoluble, on account of which
Christ does not permit divorce and remarriage, a person who attempts
remarriage while a previous putative sacramental bond of marriage continues to exist may not lay claim to be one with Jesus Christ, for such a
one contradicts at least this part of the commandment of Christ. Thus,
such a person is not able to receive communion sacramentally or even
spiritually. Only the person who is presently seeking to rectify that which
impedes him or her from full communion with Christ may begin to be in
a state of making a spiritual communion. This would be exemplified, of
course, by the person’s external actions which would witness to his or her
33

Kasper, Il Foglio, “Infatti, chi riceve la comunione spirituale è una cosa sola con Gesù
Cristo; come può quindi essere in contraddizione con il comandamento di Cristo?”

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full acceptance of all that Christ is and all that he teaches. In the meantime, we might speak of a desire for the Eucharist in a person who is not
yet in full communion with the commandment of Christ, and this can be
the impetus by which such a person takes the practical steps necessary for
making both a spiritual and sacramental communion possible.
In an effort to elucidate the problem of the language of desire,
Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole offers a helpful distinction between a
sacrament of desire and desiring a sacrament, though I modify his definition of each.34 The sacrament of desire is usually understood as an explicit
desire for a sacrament (voto) with no interior obstacles from receiving the
sacrament, but with some exterior obstacle preventing the person from
actually having or receiving the sacrament.35 Thus, as we have already seen,
the baptism of desire in the catechumen gives him or her, when the sacramental rite (sacramentum tantum) cannot be administered, a participation
in the graces (res) of baptism, though without baptismal character (res et
sacramentum). Such would also be the case when St. Teresa urges her sisters, who are unable to receive sacramental communion but who desire to
approach the Lord; they receive many graces (the res of Communion) insofar as their souls are disposed. Moreover, when it comes to the Eucharist,
the sacrament of desire permits a participation in the res of the sacrament
even in the absence of the sacramentum tantum. Such would be the case
when one makes a spiritual communion outside of the context of the Mass,
even in the absence of the Sacramental Presence.
Desiring a sacrament (desiderium), on the other hand, entails explicitly wanting a sacrament but not being properly disposed to receive the res

34

La Soujeole, 149-150: “De façon général, il faut distinguer entre un sacrament de
désir et le désir d’un sacrament.” Fr. La Soujeole seems to restrict the sacrament of
desire (voto) to the non-Christian “who has never encountered the ecclesial mediation,” but who can be baptized by an implicit desire and receive the res of the sacrament. On the other hand, La Soujeole thinks of the desire of a sacrament as the case
of the catechumen with explicit desire, which, if animated by faith working through
charity, also gives the res of the sacrament, though the catechumen would still lack
sacramental character.
35
Explicit desire exists in the case of catechumens. There is, of course, the possibility of salvation by implicit desire (votum implicitum) “when a person suffers from
invincible ignorance” but possesses “a good disposition of soul whereby a person
wishes his will be to be conformed to the will of God” (Letter of the Holy Office to the
Archbishop of Boston, August 8, 1949, DS 3870).

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of the sacrament.36 Both the sacrament of desire and desiring a sacrament
involve an explicit desire or wish for the sacrament. They differ, however,
inasmuch as the latter, the desire for a sacrament, involves some obstacle
(obex) to receiving the res of the sacrament. So, for example, a person who
desires baptism merely in order to mask his affiliation with the Ku Klux
Klan would not receive the res of baptism. Moreover, such an obstacle
could make the baptism fictitious, and the celebration of the sacramentum
tantum would involve sacrilege. With regard to the Eucharist, merely desiring to receive Holy Communion, even should one whole-heartedly believe in the Real Presence, is insufficient to receive the res of the Eucharist.
Though the catechumen must possess faith in order to receive baptism,
the communicant must possess faith enlivened by charity.37 While the Eucharistic res itself increases charity (among its several effects), the absence
of charity typically places an obex to the res of the sacrament. This is true
both for sacramental as well as spiritual communion.38
We must be clear about this: not all desiring may be fulfilled.39 This is
the case, not because the object is unattainable, but because one lacks the
disposition or ability to attain the object. Desire, in and of itself, is not the
necessary pre-condition for attaining an object. This is important for our
understanding of what is involved in a spiritual communion. While one
36

Desiderium is my Latin distinction, and is not found in La Soujeole’s article.
Concerning the necessity for faith, see ST III, q. 68, a. 8. Among the graces infused
by baptism is supernatural charity. Cf. ST III, q. 69, a. 6, ad 1. Nevertheless, in ST
III, q. 66, a. 11, when Aquinas speaks about baptisma flaminis, as James J. Cunningham, O.P., says, flaminis, or the baptism of desire “is not a simple desire for baptism
nor the intention to receive the sacrament . . . [it] is rather the result of the activity
of the Holy Spirit moving a person to intense charity and burning faith whereby
he is drawn to a conversion of life and a complete acceptance of Christ” (Summa
Theologiae, vol. 57, Baptism and Confirmation [Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1975], 49). The point about flaminis as more than simple desire is essential to
understanding a true communion of desire.
38
It is true that Canon Law provides for the necessity of, say, a priest needing to celebrate Mass and receive Holy Communion in the state of mortal sin, but with the
proviso that he will avail himself of the sacrament of penance as soon as possible. Cf.
Code of Canon Law, cans. 915, 916.
39
Cf. Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston, August 8, 1949, DS 3872, with
regard to the desire for baptism: “Nor can it be thought that any kind of desire (quodcumque voto) of entering the Church suffices for one to be saved. It is necessary that the
desire by which one is related to the Church be animated by perfect charity. The implicit
desire (votum implicitum) can produce no effect unless a person has supernatural faith.”
37

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may wish or desire to go to Holy Communion at some particular Mass,
or even wish for the Sacrament from afar (as when not present at Mass),
without the proper dispositions to be able to enjoy union with Christ and
the Church, the desire amounts to not much more than wistful thinking.
It is an inherently frustrated desire. One might say it is not a real desire,
for to desire the end is to desire the means to the end. To desire union with
Christ, one must also desire to remove whatever obstacles one has placed
to this union. No more can a man say that he desires to share in a banquet
with an estranged friend while at the same time refusing to lay aside his
animosity for the friend than we can approach the Lord’s banquet without
repenting of our sin. To desire Holy Communion rightly, to make a true
spiritual communion, entails being able to make such a communion.
So, to reiterate, in response to Cardinal Kasper’s concern, yes, the person who makes a spiritual communion should also make a sacramental
communion, if he or she is properly disposed. However, it cannot be the
case that someone who is not properly disposed to make a sacramental
communion could be thought to be able to make a spiritual communion,
no matter the circumstances.
Necessary Clarifications
Recalling the Thomistic distinction between spiritual communion as a
spiritual eating (spirituale manducatio) and as spiritual desire (voto), it is
clear that for the person who has placed an obstacle to union with Christ
by living apart from his commandment neither kind of spiritual communion is possible. As La Soujeole points out, using the same term, spiritual
communion, to refer to two different moral situations and two very different relationships to the Eucharist is problematic.40 We are speaking here
about proper versus improper disposition for either kind of communion.
Though Sacramentum Caritatis §55 infelicitously uses the term “spiritual
communion” as an option for divorced and remarried persons, a possible
reading is that the Holy Father meant to encourage such persons to begin to desire (desiderare) appropriately Holy Communion (rather than a
communion of desire, to use La Soujeole’s distinction), and thus, to rectify
their moral situation. Otherwise, the words would indicate that someone
40

La Soujeole, 152.

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improperly disposed for sacramental communion might still make a spiritual communion. This confusion leads to the logical question raised by
Cardinal Kasper. If one is permitted to make a spiritual communion, then
why not a sacramental communion?
We must avoid the mistake of thinking that a spiritual communion
is the substitute for a sacramental communion for the divorced and remarried, and indeed for anyone prevented from Eucharistic reception on
account of mortal sin, La Soujeole warns. The pastoral danger inherent in
this belief is that error and confusion about the doctrine of the Church
will prevail, leading people “to think that sin which impedes sacramental
communion ‘is not so bad’ because one can have the reality of communion anyways. In this case, it is the ordering of sacramental communion
to spiritual communion that disappears. Thereby, it is the unity—or better, the identity—of the sign and Eucharistic reality (the true Body of the
resurrected Christ) that is at stake.”41
Moreover, the salvation of souls is at stake. Rather than bringing people to conversion from sin to life in Christ, the flawed solution such as
spiritual communion for someone in mortal sin lulls the sinner into a
pretense of living the Christian life, including the embrace of the cross of
Christ and assuming responsibility for one’s actions and decisions. The
inspired words of Scripture, found in St. Paul’s admonition are relevant:
“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an
unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the
Lord. . . . For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body
eats and drinks judgment upon himself.”42
In order to receive the graces of communion with Christ, both sacramental and spiritual, for all persons in any state of life, what is necessary is interior
conversion to Christ and a manifestation of this conversion in one’s exterior
actions and manner of life. Our external moral life is not the sole indicator of
the interior disposition of the soul toward union with God, but the two must
at least harmonize. Let us not forget that the end of the sacraments, which
Christ himself instituted for our salvation, is a sharing in the Trinitarian com41
42

La Soujeole, 153.
1 Cor 11:27, 29 (RSV). See also ST III, q. 80, a. 4: “Et ideo manifestum est quod quicumque cum peccato mortali hoc sacramentum sumit, falsitatem in hoc sacramento
committit; et ideo incurrit sacrilegium, tanquam sacramenti violator, et propter hoc
mortaliter peccat.”

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munion. God, who desires not the death of the sinner (2 Pet 3:9), but that all
be saved (1 Tim 2:4), insists that we renounce all that is contrary to his plan
for our salvation so that we may attain true and eternal communion with him.
Pope John Paul II spelled out the difficulty in his apostolic exhortation
Familiaris Consortio:
The Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred
Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced
persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto
from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is
signified and effected by the Eucharist.43
Then, speaking of the necessary interior conversion for the divorced and remarried, he continues:
Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the
way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting
of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ,
are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice,
that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children’s upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they “take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence,
that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples.”44
43

Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, §84, AAS 74 (1982): 185: “Nihilominus Ecclesia inculcate consuetudinem suam, in Sacris ipsis Litteris innixam, non admittendi ad eucharisticam communionem fideles, qui post divortium factum novas nuptias inierunt. Ipsi namque impediunt ne admittantur, cum status eorum et condicio
vitae obiective dissideant ab illa amoris coniunctione inter Christum et Ecclesiam,
quae Eucharistia significatur atque peragitur.”
44
Ibid., §84, AAS 74 (1982): 186: “Porro reconciliatio in sacramento paenitentiae—
quae ad Eucharistiae sacramentum aperit viam—illis unis concede potest, qui dolentes quod signum violaverint Foederis et fidelitatis Christi, sincere parati sunt vitae formam iam non amplius adversam matrimonii indissolubitati suscipere. Hoc
poscit revera ut, quoties vir ac mulier gravibus de causis—verbi gratia, ob liberorum educationem—non valeant necessitate separationis satisfacere, “officium in se
suscipiant omnino continenter vivendi, scilicet se abstinendi ab actibus, qui solis
coniugibus competent.” Cf. John Paul II, Homily at the Close of the Sixth Synod of

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Cultic Implications
A truly pastoral response to the person snared in sin and its consequences is not to ignore the situation, or smooth over differences by
offering easy solutions as if moral choices have no serious consequences, but to seek the glory of God and the good of all persons through the
ministry of the Church. Pope John Paul II urges pastors not to abandon
the divorced and remarried to their own devices but to “make untiring
efforts to put at their disposal her means of salvation.”45 Not only pastors, but the entire community of the faithful, must solicitously take up
the responsibility to come to the aid of the divorced and remarried so
that “they do not consider themselves as separated from the Church,
for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must, share in her life.”
The means are plentiful:
They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to
attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to community efforts in favor
of justice, to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to
cultivate the spirit and practice of penance and thus implore,
day by day, God’s grace. Let the Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother, and thus sustain
them in faith and hope.46
A too superficial understanding of the working of grace might lead one
to think the aforementioned situation is too easy or too hard. On one
hand, one may be tempted to think that the Christian life is measured
chiefly by external participation (deeds), such as mentioned above: listening to the word of God, attending Mass, and so forth. Such thinking
may lead to the conclusion that, if one does these things, then one must
Bishops, 7 (Oct. 25, 1980), AAS 72 (1980): 1082.
Ibid., 84, AAS 74 (1982): 185: “Nitetur propterea neque umquam defessa curabit
Ecclesia ut iis praesto sint salutis instrumenta.”
46
Ibid.: “Hortandi praeterea sunt ut verbum Dei exaudiant, sacrificio Missae intersint,
preces fundere perseverent, opera caritatis necnon incepta communitatis pro iustitia
adiuvent, filios in christiana fide instituant, spiritum et opera paenitentiae colant ut
cotidie sic Dei gratiam implorent. Pro illis Ecclesia precetur, eos confirmet, matrem
se exhibeat iis misericordem itaque in fide eos speque sustineat.”
45

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be in communion with God, and is therefore fully participating in the
Catholic life. This view leads to the denial of (sacramental) reconciliation after a serious fall in sin in order to be in union with God. On the
other hand, there is the temptation to view the call to greater participation in divine matters, especially for the person in sin needing reconciliation with God and the Church, as too difficult or even impossible.
Such a person labors under the weight of an exaggerated feeling of unworthiness, or worse, hopelessness. This view leads to an abandonment
of the life of prayer, going to Mass, and all things associated with God.
However, grace is always at work. Even the “preparation of man
for the reception of grace is already a grace.”47 The divine plan is to
rectify and sanctify every person, so that every person may experience
full human flourishing and enjoy the eternal fruits of the friendship
that God offers. We must not cloud over the distinction between living
in the state of grace and the grace of being moved to contrition. Both
habitual graces and actual graces are divine initiatives working to move
us to deeper communion. So it is that Pope John Paul II urges divorced
and remarried persons to open themselves to the movement of actual
graces, such as listening to the Scriptures, attending Mass, praying, and
so forth.
The Pope is teaching about the essence of Christian cult. In other
words, at the heart of the Catholic Mass is the worship of God the Father
as fulfilled in Christ through his perfect and obedient sacrificial self-offering perpetuated in the Eucharist. Ever since the revelation of Christ
and the institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist, the only adequate
form of worship due to God is through and in Christ, and is supremely
consummated through the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy. This is true
for all the baptized, whether they are able to participate in Holy Communion or not.48 While it is true that the fullest participation in the Sacred
Liturgy includes reception of Holy Communion, it is possible (and necessary) to participate in this revealed form of worship without receiving
Holy Communion. Reception of the Eucharist indicates communion with
Christ and his Church, that, in the state of grace, one holds and believes
47
48

CCC, §2001.
See my article “How ‘Catholic’ is the Sacred Liturgy? Or: A Mass for the Masses,”
Antiphon 17 (2013): 212-24.

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all that Christ and the Church teach. Among said beliefs is the indissolubility of the sacramental bond of matrimony. As a result, the divorced
and remarried, though not properly disposed for the reception of Holy
Communion, are able to, and must, worship God by their participation in
the Sacred Liturgy.49
Participation, of course, is understood as more than mere presence
or attendance at the Mass. As Sacrosanctum Concilium points out, full,
conscious and active participation (actuosam participationem) “is demanded by the nature of the liturgy itself; . . . such sharing [participatio] is the first, and necessary, source from which believers can imbibe
the true Christian spirit.”50 Later the Second Vatican Council Fathers
spell out the essential aspect of this participation when they describe the
heart of Catholic worship:
The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful,
when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as
strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good
understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in
the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion
and full collaboration. They should be instructed by God’s word
and be nourished at the table of the Lord’s body; they should
give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only
through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should
learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator, they
should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with
God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all.51
Participation in the Eucharist is not a spectator sport, but involves personal sacrificial offering to the Father through Christ. This is the kind
of worship that leads to opening oneself to the grace of repentance and
transformation as well as to the grace of perfection.

49

See USCCB, “Happy Are Those Called to His Supper: On Preparing to Receive
Christ Worthily in the Eucharist,” (Washington, DC: USCCB Publishing, 2006), 9,
especially n17.
50
Sacrosanctum Concilium, §14.
51
Sacrosanctum Concilium, §48 (emphasis mine).

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We find a similar explanation of participatio in Sacramentum
Caritatis:
The Church’s great liturgical tradition teaches us that fruitful
participation in the liturgy requires that one be personally conformed to the mystery being celebrated, offering one’s life to
God in unity with the sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of
the whole world. . . . [Let the] faithful be helped to make their
interior dispositions correspond to their gestures and words.52
As a result of this kind of proper worship, the entirety of one’s life is
transformed by the grace of configuration to Christ.
Christianity’s new worship includes and transfigures every aspect of life: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do
all to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). Christians, in all their actions, are called to offer true worship to God. Here the intrinsically eucharistic nature of Christian life begins to take shape.
The Eucharist, since it embraces the concrete, everyday existence of the believer, makes possible, day by day, the progressive transfiguration of all those called by grace to reflect the
image of the Son of God (cf. Rom 8:29ff.). . . . Worship pleasing
to God thus becomes a new way of living our whole life, each
particular moment of which is lifted up, since it is lived as part
of a relationship with Christ and as an offering to God.53
52

Sacramentum Caritatis, §64, AAS 99 (2007): 152-53: “Ecclesiae insignis liturgica
traditio docet ad fructuosam participationem necessarium esse ut quis personaliter
respondere studeat Mysterio celebrato, propriam Deo offerens vitam, in coniunctione cum Christi sacrificio pro totius mundi salute. . . . fidelibus intima interiorum
sensuum convenientia cum actibus verbisque concinenda curaretur.”
53
Ibid., §71, AAS 99 (2007): 159: “Novus christianus cultus complectitur omnem exsistentiae rationem eamque transformat: “Sive ergo manducatis sive bibitis sive aliud quid
facitis, omnia in gloriam Dei facite” (1 Cor 10, 31). In omni vitae actu christianus vocatur
ut verum cultum Deo significet. Ex quo formam sumit vitae christianae natura intrinsece eucharistica. Quippe quae credentis humanas res in cotidiana eius ratione involvat,
Eucharistia efficit ut de die in diem transfiguretur homo, qui gratia ad imaginem Filii Dei
adipiscendam vocatur (cfr Rom 8, 29s). . . . Itaque cultus Deo placens novus fit modus
vivendi omnia rerum adiuncta exsistentiae in qua omne singulare elementum exaltatur,
quoniam vivitur in relatione cum Christo et sicut oblatio Deo exhibita.”

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There is no one who will fail to profit from participating, that is, worshiping, at the Mass. Even the person prevented from the fullest expression of worship, the reception of Holy Communion, is still able to
receive prevenient graces for repentance, and actual graces for worship.
Not Starvation, But Hunger
In response to Cardinal Kasper’s questions about the prospect of Holy
Communion for the divorced and remarried, we have shown that it is
not possible. Beginning in the patristic era and continuing to our day,
we may distinguish two basic forms of receiving Holy Communion.
The first, and most efficacious, is the sacramental reception of the Body
and Blood of the Lord by which one is simultaneously united spiritually
to Christ by a kind of spiritual eating. The second is a spiritual communion (in voto) when one is not able to make a sacramental Communion,
granting one is in a state of grace and is able to participate in all the
benefits of a sacramental Communion.
Aquinas makes a further distinction with regard to spiritual communion. A spiritual communion, properly speaking, is the spiritual
nourishment one receives when partaking of the Eucharist sacramentally; the effects of the Eucharist are produced in the soul of the recipient. Only secondarily does Aquinas think of spiritual communion as
a matter of sheer desire for the sacrament (in voto) but without access
to the sacrament. Nevertheless, it is possible, on account of the love
for Christ and wanting to receive him into the soul, that the effects of
communion are able to be produced in the soul.
From the teaching of St. Paul to our own day, Tradition has consistently taught the necessity for the recipient of Holy Communion to
be in the state of grace. To partake of the Eucharist without the proper
disposition, especially failing to seek reconciliation with Christ and the
Church through the sacrament of penance when conscious of a mortal
sin, is to invite divine judgment, and is itself another serious sin.
While there may be some confusion about the meaning of spiritual communion in recent magisterial teaching, it remains the case that
a true spiritual communion is possible only for someone who would
normally be disposed to receive communion sacramentally. A spiritual communion is not possible for someone in the state of mortal

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sin, including those who have divorced and remarried but whose prior
sacramental marital bond continues to exist. Such persons must, by
divine law (and even according to natural law), continue to worship
God. Every Catholic is obliged to worship God by offering himself or
herself to God in union with the offering made through the hands of
the priest at Mass.
The Church does not ask, as Cardinal Kasper seems to suggest,
that divorced and remarried persons find salvation extra-sacramentally. They are offered the same possibility for conversion and full communion (ecclesially and sacramentally) as for anyone. As he indicates,
non-participation in the Eucharist can indeed be a sign of the sacredness of the sacrament. The Cardinal asks if this non-reception of the
Eucharist is too high a price to pay? The answer to this question depends on the willingness of the individual to be conformed to Christ.
However, we must be clear. It is not the Church who has imposed the
obstacle to full communion; it is, rather, the individual who perpetuates a choice to violate a sacramental bond of matrimony. By that action, as with anyone who commits mortal sin, he or she has broken
communion. The Church, on the other hand, offers reconciliation for
the truly repentant, as she always has.
Then, Cardinal Kasper poses this red herring: Is the rule of non-reception of the Eucharist an exploitation of the person who is suffering
and asking for help if we make him a sign and warning for others?54 This
question more than suggests that the Church has no place in protecting
the faithful from the condemnation they bring upon themselves, as St.
Paul warns. Were the Church to remain passive and permit Holy Communion for one not properly disposed, she would be liable to judgment
for a different kind of exploitation: the failure to keep her children from
wrongdoing and sin, as well as the failure to guard faithfully and dispense the sacraments. The Church’s long-standing watchfulness is not
exploitation or manipulation; it is charity pure and simple. It is the concern of the mother that her children not ingest the wrong medicine lest
it become a poison.
As we have already noted above, Sacramentum Caritatis teaches
that no one has a right to Holy Communion by the mere fact of be54

See note 2 above for the Italian original.

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Paul Jerome Keller, O.P.

ing present at Mass. Pope John Paul II also instructs us on this point
when he says that “the celebration of the Eucharist, however, cannot
be the starting-point for communion; it presupposes that communion
already exists, a communion which it seeks to consolidate and bring
to perfection.”55 Communion, especially as it unites us to the Trinity, presupposes, the Pope says, the life of grace and the practice of
the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. He insists, in the words of St.
John Chrysostom: “I too raise my voice, I beseech, beg and implore
that no one draw near to this sacred table with a sullied and corrupt
conscience. Such an act, in fact, can never be called ‘communion,’ not
even were we to touch the Lord’s body a thousand times over, but ‘condemnation,’ ‘torment’ and ‘increase of punishment.’”56 Then John Paul
II urges:
I therefore desire to reaffirm that in the Church there remains
in force, now and in the future, the rule by which the Council of Trent gave concrete expression to the Apostle Paul’s
stern warning when it affirmed that, in order to receive the
Eucharist in a worthy manner, “one must first confess one’s
sins, when one is aware of mortal sin” (cf. Ecumenical Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, Decretum de ss. Eucharistia, Chapter
7 and Canon 11: DS 1647, 1661). The two sacraments of the
Eucharist and Penance are very closely connected. Because the
Eucharist makes present the redeeming sacrifice of the Cross,
perpetuating it sacramentally, it naturally gives rise to a continuous need for conversion, for a personal response to the
appeal made by Saint Paul to the Christians of Corinth: “We
beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor
5:20). If a Christian’s conscience is burdened by serious sin,
then the path of penance through the sacrament of Reconciliation becomes necessary for full participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.57

55

John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §35, AAS 95 (2003): 457.
Ibid., §36, quoting Homiliae in Isaiam 6, 3, PG 56, 139.
57
Ibid., §§36-37, AAS 95 (2003): 458.
56

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655

Then, as if anticipating the counterargument involving a person’s interior judgment, the Pope continues:
The judgment of one’s state of grace obviously belongs only to
the person involved, since it is a question of examining one’s
conscience. However, in cases of outward conduct which is
seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm,
the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the
community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail
to feel directly involved. The Code of Canon Law refers to this
situation of a manifest lack of proper moral disposition when
it states that those who “obstinately persist in manifest grave
sin” are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion.”58
There is no exploitation of the suffering person, be it the divorced
and remarried or even the catechumen (who also must be sacramentally justified before receiving Holy Communion). There is only the
outstretched and pierced hand of the Crucified and Risen One who,
through the Church, offers salvation for any person who chooses to
turn to Christ, embracing him alone even in the most difficult decisions of life. He offers his Body and Blood continually so that all who
choose to don the white wedding garment (cf. Mt 22:11-14; Rev 19:8)
may enter his eternal banquet. There is, spread before each and every
person, the feast of the Eucharist, laid out suchwise that we may all
hunger more and more for the Bread of Life, both sacramentally and
spiritually. For each and every Christian, repentance is the transformation of starvation into hunger, a hunger Christ promises to satisfy
beyond our wildest imaginings.
N&V

58

Ibid., §37, AAS 95 (2003): 458. Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 915; Code of Canons of
the Eastern Churches, can. 712.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 657-674

657

The Craftsman’s Tools: MacIntyre on Education
Christopher O. Blum
Augustine Institute
Denver, Colorado

If someone were to enter a carpenter’s workshop who did not understand
the use of the craftsman’s tools, they would seem to him to be needlessly multiplied,
whereas, to the one who looks upon them having the virtue of the craft,
the reason for their multiplication is apparent.
--St. Thomas Aquinas, Q. D. de Veritate, q. 5, art. 5, ad 6

AN ATTEMPTto elucidate the educational ideal of one who has de-

clared that “any conception of the philosophy of education as a distinct
area of philosophical enquiry is a mistake” must proceed with caution.1
Yet it ought to be made, for over the past half-century Alasdair MacIntyre has provided arguably the most trenchant and original commentary on education in the English language. The reason he gave for his
claim that there can be no independent philosophy of education—that
“all teaching is for the sake of something else” and that therefore “enquiries into education” are always a “part” of “enquiries into the nature
and goods of those activities into which we need to be initiated by education”—is a principle that has animated his thoughts on the subject
since the 1950s.2 Yet as his own conception of the human good has been
1

Alasdair MacIntyre and Joseph Dunne, “Alasdair MacIntyre on Education: In Dialogue with Joseph Dunne,” Journal of the Philosophy of Education 36 (2002): 1–19,
at 9.
2
Ibid.

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Christopher O. Blum

progressively articulated, so also has the standard to which he has held
the role of the teacher and the institutions of schools and universities.
An examination of MacIntyre’s writings on education, therefore, promises to shed light on the broader tendencies of his thinking. What may
be more surprising, however, is to see the way in which the end-point
of the development of his thoughts on education represents a further
extension of his response to the crisis of secular rationality.
MacIntyre has written memorable lines about the philosopher as a
craftsman, and so it is fitting to attend to his discussions of the craft—to
his shoptalk—over the decades of his labor. From his participation in
the New Left in the 1950s through his more recent writing as a Catholic and Thomist, he has consistently raised important theoretical issues while discussing the practices of the university life he has led. At
the same time, his theoretical writings include many passing references
to, as well as sustained treatments of, educational matters. Given the
number of these passages, it will be necessary to choose but a few as
representative. Yet even these reveal the trajectory of his thought: from
his early concern that the reform of educational institutions be a part of
the quest for a just society, through the broader discussions of the role of
higher education in the life of moral virtue during the middle decades of
his career, to his renewed appreciation of the speculative virtues in the
last two decades of his life. Each stage in this development has been a
refining rather than an abandonment of the previous analysis, and the
conclusion of it has been an integrated reflection upon the practices,
virtues, institutional structures and communities that make possible the
attainment of the highest of speculative virtues, wisdom. It is in MacIntyre’s recent discussions of exemplars of a philosophical life that his
treatment of education finds both its deepest significance and its greatest relevance to the malaise of secular modernity.
A Voice from the Moral Wilderness
One constant of Alasdair MacIntyre’s career is certain: its moral seriousness. From the third decade of his life to the ninth, his writing has
been characterized by an earnestness about the human good worthy of
a Solzhenitsyn or a Wojtyla. As a committed Marxist, his reaction to
the unmasking of Soviet tyranny in the 1950s was neither cynical nor

MacIntyre on Education

659

romantic: it was to seek from the “moral wilderness” of his loss of confidence in communism a first principle sturdy enough to serve as the
foundation of an ardent quest for the common good. Since at least 1956,
he has robustly affirmed the priority of the common to the private or
individual good, together with the truth that such a common good must
be accessible to reason and indeed must be a good of reason.3 His earliest discussions of education are in conformity with this principle and,
like it, emerge from his opposition to classical liberalism. He insisted
that the work of cultural criticism needed to remain “part of the political
and industrial struggle,” and, with other New Left writers, held that the
“whole way of life which capitalism imposes” was the essential source
of the moral failures of the age.4 The necessary response was to struggle
for a just society. “The philosophers,” as he memorably put it, echoing
Marx, “have continued to interpret the world differently; the point remains, to change it.”5
MacIntyre’s most sustained discussion of education from the 1950s,
an essay titled “Manchester: The Modern Universities and the English
Tradition,” was written with a reforming zeal to match his more overtly political essays. The concern that seems to have prompted the piece
was a fear that the distinctive tradition of the provincial universities was
soon to be eroded by the tide of incoming young faculty trained at Oxford and Cambridge who were not much inclined to respect the character of the institutions they were joining. Their unwillingness to think
through the problems that these universities faced in light of the traditions proper to them had led to a “rash of Oxbridge solutions to Redbrick problems.” MacIntyre found such proposals wanting: “To turn the
provincial universities into residential institutions, to deplore specialist
training and pine over something called general education, to long for

3

See Alasdair MacIntyre, “Notes from the Moral Wilderness-II,” New Reasoner
(1956): 89–98, at 96–97.
4
Alasdair MacIntyre, “The ‘New Left,’” Labour Review 4 (1959): 98–100, at 99, 100.
On MacIntyre’s participation in the New Left, see Émile Perreau-Saussine, Alasdair
MacIntyre: Une biographie intellectuelle. Introduction aux critiques contemporaines
du libéralisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005), 19–61.
5
Alasdair MacIntyre, “Breaking the Chains of Reason,” in Out of Apathy, ed. E. P.
Thompson (London: Stevens, 1960), 195–240, at 240, with thanks to Christopher
Lutz for pointing out the connection to Marx.

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Christopher O. Blum

a tutorial system; this is to replace glorified technical colleges by rather
inglorious imitations of Oxbridge.”6
Worse than merely unrealistic, the attempt to imitate the ivy-covered colleges was the result of misaligned intention. Instead of a genuine spirit of service, these academics seemed chiefly to want to reproduce the trappings of a comfortable life of privilege. Speaking of these
“immaculately attired young men on the teaching staff whose accents
and umbrellas” signaled their pedigree, MacIntyre took a satirical turn:
“After one has heard from them a dozen times how grossly inferior
Manchester or Sheffield or Leeds is to Oxford or Cambridge one begins
to weary of a nostalgia which is as inordinate as that of Ovid’s Black
Sea exile, but lacks all his elegiac charm.” The sharpness of his rhetoric
was proportionate to his concern that genuine goods were threatened.
He admired the nonconformist tradition of English radical Protestantism, and spoke in praise of the “poetic standards of Watts and Wesley.”
And just as those Protestant traditions risked being contemptuously
discarded, so also did the other great dissenting tradition of the British Isles risk having its character leached out by the acid bath of affluence. English Roman Catholics, he warned, were all too likely to have
“learned from . . . upper-class converts to seek an Oxbridge elegance.”7
Against this danger, MacIntyre sought to identify—so as to defend—
what he called the “provincial tradition” of English university life. He
identified four characteristics of this tradition, two of which—their intellectual seriousness and liberalism—are not surprising. But two others
are. He praised these institutions for having been “immersed in the life
of local communities,” a connection that helped to protect them from
the creation of “an ingrown and hot-house social life.” Again, there is a
strong note of social critique in his account: “That one should not live on
a campus or in a university town, but close to mills and factories . . . is
as good a way as any of preserving the university teacher from illusions
about his place in society.” The fourth characteristic was “a certain quality of thought,” which he described as “an impatience with intellectual
cant and with nonsense of all kinds,” explaining what he meant in this
6

Alasdair MacIntyre, “Manchester: The Modern Universities and the English Tradition,” Twentieth Century 159 (February 1956): 123–29, at 128.
7
Ibid., 123–25.

MacIntyre on Education

661

paraphrase, “the contempt of the provincial for what he sees as the fripperies of aestheticism.” What MacIntyre was most suspicious of was the
elitism of the Oxbridge colleges, an elitism whose darker side he readily
perceived, warning of “small collegiate communities” in which “it is easy
for those with power to appoint like-minded people.”8 His indictment of
the leading institutions of higher education in England was that they did
not serve excellence and the common good so much as privilege and
smug self-satisfaction.
In 1960, in another essay that addressed the topic, MacIntyre again
sounded the note of class critique, making reference to an “American
sociologist” who had “pictured our university teachers in a state of complacent delight, drinking port and reading Jane Austen” and jabbing at
the “sweet smell of the academic’s social success.”9 That essay, a jeremiad
entitled “Breaking the Chains of Reason,” bemoaned the complacency
and irrelevance of academics and ascribed the apathy and conservatism
of university scholars to their inability to affirm a substantive conception of human freedom based upon the exercise of reason. In an analysis that anticipated the central argument of After Virtue, he argued that
capitalist society engenders habits of living and of thinking that mutually reinforce one another: “The vices of our lives and the errors of our
concepts combine to keep both in being.”10 And because these vices are
inculcated by the power structures of capitalist society, the attempt to
fix habits of thought by themselves will be futile: “you can only carry
through any effective educational effort as part of the political and industrial struggle.”11
Communities of Virtue
Whether or not MacIntyre’s immigration to America should be taken to
represent his coming to terms with the structures of liberal democracy,
his active participation in leftwing politics did come to an end with the

8

Ibid., 126–27.
Alasdair MacIntyre, “Breaking the Chains of Reason,” in Out of Apathy, ed. E. P.
Thompson (London: Stevens, 1960), 195–240, quotations from 195, 196.
10
Ibid., 231.
11
MacIntyre, “The ‘New Left,’” 100.
9

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Christopher O. Blum

tumultuous 1960s.12 During the 1970s, his great labor was one of intellectual conversion, documented in the pages of After Virtue. In addition
to being a strikingly original work of moral philosophy, that book is also
in important respects an example of confessional literature, and the conversion that it documents is one that brought MacIntyre to differ with
his own previous academic life and so, necessarily, with the practices
and institutions of the modern academy generally. The crucial difference is that whereas MacIntyre had earlier criticized university life as
symptomatic of the cultural ills of capitalism, in After Virtue the modern
university is singled out as a contributing cause of the misunderstanding of the moral life and, consequently, a barrier to be overcome if both
the theory and the life of the virtues were to be regained. Over the next
decade and a half, he would elaborate an alternative vision of university
life that is at once a response to a crisis in the academy but also a part—
and perhaps even a necessary one—of the moral regeneration of society.
MacIntyre’s essential claim about education in After Virtue has
lost none of its ability to surprise with the passage of thirty years:
that the form taken by our academic life prevents us from rightly
understanding the character of our age. The transition to modernity
that he understands as a loss of the tradition of the virtues is one
that is “invisible” from the value-neutral “standpoint of academic
history.” Moreover, the “habits of mind engendered by our modern
academic curriculum” make it difficult, if not impossible, to see the
connection between conceptual and social changes—shifts in our
way of thinking and in our patterns of life. In view here is the habitual compartmentalization, or, as he put it, “the tendency to think
atomistically about human action,” that characterizes not only our
moral lives in general, but our academic institutions and practices as
well.13 Philosophy, from having been the common habit of reasoning
possessed by an entire educated public, has become a highly circumscribed and narrowly professional pursuit.14 Not only is philosophy
cut off from life, it is even rigidly separated from subjects that either
12

See Perreau-Saussine, Alasdair MacIntyre, 47–61.
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd edition (1981; Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 4, 61, 204.
14
See ibid., 50–51, and his subsequent elaboration of this point in “The Idea of an
Educated Public,” in Education and Values: The Richard Peters Lectures, ed. Graham
Haydon (London: University of London Institute of Education, 1987), 15–36.
13

MacIntyre on Education

663

should be closely annexed to it or, arguably, should be thought of as
its own subordinate parts, such as the sociology of morals. This artificial curricular division—the product of professionalization—itself
reproduces the essential ways in which modernity earlier broke with
traditional society and the morality of the virtues that enlivened it:
by rejecting the broadly speaking Aristotelian conception of man as
having both a nature and a function within a larger social whole. In
MacIntyre’s own words, “the disjunctions and divorces of the eighteenth century perpetuate and reinforce themselves in contemporary
curricular divisions.”15
The solution to the ills of modernity that MacIntyre proposed
at the end of After Virtue is well known. Yet it may not have been
sufficiently realized just how central to his conception of a community of virtue is the role of teacher and the institution that is the
school. The very choice of St. Benedict as his archetypal exemplar
did point in that direction, for Benedict famously called the monastery a “school for the Lord’s service” and understood the mutual
teaching of the brother monks to be an essential part of their quest
for virtuous living. MacIntyre himself subsequently stressed that all
of the virtues “have to be developed throughout one’s entire life”
and that our quest for happiness must be understood as “a lifelong
process of learning and imparting truths,” a process that unfolds
in a context of “mutual relationships of teaching and learning.”16
The school, then, and the student-teacher relationship, turn out to
be places where the pursuit of virtue is condensed and, as it were,
crystallized. If we ought to consider our lives as a whole as being a
kind of education, then it seems fitting that we consider our formal
education as essentially serving that larger and more universal pursuit of the good. Educational practices and institutions, therefore,
not only provide evidence or symptoms of our success or failure in
the pursuit of virtue, they are microcosms and the crucial test cases
of that pursuit.17
15

MacIntyre, After Virtue, 72–73, 82.
Alasdair MacIntyre, “The Privatization of Good: An Inaugural Lecture,” Review of
Politics 52 (1990): 344–61, at 358.
17
Thus, presumably, his readiness to address the concerns of teachers and teachers
themselves. See, for instance, his “Traditions and Conflicts,” Liberal Education 73
16

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Christopher O. Blum

Nowhere does MacIntyre’s earnestness about education impress itself upon the reader more than in his inaugural lecture at the University
of Notre Dame on “The Privatization of Good.” Essential to the task of
refuting secular liberalism in its various guises is the witness of a successful pursuit of the traditional virtues. The claim made by the traditional theory of the virtues, after all, is not merely that it manages to
avoid contradicting itself, but also that, if the theory be followed, it will
in fact result in a tolerable approximation of the good life. This is why,
as MacIntyre put it, “the strengths of an Aristotelian and Thomistic position will only become clear insofar as it too is seen to be embodied in
particularized forms of practice.”18 Having sounded this note, he closed
the lecture by challenging his audience to join him in the attempt to
make the academic community at Notre Dame provide in its common
life compelling evidence of the truth that men and women are perfected
by the virtues as traditionally understood. The passage is more than a
little poignant: “as to that remaking of ourselves and our own local practices and institutions through a better understanding of what it is that,
in an Aristotelian and Thomistic perspective, the unity of moral theory
and practice now require of us, we have as much to hope for as we have
to do, and not least within the community of this university.”19
Overshadowed by MacIntyre’s striking conception of a university as
a battleground upon which competing traditions fight for the mastery,
a conception developed in his Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
(1990), the aspiration this passage expresses has been overlooked. Yet its
significance within the course of his thinking should not be minimized,
for if the tragedy of secular reason and the failure of the Enlightenment
project have come about because of the progressive instantiation in social forms of a shift in philosophical principles, it seems reasonable to
suppose that the shift back to an Aristotelian way of thinking and liv(1987): 6–13; “How to Be a North American,” lecture presented at the National
Conference of State Humanities Councils (Washington, DC: Federation of State
Humanities Councils, 1987); and “How Is Intellectual Excellence in Philosophy to
be Understood by a Catholic Philosopher? What Has Philosophy to Contribute to
Catholic Intellectual Excellence?,” Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education 12
(1991): 47–50.
18
MacIntyre, “Privatization of Good,” 360.
19
Ibid., 361.

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665

ing could be accomplished best—and perhaps even first—in a college or
university, precisely because a school is the kind of institution in which
principles and practices can and ought to be most closely harmonized.
It is precisely this aspiration that makes sense of the tenor of much of
his subsequent commentary on higher education.20 The inability of the
contemporary Catholic university to reverse the trend of the fragmentation of curricula and the narrow focus of undergraduate education
upon preparedness for professional life—even, and perhaps especially,
in the humanities—is nothing less than a tragedy because of the high
promise of a well-thought-out and well-run educational institution: the
formation of its students for lives of creative and trustworthy practical
judgment about weighty matters.21
Exemplary Philosophical Lives
By comparison to the prophetic tone of After Virtue and the high seriousness of the vision of intellectual combat offered in Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, one is struck by what Reinhard Hütter described
as the “disquieting, not to say despairing” tone of MacIntyre’s God, Philosophy, Universities.22 On the subject of education, the volume appears
to mark a decisive retreat from his earlier thought. It is, after all, a frankly professional model of philosophy that he discusses at the book’s end,
which, though tempered by his discussion of John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio
and his insistence that philosophy find both its origin and its destination
in the questions asked by us all as “plain persons,” nevertheless seems
much less idealistic than his earlier contributions. And at the level of
controlling metaphor, it is one thing to be imitating St. Benedict, quite
20

Even if perhaps expressed somewhat diffidently in his “Aquinas’s Critique of Education: Against His Own Age, Against Ours,” in Philosophers on Education: Historical
Perspectives, ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (London: Routledge, 1998), 95–108.
21
See “Catholic Universities: Dangers, Hopes, Choices,” in Higher Learning and Catholic Traditions, ed. Robert E. Sullivan (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2001), 1–21; but also, and with greater insistence, his “The End of Education:
The Fragmentation of the American University,” Commonweal (October 20, 2006):
10–14; and more recently, “The Very Idea of a University: Aristotle, Newman, and
Us,” British Journal of Educational Studies 57 (2009): 347–62.
22
Reinhard Hütter, “Seeking Truth on Dry Soil and under Thornbushes—God, the
University, and the Missing Link: Wisdom,” in Dust Bound for Heaven: Explorations
in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012), 392.

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Christopher O. Blum

another to bring a sweeping narrative of the history of philosophy to
an end by tacitly recommending an apprenticeship to one who is most
assuredly a philosopher’s philosopher, Elizabeth Anscombe.23 Such a
retreat, moreover, would even seem to be a confirmed fact about the
latter MacIntyre. For, at least on the face of it, to suggest that “perhaps
the point of doing philosophy is to enable people to lead, so far as it
is within their powers, philosophical lives,” as he did in an essay published in 2006, seems to be worlds apart from his earlier rallying cry,
“the philosophers have continued to interpret the world differently; the
point remains, to change it.”24 An emphasis on the practical living out of
philosophical convictions remains, to be sure, but his focus seems now
to be decisively private and personal. Yet the retreat is merely apparent,
and when God, Philosophy, Universities is placed in a broader context, its
true significance can be better appreciated.
A work that should be considered if one is to understand the latter MacIntyre is his philosophical biography of the young Edith Stein.
What at first glance may seem to be merely the report of a difficult bout
of wrestling with phenomenology is in fact also a highly dramatic narrative of the pursuit of truth within the context of the modern university.
At the heart of MacIntyre’s narrative are the life, death, and philosophical
inquiry of Stein’s mentor and friend Adolf Reinach. Like other talented
young philosophers of his generation—such as Max Scheler and Dietrich von Hildebrand—Reinach had come to Göttingen to learn from
Edmund Husserl. Yet this was no easy task. Husserl’s prickly and abstracted character was, to a degree, smoothed out and compensated for
by his wife, but his students do not seem to have been really comfortable
with him. They called him “the Master,” feared disagreements with him,
and learned to lower their expectations of his hospitality. The forbidding
role of the professor in those days was only one of the challenges of
German academic culture; Stein’s colleagues and fellow students were
also at times a cause of grief. MacIntyre writes of the “tiresome vani23

See God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical
Tradition (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 160–62.
24
Alasdair MacIntyre, “The Ends of Life, the Ends of Philosophical Writing,” in The
Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006), 125–42, at 132; the earlier statement is from his “Breaking the Chains of Reason,” cited above in note 5.

MacIntyre on Education

667

ty” of Scheler, gently points out the rudeness of another member of the
Husserl circle by saying that the “focused intensity of his conversational
manner sometimes alienated listeners,” and sums up the misanthropy
of Martin Heidegger by explaining that after he left the Husserl circle,
he entered into “relationships only with those who [were] prepared to
acknowledge his superiority.”25
Adolf Reinach, to the contrary, was a model of the virtues necessary for the successful pursuit and sharing of truth. Both Reinach and
his wife Anna were unstinting with the gift of their friendship, a gift
that the young Edith Stein seems to have found especially valuable.
Reinach, moreover, was known for his patient, teacherly expositions of
Husserl’s turgid thought. He was generous with his time and encouraging with his advice. And, crucially, Reinach understood and practiced
philosophy as a “cooperative enterprise,” as MacIntyre puts it. The academic life pursued by Adolf Reinach, Edith Stein, and a few others
during the early 1910s in Göttingen was a common life of friendship
in pursuit of truth. Although the friendships were not destined to be
prolonged into a happy old age, they did much to shape the lives of
those who enjoyed them. Reinach, a dutiful subject of the Kaiser, went
off to the Great War, won the Iron Cross, and was killed in action. But
not before he had been baptized a Christian. He took with him to the
front his New Testament, the Imitation of Christ, and Augustine’s Confessions. From this spare but deep reading, he nourished his reflection
upon his own personal experiences of God in prayer, leaving behind
notes for a book on faith and reason. Writing to his wife from the
front, he testified to his conviction that this inquiry was crucial: “To
do such work with humility is most important today, far more important than to fight this war. For what purpose has this horror if it does
not lead human beings closer to God?”26
In addition to his own noble death and his widow Anna’s equally
noble reaction to it, Reinach bequeathed to Edith Stein an example
of the serious and disinterested pursuit of truth that made it possible for her to choose a path in life that led—so far as these things
25

Alasdair MacIntyre, Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913–1922 (Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), quotations from 67, 90, 103, and 185.
26
Ibid., quotations from pages 139 and 146.

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Christopher O. Blum

can be judged by outsiders—to a high degree of rational contentment.
In place of the alienating and frustrating experiences of the German
university system, she enjoyed a fruitful career as a secondary school
teacher and part-time catechist and apologist for the Catholic faith,
before joining the Carmelite order and pursuing her philosophical
and theological studies with renewed vigor. Although it may require
the perspective of faith in order fully to apprehend the nobility of her
death and thus to be able to see her life as a successful and integrated
whole, the more modest conclusions that MacIntyre offers in his study
of her early life are readily appreciable. He takes the silence that followed her conversion to Christianity as an especially important sign.
Unlike other philosophical conversions that he discusses in that study
and elsewhere, Stein’s seems incontestably to have brought about a
deep satisfaction of mind, even a peace, which manifested itself first by
years of quiet thoughtfulness and subsequently by her ability to give of
herself generously to the community in which the truth she had been
seeking—the truth about God—found a home.27
The lasting or deepest significance of Edith Stein: A Philosophical
Prologue within MacIntyre’s corpus of work, then, may not be in its discussion of phenomenology, but instead in the way it provides a kind
of completion to his discussions of education. The reforming zeal he
had displayed in the 1950s has not been entirely lost here; indeed, he
forthrightly portrays the failures of the German university system in the
early twentieth century. The earnest seeker of truth that was Edith Stein
did not find a lasting home at Göttingen or in the German university
system as a whole, but instead in a Carmelite convent. With this story,
MacIntyre offers an understated proposal that is just as important as his
hope for a new St. Benedict or his defense of Manchester University, for
Stein’s life as a religious sister who wrote philosophical and theological
works is an example of service to the truth every bit as eloquent as these
earlier ones.
Yet there is another and still more important dimension to MacIntyre’s Edith Stein and his recent essays touching on education, and that
27

On Stein’s silence, see ibid., 172–73. For MacIntyre’s treatment of philosophical conversions, see chapter 15 of the same volume and also his essay covering much of the
same ground, “Ends of Life, the Ends of Philosophical Writing.”

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is his increasing confidence in metaphysical affirmation. The trajectory
of his metaphysical convictions may be rapidly sketched. In the 1950s
and 1960s, although reading deeply in metaphysics, he nevertheless
wrote as a reporter and a critic.28 His discussions of education terminate with moral truths and social facts: his chief concern is not that
undergraduates are failing to learn their proofs for the existence of God,
but rather that they are being habituated for a life as upper-middle-class
consumers of luxury goods. In the 1980s and 1990s, MacIntyre’s analysis goes further. The essential failure of the modern university is that it
deforms not merely the social aspirations of the students but the practical intellect itself. The fragmentation of the curriculum mirrors and
reinforces the compartmentalization of life, and the end result of this
must sooner or later be tragic.29 Beginning in the 1990s, however, MacIntyre more and more robustly affirms propositions about the natures
of things, beginning with the nature of man as a reasoning animal, but
then more and more explicitly and insistently, propositions about truth
and God.30 His increasing attention to prior and more universal causes
goes along with an increasing insistence about the guiding principle of
education. It is in the context of this trajectory that God, Philosophy,
Universities should be read, not as a retreat, but as a fresh start.31 One
ought to marvel at a philosopher in the evening of his life attempting
such an endeavor, his earlier career having been so different, and even in
important respects at variance with it. MacIntyre’s address at the annual
meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association in 2011,
“How to be a Theistic Philosopher in a Secularized Culture,” brings the
28

See, for instance, his “Analogy in Metaphysics,” Downside Review 69 (1950): 45–61,
and “Being,” in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), I:273–77. It could be that his early convictions would be qualified as
not merely detached from but positively negative about the possibility of traditional metaphysics. See his “A Society without a Metaphysics,” Listener (September 13,
1956): 375–76, at 376: “to anyone working within contemporary philosophy it must
be clear that the old metaphysical Absolutes are dead beyond recovery.”
29
In addition to the essays cited above in notes 17 and 21, see his “Social Structures
and Their Threat to Moral Agency,” Philosophy 74 (1999): 311–29.
30
In addition to his Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Peru, IL: Open Court, 1999), one ought to note the essays “What Is a Human
Body?” and “Truth as a Good: A Reflection on Fides et Ratio,” both in Tasks of Philosophy.
31
For such a reading, see Hütter, “Seeking Truth on Dry Soil,” esp. 392, 402–3.

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Christopher O. Blum

development of his thought about education to a kind of apogee with
the statement that the difference between a theist and an atheist is not
merely what they say about God, but what they say about everything
else. “To be a theist,” he explains, “is to understand every particular as,
by reason of its finitude and its contingency, pointing towards God.” To
be a theist, accordingly, is “to hold that all explanation and understanding that does not refer us to God both as first cause and as final end is
incomplete.”32 This search for satisfactory explanations not only divides
the theistic from the secular philosopher, but it also has immediate and
evident ramifications for education.
A Response to the Secular Mind
One may well ask just what sort of secular mind MacIntyre has in view
by his division between the theistic and the atheistic philosopher. After
all, the Stephen Weinbergs of the world do not seem to be lacking in their
search for ever more capacious and powerful explanations. In the essay
at hand, MacIntyre quite rightly responds to the physicalist reductionism that characterizes much contemporary atheism. Yet one may also
observe that the ironic detachment exemplified by Richard Rorty seems
to be just as characteristic of the secular mind, if not more so. For the
closing off of systematic inquiry into causes seems much more likely to
take place today at an earlier moment, long before elementary particles
have been reached. Rorty’s astonishing assertion that it is literary criticism rather than philosophy that is the governing discourse—and his
equally if not more astonishing display of philosophy as a kind of storytelling—does seem an accurate assessment of both our common culture
and, in a certain sense the academy as well.33 Rorty’s concern was to discover what effectually moves us to adopt a more tolerant attitude toward
other men and women; his conviction is that the reading of novels and
even the watching of movies and television shows today supplies the fuel
for moral conviction that in the past was provided by philosophical conviction or religious belief. But his assessment, of course, applies more
32

Alasdair MacIntyre, “On Being a Theistic Philosopher in a Secularized Culture,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 84 (2011): 23–32, at 23.
33
See Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

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671

broadly. In Rorty’s pragmatism, practical judgments seem to rest not so
much upon utility or profit or the avoidance of pain, but upon aesthetic
sensibilities and passions. And this is why he seems indeed to have captured the secular mind almost perfectly—much like David Hume before
him. For today, our mental preoccupations seem more than ever to rise
from our changing desires as consumers of cultural products, whether
those products be made in Hollywood or by a university press.
Why is MacIntyre’s insistence that the theistic philosopher ought relentlessly to pursue the task of explanation until he has arrived at the
consideration of the first cause and final end so important? Because the
alternative to it is the suave sophistry of our age, in which communities
of discourse artificially limited to matters of narrow scope threaten to
stultify our pursuit of truth and the mental lives of our students. Just as
in the case of Protagoras of old, the personal charm, ready wit, and moral authority conferred by success and rank that were enjoyed by Rorty
himself and are shared by so many of our fellow academics today are
qualities quite capable of generating a subculture—or even a dominant
culture—that is almost impervious to critique. Socrates plainly thought
that he needed to proceed to the drastic step of drinking the hemlock in
order to convince friends like Crito that the rational life of the virtues was
better than the life of pleasure. And, to recall MacIntyre’s own examples,
for Adolph Reinach, the experience of war seems to have been crucial in
deepening his quest for truth, while for Edith Stein, Reinach’s death and
his wife’s acceptance of it were the essential witnesses.
But what does all of this have to do with education? Precisely this: the
culture of higher education—and this is increasingly true of secondary
education as well—has been shaped by the Rortys of our time. The result
has been a retreat into a professional mode of philosophizing in which
the work of many of us is characterized by overly nice distinctions, an
insistence upon apparatus over argument, and an overall soft skepticism
in which affirmation is undervalued and politeness to interlocutors overvalued. These habits are chiefly to be seen in the writing and speaking of
our professional lives, but they also have a way of making themselves felt
in curricular discussions and even the grading of student papers. This is
why more and more voices are warning that the intellectual life is being

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dissolved into mere professionalism.34 The challenge of affirming that,
in the last analysis, it is the knowledge of God that perfects the human
intellect is a test that is being failed even by philosophers and theologians of unimpeachable Christian seriousness.35 But short of a serious attempt to make the difficult ascent toward the affirmation of propositions
about things we cannot see—the virtues, the natures of things, truth, and
God—we will not be able to put our educational practices and institutions into any satisfactory order. Their present disorder is so very grave,
that even the danger of premature metaphysical affirmation seems worth
running if the alternative is to acquiesce in the way we live now.
And so, by proposing as models Anscombe and John Paul II, Edith
Stein and Adolf Reinach, Alasdair MacIntyre has at once offered a vision of academic life as well as a response to contemporary secularism.
Against the self-satisfied and resolute aestheticism that takes any intellectual inquiry to be good so long as there is someone to desire it and insists
that these intellectual goods have no order among them, MacIntyre has
argued for a deeply purposeful approach to the life of the mind.36 But
perhaps just as crucially, he has exemplified it in his own philosophical
34

See, for instance, Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 3: “at the present time, the study
of the humanities runs a risk of sliding from professional seriousness, through professionalization, to a finally disenchanted careerism.”
35
For instance, Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood, Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in
Regulative Epistemology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 180: “We have
to reckon with the possibility that what some serious people take to be knowledge is
not knowledge, and that that what some people take to be intellectual virtues are not
virtues,” but the matter “could be decided only by a sort of metaphysical adjudication which is in all probability unavailable to human beings.” And, in a different key,
but to a similar end, Paul J. Griffiths, Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 111: “There is, however, no single, obvious, compelling taxonomic ordering of appetites: any particular
ordering depends on and is deeply articulated with local catechesis.”
36
See, on this point, the whole of his “Truth as a Good: A Reflection upon Fides et Ratio,”
in Tasks of Philosophy, but especially this formulation of the typical stance of contemporary academics with respect to intellectual goods, at 208: “if we lacked any conception of such an absolute standpoint, we might well conclude that there is no such thing
as a final terminus for enquiry concerning any particular subject matter. What directs
enquiry on this alternative view are whatever may happen to be our explanatory interests and in taking this or that as the goal of enquiry in some particular area we are
only giving expression to our interests as they happen to be now, but may not be in the
future, interests that may also differ from social group to social group.”

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673

life. Broad in his interests from the beginning of his career, he did most
rigorously pursue his particular craft, moral philosophy; After Virtue
will continue to be read as long as moral philosophy is studied in the
English-speaking world. Yet by committing him to the defense of a tradition of inquiry encompassing more than ethics, that work led him to
tackle progressively more capacious questions, and led him eventually to
the philosophy of nature and metaphysics. As anyone conversant with
his career can validate, MacIntyre is no dabbler: it is plain that he has
been following out a line of inquiry with seriousness and skill. The virtue
that has shaped that inquiry is his openness to consider difficulties with
respect to progressively prior principles and, accordingly, progressively
broader explanations. This openness is the precise opposite to the premature closure upon questioning that is seen in Rorty’s prescription that
we ought simply to accept as boundaries the sensibilities that history has
bequeathed to us. In contrast to that antiphilosophical orientation, MacIntyre’s life of inquiry is characterized by the relentlessness of a quest.
His questions have deepened and broadened, from “What does justice
require?” to “What sort of life will make me happy?” to “What sort of being am I?” to “What is truth?” and, finally, to Aquinas’s question, “What
is God?”
It is because of his fearless pursuit of truth that MacIntyre is the
great craftsman-philosopher of our age. As his biographer the late Émile
Perreau-Saussine aptly said, although MacIntyre was initially “carried
away by the political passions of his century,” in his later life he “progressively rediscovered wisdom.”37 He is like a furniture maker who, as
a young man was trained to make chairs and then worried, and sweated, and toiled to make better ones, and succeeded. But then, instead of
seeking only to profit from his chairs, he looked abroad and saw that
in the making of chests further excellences remained for him to seek.
So he acquired new tools, learned to use them, and made new works.
He remains known for his chairs, chairs that have only improved because of his work on more difficult pieces. Yet he should especially be
celebrated for his love for the craft, for he has exemplified the pursuit
of the excellence it holds out. And, in the case of Alasdair MacIntyre,
the craft he has shown us how to practice is the craft of crafts, the most
37

Perreau-Saussine, Alasdair MacIntyre, 163.

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Christopher O. Blum

human of arts, the art of thinking. In his recent address to the American
Catholic Philosophical Association, he said that “what we need now are
thinkers who combine philosophical acumen and argument with the
wit of Chesterton and the satire of Waugh.”38 Could it not be said that
the quality we—and our students—need first is the thirst for truth of
N&V
Alasdair MacIntyre?

38

MacIntyre, “On Being a Theistic Philosopher,” 32.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 675-700

675

Reductio as Pattern and Journey in Bonaventure
SHAWN COLBERG

College of St. Benedict’s/St. John’s University
Collegeville, MN

THE PRODIGIOUS WORKSof St. Bonaventure span three decades

and a variety of theological genres. Their generic and topical scope attests to the riches of their content even as such breadth also raises challenges in terms of their overall schematization. Bonaventure’s writings
are sometimes classed into magisterial works, spiritual works, and collations to correspond to stages of his life as a Franciscan, yet a system as
loose as this can fail to appreciate critical ideas transecting his works.1
A particularly consistent theme in Bonaventure’s treatments of Christian life is the notion of a “journey” that plots the potential progress
of a wayfarer toward union with God. Works such as the Itinerarium
mentis in Deum or the De triplici via connote the notion of journey with
their very titles, and their exposition illustrates a progressively ascending movement of the wayfarer into union with God. The present study
identifies an overarching conceptual pattern for Bonaventure’s practice
of theology and presentation of the Christian life that not only accounts
for its structure and goals in the spiritual works but also anchors the
pattern in his theological method, metaphysics and doctrine of God.
To that end, it will argue that Bonaventure patterns his presentation of
journey on the conception of reductio, a notion that drives arguments
1

In the introduction to his Bonaventure, Ewert Cousins arranges Bonaventure’s works
into three chronological periods: scholastic treatises, spiritual writings, and lecture
series. See Bonaventure, trans. E. Cousins (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978), 9.

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throughout the corpus of his works. Having exposited his general definition and deployment of reductio, the study will clarify what is generally required for “reductive progress” into God with particular emphasis
on the notion of exemplarity. It will then apply the theme of reduction
to an investigation of Bonaventure’s spiritual works in order to illustrate
that an enriched understanding of reductio provides thematic and structural integrity to these influential yet diverse treatises. In sum, the study
claims that a full appreciation of reductio lends methodological and systematic coherence to Bonaventure’s overall theological system. Reductio
links his metaphysics and doctrine of creation with his spiritual works
and presentation of the Christian life, and it outlines a practical pattern
for human action in the work of Christian sanctification.2
Theological Method and Reductio
References to reductio and its methodological importance are disseminated through much of Bonaventure’s thought. The diffusion arises
from its integral place in Bonaventure’s theological method and metaphysics so that reductio informs the way in which one can know and
demonstrate something to be true.3 The methodological role of reductio
for proving theological arguments emerges, notably, in Bonaventure’s
Sentence Commentary and Breviloquium where he uses it as a technique
to prove any number of theological assertions. To that end, he draws
on reductive arguments to demonstrate that certain points of doctrine
2

Studies of reductio, especially as an overarching motif in Bonaventure’s theology, are
limited. Ilia Delio addresses its force, particularly in the spiritual journey to union
with God, in the final chapter of her book Simply Bonaventure (Hyde Park, NY: New
City Press, 2001), 158–72; the methodological technique of reductio is exposited
in Guy Allard’s “La technique de la Reductio chez Bonaventure,” in S. Bonaventura
1274–1974, vol. 2, ed. Jacques Guy Bougerol (Rome: Collegio S. Bonaventura Grottaferrata, 1974), 395–416. The present study, however, seeks to expand significantly
on the observations of Delio and Allard, and to argue, further, that the reductive motif unites and promotes a wider range of theological issues at stake in Bonaventure’s
theological system and corpus of work.
3
Guy Bougerol outlines four points of general orientation to Bonaventure’s theology, and the first of these is the concept of reductio. Bougerol further includes the
themes of “proportion,” “necessary reasons,” and “arguments from piety” as parts of
Bonaventure’s overarching dialectical method; see his Introduction to the Works of
Bonaventure, trans. Jose de Vinck (Patterson, NJ: Saint Anthony Guild Press, 1964),
75–81.

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can be traced back to an authoritative source on which they depend
for reliability.4 In the most basic sense, Bonaventure reduces hosts of
theological ideas back to God as first principle, supreme good, and the
substance by which all else exists. For example, in the Prologue to the
Breviloquium, he writes:
Because theology is, indeed, discourse about God and about the
First Principle, as the highest science and doctrine it should resolve everything in God as its first and supreme principle. That
is why, in giving the reasons for everything contained in this
little work or tract, I have attempted to derive each reason from
the First Principle, in order to demonstrate that the truth of Sacred Scripture is from God, that it treats of God, is according to
God, and has God as its end.5
As discourse about God, Bonaventure reduces all of his discrete theological propositions back to God as first principle who reveals God’s self in
Scripture. This technique is typified and reinforced in the Breviloquium
by his consistent use of the phrase “Ratio autem ad intelligentiam praedictorum haec est,” or “the reason for this should be understood as follows.” The phrase often falls in the second paragraph of a given section
in the Breviloquium, and it almost invariably indicates that Bonaventure
will relate the foregoing assertion to God’s nature as first principle. This
same sense is underscored in the proemium to the Sentence Commentary
4

Bougerol explains: “In each case there is some reality which cannot subsist of itself
and is not sufficient to itself, but which must be distinguished from the substance to
which it is bound, because it is not this substance, and yet depends upon it” (Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure, 76).
5
Bonaventure, Breviloquium, Prologue, 6.6. From Works of Saint Bonaventure, vol.
IX, Breviloquium, trans. Dominic V. Monti, O.F.M. (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan
Institute, 2005). In his introduction to the work, Monti notes a distinction originally
posited by Jean Gerson having to do with the difference between inductive and deductive methods in Bonaventure’s theology; addressing the method that drives the
Breviloquium, Monti writes: “The Breviloquium, in contrast, is grounded in theological metaphysics. It begins with the mystery of the Trinity, and from there proceeds
to “reduce” or “retrace” the various beliefs proposed in the Catholic tradition to the
foundational mystery of the self-diffusive first principle in order to demonstrate how
they all logically flow from it” (XXXXVII). He contrasts the Breviloquium with the
“inductive” method found in the Itinerarium; no less reductive, the Itinerarium leads
the reader from lesser forms of being to the primordial source.

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where Bonaventure affirms that God is the reductive subject matter of
theology; he concludes: “For the subject, to which all things are reduced
as to their principle, is God Himself.”6
One concrete example from his Sentences Commentary, taken from
countless instances, is Bonaventure’s assertion that divine predestination is eternal because it is an expression of the divine will, which is
retraced to God as eternal and first principle.7 The practice of reductio
thus provides Bonaventure with a methodological tool to substantiate
his theological arguments, grounding them in the reliability of divine
revelation and its particular affirmation of God as first principle.
Bonaventure’s methodological deployment of reductio is on greatest
display in his De reductione artium ad theologiam where he argues that
the fundamental insights of every branch of secular knowledge reduce
analogically to the fullness of knowledge contained in the Incarnate
Word.8 For Bonaventure the eternal Word of the Father expresses the
truth contained in the divine essence, providing mediated knowledge of
the first principle and all that proceeds from it. This wisdom, expressed
eternally in the Son, is further manifested in the economy through the
Incarnation. Bonaventure argues: “Therefore all natural philosophy, by
6

I Sent., Proem.1, resp; translations are the author’s and taken from Opera Omnia,
vol. 1 (Quaracchi: Editiones PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1882).
Prior to reaching this conclusion, Bonaventure outlines a threefold way in which
God is reductive subject; he writes: “It ought to be said, that the ‘subject’ in any
science or doctrine is able to be accepted in a threefold way. In one way a ‘subject’ in
a science is called [that] to which all things are reduced as to their root principle; in
another way, [that] to which all things are reduced just as to their integral whole; in a
third manner, [that] to which all things are reduced just as to their universal whole.”
7
See I Sent., 40.1.1, resp. Bonaventure writes: “Because, therefore, the principle signified is eternal, so predestination is something eternal. Again, because it imports the
antecedent of the signified to the connoted, and the antecedent is eternal, for that
reason predestination is something eternal and from eternity. And the reasons for
this ought to be conceded.”
8
The De reductione endeavors to show the reductive relationship of the subjects of
classical education to theology; Zachary Hayes writes: “As a cognitive term, the
word [reductio] refers to the way in which the human subject comes to know and
understand the realities of the created order in the light of this metaphysical conviction . . . the journey of human cognition is best understood as one dimension
of the way in which the human, spiritual journey is involved in creation’s return
to God.” See Hayes’s “Introduction,” in Works of Saint Bonaventure, vol. I, On the
Reduction of the Arts to Theology, trans. Zachary Hayes, O.F.M. (St. Bonaventure,
NY: Franciscan Institute, 1996), 1.

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reason of the relation of proportion, presupposes the Word of God as
begotten and incarnate, the Alpha and the Omega, that is, begotten in
the beginning before all time, and incarnate in the fullness of time.”9
All the arts therefore reveal divine wisdom as expressed in creation and
salvation through the Word, and when properly examined for their purpose and content, the arts lead the student back to the fullness of divine
wisdom.10 Reduction accordingly serves as a cognitive exercise that illumines the divine truth in all things, connecting all that can be known to
God and God’s providential direction of the cosmos.11 As it does so, the
practice itself cultivates an affective dimension that progressively enkindles the practitioner’s desire for union with God. Bonaventure summarizes the De reductione’s project thus:
And so it is evident how the manifold wisdom of God, which
is clearly revealed in sacred Scripture, lies hidden in all knowledge and in all nature. It is clear also how all divisions of
knowledge are servants of theology, and it is for this reason
that theology makes use of illustrations and terms pertaining
to every branch of knowledge. It is likewise clear how wide
the illuminative way may be, and how divine reality itself lies
hidden within everything which is perceived or known. And
this is the fruit of all sciences, that in all, faith may be strengthened, God may be honored, character may be formed, and
9

De reductione, 20.
Hayes writes: “This may be a helpful way to look at the argument of the De reductione. The divine wisdom lies hidden in every form of secular knowledge. We need but
to find the key to discover and unfold the appropriate analogies to allow that which
is hidden to shine forth. As a result, each of the arts and sciences is made to bear on:
(1) the eternal generation of the Word and his humanity; (2) the Christian order of
life; and (3) the union of the soul with God” (22).
11
Hayes writes: “The general flow of the argument throughout the De reductione will
be to highlight the analogical relations between the insights of the arts and these
[three] concerns of the biblical tradition. In essence, this is the logic of the reduction
(12). Bougerol adds: “This reduction is not merely a technique—it is the soul of
the return to God; and since all knowledge depends on principles, and principles
are born within us under the regulating and motivating action of divine ideas, the
certitudes which seem most capable of being self-sufficient are necessarily linked,
by means of first principles, with the eternal reasons and their divine foundation”
(Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure, 76).
10

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consolation may be derived from union of the Spouse with
the beloved.12
Bonaventure’s appreciation of reductio as providing a way to divine
knowledge is not merely cognitive in the epistemological or methodological sense. He connects the practice of reductio in all branches of
human knowledge to the doxological practice of glorifying God, and
perhaps most importantly, to the progressive movement into a union
between God as spouse and those who seek to know God. The De reductione sets that union in the language of charity where God unites God’s
self, as known, with human beings, as loved; Bonaventure describes it as
“a union which takes place through charity: a charity without which all
knowledge is vain because no one comes to the Son except through the
Holy Spirit who teaches us all the truth, who is blessed forever, Amen.”13
If all things can be reliably known as extending from God as their fontal
source, then reductio operates as an organizing theme for Christian theology that informs the sequence of its arguments, the proofs by which
it demonstrates the fittingness of Christian belief and, ultimately, the
movement of human beings into loving union with God.
Metaphysics and Reductio
The De reductione’s structural and methodological deployment of reductio is anchored in a metaphysics that promotes something more than a
mere cognitive retracing of all knowledge to God. Indeed, Bonaventure
insists that all that exists or has being can be retraced naturally to God
as source of esse. This basic metaphysical conviction indicates that (1)
all that exists comes forth from God who is the first principle of creation
and so (2) returns to God as the consummation of its existence.14 It establishes a basic metaphysical pattern of exitus-reditus for the cosmos
in general and for the direction of human action in particular. Within
that pattern, reductio indicates a journey of reditus or return to God
12

De reductione, 26.
Ibid.
14
Bonaventure addresses the principle of exitus-reditus explicitly in I Sent., d. 36, p. 1,
a. 3., q. 2, c. See also Christopher Cullen’s discussion of metaphysics in his Bonaventure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 61. He notes that Bonaventure likely
adopted a general use of the exitus-reditus pattern from Alexander of Hales.
13

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681

as source of existence. In his Collationes in Hexaemeron, Bonaventure
undertakes one of his most integrated treatments of theology, and in the
first collation, he famously writes: “Such is the metaphysical Center that
leads us back, and this is the sum total of our metaphysics: concerned
with emanation, exemplarity, and consummation, that is, illumination
through spiritual radiations and return to the Supreme Being.”15
In this succinct summary, Bonaventure introduces the basic and reductive framework of all that exists—created things come forth from
God; they contain an interior likeness to their fontal source; and by way
of progressive exemplarity—particularly through divine illumination—
they are lead back to God as source of their existence.16 Wayne Hellman
writes of Bonaventure’s method: “The thrust of Bonaventure’s theology
concerns itself with the reductio (not as much with the origo). Salvation
is nothing other than the ordering of all things back to their final end,
God.”17 Bonaventure’s metaphysics therefore gives a distinctive form to
the way in which reductio applies to human salvation and movement
into union with God.
Bonaventure’s affirmation of emanation, of the exitus of all that proceeds from God, emerges from his broader affirmation of God as Sum15

Collationes in Hexaemeron, I:17; all citations for the Collationes in Hexaemeron are
taken from Collations on the Six Days, trans. Jose de Vinck (Patterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1970). Romano Guardini also summarizes the interplay of these
themes, including illumination, by recounting the ways in which reductio unfolds
for Bonaventure; he writes: “The forms of this reduci are very diverse: belief, grace,
the many forms of the actus hierarchici, especially enlightenment and inspiration;
the gifts and works of the Holy Spirit; the five principal cardinal virtues; the eternal
rule, and the powers, which through God, illuminate the soul.” Taken in translation
from Wayne Hellman, Divine and Created Order in Bonaventure’s Theology, trans. J.
M. Hammond (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2001), 22.
16
Etienne Gilson affirms the threefold movement; he writes: “There are three metaphysical problems and three only: creation, exemplarism, and the return to God by
way of illumination; the whole of metaphysics is contained in them, and the philosopher who solves them is the true metaphysician” (128). See The Philosophy of
Saint Bonaventure, trans. Dom Illtyd Trethowan (Paterson, NJ: Saint Anthony Guild
Press, 1965). Delio argues that the intellectual notion of reductio informs God’s will
for human beings and their path to union with God. She writes: “The movement
of reductio is integral to the spiritual journey which is based on the notion of the
human person as image of God. As image, the human person is God-oriented and
cannot find rest anywhere except in God” (Simply Bonaventure, 160).
17
Hellman, Divine and Created Order, 20. See his chapter “Basic Concepts in Bonaventure’s Understanding of Order,” 9–30.

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mum Bonum and source of all that exists.18 For Bonaventure, God shares
divine goodness naturally; his conception of God is one of dynamic fecundity in which the Trinity itself reflects God as diffusive goodness.
Working from the notion of God as first principle, Bonaventure reasons
that the Father is the fontal source of all being, including the interior
life of the Trinity. In his discussion of the divine persons, he assigns the
quality of innascibilitas to the Father, which implies not only that the
Father is without generation or origin but also that his original primacy
is the fountain of all that exists.19 Within the Godhead, the Father generates the Son and spirates the Holy Spirit in a perfect act of self-diffusion;
the Trinity, in se, is a self-diffusing font of being.20 Grounding God’s
18

Joseph Walsh’s “The Principle of ‘Bonum Diffusivum sui’ in St. Bonaventure: Meaning and Importance” (dissertation, Fordham University, 1958) provides a comprehensive treatment of this topic. Bonaventure makes this point with his identification
of God’s triune life as Summum Bonum in the Itinerarium, 6. As the wayfarer reaches
the summit of contemplative progress where she can conceive of God as Summum
Bonum, Bonaventure writes: “For the good is said to be self-diffusive. But the greatest self-diffusion cannot exist unless it is actual and intrinsic, substantial and hypostatic, natural and voluntary, free and necessary, lacking nothing and perfect . . .
and this is the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit—unless these were present,
it would by no means be the highest good because it would not diffuse itself in the
highest degree” (VI.2). All citations for the Itinerarium are taken from Bonaventure,
trans. Ewert Cousins (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978); 51–116; references refer to
internal chapters and paragraph numbers.
19
In I Sent., d. 27, p. 1, a. 1., q. 2, Bonaventure explores the question of whether generation is the reason for paternity or the opposite, and in ad. 3, he writes: “For the
Innascible is called the Father, because he is not from another; and to not be from
another is to be first, and primacy is a noble position. For [being] first by reason of
[primacy] to that extent is called a noble position and a condition, because, as will
be seen, the positing of a second follows the positing of a first. Whence, because [he
is] first, it follows that he is the beginning; and for that reason, whether in act or in
habit, he is the beginning. Because, therefore the reason of primacy in some genus is
the reason of [being] the beginning, for that reason, because the Father has primacy in respect to emanation, generation and procession, he generates and spirates.”
Bonaventure adds: “Because what moves one to say this, is first the ancient position
of the great doctors, who said, that the innascibility in the Father is called the font
of plenitude. But the font of plenitude consists in producing. But it is the case that
the font of plenitude is said to be in Him not for this reason, because he produces
a creature, because this fits with the three [divine persons]; nor for this reason, because he produces the Holy Spirit, because this fits with the Son: therefore the font
of plenitude in the Father posits the generation in the same one.”
20
Ewert Cousins writes: “The Trinitarian processions, then, are seen as the expression
of the Father’s fecundity. In this perspective, Bonaventure developed a highly elab-

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self-diffusion in the Trinity has profound implications for Bonaventure’s
metaphysics and doctrine of creation. Ewert Cousins writes:
[God’s] transcendence consists precisely in his dynamic
self-communication, but this self-communication is realized
fully only at the heart of the divinity itself. His is a fecundity
that breaks the bounds of all limitations and realizes itself adequately only in the generation of the Word and the spiration
of the Holy Spirit. Thus God’s fecundity does not have to be
fitted on the Procrustean bed of creation. At the same time, his
transcendent fecundity is the wellspring of creation and of his
immanence in the world.21
The diffusion of God’s being in the cosmos is not a necessary overflowing of the Godhead that an undernourished doctrine of emanation may
suggest. Rather, the divine nature, originating in the Father and communicating itself perfectly in the Trinity, is the source of a wholly gratuitous and utterly fitting communication in the economy. All that exists
freely originates in the innascible Father, and the reditus of creation will
follow a similar arc of reduction to the Father.
The Word occupies a distinctive place as the wisdom of the Father
in Bonaventure’s doctrine of a dynamic and self-diffusing Trinity. As begotten, the Son expresses the rationes aeternae of the Father, and containing these fecund reasons, he not only reflects the wisdom of the Trinity
ad intra but also communicates it ad extra in the divine act of creation.22
All that comes forth from God through the Word shares a fundamental likeness to its creator, and as such, created things reflect back to the
Son and, so, to the Father; they illumine a way to God.23 Cousins writes:
orated doctrine of the generation of the Son, as Image and Word of the Father. . . .
Hence the mystery of the Trinity is seen precisely as the mystery of the divine fecundity rooted in the Father as source.” See Cousin’s Bonaventure and the Coincidence of
Opposites (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1978), 51–52.
21
Ibid., 55.
22
Leonard J. Bowman offers a helpful introduction to this point in his “The Cosmic
Exemplarism of Bonaventure,” Journal of Religion 55 (1975): 181–98.
23
Cousins suggests the following: “When the Father generates the Son, he produces in
the Son the archetypes or rationes aeternae of all he can create. When God decrees
to create ad extra in space and time, this creative energy flows from the Trinitarian

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“Thus the Son is the link between the divinity and creation; for all of created reality is the expression of him and refers back to him, by way of
exemplarism, that is by way of being grounded in him as in its eternal
Exemplar.”24 Alongside the doctrine of creation or emanation through the
Word, Bonaventure integrates an Augustinian sense of the Platonic ideas
as eternal forms in the divine mind, and as such, the divine mind is the
formal exemplar of all that emanates from it, including created things.25 In
the Collations in Hexaemeron, Bonaventure writes: “Our intent, then, is to
show that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,
and that He Himself is the center point of all understanding.”26 As eternal
and incarnate Word, the Son expresses the content of divine knowledge
and wisdom, himself becoming the hermeneutic for all understanding.
In the Lignum vitae, Bonaventure speaks of Jesus as an “Inscribed Book”
who, when properly read, leads back to union with the Father. He writes:
And this wisdom is written in Christ Jesus as in the book of life,
in which God the Father has hidden all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge (Col 2:3). Therefore, the only-begotten Son of
God, as the uncreated Word, is the book of wisdom and the
light that is full of living eternal principles in the mind of the
supreme Craftsman, as the inspired Word in the angelic intellects and the blessed, as the incarnate Word in rational minds
united with the flesh. Thus throughout the entire kingdom the
fecundity and expresses itself according to the archetypes in the Son” (Bonaventure,
26). Zachary Hayes adds: “Here it is Bonaventure’s view that the divine mystery is
within itself as a mystery of self-communicative love, and all that can come to be
should the divine determine to communicate itself externally. Thus, internally and
in terms of logical denotation, there is but one divine Word. But in terms of logical
connotation, that single Word expresses the plurality of creatures in the cosmos external to God” (7).
24
Cousins, Bonaventure, 26. In Collationes in Hexaemeron I:13, Bonaventure underscores this point when he writes: “From all eternity the Father begets a Son similar
to Himself and expresses Himself and a likeness similar to Himself, and in so
doing He expresses what He can do, and most of all, what He wills to do, and He
expresses everything in Him, that is, in the Son or in that very Center, which so to
speak is His Art.”
25
See Cullen, Bonaventure, 72, for a treatment of Bonaventure’s appreciation of Augustine and the positing of forms in the mind of God.
26
Collationes in Hexaemeron, I:11.

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manifold wisdom of God (Eph 3:10) shines forth from him and
in him, as in a mirror containing the beauty of all forms and
lights as in a book in which all things are written according to
the deep secrets of God.27
Bonaventure presents the Son as inspired and incarnate Word who expresses the eternal reasons—as deep secrets—of the Father for humankind. Moreover, the Son illumines or gives light to human understanding so that it may know divine wisdom.
Exemplarity and Reductio
The presentation of Jesus as a book, or liber, is noteworthy. Inasmuch
as creation reflects the Word in a variety of ways, it offers sources for
reduction in the general return of all things into God.28 Bonaventure
tellingly refers to these ways of reduction as “books,” noting particularly
the books of Scripture, nature, the soul, and Jesus himself.29 Early in the
Breviloquium, Bonaventure makes an important reference to books and
reduction; he writes: “From all we have said, we may gather that the created world is a kind of book reflecting, representing, and describing its
Maker, the Trinity, at three different levels of expression: as a vestige, as
an image, and as a likeness. . . . Through these successive levels, comparable to steps, the human intellect is designed to ascend gradually to the

27

Lignum vitae, 46. All quotations for the Lignum vitae are taken from “The Tree of
Life,” in Bonaventure, ed. Ewert Cousins (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978); citations
refer to internal paragraph numbers.
28
See parallel language in Collationes in Hexaemeron, II:12.
29
George Tavard provides a helpful overview of the way in which Bonaventure thinks
of “books” as means of reduction into God. He writes: “One of the viewpoints from
which St. Bonaventure envisages many of his ideas is symbolically expressed in the
word liber. The metaphor of the ‘book’ is inded [sic] too frequent not to cover a
typically Bonaventurian conception: man attains to God through reading Him in
a book.” See Transiency and Permanence: The Nature of Theology According to St.
Bonaventure (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1974), 31. Tavard unpacks
the books of Scripture, creation, and the soul in part one of his book. Concerning
the book of Scripture, Thomas Herbst provides a strong example of the convergence
of Christ, Scripture, and exemplarism in his essay “The Passion as Paradoxical Exemplarism in Bonaventure’s Commentary on the Gospel of John,” Antonianum 78
(2003): 209–48.

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supreme Principle, which is God.”30 Bonaventure adopts and regularly
deploys the language of “vestige, image, and similitude” to describe the
ways in which all things bear likeness to God. The books of Scripture,
Christ, nature, or the soul illumine the wayfarer’s mind with knowledge
of these vestiges, images, and similitudes, which, in turn, draw her back
to God. Successful reading not only illumines but also promotes an exemplarity by which the reader can grow in resemblance to the Trinity
through the Son. This positive affirmation of the cosmos’s character ties
into Bonaventure’s deep Franciscan identity, which also appreciates the
presence and doxological character of the Trinity’s vestigia in created
things.31 This strong sense of the divine wisdom, revealed in Christ and
present in the various books of Christian reflection, sets the stage for the
way in which reductio as journey leads all things into one in God.
Bonaventure’s doctrine of exemplarity registers value in the created
natures of things precisely as expressions of the Word. He builds on the
language of exemplarity set out in the Breviloquium in the Itinerarium;
he writes: “In relation to our position in creation, the universe is a ladder by which we can ascend into God. Some created things are vestiges,
others images; some are material, others spiritual; some are temporal,
others everlasting; some are outside us, others within us. This means
to be led [deduci] in the path of God.”32 As intelligent natures, human
beings begin as images, and through their reductio into God, they become similitudes or very close likenesses to God. Hellman suggests that
Bonaventure’s exemplarism unfolds in both a “horizontal” and “vertical” relationship with God; he writes:
Each created nature is arranged in its inner constitution accordingto the exemplar of the horizontal order in the inner-Trinitar30

Bonaventure, Breviloquium, II.12.1. Similar language is deployed in I Sent., 3.1.2 and
2.1.1., ad 5; II Sent., 16.2.3; Collationes in Hexaemeron 2.20–27 and 3.3–9; and the
Itinerarium 1.2.
31
Francis’s appreciation of God’s presence in and through nature in writings such as
the “Canticle of the Sun” set the tone for Bonaventure’s work. These same prepositions, “in” and “through,” are the methodological ordering of the Itinerarium, which
traces God’s presence in and through vestiges and images of God. See Delio’s study
“The Canticle of Brother Sun: A Song of Christ Mysticism,” Franciscan Studies 52
(1992): 1–22.
32
Bonaventure, Itinerarium, I:2.

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687

ian life of the one God. . . . The reductio of the human person to
God (vertical order) is thereby effected by a conformity (conformitas), which is the horizontal order, not in the faintness of the
vestigium or imago, but in the stronger way of similitudo.33
Human beings return or journey reductively into God in vertical ascent, but this unfolds through the ongoing and horizontal examination
of God’s presence in the created order and through grace. The horizontal order promotes increasing exemplarity, which aims at similitudinem,
making full union with God possible. At the root of Bonaventure’s doctrine of exemplarity, then, human beings are capax Dei, and action ordered to a person’s return to God increasingly likens her to the Exemplar. The interior and immanent life of the Trinity, revealed most fully
in Jesus, is the archetype for reductive human action, and Bonaventure’s
emphasis on exemplarity measures the progress of the journey. Made in
the image of the Trinity through the eternal Word, human beings obtain the likeness of similitudes through the infusion of grace and corresponding human action. The outcome of reductive illumination, experienced through exemplarity, is a hierarchized soul that is increasingly
conformed to Christ crucified so that final union is possible.
When addressing the specific reductio of human beings to God,
Bonaventure consistently acknowledges the obstacle of sin and its injurious effects on the imago Dei in human nature. Christ’s Incarnation and
passion make a restoration possible, and so for Bonaventure, Christ’s
saving work lies at the center of the return of creation to God. Access
to the saving effects of Christ’s work, however, is gained through grace.
Bonaventure writes: “It thus follows that [Jesus] restores us by enduring
the penalty on our behalf in his assumed nature, and by infusing re-creating grace that binds us to its source, making us members of Christ.”34
Christ’s acta and passa make salvation possible, and its effects are communicated through the infusion of sanctifying grace. Grace, including
its expression in the sacraments, is therefore fundamentally restorative

33
34

Hellman, Divine and Created Order, 26.
Bonaventure, Breviloquium, V.3.3; see also 2 Sent., 26.4, where Bonaventure identifies grace as the proximate principle of restoration from sin and the incarnate Word
as its remote cause.

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of human nature, healing it and enabling its increasing similitude to the
exemplar image.35
Bonaventure divides the Breviloquium into seven parts with “On
the Incarnation of the Word” falling at the exact center (part four); “On
The Grace of the Holy Spirit” follows in part five and outlines the way
of return in light of Christ’s saving act. In the first section of part five,
Bonaventure defines sanctifying grace (gratia gratum faciens) as that
which conforms the soul in increasing likeness to God.36 He writes:
If then, the rational spirit is to become worthy of eternal happiness, it must partake of this God-conforming influence. This
influence that renders the soul dei-form comes from God, conforms us to God, and leads us to God as our end. It therefore
restores the image of our mind to likeness with the blessed Trinity—not only in terms of its order of origin, but also in terms of
its rectitude of choice and of its rest in enjoying [God].37
Grace generally conforms the recipient’s imago to the exemplar. Reductio taken as the return of human beings to God thus depends on sanctifying grace as integral to its progress. Bonaventure additionally insists
that the provision and effectiveness of grace is possible only through the
free cooperation of the recipient, and so grace reducing the wayfarer
to God depends on free, meritorious action.38 He writes: “But once we
possess this [sanctifying] grace, it merits its own increase if we make
good use of it here below, and this merit is a just claim [de digno]. . . .
Furthermore, our free choice is a source [of the increase of grace] by
35

For a treatment of Bonaventure on the sacraments, see Paula Jean Miller’s Marriage:
The Sacrament of Divine-Human Communion (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Herald Press,
1996), 36–76, for its discussion of “The Sacramental Theory of St. Bonaventure.”
36
Bonaventure writes: “Finally, grace is a gift that purifies, illumines, and perfects the
soul; that vivifies, reforms, and strengthens it, that elevates it, likens it, and joins it
to God, and thereby makes it acceptable to God. This is a gift of such kind that it is
rightly and properly called ‘the grace that makes pleasing’ (gratia gratum faciens)”
(Breviloquium, V:13).
37
Breviloquium, V:13.
38
For a full treatment of Bonaventure on grace and its relation to merit, see my dissertation, “‘Be Glad and Rejoice for Your Reward Is Very Great in Heaven’: ‘Reward’ in the
Theology of Aquinas and Bonaventure” (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame,
2008), particularly chapter 4, “Bonaventure and Reward in the Systematic Works.”

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689

virtue of its cooperating and meriting, to the extent that the free will
cooperates with grace and makes what belongs to grace its own.”39 The
human action that prevenes and follows grace is critical to progress.
Bonaventure thus conceives of the reductio in salvation as a dynamic
cooperation between God and human beings, which results in the increasing conformity or similitude of the human person to God through
the Word. Grace and human action are the tools by which Bonaventure’s
doctrine of exemplarity is unfolded in the economy. They make reading
the books of nature, the soul, Scripture, and Christ possible, and insofar
as these concepts underlie reductive progress, it opens an interpretive
path to Bonaventure’s spiritual works.
Reductio in the Spiritual Works
Bonaventure’s mystical opuscula comprise a variety of his most widely
circulated and enduring works. This loose genre includes texts produced
during his tenure as minister general of the Friars Minor (1257–74),
especially from its early years as he endeavored to stabilize and focus
the order’s identity.40 The diversity of these works, even as a subset of
Bonaventure’s larger corpus, is remarkable. While they generally commend a contemplative journey as a means of approaching union with
God, the subject matter of these models varies widely.41 They encompass
a variety of libri including, loosely, the soul/nature (De triplici via, Solil39

Breviloquium, V.2.4. Bonaventure’s affirmation of merit here is very strong; he makes
the notable claim that, when the free will properly uses sanctifying grace, the person
can make a “condign” claim to divine rewards. Bonaventure qualifies this claim with
greater precision in the Sentence Commentary, where he stipulates that the condignity of merit arises not merely from the movement of the free will but also the power
of the grace given by God and the manner of the meritorious work itself; see II Sent.,
26.2.3, resp.
40
Bonaventure’s election as Minister General unfolds in the midst of controversy concerning his predecessor, John of Parma, who may have been pressured to resign for
his support of the spiritual wing of the order and its interpretation of Joachimite
ideas. See Rosalind B. Brooke’s “St. Bonaventure as Minister General,” in S. Bonaventura Francescano, ed. Cesare Vasoli et al. (Todi, Italy: Centro di Studi sulla Spiritualita Medievale, 1974), 75–105.
41
Works belonging to this category include: Soliloquium de quatuor mentalibus (1259),
De triplici via (1259), Itinerarium mentis in Deum (1259), Lignum vitae (1260), Legenda maior (1263), De perfectione vitae ad sorores (1259), De sex alis Seraphim, and Vitis
mystica. Some scholarly differences remain as to the precise dating of these works.

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oquium, and Itinerarium), Jesus/Scripture (Lignum vitae and Vitis mystica), and St. Francis of Assisi (Legenda maior). When exposited through
the lens of reductio as elucidated in Bonaventure’s theological method,
metaphysics, and doctrine of exemplarity, the journeys of these works
gain not only greater theological significance but also overall coherence
as complementary tools for reditus ad Deum. Appreciating the reductive
quality of these works assists in (1) synthesizing their seemingly disparate contents and in (2) aligning their emphases on grace and human
action with Bonaventure’s larger vision of God’s nature and the telos of
creation. To that end, an examination of the Itinerarium, Lignum vitae,
and Legenda maior on these points will demonstrate the thematic value
of reductio for reading the spiritual works.
Bonaventure writes the Itinerarium, Lignum vitae, and Legenda in
the early years of his generalate, and in their distinctive ways, all three
works promote the spiritual identity of the Franciscan Order under
Bonaventure, giving concrete expression to the way in which the friars
practice a life aimed at union with God. The three works were broadly popular, enjoying wide manuscript dissemination, yet their subject
matter differs in striking ways.42 The Itinerarium uses the imagery of
the six-winged seraph that appeared before Francis on Mount La Verna
to structure an inductive journey using the material world, including
the soul, to ultimately approach divine nature and reach the transitus.
The Lignum vitae aims at a similar passing over, but it approaches that
end through the acta and passa of Jesus who is the Tree of Life; exemplarity is cultivated by a direct meditation on Jesus’s life.43 Bonaventure
writes the Legenda under different auspices than the Itinerarium and
42

Legenda maior, approved in 1266, is the most disseminated work of Bonaventure
because its approbation included an order that every friary should receive a copy;
more than four hundred manuscripts exist. The Quaracchi edition of the Lignum
vitae (VIII:xli-1) lists 175 extant manuscripts in its introduction to the text. Arthur
Holder reports that at least 138 extant manuscripts exist for the Itinerarium, with
at least ninety-five coming before the end of the fourteenth century; see Christian
Spirituality and the Classics (New York: Routledge, 2010), 118.
43
Bonaventure states: “To enkindle in us this affection, to shape this understanding and
to imprint this memory [of Jesus crucified], I have endeavored to gather this bundle of
myrrh from the forest of the holy Gospel, which treats at length the life, passion, and
glorification of Jesus Christ” (Lignum vitae, Prologue: 2). See parallels for the theological ordering of Scripture in Breviloquium, Prologue: V. Moreover, Bonaventure uses
the same “Tree of Life” language for Christ in the Collationes in Hexaemeron, I:17.

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691

Lignum vitae; the 1260 General Chapter of Narbonne commissioned
him to write an official vita of Francis for use by the order. Even as the
text is biographical, it nevertheless presents Francis’s life as an ascending journey leading to his reception of the stigmata and final passing
over into life with God. Using the language of purgation, illumination,
and perfection, Bonaventure exemplifies Francis’s vita as a journey that
hierarchizes his person and disposes him for passing over into God.44
The three works employ diverse subjects on which to pattern a journey
to union with God. Prima facie, their content raises questions about
the proper object for contemplation and the direction of human action
in its return to God. A closer consideration of their prologues, order of
human action, and presentation of union with God reflects deep coherence arising out of Bonaventure’s larger metaphysics and doctrine
of reductio.
The prologues of the Itinerarium, Lignum vitae, and Legenda share
deep commonalities concerning the goal and direction of human life. Perhaps most importantly, all three works commend themselves as journeys
moving toward a goal or terminus. The wayfarer begins in a particular
place or state, and by following the guidelines of the works, he may arrive at a new and desired end.45 Bonaventure presents this end as peaceful
44

The Legenda maior consists of fifteen total chapters. The first four chronologically
outline the early stages of his biography, and the final two instruct the reader on
his death and canonization. Chapters 5–13 break from the chronology and present
Bonaventure’s life following the threefold order of his purgation (chaps. 5–7), illumination (chaps. 8–10), and perfection (chaps. 11–13). Concerning this organization,
Bonaventure writes: “To avoid confusion, I did not always weave the story together
in chronological order. Rather, I strove to maintain a more thematic order, relating
the same events that happened at different times, and to different themes events that
happened at the same time, as seemed appropriate” (Prologue: 4).
45
Several good treatments of the nature of “journey” in the Itinerarium are available;
they include Ambrose Nguyen Van Si’s “The Journey-Symbols in St. Bonaventure’s
Itinerarium,” Greyfriars Review 9 (1995): 309–30; Ewert Cousin’s “Bonaventure
and Dante: The Role of Christ in the Spiritual Journey,” in Itinerarium: The Idea of
Journey, ed. Leonard J. Bowman (Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1983), 113–31; and Bernard McGinn’s Ascension and Introversion in the “Itinerarium Mentis in Deum,” in S. Bonaventura 1274–1974, cit., III, 535–52. George
Tavard’s Transiency and Permanence, particularly chapter 12, “Transitus,” 229–47,
also deals with the notion of journey but not as an explicit topic or as limited to
the Itinerarium. Studies of the Lignum vitae are scarce; see Richard S. Martignetti’s
Saint Bonaventure’s Tree of Life: Theology of the Mystical Journey (Grottaferrata: Frati Editori di Quaracchi, 2004) as a potential source. Important studies of the Leg-

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union with God. The end is gained reductively through (1) a reordering
of the wayfarer’s nature to the divine archetype and (2) a transitus through
the crucified Christ. These progressive steps necessarily precede union,
which Bonaventure describes as peace or rest in the heavenly homeland.
He describes the steps and goal in the Itinerarium’s prologue:
The six wings of the Seraph can rightly be taken to symbolize
the six levels of illumination by which, as if by steps or stages,
the soul can pass over to peace through ecstatic elevations of
Christian wisdom. There is no other path but through the burning love of the Crucified, a love which so transformed Paul into
Christ when he “was carried up to the third heaven”(2 Cor 12:2)
that he could say: “With Christ I am nailed to the cross. I live,
now not I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20).46
Paul’s words in Galatians are the very words with which Bonaventure begins the Lignum vitae. He writes: “The true worshipper of God and disciple of Christ, who desires to conform to the Savior of all men crucified
for him, should, above all, strive with an earnest endeavor of soul to carry
about continuously both in his soul and flesh the Cross of Christ until he
can truly feel in himself what the Apostle said above.”47 These works call
the wayfarer into increasing conformity with the eternal and incarnate
archetype so that final conformity with Christ crucified—cruciformity—
enda maior include Cousins’s “Francis of Assisi and Bonaventure: Mysticism and
Theological Interpretation,” in The Other Side of God, ed. Peter L. Berger (New York:
Anchor Press, 1981), 74–103, and his “St. Bonaventure’s Life of Francis and the Monastic Archetype,” in Blessed Simplicity, ed. Ewert Cousins et al. (New York: Seabury,
1982), 135–41. More recently, Rosalind Brooke offers a helpful and contextualized
treatment of Bonaventure’s presentation and deployment of Francis in her Images of
Francis: Responses to Sainthood in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 231–68.
46
Itinerarium, Prologue: 3.
47
Lignum vitae, Prologue: 1. For useful study on the role of the Cross in Bonaventure’s
spiritual writing, see Elizabeth Dreyer’s “A Condescending God: Bonaventure’s Theology of the Cross,” in The Cross in the Christian Tradition from Paul to Bonaventure,
ed. Elizabeth A. Dreyer (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2000), 192–210. See also Thomas A. Nairn’s “‘Fixed with Christ to the Cross’: Dying in the Franciscan Tradition,”
in Dying as a Franciscan: Approaching Our Transitus to Eternal Life, Accompanying
Others on the Way to Theirs, ed. Daria Mitchell (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan
Institute, 2011), 15–29.

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marks the perfection of human nature and the regressus into final union.
The incarnate Word reflects the door of return in reductive symmetry
with the eternal Word through whom all things went out from God.
In all the spiritual works, and especially in the Legenda, Francis
looms as an exemplar of cruciformity, having received the stigmata as
the culmination of his perfection. In the Legenda’s prologue, Bonaventure presents Francis as the perfectly conformed and ordered individual;
he writes: “Like a hierarchic man, [Francis] was lifted up in a fiery chariot, as will be seen quite clearly in the course of his life; therefore it can
be reasonably proved that he came in the spirit and power of Elijah.”48
Francis’s person, like that of Elijah who ascends to God, is hierarchized
so that he is disposed for union with God by increasing similitude with
the first principle. In each prologue, then, union with God stands as the
terminus of the journey, and that end shapes the means by which it is
reached. When the reader comes to the last chapter of each work, passing
over is possible through having a certain exemplary likeness to Christ, a
cruciformity that approaches similitude with Christ. Moreover, the end
itself is a reductive one in which the wayfarer is drawn back into God
from whom he emerged in the act of creation.
The disparate subject matter of the journeys could indeed suggest
three unrelated pathways to union, yet the earlier discussion of reductio
helps to demonstrate deep, structural integrity among the three works.
Uniformity in diversity is possible because of Bonaventure’s larger conception of metaphysics and corresponding doctrine of creation. In the
prologue to the Itinerarium, Bonaventure offers a glimpse into his thinking about the structure and inspiration for the work; he writes: “While
I was there [on Mount La Verna] reflecting on various ways by which
the soul ascends into God, there came to mind, among other things, the
miracle which had occurred to blessed Francis in this very place: the vision of a winged Seraph in the form of the Crucified.”49 While Bonaventure importantly presents Francis’s reception of the stigmata as inspiration for the structure of the Itinerarium, it is his reference to the “various
ways” (aliquas) of ascent that is intriguing. Contemplative ascent must
48

Legenda maior, Prologue: 1. All citations for the Legenda maior are taken from
Bonaventure, trans. Ewert Cousins (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978), 51–116; references refer to internal chapters and paragraph numbers.
49
Itinerarium, Prologue: 3.

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aim at reductive union, but the subject matter itself can differ; Francis’s
personal journey to the reception of the stigmata, while archetypal, is
one way “among other things” (inter alia) that could structure an ascent. Francis is one liber among others such that, while the Itinerarium
takes inspiration from his experience of the stigmata, it actually uses
the book of nature for its material. No explicit details from Francis’s life
or admonitions are included as instructions for the journey; those are
found in the Legenda maior. The books of nature, Francis, or Scripture
are acceptable subjects for contemplation and action as long as they reductively reorder the wayfarer’s nature and conform her to the crucified
Christ.50 Bonaventure anchors the acceptability of different books in his
certainty that all created and revealed knowledge emanates from the
Word as metaphysical principle for all that exists. Just as Bonaventure
argues in the De reductione, all branches of knowledge lead back to that
which is reliably expressed by Christ in Scripture. Armed with a firm
sense of reduction, one can see that the three journeys draw the wayfarer back to God through Christ because the subject matter conveys the
eternal reasons expressed in the incarnate Word. Bonaventure’s overarching doctrine of reductive metaphysics thus grounds and organizes the
various ways by which the soul may move into God.
If the mystical opuscula measure progress by increasing conformity
to Christ, then Bonaventure’s doctrine of exemplarity drives the conception of progress toward union. Generally speaking, the wayfarer ought
to bear in his body and soul the marks of Christ crucified. The works
under consideration all outline a practical program for successful conformity: (1) the wayfarer must fundamentally orient his desire or affectus toward the goal of union with God; (2) this affectus must be healed
and fortified by God’s action through grace; and (3) the graced wayfarer
must freely cooperate in his growing conformity through corresponding good works. These steps cohere with Bonaventure’s larger conceptions of exemplarity and illumination as the reductive means by which
created things are consummated in God. The steps also take seriously
50

Lignum vitae affirms Christ’s cosmic exemplarity and source of exitus-reditus;
Bonaventure writes: “As all things are produced through the Word eternally spoken,
so all things are restored, advanced and completed through the Word united to the
flesh. Therefore he is truly and properly called Jesus, because there is no other name
under heaven given to men by which one can obtain salvation” (48).

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the fallen state of human nature. They insist on a reordering of desire
and increasing rectitude of the wayfarer’s nature, which is accomplished
through grace and reciprocal human action. The Itinerarium soberly
acknowledges and outlines the chief effects of sin; Bonaventure writes:
Yet the reason [for ignorance of God as First Principle] is close
at hand: for the human mind, distracted by cares, does not enter
into itself through memory, clouded by sense images, it does
not turn back (redit) to itself through intelligence; allured away
by concupiscence, it does not turn back (revertitur) to itself
through desire for inner sweetness and spiritual joy. Thus lying
totally in these things of sense, it cannot reenter (reintrare) into
itself as into the image of God.51
The fall has wrought disorder in the soul’s powers of memory, intellect,
and will so that sinners are irrationally drawn to lower sense objects and
driven by concupiscence; in this condition, they cannot regain their image
reflection of the Trinity. The spiritual works thus demand a reorientation
of desire. Considering Jesus’s denial by Peter, the Lignum vitae addresses
the wayfarer: “O whoever you are, who at the word of an insistent servant,
that is your flesh, by will or act have shamelessly denied Christ, who suffered for you, remember the passion of your beloved Master and go out
with Peter to weep most bitterly over yourself.”52 Using a different medium, Bonaventure nevertheless acknowledges the same problem; sinners
must reorient their wills away from sense objects (slavery to the flesh)
toward God as proper object of affection. As a hierarchized man, Francis
illustrates progressively perfected desire: “Realizing that while he was in
the body, he was exiled from the Lord, since he was made totally insensible to earthly desires through love of Christ, the servant of Christ Francis
strove to keep his spirit in the presence of God, by praying without ceasing.”53 Misdirected and private desires deform the proper hierarchy of the
human soul as image of the Trinity, yet Francis’s love of Jesus exemplifies
the way forward.
51

Itinerarium, IV:1.
Lignum vitae, 21.
53
Legenda, X:1.
52

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Aware of the deleterious effects of sin, Bonaventure understands that
the wayfarer needs help to rise from sin. Even rightly ordered affectus requires exterior direction.54 Grace constitutes the remedial help by which
God initiates the reorientation and hierarchization of the soul. When
speaking of Francis’s conversion, Bonaventure asserts priority and emphasis on grace in explaining the origin of Francis’s transformation in
virtue; he writes: “First endowed with the gifts of divine grace, he was
then enriched by the merit of unshakeable virtue.”55 Grace illumines the
mind with greater knowledge of God as end, and it strengthens the soul
with infused virtue so that the recipient not only knows but wills actions
that lead to the proper end. Citing the theological virtues as the principle effects of grace, the Itinerarium stresses their power to conform the
recipient; Bonaventure writes: “When this is achieved, our spirit is made
hierarchical in order to mount upward, according to its conformity to the
heavenly Jerusalem which no man enters unless it first descend into his
heart through grace.”56 An important way in which grace informs the soul
is by restoring its power to properly read sensible signs as pointing toward
God through growth in virtue; in all three works, grace cultivates desire
and order so that the wayfarer can read the liber under discussion and
continue the reductio.57
Consistent with the act of creation and a return through exemplarity,
human beings must freely cooperate in their return to God. Without free
54

Bonaventure recognizes not only the importance of desire but its “enkindling” by
God through prevenient inspiration or illumination; he writes: “For no one is in
any way disposed for divine contemplation that leads to mystical ecstasy unless like
Daniel he is a man of desires (Dan. 9:23). Such desires are enkindled in us in two
ways: by an outcry of prayer that makes us call aloud in the groaning of our heart (Ps.
37:9) and by the flash of insight by which the mind turns most directly and intently
towards the rays of light” (Itinerarium, Prologue: 3).
55
Legenda, Prologue: 1; see further reference to grace at II:1.
56
Itinerarium, IV:4.
57
While grace is available through a variety of instruments, Bonaventure insists that
Christ’s Incarnation institutes the sacraments as reliable means of healing and orientation to God. Reflecting on Christ pierced by the centurion’s lance, he writes:
“While blood mixed with water flowed, the price of our salvation was poured forth,
which gushing from the secret fountain of the heart gave power to the sacraments
of the Church to convey the life of grace and to become for those already living in
Christ a draught of the fountain of living water springing up into eternal life” (Lignum
vitae, 30).

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697

choice, no natural exemplarity exists between the image and archetypal
principle. The spiritual works affirm meritorious human action through
an emphasis on desire and ascent, yet the journeys themselves convey distinctive actions that culminate in the transitus. The Lignum vitae often
prescribes imitation of Jesus or other characters in the biblical narrative
as constitutive of successful return.58 Bonaventure presents human cooperation as an opportunity to practice increasingly radical conformity of
will and action, so that the wayfarer may say with Paul, “with Christ I am
nailed to the cross.” This growing similitude parallels an increasing and
graced capacity to properly read and follow the signs found in the different libri so that, by his properly hierarchized nature, the wayfarer desires
and effects a return to God in the manner by which God has created him.
Progress toward similitude further prepares the wayfarer for judgment. Bonaventure argues that Jesus will return as both “truthful witness”
and “wrathful judge,” opening the book of consciences and recalling everyone’s deeds; he exhorts his readers: “There is, then, a great necessity
imposed upon us to be good, since all our actions are within view of the
all-seeing judge.”59 The Legenda carries the same commendation to good
works, but it instantiates it in the example of Francis. Bonaventure suggests that Francis cooperates with virtues such as austerity, humility, and
poverty, thereby becoming a progressively conformed wayfarer who was
“a resplendent mirror of all holiness.”60 Reduction into God, then, is not
merely a passive return of the wayfarer to God through the intermediate
work of the Incarnation and saving action of Jesus. Rather, illumined and
58

See, for example, Jesus’s embrace of Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane; Bonaventure writes: “This meekness was given as an example to mortal men, so that when
exasperated by a friend, our human weakness would no longer say: If my enemy had
reviled me, I could have borne it, because here was a man, another self, who seemed to
be a companion and friend who ate the bread of Christ” (17). Imitatio Christi is by no
means the only action commended in the text; prayer, contrition, imitation of other
characters in the narrative, praise, and thanksgiving are also frequent themes.
59
Lignum vitae, 41. Bonaventure quotes from Boethius’s De consolation philosphiae, V,
prosa 6.
60
Bonaventure writes: “In his own estimation he was nothing but a sinner, although
in truth he was a resplendent mirror of all holiness. He strove to build himself up
upon this virtue like an architect laying the foundations for he had learned this from
Christ” (Legenda, VI:1). Cousins labels the presentation of Francis’s “condescension”
through virtue into contrast with his “ascension” through grace as a notable “coincidence of opposites” (Bonaventure and the Coincidence, 193–95).

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reformed by grace, the wayfarer grows in similitude to the Trinity through
the natural and meritorious exercise of the free will. As the will conforms
in desire and discrete acts to the incarnate Word, it reductively reflects the
interior life of the Trinity expressed particularly in the eternal Word who
is the wholly free and principle agent of all that is good in the economy.
The mystical works thus aim at reductive conformity as the proper disposition and anticipation for the transitus into God, yet this rests on a metaphysics and doctrine of exemplarity shaped by reductio. Seeing the reductive shape of the journey, as normed by these commitments, helps the
wayfarer to interpret the distinctive states of conformity and perfection in
the Itinerarium, Lignum vitae, and Legenda so that she can achieve their
ends even if she does not perfectly resemble Francis or Christ crucified.
Conclusion
Having examined Bonaventure’s use of reductio as a pattern for the journey of Christian life, three points inform an overall conclusion. First,
Bonaventure’s use of the reductio provides systematic integration among
various points in his teachings. The common reductive arc that informs
his theological method and metaphysics also sets the terms for his doctrines of exemplarity, divine illumination, grace, sacraments, and merit. It
frames, for example, the purpose of divine illumination as God’s reform
of the image so that it may more perfectly reflect God’s triune life. Similarly, it links Bonaventure’s strong emphasis on the sacraments as signs and
sources of remedial grace with the larger thematic of drawing all things
back into God through the Word. Bonaventure’s consistent emphasis on
the Word’s roles in creation and salvation also highlights that his doctrines of God and Christology cohere with other topics under the frame
of reductio. Inasmuch as the immanent life of the Trinity is perfectly diffusive and reflective of its own dynamic life, so must all things created
through the Word bear that same likeness. For Bonaventure, then, the
classic loci of theology find important thematic unity in the movement of
reductio, which originates in the Trinity and informs the cosmos. A corollary of this conclusion is that the atomization of Bonaventure’s theology,
particularly apart from the concept of reductio, threatens to impoverish
expositions of topics like exemplarity, grace, or even contemplation.
A second conclusion recognizes that Bonaventure’s use of the re-

Reductio as Pattern and Journey in Bonaventure

699

ductio enhances a more basic pattern of exitus-reditus found in contemporaneous conceptions of creation and salvation. Bonaventure presents
reduction into God as something more than merely an inevitable retraction of all things into God. The reditus is informed by a dynamic doctrine
of exemplarity that sees the object returning to God as one being refined
in its reflection of the Trinity. As the spiritual works suggest, reductio occurs through the reorientation of intellect and will through proper affectus, and moreover, progress depends on free cooperation. The wayfarer
must read the signs and choose to grow in conformity with the incarnate
Word. This conformity, parsed as “cruciformity,” is not a low-flying imitation of Jesus’s acta and passa; it is a radical configuration of soul and
body to the triune God. The reditus implied in Bonaventure’s work thus
suggests an active conforming of the person to the Trinitarian life expressed by the Word. The hierarchized soul is a similitude of the Trinity
who reflects the innascibilitas of the Father, the creative agency and wisdom of the Son, and the perfective love of the Holy Spirit. The freedom
of will ordered toward meritorious action, which is commended in the
spiritual works, thus mirrors, at its foundation, the free and loving action
of the divine persons in communion who together express the divine
Summum Bonum. The Collationes in Hexaemeron convey this commitment in its last complete collation: “It has been explained how the soul
is hierarchized in relation to the light of the Sun, in that this Sun is alive,
shining, and warm. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the origin
of all illuminations or irradiation by reason of excellence, influence, and
pre-eminence; and in that the soul is assimilated to the Sun through conformity and by reason of the fullness of the hierarchical disposition, and
because of a threefold aspect.”61Reductive perfection is not simply a completing of the work begun in creation; rather, reditus refracted through
Bonaventure’s use of reductio sees human beings returned into union
with and through the Trinity.
Finally, as the discussion of the Itinerarium, Lignum vitae, and Legenda maior suggests, the pattern of reductio yields essential thematic
unity among Bonaventure’s writings. Works such as the Breviloquium
and the De reductione explicitly acknowledge the reductive pattern of
knowledge anchored in revelation through the eternal Word, and this
61

Collationes in Hexaemeron, XXIII:1.

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commitment links what seem to be a large systematic work and a singular treatise on the arts in a common enterprise. What is more striking
is that the divisions between Bonaventure’s magisterial works, spiritual
works, and collations lose something of their sharp distinction. While
Bonaventure often addresses himself to specific questions or topics in
his works, they share, in varying ways, the common hermeneutical conviction that, to understand God is to understand that all reality is being
retraced into the triune God. Moreover, all knowledge is revealed by
God through the Word toward that very end. These convictions begin
to provide overall coherence and direction to the entire Bonaventurian corpus. The diverse content, for example, of the spiritual works can
be more fully mapped onto the magisterial works; they constitute libri
that illumine concrete ways of return, yet as they do so, they convey the
theological insights of the magisterial works. The potentially confounding differences among the mystical opuscula are similarly relaxed when
mapped on the pattern of reductio so that Francis’s journey shares constitutive characteristics with a reading of Jesus’s origin, passion and glorification. There is potential, here, for systematization of Bonaventure’s
works in important ways. His sermons, disputed questions, and biblical
commentaries may be read for their reductive dimensions as well. With
that in mind, for the student of Bonaventure, a renewed attention to
reductio thus offers another potential tool in the retrieval and use of
N&V
Bonaventure’s theology.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 701-767

701

Conscience “Truly So Called” and Its Counterfeit:
John Henry Newman and Thomas Aquinas on
What Conscience Is and Why It Matters*
REINHARD HÜTTER
Duke University Divinity School
Durham, NC
For Romanus Cessario, O.P., on the occasion of his 70th birthday
Qui facit veritatem, venit ad lucem, ut manifestentur opera eius,
quia in Deo facta sunt.
—Jn 3:21 Vulgate
Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead me Thou on!
—John Henry Newman
Where’s thy conscience now?—I’ll not meddle with it; it makes a man a coward;
a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him;
a man cannot lie with his neighbour’s wife, but it detects him; . . . it is turned out
of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing; and every man that means to live
well, endeavours to trust to himself and live without it.
—William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act I, Scene iv
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of
meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.
—Justice Anthony Kennedy, Planned Parenthood v. Casey
*

Versions of this essay were presented in 2012 at Providence College as the Randall Chair
Lecture, at New York University, at a First Things Seminar, and in 2014 at the Lumen
Christi Institute at the University of Chicago and at Blackfriars, Oxford University. I am
grateful for the feedback I received from each audience. I am especially indebted to the
suggestions and criticisms of Romanus Cessario, O.P., Paul Conner, O.P., Paul J. Griffiths,
and Thomas Joseph White, O.P. I dedicate this essay to Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P., on the

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Introduction

ON DECEMBER 27, 1874,England’s arguably greatest theologian of

that century, John Henry Cardinal Newman, at the age of 73, published
what was to become a famous Letter. This open Letter was addressed
to the Duke of Norfolk, who was a fellow Catholic and a graduate of
Newman’s oratory school in Birmingham, and was penned in response
to an intensely polemical pamphlet, The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance, by the liberal Prime Minister of England, William Gladstone. In his diatribe, Gladstone had taken the promulgation
of the dogma of papal infallibility at the Vatican Council in 1870 as an
occasion to argue that Catholic subjects of her Majesty committed to
papal infallibility could no longer “be trusted to participate loyally and
thoughtfully in the nation’s civic life.”1
In A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk Newman offered a bristlingly brilliant refutation of this and other related allegations advanced by Gladstone. More importantly, however, the Letter offered Newman a welcome opportunity to present a condensed account of his understanding
of conscience—not only the conscience of Catholics, but conscience in
general, what it is and why it matters. The treatment of conscience in the
Letter represents the mature thought of the Catholic Newman. A lifetime of an intense preoccupation as preacher, polemicist, philosopher,
and theologian with the phenomenon of conscience comes to fruition
in this extraordinary piece of Catholic apologetics. Were Newman ever
to be declared a “Doctor of the Church,” he might most appropriately
receive the title “Doctor of Conscience.”2 And possibly the most telling
epitaph justifying this title can be found in the rightly famous concluding lines of the section entitled “Conscience:”
occasion of his seventieth birthday as an expression of deep gratitude. During a crucial
period in my life, his contributions to sapiential moral theology and especially his personal witness and counsel contributed greatly to the formation of my conscience, truly
so called.
1
John Henry Newman, Conscience, Consensus, and the Development of Doctrine, ed.
James Gaffney (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 432.
2
“In Newman’s thought, the primary factor is always conscience.” J. H. Walgrave, O.P.,
Newman the Theologian: The Nature of Belief and Doctrine as Exemplified in His Life
and Works, trans. A. V. Littledale (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1960), 25.

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703

If I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts . . .
I shall drink—to the Pope, if you please—still, to Conscience
first, and to the Pope afterwards.3
What is Newman trying to say? Isolated from the thrust of the argument of Newman’s Letter—which in the 1888 edition fills 203 pages—
the concluding statement of the section on conscience has suffered the
fate of being misinterpreted in a way that is in blatant contradiction to
the thrust of the argument jumping off the pages of the Letter. This popular misinterpretation—mistaking conscience for its counterfeit—tends
to go along the lines of the following syllogism. Major premise: Freedom of conscience signifies the sovereign act of my autonomous will
to which all external instruction and guidance are secondary, be they
divine or human. Minor premise: Papal teaching is an instantiation of
external instruction and guidance. Ergo: Freedom of conscience trumps
papal teaching. And therefore indeed: conscience (so called) first, the
pope—if at all, at best—second.
The problem with this erroneous interpretation of Newman’s after-dinner toast is twofold. The syllogism on which it relies rests, first,
on a false major premise, a premise built upon the counterfeit of conscience; and, second, on an underdeveloped and hence at best misleading minor premise. In order to capture the true meaning of Newman’s
after-dinner toast and the precise understanding of freedom of conscience entailed in it, one must gain first a sound understanding of the
notion of conscience with which Newman operates and secondly a fuller appreciation of the precise role of the Pope’s magisterium in relationship to conscience in its true sense.
I shall argue in this essay that Newman—supported by Aquinas—
holds conscience to be essentially theonomic, and that due to its theonomic nature, conscience gives rise to positive freedom, freedom in the
truth. This freedom stands in sharp contrast to the negative freedom
characteristic of the counterfeit of conscience, a freedom that protects

3

Newman, Conscience, 457. In the following, I shall also refer to an early standard
edition of Newman’s letter: John Henry Cardinal Newman, Certain Difficulties Felt
by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, vol. 2 (London: Longmans, Green, 1888; repr.
Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1969), 175–378; 261.

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the sovereignty of self-determination from interior and exterior interference.
But before entering into theoretical considerations about conscience, I shall illustrate briefly Newman’s understanding of conscience
in concrete operation by attending to two hypothetical cases he entertains in the Letter. The obvious occasion at hand for these cases was
Prime Minister Gladstone’s allegation of the inherently divided allegiance of Catholics between loyalty to their nation and obedience to
the pope. Before Newman considers any concrete scenario, he makes a
point of central importance for the context in which the cases of conflict
must be understood. In virtue of the fundamentally different functions
of state and Church, he states that “the circumference of State jurisdiction and of Papal are for the most part quite apart from each other; there
are just some few degrees out of the 360 in which they intersect.” But
what if such a conflict would occur in the few degrees in which state and
papal jurisdiction did indeed intersect?4
To address this worry, Newman considers several hypothetical cases. Here is one of them:
Were I . . . a soldier or sailor in her Majesty’s service, and sent to
take part in a war which I could not in my conscience see to be
unjust, and should the Pope suddenly bid all Catholic soldiers
and sailors to retire from the service . . . taking the advice of
others, as best as I could, I should not obey him.5
Consider another hypothetical case Newman offers:
Suppose, for instance, an Act was passed in Parliament, bidding
Catholics to attend Protestant service every week, and the Pope
distinctly told us not to do so, for it was to violate our duty to
our faith—I should obey the Pope and not the Law.6
It is not very difficult to transpose this hypothetical case into our con4

Newman, Conscience, 444; Difficulties, 240.
Newman, Conscience, 445; Difficulties, 241–42.
6
Newman, Conscience, 444; Difficulties, 240.
5

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705

temporary context. Suppose a contemporary British, or for that matter,
American government were to create laws that would require Catholics—by complying with these laws—to violate their duty to the faith
and morals as taught by the Church and put themselves into the proximity of grave systemic moral evil or make themselves even cooperate
with such grave moral evil? And let us assume that the pope together
with the Catholic bishops of such a country had spoken out collectively
and consistently against such laws? Newman’s answer is clear: “I should
obey the Pope and not the Law.”7
What are some of the underlying assumptions hidden in Newman’s
two cases? First, popes are not infallible in particular political and practical judgments where a properly informed conscience might direct
Newman (and others) to judge differently. However, when the pope authoritatively affirms matters of faith and morals that are held definitively
by the ordinary universal episcopal magisterium, he teaches infallibly
and is owed “assent of faith.” And when the pope teaches on matters of
faith and morals by way of his ordinary papal magisterium, he is owed a
reverent obedience (obsequium religiosum) from all Catholics.8
Second, while the state has a legitimate claim upon the loyalty of all
citizens and upon their due respect of its laws, the state has no legitimate
authority in matters pertaining to the substance of faith and morals. Nor
does the state have legitimate authority over matters that fall under the
universal papal jurisdiction, that is, over matters that pertain to the specific organization of the life of faith, divine worship, the appointment of
bishops, etc.
Third, conscience is the interior forum (forum internum) of moral
truth, a forum where legitimate claims upon one’s allegiance are distinguished from illegitimate claims upon one’s allegiance, where moral
truth and hence moral duty are perceived, and where consequently a
more or less clear imperative is voiced toward a certain course of moral
action. Each of Newman’s cases presupposes, first, the existence and,
secondly, the proper formation and operation of conscience. Moreover,
7
8

Newman, Conscience, 444; Difficulties, 240.
While Newman does not employ these technical terms in use since Vatican II (see
especially Lumen Gentium, §25), he arguably implies already what they intend in the
text referenced in footnote 91.

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each case displays Newman’s understanding of the freedom of conscience as positive freedom, as freedom in the truth.
But what is conscience in the first place? What, furthermore, does
freedom of conscience as positive freedom in the truth precisely mean?
And, finally, what is the counterfeit of conscience? In the following
pages, I will answer these questions in conversation with two eminent
Catholic theologians whose accounts of conscience, I shall show, complement each other: John Henry Newman and Thomas Aquinas. Since
in his Letter Newman explicitly draws upon the doctor communis as an
important point of reference and warrant for his own account, I shall
take Newman’s referral as the occasion to nuance and deepen Newman’s
Catholic doctrine of conscience with the help of Thomas’s teaching.
John Henry Newman9
Newman is crystal clear about the fact that any proper understanding of
conscience must first and foremost articulate the theonomic nature of conscience. Conscience is not simply a human faculty, but is in its root constituted by the eternal law, the Divine Wisdom communicated to the human
intellect. It is upon its theonomic nature and upon it alone that the prerogatives and the supreme authority of conscience are founded. Newman states:

9

For an accessible introduction to Newman’s treatment of conscience across his oeuvre, see Charles Morerod, O.P., “Conscience according to John Henry Newman,”
Nova et Vetera (English) 11, no. 4 (2013): 1057–79, and Gerard J. Hughes, “Conscience,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Henry Newman, ed. Ian Ker and T.
Merrigan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 189–220. For the historical and biographical context, see Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1988), 651–93. For an informative account of the complex
intellectual history of the concept of conscience from ancient to contemporary philosophy, see H. Reiner, “Gewissen,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol.
3: G-H, ed. Joachim Ritter, K. Gründer, and G. Gabriel (Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe,
1974), 574–92. For a comprehensive and nuanced treatment of conscience by a
leading Catholic moral theologian, see Eberhard Schockenhoff, Wie gewiss ist das
Gewissen? Eine ethische Orientierung (Freiburg: Herder, 2003). Schockenhoff offers
clear and nuanced treatments of the biblical accounts of conscience, chapters on Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, and on the dignity of conscience according to Vatican II.
The book culminates in a dense reflection on freedom and the truth—freedom for
the sake of truth. I have learned much from Schockenhoff ’s study, although I do see
a significantly greater compatibility and indeed complementarity between Aquinas’s
and Newman’s accounts of conscience than he seems to do.

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The Supreme Being is of a certain character, which, expressed
in human language, we call ethical. He has the attributes of justice, truth, wisdom, sanctity, benevolence and mercy, as eternal
characteristics in His nature, the very Law of His being, identical with Himself; and next, when He became Creator, He implanted this Law, which is Himself, in the intelligence of all His
rational creatures. The Divine Law, then, is the rule of ethical
truth, the standard of right and wrong, a sovereign, irreversible,
absolute authority in the presence of men and Angels.10
In stark contrast to the widespread fiction of wishful projection—
the voice of conscience being the indulgent voice of a transcendent affirmer of our whims and wishes, the echo of the pronouncements of
our sovereign self-determination—Newman impresses on his readers
the rather startling fact that “conscience . . . is a messenger from Him,
who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches
and rules us by His representatives.”11 Conscience, “truly so called,”12
denotes the received standard of moral truth into the human intellect
and is in this precise sense theonomic all the way down.
Even if one grants the theonomic nature of conscience, Newman’s
stern specification might provoke objections: “The Divine Law”—which
is God himself—“is a sovereign, irreversible, absolute authority in the
presence of men and Angels”?13 Not only does Newman seem to be
utterly insensitive to the tender feelings of all those who hold moral relativism and perspectivalism to be true, but what is worse, is Newman not
invoking some obsolete, dark image of the medieval mind or possibly
his own personal obsession with a dictatorial, all too Old Testament–
like “Über-father,” an allegedly harmful notion that, as the story goes,
was finally abolished once and for all at the Second Vatican Council?
Hardly so. Rather, the magisterial reception and explication of Vatican
II gives us strong reasons to assume that Newman’s understanding of
conscience as essentially theonomic stands very much in the line of
10

Newman, Conscience, 447–48; Difficulties, 246.
Newman, Conscience, 449; Difficulties, 248.
12
Newman, Conscience, 454; Difficulties, 257.
13
Newman, Conscience, 447–48; Difficulties, 246.
11

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Reinhard Hütter

theological thought affirmed by the council. For it is in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, in the context of the exposition of the
teaching of Vatican II on conscience, where we find the citation of the
above passage from Newman culminating in the beautiful and memorable statement: “Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”14 In short,
the Catechism presents Newman as invoking nothing but the common
Christian understanding of conscience. And this is indeed what Newman explicitly says in his Letter, where he points to the broad consensus on the theonomic nature of conscience between Catholics and most
Protestant groups in nineteenth-century Great Britain:
When Anglicans, Wesleyans, the various Presbyterian sects in
Scotland, and other denominations among us, speak of conscience, they mean what we mean, the voice of God in the nature and heart of man, as distinct from the voice of Revelation.
They speak of a principle planted within us, before we have had
any training, although training and experience are necessary
for its strength, growth, and due formation. . . . They consider
it, as Catholics consider it, to be the internal witness of both the
existence and the law of God.15
However, even if British Protestants were able to assent to such an
understanding of conscience as essentially theonomic, American
mainline Protestantism now seems to accommodate the counterfeit
of conscience—an accommodation perhaps not altogether surprising
in a country founded on Enlightenment principles. Newman notes the
counterfeit of conscience among British educated elites that became
rapidly influential in the wake of the ascendancy of the natural sciences in the post-Enlightenment naturalist strands of modern thought.
Newman observes, “it is fashionable on all hands now to consider
[conscience] in one way or another as a creation of man.”16 Today,
almost 150 years later, this counterfeit of conscience has ascended to
14

CCC (1992), §1778.
Newman, Conscience, 448; Difficulties, 247–48. For Luther and Calvin on conscience, see Appendix 1.
16
Newman, Conscience, 448; Difficulties, 247.
15

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709

the status of conventional wisdom among politicians, journalists, and
the so-called person on the street. Among those still in the throngs of
the modern turn to the subject, conscience, so called, is regarded as at
best “a desire to be consistent with oneself,”17 as Newman aptly put it, a
consistency constructed between the discrete dictates of the sovereign
self-determination. For those who in more recent years have drunk
from the wells of a neuro-scientifically informed, neo-Darwinian sociobiology, conscience has become nothing but a noble word for “a
long-sighted selfishness,”18 a selfishness of a configuration of genes that
determine one particular species of niche-producing organisms—homo
sapiens sapiens—in short, a selfishness of forces beyond human control,
forces “beyond good and evil.”19
17

Newman, Conscience, 449; Difficulties, 248. For an account that differentiates well
between the shallow self-consistency of sovereign self-determination and a proper
human authenticity—which cannot come about without following conscience, truly
so called—see Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1991).
18
Newman, Conscience, 449; Difficulties, 248. For a recent popular neo-Darwinian
sociobiology with ethical aspirations that is as consistent as it is comprehensive in
scope, see Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 30th anniv. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
19
Cf. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Second Essay, “‘Guilt,’ ‘Bad Conscience,’ and the Like,” in On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, trans. Walter
Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale; Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann; ed. with commentary by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1989). In the sixteenth section of
the second essay, Nietzsche displays the full import of embracing the counterfeit of conscience with complete awareness of the logical consequences: “Hostility, cruelty, joy in
persecuting, in attacking, in change, in destruction—all this turned against the possessors
of such instincts: that is the origin of the ‘bad conscience’” (85). And in the seventeenth
section he states openly: “This instinct for freedom forcibly made latent . . . this instinct
for freedom pushed back and repressed, incarcerated within and finally able to discharge
and vent itself only on itself: that, and that alone, is what the bad conscience is in its beginnings” (87). The instinct for freedom is nothing but the “will to power” (87), sovereign
self-affirmation and self-determination (“to possess . . . the right to affirm oneself” [section
3; 60]). This is the conterfeit of conscience pursued with consistency. Since the best form
of defense is the attack, it is only consequent that Nietzsche should identify the residual
evidence of theonomic conscience as bad conscience and should attempt to discard it
by way of a naturalist genealogy. From the perspective of the counterfeit of conscience,
theonomic conscience can only be a bad conscience best dismissed by submitting it to a
naturalist genealogy. No recent neo-Darwinian “new atheist” and despiser of Christianity
has been able to match Nietzsche’s radical consistency “beyond good and evil.” Compared
to him, the new atheists remain residually—bourgeois, beholden to beliefs about scientific
enlightenment and historical progress toward an ever brighter transhuman future.

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Newman already felt the early waves of this dramatic denial of theonomic conscience implanted in the human intellect throughout most
of his adult lifetime:
All through my day there has been a resolute warfare, I had almost said conspiracy, against the rights of conscience. . . . We
are told that conscience is but a twist in primitive and untutored
man; that its dictate is an imagination; that the very notion of
guiltiness, which that dictate enforces, is simply irrational, for
how can there possibly be freedom of will, how can there be consequent responsibility, in that infinite eternal network of cause
and effect, in which we helplessly lie? And what retribution have
we to fear, when we have had no real choice to do good or evil?20
On the assumption that God does not exist and that human beings are
causally determined in their acts, be it by the survival interests of their
genes, or by their socioeconomic environments and family systems, or
by their respective “id” or subconsciousness—or by a combination of
all three factors—in other words, on the assumption that the threefold
humiliation of human conscience and moral agency at the hands of
Darwin, Marx, and Freud obtains, what is the point of continuing to
appeal to one’s own conscience or to that of others?21 It being presumably pointless, one would expect that in an increasingly secular culture
the appeal to conscience would have faded away. But this is not the case,
as any observer of public and political life in late modern secularist democracies is only too well aware of. Newman was uncannily prescient
in anticipating what has by now become a distinctly late modern way of
appealing to the counterfeit of conscience:
When men advocate the rights of conscience, they in no sense
mean the rights of the Creator, nor the duty to Him, in thought
and deed, of the creature; but the right of thinking, speaking,
writing, and acting, according to their judgment or their hu20
21

Newman, Conscience, 449; Difficulties, 249.
For a nuanced engagement of conscience in the discussion of contemporary psychology, see Schockenhoff, Wie gewiss ist das Gewissen?, 142–51.

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mour, without any thought of God at all. . . . Conscience has
rights because it has duties; but in this age, with a large portion
of the public, it is the very right and freedom of conscience to
dispense with conscience, to ignore a Lawgiver and Judge, to be
independent of unseen obligations. It becomes a licence to take
up any or no religion, to take up this or that and let it go again.
...It is the right of self-will.22
Unmoored from its theonomic anchorage, the word “conscience”
comes to mean its counterfeit, the word now denoting nothing but
the decisions posited as acts of sovereign self-determination. Such
sovereign self-determination refers first and foremost to what is now
regarded as one’s property (which according to Locke is the principal
object over which to exercise freedom of indifference), namely one’s
body and all the life choices that pertain to oneself as sovereign owner
of this property: gender identity; sexual activity; choice of kind and
number of intimate partners; conceived children in the womb; number and genetic characteristics of children; and finally, the choice of the
time and conditions of the end of one’s life.23 The only delimitation of
22

Newman, Conscience, 450; Difficulties, 250. The ideological breeding ground of the
negative freedom of sovereign self-determination is a misguided liberalism, falsely
conceived as neutralism. In a striking engagement of David A. J. Richards, Tolerance
and the Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), the philosopher Ronald Beiner advances a scathing indictment of Richards’ strategy of legitimizing sovereign self-determination by appealing to the freedom of conscience: “The spuriousness
of this recurrent appeal to the sacredness of conscience is very clearly displayed in the
discussion of pornography. How can this possibly be a matter of conscience? What is
at issue here, surely, is the sacredness of consumer preferences. The individual’s sovereign prerogative to purchase magazines like Penthouse and Hustler has little to do
with free speech (let alone rights of conscience); the only liberty at stake is that of unhindered consumption. … Or again consider the following passage: ‘The right to drug
use, if it is a right, is a right associated with the control of consciousness and thus with
the right of conscience itself ” (Roberts, 281). By this contorted reasoning, the decision
to snort cocaine constitutes an act of conscience” (Ronald Beiner, Philosophy in a Time
of Lost Spirit [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997], 29-30). Beiner is putting his
finger here on the inner consistency of the counterfeit of conscience as it continues to
unfold the full consequences of sovereign self-determination.
23
On the erroneous modern idea of self-proprietorship and its philosophical roots in
the thought of Descartes, Hobbes, and Locke, see Bernd Wannenwetsch, “Owning
our Bodies? The Politics of Self-Possession and the Body of Christ (Hobbes, Locke
and Paul),” Studies in Christian Ethics 26 (2013): 50–65.

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this freedom of indifference is the liberal principle of harm: all choices
are permissible as long as they are at least indifferent to the freedom
of indifference of everyone else.24 No one gave a clearer definition of
this negative freedom than Newman’s contemporary, John Stuart Mill,
when he opined that “that the only freedom which deserves the name”
consists in “pursuing our own good in our own way.”25 Consider Allan
Bloom’s striking characterization of the concrete forms this negative
freedom of sovereign self-determination has taken from the 1970s on
when increasing numbers of the educated professional elites in Europe
and the United States embraced and deeply interiorized it:
They can be anything they want to be, but they have no particular reason to be anything in particular. Not only are they free
to decide their place, but they are also free to decide whether
they will believe in God or be atheists, or leave their options
open by being agnostic; whether they will be straight or gay,
or, again, keep their options open; whether they will marry
and whether they will stay married; whether they will have
children—and so on endlessly. There is no necessity, no morality, no social pressure, no sacrifice to be made that militates
going in or turning away from any of these directions, and
there are desires pointing toward each, with mutually contradictory arguments to buttress them.26
As it has become increasingly clear in more recent years, Bloom’s all
too accurate description only captures a particular moment of a deeper
24

The Achilles heel of this principle, of course, is the scope of “everyone else.” The
useless, the unwanted, the unexpectedly self-imposing, the unproductive, and the
inconveniently needy might not fall under the scope of “everyone else.” Without
a robust metaphysical concept of human nature, the beginning of human life, the
human soul, and the corresponding understanding of the dignity of the human person, secularist liberal democratic régimes stand in danger of reducing the liberal
principle of harm to a community of the self-elected with everyone else becoming
discardable—abortable, euthanizable, or institutionalizable.
25
John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty [1859],” in On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. Jonathan
Gray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 17.
26
Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1987), 87.

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713

fall. For the modern “self ”—a precondition for sovereign self-determination—presently undergoes its postmodern disintegration or “fluidification.” In light of allegedly ground-breaking insights in neurobiology,
a journalistic evolutionary scientism with a missionary impulse urges
people in the Western Hemisphere to embrace a life “after the self ”—
to resign themselves to the life of an advanced primate, a hominid,
equipped with consciousness and desires, but devoid of conscience,
truly so called.27 By internalizing the false premises of this subscientific and aphilosophical biologism, to employ Robert Spaemann’s striking
statement, “the human being becomes an anthropomorphism to itself.”28
Enlightened by the deliveries of scientism, humans are induced to think
they know—scientifically—they are but primates, determined by their
instincts and desires, while in their everyday life they must nevertheless
continue to pretend to be persons, holding others accountable for their
actions and being held accountable for their own actions. The result is a
profound estrangement from our own immediate and irreducably moral experience of ourselves and others as acting persons.
In light of the dramatic transignification of conscience during
Newman’s own lifetime, it is of special significance that he does not
deem it necessary to advance some philosophical demonstration that
27

For two popularizing accounts of this reductive materialist scientism, see Richard
Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton, 2006), and Daniel C. Dennett,
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Viking, 2006). Consider the construal of “memes” as units of imitation that have a distinct survival value:
“Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via
sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from
brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. . . .
When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning
it into a vehicle of the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. . . . [T]he meme for, say, ‘belief in life after
death’ is actually realized physically, millions of times over, a structure in the nervous
systems of individual men the world over” (Dawkins, Selfish Gene, 192). The “meme”
serves as a functionalist replacement of complex human thought, insight, belief, and
most fundamentally, of the intuition of first principles and of intentionality. Without
the intuition of first principles and intentionality, however, human agency collapses
into behavior, a properly amoral, descriptive category of biology that reductive scientism now propagates as the true causal account of what appears to the scientifically
unenlightened as moral truth and moral agency, a presumptive account that should
henceforth inform the self-understanding of human beings.
28
Robert Spaemann, “Ende der Modernität?,” in Philosophische Essays, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1994), 240: “So wird der Mensch selbst sich zum Anthropomorphismus.”

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would prove the existence of a theonomic conscience. For those who
have faith, divine revelation and the Church’s consistent teaching about
conscience authoritatively establish in one stroke the existence and theonomic nature of conscience. Moreover, Newman would assume that
those who have faith would also experience the theonomic reality of
conscience in a perspicuity that a philosophical demonstration could
hardly improve upon. For those without faith and for those who hold
a notion of conscience warped by erroneous opinions, Newman seems
to assume that the inescapable experience of the interior forum would
eventually produce the kind of evidence of the theonomic conscience
that no philosophical demonstration could hope to achieve. Theonomic conscience, in Newman’s eyes, is an aboriginal datum of the human
mind conveying the first principles of moral truth, principles similar to
the principle of noncontraction. As the principle of noncontradiction
cannot be demonstrated but serves as the basis for proving other truths,
in a similar way the first principles of the theonomic conscience cannot
be demonstrated by a proof. Rather, their self-evidence serves as the basis for proving other truths (for Newman, the existence of God).29
So faced with the counterfeit of conscience, Newman simply trusts
that the ontological truth of theonomic conscience, its objective reality,
and its eventual operation will again and again break through the layers of self-deception and thereby establish the only persuasive evidence
of its existence. And therefore, in the very presence of the counterfeit
of conscience, Newman continues to use “the word ‘conscience’ in the
high sense . . . as a dutiful obedience to what claims to be a divine voice,
29

See “The Proof of the Existence of God from Conscience,” in Walgrave, Newman
the Theologian, Appendix E, 358–63. Consider also the famous passage from the
Apologia pro vita sua, where Newman states: “Starting then with the being of a
God, (which, as I have said, is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence,
though when I try to put the grounds of that certainty into logical shape I find a difficulty in doing so in mood and figure to my satisfaction), I look out of myself into the
world of men, and there I see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. The
world seems simply to give the lie to that great truth, of which my whole being is so
full; and the effect upon me is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as confusing
as if it denied that I am in existence myself. . . . This is, to me, one of those great difficulties of this absolute primary truth, to which I referred just now. Were it not for
this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist,
or a pantheist, or a polytheist when I looked into the world” (Walgrave, Newman the
Theologian, 23).

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

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speaking within us; and that this is the view properly to be taken of it, I
shall not attempt to prove here, but I shall assume it as a first principle.”30
Drawing in the Letter upon the rich and nuanced tradition of
Catholic teaching on conscience, Newman understands conscience to
have two distinct functions. There is first and foremost what he calls
the echo of the divine voice within us, this echo being nothing but the
presence of the first principles of moral truth in the intellect. And there
is secondly the practical dictate about what here and now is to be done
as good or avoided as evil. Conscience “bears immediately on conduct,
on something to be done or not done.”31 It is interestingly at this very
point that Newman turns to Thomas Aquinas and draws upon his doctrine of conscience.
Thomas Aquinas32
First Newman points to the deep congruence between Augustine and
Thomas on the theonomic nature of conscience: “‘The eternal law,’ says
St. Augustine, ‘is the Divine Reason or Will of God, commanding the
observance, forbidding the disturbance, of the natural order of things.’”33
But how are the eternal law and conscience connected? In order to answer this question, Newman turns from Augustine to Thomas and interprets the latter thus:
The natural law, says St. Thomas, “is an impression of the Divine Light in us, a participation of the eternal law in the rational creature.” . . . This law, as apprehended in the minds of
30

Newman, Conscience, 453; Difficulties, 255.
Newman, Conscience, 453; Difficulties, 256.
32
For Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of synderesis, see Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R.,
“Aquinas on the Content of Synderesis,” Studia Moralia 29 (1991): 61–83; Vernon
J. Bourke, “The Background of Aquinas’s Synderesis Principle,” in Graceful Reason:
Essays in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Presented to Joseph Owens, C.Ss.R., ed.
Lloyd P. Gerson (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1983), 345–60;
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; and 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.
33
Newman, Conscience, 448; Difficulties, 246–47.
31

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Reinhard Hütter

individual [human beings], is called “conscience”; and though
it may suffer refraction in passing into the intellectual medium
of each, it is not therefore so affected as to lose its character of
being the Divine Law, but still has, as such, the prerogative of
commanding obedience.34
Newman draws on a crucial distinction at the very center of Thomas’s
doctrine of conscience, a distinction between an ontological level of an
innate first principle and first precept—Thomas calls this synderesis—
and an operative level, the intuitive bearing of the first principle and
first precept upon a particular case, a judgment of practical reason that
Thomas calls con-scientia, the “knowing together” of the first principle
and precept with a concrete case, prospectively or retrospectively, in a
specific interior judgment.
In order to name the ontological level of conscience, Thomas uses a
technical term provided by the tradition and employed by the theologians
of his day: synderesis. In his treatment of synderesis, Thomas draws upon,
clarifies, and advances the thought of his principal teacher, the Dominican Albert the Great and of his elder theological contemporary and colleague at the University of Paris, the Franciscan Bonaventure.35 He also
integrates the patristic tradition, especially Jerome and Augustine, and the
classical Greek traditions, especially those of Aristotle and the Stoics. The
Dominican Servais Pinckaers, doyen of post–Vatican II sapiential moral
theology, helpfully observes, how Thomas
went to the trouble of explaining St. Jerome’s comparison [of
synderesis with the “spark of conscience”] and made the distinc34
35

Newman, Conscience, 448; Difficulties, 247.
For the biblical, patristic, and medieval background of the synderesis principle, see
Bourke, “Background of Aquinas’s Synderesis Principle”; for the arguments that St.
Thomas adduces for its existence (first principles cannot be proven in a strict sense),
see Crowe, “Synderesis and the Notion of Law in Saint Thomas”; and for a lucid
summary of the ways Thomas draws upon Albert and Bonaventure and also differs from them, see Daniel Westberg, Right Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action, and
Prudence in Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 100–105. The only comprehensive monograph on the function of synderesis in the moral theology of Thomas
Aquinas remains the important study by Oskar Renz, Die Synteresis nach dem Hl.
Thomas von Aquin (Münster: Aschendorff, 1911).

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

717

tion between the spark, the purest part of fire, which shoots out
above the flame and the fire itself which is mixed with alien
matter that alters its purity. The spark is synderesis, the pure
light of truth; the fire is conscience, which can err accidentally
by attaching itself to a particular object that is inferior to reason.
Synderesis is, strictly speaking, the spark of conscience, the origin of the light that illuminates it.36
In a nutshell, Thomas understands synderesis as “a natural habitus of
first principles of action, which are the universal principles of the natural law.”37 Synderesis names practical reason “perfected by a completely
determined habitus.”38 As Pinckaers aptly put it, synderesis
offers a solid base for the recognition of the universal and permanent character of moral laws coming from within us in the
form of a light that illuminates our intellect. The strength of
moral law derived from this light does not come to [human beings] from a merely exterior will; it has its root in [our] intellect
and is at the origin of [our] freedom.39
36

Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “Conscience, Truth, and Prudence,” in Crisis of Conscience:
Philosophers and Theologians Analyze Our Growing Inability to Discern Right from
Wrong, ed. John M. Haas (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 79–92, 88. Cf. De veritate,
q. 17, a. 2, ad 3; English translation: St. Thomas Aquinas, Truth, vol. II: Questions
X–XX, trans. James V. McGlynn, S.J. (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1994), 325.
In his commentary on Ezekiel (PL 25, 22), in the context of Ezekiel’s vision of the
four creatures in human form (Ezek 1:4-12), Jerome makes reference to the term
συντήρησις as the Greek equivalent of the Latin “scintilla conscientiae,” the spark
of conscience. John Mahoney rightly points out that this word is not the result of a
copyist’s error for συνείδησις (con-scientia), as was wrongly held in the latter part of
the twentieth century, but rather reflects the use of the verb συντηρέω in late antique
Greek. See John Mahoney, S.J., The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman
Catholic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 187n41, 187n42.
37
De veritate, q. 16, a. 1, resp.; Truth II, 304. See also his In II Sent. d. 24, q. 2, a. 3, and
Summa theologiae I, q. 79, a. 12. (All citations from the Summa theologiae [ST] are
taken from the translation of the Fathers of the English Dominican Province [New
York: Benziger Bros., 1948; reprint Christian Classics, 1981]. Alterations are indicated by brackets. Translations from other works of Thomas Aquinas, if not indicated
otherwise, are mine.) For a discussion of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s proposal
to replace synderesis with anamnesis, see Appendix 2.
38
De veritate, q. 16, a. 2, ad 5; Truth II, 310.
39
Pinckaers, “Conscience, Truth, and Prudence,” 88.

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Being at the very root of the intellect, the natural determination of practical reason consists in “a primordial perception of the good proper to
[the human being].”40 It is, however, important not to misunderstand
this fundamental point. The content of synderesis is not provided by way
of divine illumination or some innate apprehension. Rather, the intellect
in its theoretical and in its practical aspect intuits self-evident principles
(lumen habituale) antecedent to rational deliberation, but consequent to
learning the terms of these principles through basic sense experience.41
Let us now consider the operative level of conscience.42 Con-scientia,
“knowing together,” names, first, the actualization of the natural habitus
of the first principles of moral truth (ST I, q. 79, a. 13, resp.)43 in the form
of a concrete judgment, and second, the application of this knowledge
to action, a kind of dictate or command of reason (ST I-II, q. 19, a. 5,
resp.). This is the aspect of conscience that Newman understands to be
a particular dictate bearing immediately on what is to be done. Thomas
calls conscience “the practical judgment or dictate of reason, by which
we judge what hic et nunc is to be done as being good, or to be avoided as
evil.”44 The late Thomist philosopher Ralph McInerny put it thus: “Conscience . . . is a particular judgment as to what is to be done in the light of a
common principle. The term means the act of application, but conscience
can also mean the judgment made, as when someone tells us what his

40

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), 384.
41
Thomas explains this matter succinctly in the context of discussing the question
whether any habitus is natural, that is, innate: “The understanding of first principles
is called a natural habit. For it is owing to the very nature of the intellectual soul that
[a human being], having once grasped what is a whole and what is a part, would at
once perceive that every whole is larger than its part: and in like manner with regard
to other such principles. Yet what is a whole, and what is a part—this he cannot
know except through the intelligible species which he has received from phantasms:
and for this reason, the Philosopher at the end of the Posterior Analytics shows that
knowledge of principles comes to us from the senses” (ST I-II, q. 51, a. 1, resp.).
42
The Greek term for this actualization is συνείδησις, and its Latin literal translation is
con-scientia. By the time the Apostle Paul wrote his letters, both terms were common
in popular everyday usage of Greek and Latin. Paul uses συνείδησις frequently (Rom
2:15; 1 Cor 8:7, 10, 12; 10:28–29; 2 Cor 1:12–13; 1 Tm 1:19; Ti 1:15).
43
See also De veritate, q. 17, a. 1, and In II Sent. d. 24, q. 2, a. 4.
44
Newman, Conscience, 453; Difficulties, 256.

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conscience tells him.”45 Thomas spells out the dynamic of this judgment
of conscience in instructive detail:
Conscience is said to witness, to bind, or incite, and also to accuse, torment, or rebuke. And all these follow the application
of knowledge or science to what we do: which application is
made in three ways. One way in so far as we recognize that we
have done or not done something; Your conscience knows that
you have often spoken evil of others (Eccles. vii, 23), and according to this, conscience is said to witness. In another way, so far
as through the conscience we judge that something should be
done or not done; and in this sense, conscience is said to incite
or to bind. In the third way so far as by conscience we judge
that something done is well done or ill done, and in this sense
conscience is said to excuse, accuse, or torment. Now, it is clear
that all these things follow the actual application of knowledge
to what we do. Wherefore, properly speaking, conscience denominates an act. (ST I, q. 79, a. 13, resp.)
Thomas’s account of the ways the judgment of conscience occurs is not
only remarkably comprehensive but also empirically accurate. The judgment of con-scientia may occur prospectively, antecedent to the execution of a specific exterior act. But it also may occur retrospectively, consequent to the execution or the omission of this specific exterior act. The
judgment of conscience for the most part quite evidently bears witness,
exhorts, commands, forbids, or permits prospectively and retrospectively evaluates either positively or negatively.
In unison with Thomas, Newman does regard the natural habitus
of synderesis as universal, incorruptible, and infallible, yet the concrete
exercise of con-scientia as considerably vulnerable to personal defects
(ignorance, imprudence, or habituation in vice) and to collective sociopolitical corruption over longer historical periods. Hence, as already
discussed earlier, Newman can forego any attempt at proving the ex45

Ralph McInerny, “Conscience and the Object of the Moral Act,” in Crisis of Conscience: Philosophers and Theologians Analyze Our Growing Inability to Discern Right
from Wrong, ed. John M. Haas (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 93–110, 97.

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istence of conscience to its detractors. While those who embrace the
sovereign rule of self-will can deny, suppress, and flee from the interior
forum, they can never escape the eventual interior manifestation of theonomic conscience.46
Three aspects of Thomas’s doctrine of conscience are of crucial
importance in order to understand its contrary, the counterfeit of conscience: first, the innate habitus of synderesis; second, the important relationship between conscience and the virtue of prudence; and finally
third, the complex phenomenon of the erroneous conscience.
Synderesis
Synderesis is the natural habitus of the intellect that contains the first
principle (“good is that which all things seek after”) and the first precept
of practical reason (“good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be
avoided”; ST I-II, q. 94, a. 4, resp.).47 Thomas understands the natural law
fundamentally as the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law,
which “is nothing else than the type of Divine Wisdom, as directing all actions and movements” (ST I-II, q. 93, a. 1, resp.).48 Rational creatures are
“partakers of a share of providence, by being both provident for [themselves] and for others” (ST I-II, q. 92, a. 2, resp.). The essence of this specific participation in the eternal law qua rational creature occurs by way
of the natural inclination of practical reason to the proper act and end of
the rational creature: “On the part of practical reason, [the human being]
has a natural participation of the eternal law, according to certain general
principles” (ST I-II, q. 91, a. 3, ad 1). In his concluding summary of his
response to the question whether there is a natural law in us (ST I-II, q. 91,
a. 2), Thomas indicates quite clearly the theonomic character of synderesis
46

For Immanuel Kant’s instructive but problematic account of the interior forum, see
Appendix 3.
47
I am bracketing a discussion of the various proposals advanced of how the first precept relates to the first principle. Some make a simple distinction, others derive the
precept from the principle, and others again identify the precept and the principle.
For the relevant literature, see Billy, “Aquinas on the Content of Synderesis,” 65n.11.
48
For an instructive treatment of this crucial aspect of Thomas’s sapiential moral theology, see John Rziha, Perfecting Human Actions: St. Thomas Aquinas on Human
Participation in Eternal Law (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2009), esp. 199–230.

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721

that appears here as “light of natural reason” (lumen rationis naturalis)
yielding the first principle and the first precept of the natural law:
The Psalmist after saying (Ps 4:6): Offer up the sacrifice of justice,
as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds:
Many say, Who showeth us good things? In answer to which question he says: The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon
us: thus implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the
natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine
light (impressio divini luminis in nobis). It is therefore evident that
the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature’s participation of the eternal law. (ST I-II, q. 91, a. 2, resp.)
Yet the eternal law indicates nothing else than an encompassing teleology
for the whole of creation. God is the first cause and the final end of the
universe, and the Divine Wisdom directs all acts and movements to the
common good of the universe, which is God. In order for the human being to be able to participate qua rational being in the eternal law, it does
not suffice to be equipped with the apprehensive and appetitive faculties
animals display. Voluntary agency, rather, presupposes not only the perception of an end or good but rather also its character (ratio finis) and
the agent’s relationship to it. This more perfect kind of cognition allows
the rational being to move by way of deliberation to the end or not to
move to it. Furthermore, genuine human participation in the eternal law
requires the mutual influence of intellect and will such that both faculties
include one another in their acts: “The intellect understands that the will
wills and the will wills the intellect to understand. In the same way good
is contained in truth, inasmuch as it is an understood truth, and truth in
good, inasmuch as it is a desired good.”49 The desire to know truth is a
specific good (knowledge perfects the intellect) and only the good that
49

ST I, q. 82, a. 4, ad 1; see also ST I, q. 16, a. 4, ad 1; ST I-II, q. 9, a. 1, resp. Truth is the specific good of the intellect toward which the will moves the intellect as an efficient cause;
and the intellect moves the will as formal cause by providing the formality or character of
good. Improperly speaking, by thus providing the understood good, the intellect moves
the will per modum finis, but, properly speaking, what is perceived by the intellect under
the character of good (bonum apprehensum) moves the will as a final cause.

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is understood as good attracts the will.50 Hence, owing to the profound
interaction of intellect and will in practical reason, there must be a first
principle and a first precept of synderesis: in respect to what is proper to
the intellect, synderesis has the character of first principle, the formality
of the understood good (bonum apprehensum), and in respect to what
is proper to the will (desiring the understood good), synderesis has the
character of first precept:
Good is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the
practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent
acts for an end under the aspect of good. Consequently, the first
principle in practical reason is founded on the notion of good,
i.e. that good is that which all things seek after. Hence this is the
first precept of law, that good is to be done and pursued, and evil
is to be avoided. (ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2, resp.)
Interpreting Thomas, Servais Pinckaers helpfully elucidates this first
precept: “It does not primarily signify an obligation to do the good.
Rather, it expresses the attraction of the good. . . . It is this urgency of
the truth within the good, within the very attraction of the good, that is
at the heart of the intimate awareness of duty and obligation.”51 The first
precept of the natural law is therefore not to be confused with Kant’s categorical imperative expressing a purely formal duty of practical reason.
The first precept, rather, expresses the inherent attraction of the good as
understood good. The natural habitus of first principle and first precept
enable the rational creature not only to move to some perceived good
but to realize the ratio finis, the character of the good. Because good is
the perfection that all created being desires (ST I, q. 5, a. 1) and to which
all created being moves as its final end (ST I, q. 5, a. 4), synderesis enables
the rational creature to realize the teleology of the good qua rational
50

“The will moves the intellect as to the exercise of its act; since even the true itself
which is the perfection of the intellect, is included in the universal good, as a particular good. But as to the determination of the act, which the act derives from the
object, the intellect moves the will; since the good itself is apprehended under a
special aspect as contained in the universal true” (ST I-II, q. 9, a. 1, ad 3).
51
Servais Pinckaers, O.P., Morality: The Catholic View, trans. Michael Sherwin, O.P.
(South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001), 100.

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723

creature by participating through the natural law in the eternal law. In
his excellent book Perfecting Human Actions, John Rziha rightly points
out how genuine human freedom arises precisely from the participation
of the rational creature in the eternal law:
For Thomas, freedom does not come from a blind movement
of the will or sense appetites but comes from the will and sense
appetites being determined by human reason to intend and
choose acts in accord with the ultimate end of humanity. . . .
Hence, freedom is bound up in rationality, which derives its
light and intellectual forms from the eternal law. . . . [A]uthentic
human freedom is first and foremost caused by the eternal law
and only caused by the human through the soul’s participation
in the eternal law.52
It is for this reason that conscience truly so called is indispensable for
achieving the perfection of human freedom, that is, positive freedom,
freedom in the truth.
On the supposition of the fundamental teleological ordering of the
universe as reflected in the innate habitus of synderesis, the so-called
naturalistic fallacy—the allegedly illicit naturalistic or metaphysical
transition from “is” to “ought,” the fallacy invented by David Hume
and the term coined by G. E. Moore—is a mute concern.53 As creatures of the extant teleologically ordered universe, human beings—as
all other beings—are teleologically constituted by way of fundamental
natural inclinations (ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2, resp.) and as rational creatures
52
53

Rziha, Perfecting Human Actions, 265.
One can, of course, argue that synderesis does not exist. But the burden of the proof
rests with the one who advances such an argument. For the overwhelming empirical evidence in human history speaks for the existence of synderesis. For a modern
discussion of the problem raised by Hume expressly in his anonymously published
1739/40 Treatise of Human Nature Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental
Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects (III, I, 1) and coined as “naturalistic fallacy”
by G. E. Moore in his 1903 Principia Ethica (chap. 2), see The Is-Ought Question, ed.
William Donald Hudson (London: Macmillan, 1969), and for a substantive treatment of this problematic and an in-depth analysis of Aquinas’s philosophical justification for the transition from “is” to “ought,” see Piotr Lichacz, “Did St. Thomas
Aquinas Justify the Transition from ‘Is’ to ‘Ought’?,” STD dissertation, University of
Fribourg (Switzerland), 2008.

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they are endowed with synderesis, “an habitual light” (lumen habituale),54 in virtue of which they understand the formality or character of good so that as soon as something is apprehended in some respect as good, their rational appetite, the will, is attracted by it. Hence,
synderesis is not only a formal but a teleological principle interior to
practical reason itself. As a tendency to its proper end or good, the
“ought” is embedded in the “is,” the substantial form, of every being,
and therefore also in those beings that realize their perfection through
the exercise of practical reason.
There is one further implication given with the interior teleological
constitution of practical reason. Because synderesis is a habitual light,
it prevents the dictates of conscience from ever turning into some imposed heteronomy. For the dictates of conscience truly so called are
nothing but the concretization by way of judgment of those principles
and precepts that are constitutive of the teleological ordering of practical reason itself. For this very reason, a teleological ethics centered
on synderesis as well as the natural inclinations remains untouched by
the dichotomy between heteronomy and autonomy that haunts most
modern moral philosophy.55 Because the human being is a creature
of a very unique kind, a rational being created in the image of God,
the innate first principles of understanding and acting are a proprium of human nature. Turning away from synderesis and with it from
the teleological order of reality and embracing instead the negative
freedom of sovereign self-determination, the counterfeit of conscience
is condemned to a never-ending vigilance against the constant threat
of a hostile “takeover” by what it can only perceive as someone else’s
self-will, be it some human “other” or the Divine “Other.” Sovereignty
of self-will takes care of the first threat and atheism takes care of the
second threat—and voilà, there are the two characteristic features of
modern nihilism’s will-to-power.56
54

De veritate, q. 16, a. 3; Truth II, 312.
See J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Synderesis is nothing but
a participated theonomy that transcends the paralyzing opposition of heteronomy
and autonomy in which the late modern counterfeit of conscience is fatefully caught.
See Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §41.
56
For an instructive study of the emergence of modern nihilism from its root in late
55

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725

Conscience and Prudence
In order to gain a deeper understanding of conscience truly so called
and its counterfeit we must consider briefly how conscience relates
to the principal cardinal virtue, prudence, which Thomas defines as
“right practical reason.” For Thomas, conscience and prudence are not
identical but profoundly related.57 Pinckaers emphasizes the difference between conscience and prudence when he observes that “conscience . . . although it judges the moral quality of our behavior, is not
a virtue; it is the application of synderesis in the appraisal of acts we
have carried out or will carry out.”58 Yet while different from each other, conscience and prudence are nevertheless profoundly related. In
his analysis of their relationship according to Thomas, McInerny cuts
to the core of the matter:
To have cognitive knowledge of what I ought to do here and
now is not a function of, is not dependent upon, being related
to the good known as good. A bad [person] can have a correct conscience. The correctness of conscience does not of itself
guarantee that action and choice will be in accord with it.59
The morally weak person, the incontinent person “knows what he ought
to do, his conscience is all right, but his knowledge of the good is not complemented by an effective appetitive disposition to good as good. That is
why in the crunch, in choosing (which is a meld of mind and appetite), he
goes wrong.”60 In short, the antecedent judgment of con-scientia remains
testificatory and mandatory, and its consequent judgment evaluatory (accusatory or excusatory). It is not, in and of itself, efficacious in choosing
and doing the good. Among the three acts of the virtue of prudence—to
medieval voluntarism, via its flowering in early modern sovereign self-determination
to its late modern fruition in and celebration of the will-to-power, see Michael Allen
Gillespie, Nihilism before Nietzsche (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
57
ST II-II, q. 47, a. 6, ad 3: “Synderesis moves prudence, just as the understanding of
principles moves science” (“synderesis movet prudentiam sicut intellectus principiorum scientiam”).
58
Pinckaers, “Conscience, Truth, and Prudence,” 87ff, 89.
59
Ralph McInerny, “Prudence and Conscience,” The Thomist 38 (1974): 291–305, 303.
60
Ibid., 303.

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Reinhard Hütter

take counsel (consiliari), to judge (iudicare), and to command (praecipere)—con-scientia comprises the second act when this judgment is right
and certain, that is, when it is indeed properly formed by the acquired or
infused habitus of prudence (ST II-II, q. 47, a. 8). But what remains indispensable for efficaciously choosing and doing the good, are the two other
acts of the virtue of prudence, counsel,61 and command, in concert with
the remaining cardinal virtues justice, fortitude, and temperance. Rightly
formed conscience convicts the adulterer of the act of adultery, but cannot
on its own prevent an act of adultery; nor can conscience truly so called
prevent on its own the adulterer’s habituation in this vice, let alone free the
habitual adulterer from the vice. Con-scientia lacks the power of execution.62 Judgments of con-scientia are, nevertheless, absolutely indispensable for moral goodness and, indeed, holiness of life (1 Jn 3:3). But without being carried forward by the four cardinal virtues under the primacy
of prudence, and more importantly, in light of the supernatural end of the
human life, by the infused moral virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, into the realization of morally good acts, and more importantly into
61

In ST II-II, q. 53, a. 3, resp., Thomas lays out the contours of the ideal act of taking
counsel, which comprises five steps: “Memory [memoria] of the past, intelligence
[intelligentia] of the present, shrewdness [solertia] in considering the future outcome,
reasoning [ratiocinatio] which compares one thing with another, docility [docilitas]
in accepting the opinions of others. He that takes counsel descends by these steps
in due order.” That these five steps are not solitary events in the agent’s mind but, on
the contrary, reflect primarily distinct aspects of the dynamic of social interaction
of deliberation becomes clear when one considers Thomas’s important statement
in ST I-II, q. 14, a. 3, resp: “Counsel properly implies a conference held between
several; the very word (consilium) denotes this, for it means a sitting together (considium), from the fact that many sit together in order to confer with one another.”
I am indebted to Raymond F. Hain IV for having learned to think about counsel as
a primarily social activity. Cf. the section “Is Consilium a Social Activity?” in his
instructive dissertation “Practical Virtues: Instrumental Practical Reason and the
Virtues,” PhD dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 2009, 177–82.
62
Command (imperium) is an act of the intellect moved by the will (ST I-II, q. 17, a.
1). When imperium is an act integral to the virtue of prudence (instead of being the
result of precipitation or thoughtlessness), Thomas calls it praecipium, command as
informed by right judgment. Indeed, Thomas regards the act of command (praecipere) as the principal act of prudence. Practical reason is directed to action. Therefore, after counsel or deliberation and judgment, the third act of prudence is “to
command [praecipere] which act consists in applying to action the things counselled
and judged. And since this act approaches nearer to the end of practical reason, it
follows that it is the chief act of the practical reason, and consequently of prudence”
(ST II-II, q. 47, a. 8, resp.).

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the realization of meritorious acts informed by the theological virtue of
charity, the antecedent judgments of con-scientia remain powerless. What
carries them through into right action is the virtue of prudence in unity
with the other cardinal virtues and what perfects them is “the sympathy
and connaturality for Divine things” that “is the result of charity, which
unites us to God.”63 Bereft of the virtues, moral and theological, and the
gifts of the Holy Spirit, such judgments are at the very best true judgments
of a morally incontinent, or worse, of a vicious person with a properly
formed and therefore bad conscience made up of nothing but accusatory
consequent judgments.64
At its very best, that is, when it is right and certain, the antecedent
judgment of con-scientia is an integral component of the virtue of prudence. Once the habitus of prudence has been diminished or completely
lost due to contrary acts of imprudence (ST II-II, q. 53) and the act of
counsel prevented by precipitation (ST II-II, q. 53, a. 3) or by thoughtlessness (ST II-II, q. 53, a. 4), the flight from the synderistic indicator of
63

“Huiusmodi autem compassio sive connaturalitas ad res divinas fit per caritatem,
quae quidem unit nos Deo” (ST II-II, q. 45, a. 2, resp.). Thomas makes this statement
in the context of considering the gift of wisdom, a gift that has its cause in the will,
but its essence in the intellect, “a gift of the Holy Spirit to judge aright about [Divine
things] on account of connaturality with them” (ibid.). Nota bene: The judgment of
wisdom is the supernatural analogue of the judgment of con-scientia. The judgment
of con-scientia applies the principles of synderesis; the judgment of wisdom applies
via connaturality what pertains to the eternal law: “Wisdom denotes a certain rectitude of judgment according to the Eternal Law” (ibid.).
64
The relationship between conscience and prudence bestows an important lesson.
While synderesis and con-scientia are indispensable, the exercise of the virtue of
prudence, acquired as well as infused, is of a surpassingly greater significance for
the moral life and especially for the viator on the pilgrimage to the supernatural
final end, the communion with the blessed Trinity in the beatific vision. (Of equally
great importance are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, in our context especially the gift of
counsel; ST II-II, q. 52). Hence it is to be expected that in Thomist moral theology
the acquired and the infused virtues together with the gifts of the Holy Spirit take
center stage, while synderesis/con-scientia hold a subordinate, though indispensable
position. When post-Tridentine Catholic moral theology, especially from the eighteenth century on, shifted the emphasis from grace, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and
the beatitudes to conscience and law, many of the best insights of Thomist sapiential
moral theology fell by the wayside. For an instructive analysis of the problem, see
Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 254–79, and for a lucid analysis of the precise
role of the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the Christian moral life, see Steven A. Long,
“The Gifts of the Holy Spirit and Their Indispensability for the Christian Moral Life:
Grace as Motus,” Nova et Vetera (English) 11, no. 2 (2013): 357–73.

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moral truth and from the interior forum prepares the indulgence in the
counterfeit of conscience. Regarding its own decisions as intrinsically
infallible expressions of a sovereign self-determination, the counterfeit
foregoes counsel, the interior as well as exterior source leading to a rightly formed judgment of con-scientia. The decisions the counterfeit posits,
create the semblance of a true and therefore good conscience precisely
because the counterfeit’s decisions are held as infallible, as quasi-certain.
The sovereign self-determination guarantees consistency with oneself,
which is to replace the synderistic truth indicator. Eschewing the forum
internum and embracing the attitude of sovereign self-determination,
the counterfeit of conscience now blocks access to the synderistic root
of right judgment.
The Erroneous Conscience
This phenomenon, the counterfeit of conscience producing a simulacrum of the true and therefore good conscience, raises, third, the
complex issue of the erroneous conscience. First, a brief word on
Thomas’s distinct approach. Because Thomas is engaged in an objective analysis of the principles and judgments of conscience in respect
to truth and goodness, he distinguishes the objective stance of the science of sacra doctrina that is in possession of the first principles and
the correct inferences of more remote principles, from the subjective
stance of the moral agent. An integral component of sacra doctrina is
sapiential moral theology. It is only from the objective perspective of
sapiential moral theology that the distinction between a conscience
that is subjectively good (a judgment based on a good intention) but
objectively erroneous, can be meaningfully introduced and defended.
The objective perspective in its perfection is identical with the divine
knowledge itself. Only through a participation in this divine knowledge, the eternal law, by way of the natural law, reason’s participation
in the eternal law, as affirmed and perfected by the revealed principles
of the divine law, is the objective perspective accessible in an imperfect
but completely reliable form to sapiential moral theology and by way
of instruction to the faithful. The objective perspective is, to a certain
degree, also accessible to philosophical wisdom that is able to infer
correctly secondary principles and precepts from the first principle

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and precept of synderesis.
Thomas stresses that the antecedent judgment of con-scientia, the
application of the universal principles of synderesis to a particular
case, is not infallible. When properly informed by prudence, that is,
when conformed to right intention according to the principles and
precepts of synderesis and when subjectively certain, the judgment of
con-scientia is practically true and right. But the agent might suffer
from ignorance and hence is objectively burdened by an erroneous
conscience. Hence the characteristic deficiency of an erroneous conscience is ignorance, which can be voluntary or involuntary, vincible
or invincible (ST I-II, q. 76).
Since the dictate of conscience binds and must be obeyed, a dictate
issuing from an objectively erroneous conscience must nevertheless
subjectively be obeyed. If the objective perspective were completely
available this side of the beatific vision, then the only relevant perspective would be the agent’s perspective. And from the agent’s perspective the only way to sin would be to act against one’s conscience,
to act from a consciously bad intention. This was, of course, famously
Peter Abelard’s position to which Thomas is implicitly responding.65
Consider how Thomas distinguishes between the objective and the
subjective perspective:
Conscience is said to bind in so far as one sins if he does not follow his conscience, but not in the sense that he acts correctly if
he does follow it. . . . Conscience is not said to bind in the sense
that what one does according to such a conscience will be good,
but in the sense that in not following it he will sin. . . . A correct
65

The thesis to which Thomas responds here can be found in Abelard’s Ethica seu
liber dictus scito te ipsum: “Peccatum non est nisi contra conscientiam” (PL 178, col.
653C). In a remarkable act of anticipation of essentially modern moves, Abelard elevates subjective conscience to the highest norm of morality and thereby contributes
to the eventual invention of the counterfeit of conscience. This is not a matter of
purely antiquarian interest. For Abelard’s approach to conscience found a sophisticated modern advocate in the voice of Karl Rahner, who penned an influential essay
published originally in Orientierung 48 (1983): 246B–250A, under the title “Vom
irrenden Gewissen.” See Appendix 4 for further discussion of Rahner’s construal of
conscience. For a lucid treatment of this difficult issue and an incisive interrogation
of Rahner’s construal, see Théo G. Belmans, O. Praem., “Le paradoxe de la conscience erronée d’Abélard à Karl Rahner,” Revue Thomiste 90 (1990): 570–86.

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conscience and a false conscience bind in different ways. The
correct conscience binds absolutely and for an intrinsic reason;
the false binds in a qualified way and for an extrinsic reason.66
The erroneous conscience does indeed bind, not because it is correct,
but because the judgment of con-scientia is all a person can go by—at
the moment. Nevertheless, the erroneous conscience can be identified
eventually as such because it depends upon the logical priority of the
correct conscience, which applies the principles of synderesis rightly. From the agent’s perspective the way to find out whether one has
acted from an erroneous conscience or not occurs in light of instruction, counsel, or self-examination by way of a consequent judgment
of con-scientia, either in form of a moral self-critique that elicits regret
and remorse in the case of a formerly erroneous conscience or in form
of a simple retrospective affirmation that one’s true and therefore good
conscience has indeed also been right. Precisely because of the innate
habitus of synderesis, the principle and therefore the concrete possibility of self-correction always obtains. For this reason it is the case that
while the erroneous conscience indeed binds, it does not automatically
excuse. Thomas explains:
If . . . reason or conscience should err voluntarily, either directly
or because of negligence, being in error about something one is
held to know, then such error does not prevent the will which
is in accord with erring reason or conscience from being evil.
(ST I-II, q. 19, a. 6, resp.) Similarly, supposing error of reason
or conscience which proceeds from a non-excusing ignorance,
evil in the will necessarily follows. However, such a man is not
perplexed, because he can correct his error, since his ignorance
is both vincible and voluntary. (ST I-II, q. 19, a. 6, ad 3)
Culpable erroneous conscience is caused either by negligence (see ST
II-II, q. 54; lack of due solicitude), which makes it indirectly voluntary,
66

De veritate, q. 17, a. 4, resp.; Truth II, 331–32; see also ST I-II, q. 19, a. 5, resp. Thomas holds the correct conscience to bind absolutely and for an intrinsic reason because
a judgment of con-scientia that is practically true is necessarily also right.

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

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or by willful ignorance (see ST I-II, q. 76), which makes it directly
voluntary. In his Commentary on the Sentences, the young Thomas offers a pithy summary of this complex matter: To follow one’s erring
conscience means to be unable to avoid sinning, but to act against
one’s conscience means simply to sin.67 The person who acts against
the antecedent judgment of conscience always sins, because the only
way the synderistic truth indicator is applied is by way of a judgment of
antecedent conscience. To turn intentionally against such a judgment
is always culpable because it means that one cuts oneself off from the
very possibility of following moral truth. To follow one’s erring conscience means to do what seems subjectively right but what is objectively wrong. McInerny aptly summarizes:
An erroneous conscience is an instance of ignorance, of not knowing the correct assessment of a proposed course of action. If the
ignorance in which one acts is voluntary, then it does not excuse.
. . . It may be indirectly voluntary if it is a matter of negligence, of
one not putting his mind to know what he is held to know.68
Hence, in order to achieve moral rectitude, it does not suffice simply to
follow subjectively one’s conscience. Rather, moral rectitude requires
striving to have a right conscience, which entails study, seeking counsel,
docility to proper authority, and the regular examination of conscience
(that is, permitting, seeking, and encouraging the consequent judgments
of con-scientia). In light of the supernatural final end (ST I-II, q. 1, a. 8; q. 3,
a. 8), these prerequisites and their goal, moral rectitude, while indispensable, are however radically insufficient. The faithful in a state of grace will
rely heavily on the infused virtue of prudence, especially on εύβουλία (ST
II-II, q. 51, aa. 1 and 2) and on the infused gift of counsel (ST II-II, q. 52)
that will allow them to immerse themselves more deeply into the Church’s
teaching on faith and morals and to be directed as though counselled by
God. Thomas reminds his readers: “That a [person] be counselled by God
as to what he ought to do in matters necessary for salvation is common to
all holy persons” (ST II-II, q. 52, a. 1, ad 2).
67
68

In II Sent. d. 39, q. 3, a. 3. Cf. also his later Quodl. III, q. 12, a. 2, ad 2.
McInerny, “Conscience and the Object,” 99.

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Invincible Ignorance
Finally, a brief word is apposite on the borderline case of a conscience
affected by invincible ignorance. Vatican II’s pastoral constitution on the
Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, states that “conscience
frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity.”69
This is, of course, right: even a conscience that errs due to invincible
ignorance carries the dignity of conscience. But in order not to commit
a serious misunderstanding, the following is crucial to keep in mind:
Gaudium et Spes emphasizes explicitly that the very obedience to the
law written by God into the heart is the dignity of the human person:
“Man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity
of man” (§ 16). Drawing upon this principle in his encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II concludes: “It is always from the truth
that the dignity of conscience derives” (§63). Hence when erroneous
due to invincible ignorance, the dignity of conscience derives from its
infallible theonomic root, from the first principle and precept of synderesis and ultimately from the divine origin of the infallible and incorruptible habitual light that makes possible the judgments of con-scientia.
Quite obviously, the dignity of conscience cannot be grounded in the
judgments of con-scientia themselves, whether correct or erroneous.70
69

Gaudium et Spes, §16: “In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he
does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks
to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey
it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. (Cf. Rom. 2:15-16.)
Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with
God, Whose voice echoes in his depths. (Cf. Pius XII, Radio address on the correct
formation of a Christian conscience in the young, March 23, 1952: AAS [1952], p.
271.) In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of
God and neighbor. (Cf. Matt. 22:37-40; Gal. 5:14.) In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine
solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social
relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and
groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms
of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its
dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of
habitual sin” (available at Vatican website: www.vatican.va).
70
This dignity is absent from the counterfeit of conscience to which Gaudium et Spes
obliquely refers at the very end of the above cited section (note 69) of §16: “The same

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733

Less obviously but of even greater importance, the dignity of conscience
does not derive from some alleged transcendental experience of freedom and responsibility that would presumably surpass in significance,
ontologically antecede, and possibly even replace synderesis.71
Furthermore, invincible ignorance cannot simply be a state of ongoing moral existence but rather denotes an extraordinary temporary
phenomenon (though one that can last for a considerable amount of
time) arising from a unique constellation of subjective obstacles none of
which, however, are in principle insurmountable. In other words, invincible ignorance can never be a proper attribute of theonomic conscience
per se; it can only be an accidental attribute denoting a contingent deficiency that one might call circumstantial ignorance or perplexity (perplexitas).72 The state of moral perplexity—seeing sin on both sides, on
the side of commission and on the side of omission—can never be unconditional. It rather always pertains to the unavoidability of sin under

cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience
which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin” (my emphasis).
71
See Appendix 4 for a brief discussion of Karl Rahner’s influential construal of such a
position.
72
Invincible ignorance in its maximum state occurs, according to Thomas, only in
those who, due to profound mental or psychological impediments are unaccountable for their doings: “Ignorantia iuris non excusat a peccato, nisi forte sit ignorantia
invincibilis sicut est in furiosis et amentibus; quae omnino excusat” (Quodl. III, q.
12, a. 2, ad 2). McInerny rightly concludes that “an act performed in invincible ignorance—an ignorance for which one can in no way be held accountable—would fail
to qualify as a human act” (McInerny, “Conscience and the Object,” 100). McInerny’s
point is not evaluative (as if a person “acting” in such a way would offer a “sub-human” performance). Rather, his point is conceptual. A genuinely human act is essentially intelligible and voluntary and therefore always entails minimal accountability.
Absolute ignorance would entail the absence of all intelligibility in which case such
a doing would fail as a candidate of human act. Thomas puts the matter tersely in ST
I-II, q. 1, a. 1, resp.: “Those acts alone are properly called human [actiones humanae]
which are of his own deliberate willing [ex voluntate deliberata]. Others that may
be attributed to him may be called ‘acts of man’ [hominis actiones], but not ‘human
acts’ [actiones humanae], since they are not his precisely as a human being [non sint
hominis inquantum est homo]” (trans. Thomas Gilby, O.P.). On the intelligible act as
the most basic unit of human action, see the instructive essay by Alasdair MacIntyre,
“The Intelligibility of Action,” in Rationality, Relativism, and Human Sciences, ed. J.
Margolis, M. Krausz, and R. M. Burian (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1986), 63–80.

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certain conditions; it denotes “an instance of ignorance, of not knowing
the correct assessment of a proposed course of action.”73
The Erroneous Conscience and the Counterfeit of Conscience
What is to be learned from the erroneous conscience and how does it
differ from the counterfeit of conscience? First, from the objective perspective afforded by sacra doctrina and its entailed moral science, the
reality of an erroneous conscience presupposes an objective moral order
and reliable knowledge of it. For a consistent moral subjectivism and the
concomitant rule of self-will, on the contrary, an erroneous conscience
is an utterly meaningless notion. By positing its own dictates of self-will,
the subjectivist counterfeit of conscience is, by definition, infallible and
therefore quasi-certain. Because it is the law of its own dictates, there is
nothing in light of which the counterfeit of conscience can possibly err.74
One of the most astute recent descriptions of the subjectivist nature of
the counterfeit of conscience was penned by Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor:
The individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme
tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and
infallible decisions about good and evil. To the affirmation that
one has a duty to follow one’s conscience is unduly added the
affirmation that one’s moral judgment is true merely by the fact
that it has its origin in the conscience. But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and “being at peace with oneself,”
so much so that some have come to adopt a radically subjectivist conception of moral judgment. (§32)
The use of the language of the “primacy of conscience” by ethicists and
73

McInerny, “Conscience and the Object,” 99. For a discussion that is as learned as
it is lucid on conditional perplexity, see Richard Schenk, O.P., “Perplexus supposito
quodam: Notizen zu einem vergessenen Schlüsselbegriff thomanischer Gewissenslehre,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 57 (1990): 62–95.
74
Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s subjective idealism offers probably the most consistent but
also most problematic account of the inherently infallible conscience. See Appendix
5 for a brief discussion.

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

735

moral theologians in recent years is a strong indication that the point
of reference under discussion might not be conscience truly so called—
which would call for the primacy of the “rule of ethical truth”75 implemented by the virtue of prudence—but might rather be the counterfeit
of conscience, sovereign self-determination authenticated by emotive
self-affirmation.
Second, from the agent’s perspective, the very possibility of an erroneous conscience entails an antecedent and a consequent personal
duty. The antecedent duty is to avoid ignorance and imprudence. Formulated positively, the antecedent duty is always to seek counsel, to
have one’s conscience formed by those one regards as wiser and better
informed than oneself, and first and foremost, to avail oneself of the
instruction by and guidance of those whose specific vocation is to offer
to theonomic conscience the instruction of the natural and the revealed
law. The consequent duty is to avoid negligence and indifference by way
of a regular examination of conscience, a sincere review of past judgments, and repentance of acts done due to an erroneous conscience.
This means, third, that for the Catholic faithful the prime tutor of
conscience must be the Church’s own moral instruction undertaken
by those appointed to teach authoritatively about faith and morals, the
universal ordinary magisterium of the bishops in communion with the
pope in regard to their respective dioceses and in regard to the Church
universal the ordinary magisterium of the pope.
Fourth, in light of Thomas’s doctrine of conscience, the counterfeit
of conscience is objectively a result of willful ignorance or at least of negligence and thoughtlessness. In the worst case, the counterfeit is an intentional, self-conscious flight from conscience, truly so called: by positing decisions of the self-will, a person acts in direct opposition to the
judgments of a correct conscience. Does this mean that the counterfeit of
conscience is able to extinguish synderesis? Thomas addresses this question explicitly in De veritate, q. 16, a. 3. He denies that synderesis can be
extinguished in its root, qua innate habitus, “for this light belongs to the
nature of the soul, since by reason of this the soul is intellectual.”76 But in
regard to actualizing the habitus, synderesis can be interfered with com75
76

Newman, Conscience, 447; Difficulties, 246.
De veritate, q. 16, a. 3, resp.; Truth II, 312.

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Reinhard Hütter

pletely and it can, indeed, be deflected toward the contrary of synderesis.
The former “happens in those who do not have the use of free choice or
of reason because of an impediment due to an injury to the bodily organs
from which our reason needs help.”77 Only the latter pertains to the counterfeit of conscience:
The act of synderesis is deflected toward the contrary of synderesis. It is impossible for the universal judgment of synderesis to be
destroyed in this way, but in a particular activity it is destroyed
whenever one sins in choice. For the force of concupiscence, or
of another passion, so absorbs reason that in choice the universal
judgment of synderesis is not applied to the particular act.78
It is here that Thomas points to what we might call the dark secret of the
counterfeit of conscience. What looks to the person fleeing theonomic
conscience like the sovereignly posited decisions of self-determination is
indeed the product of a profound self-deception. The flight from theonomic conscience and thereby from the “habitual light” of synderesis that
informs reason actually makes the moral agent subject to the power of
the passions and the variegated desires of the will to which they give rise.
The postmodern experience of the self as a mere conscious bundle of
passions and desires meets with Thomas’s harmatiological analysis. Because synderesis cannot be destroyed, but only fled from or suppressed,
the counterfeit of conscience remains an inherently unstable construal
of self-deception that must be willfully maintained, directly or—more
frequently—indirectly. For all the decisions the counterfeit sovereignly
posits remain exposed to the “habitual light” that the first principle and
the first precept of synderesis shed on the agent’s reason. The counterfeit
is therefore inherently unable to gain the peace that is characteristic of
a conscience, truly so called, that is both subjectively true and therefore
good and objectively correct.79
77

De veritate, q. 16, a. 3, resp.; Truth II, 312. One of the most famous relevant cases
that illustrate Thomas’s point is that of Phineas Gage. During a work accident, this
nineteenth-century workman had a tamping iron driven through his head. Gage
survived the accident, but his personality was altered for the worse.
78
De veritate, q. 16, a. 3, resp.; Truth II, 312.
79
But even for a conscience, truly so called, such a peace remains a fragile reality un-

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737

Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Newman:
Comparing Apples and Oranges?
Or Complementary Accounts of Conscience?
It will by now have become clear that according to the argument of this
essay Newman’s and Thomas’s accounts of conscience complement each
other in such a way that Newman indeed had good reasons to turn in
his Letter to the doctor communis. It also seems quite obvious that Newman’s reasons for drawing upon Thomas were of a substantive theological and conceptual nature. They did not reflect, as some might suppose,
a merely tactical display of ecclesiastical obsequium to a papal initiative
of Catholic philosophical renewal, retrospectively called “Neo-Scholasticism.” Newman’s Letter appeared five years before Pope Leo XIII promulgated his famous 1879 encyclical letter Aeterni Patris in which he
called all Catholic teachers of philosophy and theology to return to the
sound philosophical principles of Thomas Aquinas. But was Newman’s
turn to Thomas a defensible move? Have we not learned in recent years
that the two are supposedly representing incompatible philosophical
approaches to the theological task?
There are two differences between Newman and Thomas that must
briefly be addressed, the first is a seeming difference, the second a surmountable difference. First, the seeming difference of incompatible
approaches: throughout his long life as preacher and writer, Newman
advanced an astute phenomenological (avant la lettre) account of conscience from the experiential perspective of one whose own conscience
was exceedingly acute, well formed, and undergirded by the Christian
faith. In short, Newman analyzed conscience primarily from the agent’s
first person perspective. Thomas undertook his formal analysis of the
principles and operation of conscience from the third-person-perspective characteristic of the inquiry into causes and principles. In his excellent Introduction to Phenomenology, Robert Sokolowski has recently
averred that phenomenology complements Thomist thought. While
Newman was no phenomenologist in the proper sense of the term, his
proto-phenomenological approach to conscience and Thomas’s account
less it is one of the fruits of the Spirit (ST I-II, q. 70), the peace that comes from
following the motions of the Holy Spirit made possible by the Spirit’s gifts, especially
the gifts of wisdom and counsel (ST II-II, q. 45 and q. 52).

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of conscience as developed in the framework of a sapiential moral theology do not contradict but complement each other. Hence, in the Letter where Newman pursued an objective exposition and defense of the
Catholic doctrine of conscience, it was for substantive reasons he turned
to Thomas’s doctrine.
Second, the surmountable difference consists in the potential tension if not conflict that obtains regarding the precise conceptualization of the theonomic root of conscience. Is it a direct interior divine
address or illumination—and in some passages Newman seems to
understand it in that way—or is it an innate habitus of the first principle and precept of practical reason as Thomas teaches? This tension
can be resolved if one takes Newman’s characterization in the Letter
(“conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ”80) first and foremost as
a theological identification of the root of conscience and his characterization from the Grammar of Assent (“the echo of a voice”81) as a
phenomenological description of the mode in which this root of conscience is present in human reason. Not only does the metaphor of the
“echo” reflect more accurately the empirical evidence of conscience’s
theonomic root, it also comports well with the notion of synderesis as
an innate habitus. An echo suggests indirectness. In order to understand clearly what an echo conveys, one must strain one’s hearing and
intentionally realize the “voice” in one’s mind in form of a judgment
in order to understand how it pertains to what is to be done here and
now. Analogically, in Thomas’s terms, the natural habitus of synderesis
is partially an act in so far as it is a distinct determination of a potency.
But only when the habitus is fully reduced to the particular judgment
as to what is to be done here and now, is con-scientia realized. The
“echo” and synderesis refer to the self-same reality—the rational creature’s participation of the eternal law. And for Thomas as well as for
Newman this participation pertains first and foremost to the intellect.
Law—eternal, natural, revealed—is for neither of them heteronomous
because it informs reason, which is the rule and measure of human
acts. Newman turns to Thomas precisely in order to affirm this fun80
81

Newman, Conscience, 449; Difficulties, 248–49.
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, introduction by Nicholas Lash (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 99.

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

739

damental point: God “implanted this Law, which is Himself, in the
intelligence of all His rational creatures.”82
Last but not least, Thomas and Newman share a philosophical
point of reference—Aristotle, to be precise, his analysis of the virtue of
prudence, phronēsis, in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics.83 While
Thomas as well as Newman correlate conscience with the virtue of
prudence, the way each of them relates various aspects of the operation of conscience to prudence reflects their different but complementary approaches. Pursuing the objective approach of sapiential
moral theology, Thomas stresses the function of the first principles
of practical reason in human action: “Synderesis is said to be the law
of our mind [lex intellectus nostri],84 because it is a [habitus] containing the precepts of the natural law, which are the first principles of
human actions” (ST I-II, q. 94, a. 1, ad 2). In the practical order, the
first principle, synderesis, appoints the end to moral virtues to which
they consequently tend. The virtue of prudence disposes the means to
the end, and is itself moved to the end by synderesis as a final cause.85
Consistent with the comprehensive theological view of sapiential moral theology, the principal cardinal virtue, prudence, and the practical
order to which it relates are embedded in an encompassing teleological order established by the eternal law. As stated above, synderesis is
the root of the rational creature’s participation in this encompassing
teleological order. As an innate habitus, synderesis appoints the end and
prudence, moved by synderesis, regulates the means to reach the end. In
82

Newman, Conscience, 447; Difficulties, 246. For Thomas, see ST I-II, q. 90, aa. 1–4.
Thomas as well as Newman had a deep familiarity with the Nicomachean Ethics.
Thomas, of course, wrote an extensive commentary on it, and Newman taught Aristotle’s ethics at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was a fellow from 1822 to 1845. The
version Newman used for his teaching was Aristotelis Ethicorum Nicomacheorum
libri decem, 4th ed., ed. G. Williamson (1818). Newman’s copy of this edition is kept
in the archives at the Birmingham Oratory.
84
This is an oblique reference to John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, iv, 22, to which
Thomas makes an explicit reference in ST I, q. 79, a. 12, resp.
85
“Natural reason known by the name of synderesis appoints the end to moral virtues. . . .
The end concerns the moral virtues, not as though they appointed the end, but because
they tend to the end which is appointed by natural reason. In this they are helped by
prudence, which prepares the way for them, by disposing the means. . . . Yet synderesis
moves prudence, just as the understanding of principles moves science” (ST II-II, q.
47, a. 6, ad 1 and ad 3).
83

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Reinhard Hütter

this way Thomas integrates Aristotle’s profound inquiry into phronēsis
in the much wider and elevated horizon of sapiential moral theology
without diminishing the integrity of Aristotle’s acute analysis. Consider
Thomas’s way of appealing to a section of book VI of the Nicomachean
Ethics in his “on the contrary” of the question whether prudence appoints the end to the moral virtues:
The philosopher says (Ethics VI, ch. 12) that “moral virtue ensures the rectitude of the intention of the end, while prudence
ensures the rectitude of the means.” Therefore it does not belong
to prudence to appoint the end to moral virtues, but only to
regulate the means. (ST II-II, q. 47, a. 6, sc)
What Thomas does not say here explicitly but rather implies are two
things: first, that synderesis makes possible in the first place the rectitude
of the intention of the end. Precisely because synderesis is a natural habitus and not an innate illumination of the intellect with certain ideas and
because the intellect provides the will with the formality or character of
goodness (bonum apprehensum), the first principle and the first precept
pertain primordially to the intellect as well as to the will. Second, he
implies that this habitus must be actualized in the judgment of con-scientia in order to enable prudence to regulate and command the means
to that end.
From the experiential and phenomenological approach of the agent’s
perspective, Newman, on the other hand, emphasizes a faculty that in
relation to religion he calls “moral sense.” It has “truth for its direct object.” Newman understands it to be one specific aspect of the faculty that
Aristotle calls noûs.86 For Aristotle, noûs (in Latin intellectus) comprises
86

Cardinal Newman, Stray Essays on Controversial Points, Variously Illustrated (privately printed, 1890), 97–98. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI, trans. H. Rackham, chaps. 10–11 (1143a35–1143b5): “Intelligence [noûs] apprehends the ultimates in both aspects—since ultimates as well as primary definitions are grasped
by Intelligence [noûs] and not reached by reasoning: in demonstrations, Intelligence
[noûs] apprehends the immutable and primary definitions; in practical inferences,
it apprehends the ultimate and the contingent fact, and the minor premise, since
these are the first principles from which the end is inferred, as general rules are
based on particular cases; hence we must have perception of particulars, and this
immediate perception is Intelligence (noûs). This is why it is thought that these qual-

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741

the basic capacity of the immediate perception of particular cases as well
as the fully fledged virtue of the intellect that by process of induction
apprehends undemonstrable first principles.87 In order to account for
the de facto operation of the judgment of conscience, Newman’s exclusive concern is the former aspect of noûs, the immediate perception of
the particular and the relevant minor premise of the practical syllogism.
Lest his quite specific line of argumentation be burdened with unnecessary theoretical baggage, Newman brackets the second aspect of noûs.
This intuitive element of prudence, the immediate apprehension of the
contingent particular together with the relevant minor premise of the
practical syllogism,88 is indispensable for the judgment of con-scientia.
In order to apply the first principle and precept of synderesis at all, one
must have some immediate apprehension of the contingent particular
act in order to apply the principle and the precept meaningfully at all.
For the concrete judgment of con-scientia, both aspects of noûs are
absolutely indispensable, but only in the context of consideration, counsel, and the examination of one’s conscience do the secondary precepts
of synderesis become explicit in the agent’s perspective. And precisely in
order to avoid ignorance of “secondary and more detailed precepts” (ST
I-II, q. 94, a. 6, resp.), the formation of conscience is necessary, that is,
the expansion of the pool of secondary, more detailed precepts that are
held by the innate habitus of synderesis. This habitus can be expanded

ities are a natural gift, and that a man is considerate, understanding and intelligent
by nature, though no one is a wise man by nature.” For Thomas’s discussion of the
relevant passages of the Nicomachean Ethics VI, see his Sent. Eth. VI, lec. 9 (Marietti
nr. 1247–49). (Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, trans. C. I. Litzinger, O.P.
[South Bend, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1993], 393–94).
87
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI, chap. 6 (1141a5–8). For Thomas’s discussion of
the relevant passages of the Nicomachean Ethics VI, see his Sent. Eth. VI, lec. V (Marietti nr. 1175–83) and VII (Marietti nr. 1214–16) (Commentary on the Nicomachean
Ethics, 373–75, 384–85).
88
Just in order to clarify what I mean by “particular” and “minor premise,” I simplify
and update Aristotle’s example of a practical syllogism from his De motu animalium
VII (701a17–20). Major premise: I need covering (covering satisfies a need). Minor
premise: A raincoat is a covering. The conclusion of the practical syllogism is an action: I have to buy a raincoat. The practical syllogism is triggered by the “particular,”
the raincoat I perceive and immediately recognize as such while hurrying by a shop
window as rain is beginning to pour down vehemently.

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and strengthened by an increasing number of specifications of the first
precept that we acquire by way of instruction, counsel, and reflection.
Conscience and the Magisterium
The proper operation of conscience requires regular attention to two
essentially vincible imperfections and their due repair: ignorance and
thoughtlessness (inconsideratio). We avoid or repair ignorance by way
of the ongoing formation of conscience and thoughtlessness by way of
the regular examination of conscience. Yet formation and examination
require concrete social contexts of accountability, distinct practices of
formation and examination, and last but not least a proper authority
equipped to teach and guide the examination of conscience; in short,
magisterial competency and authority. Bereft of these three conditions,
in the present context, the formation of conscience stands in great danger of turning into an unintended acculturation into the counterfeit of
conscience and the examination of conscience turning into a therapeutic exercise in self-exculpation and self-affirmation.
To many a contemporary Catholic, in Europe as well as in North
America, any strong notion of magisterial competency, let alone authority, and especially infallibility, in matters of faith and morals, is very hard,
if not impossible to swallow.89 For such a notion seems to contradict the
very dignity and freedom of conscience. Newman is keenly aware of the
danger for Catholics living under the dominant condition of modern
subjectivity to capitulate to the counterfeit of conscience. This danger of
capitulating to or willingly embracing the counterfeit of conscience only
increases when Catholics find themselves in a democratic régime where
the “nation” regards itself as “church” and where “democracy” becomes
a hegemonic program of immanent salvation advanced by an ideology
of sovereign secularism, a program where the optimum of progress coincides with the maximization of “democracy” culminating in a secularist global “democratization.” In such a political constellation, the counterfeit of conscience advances all too quickly into a publicly accepted
prejudice, supported and advanced by the government and legally cod89

For an astute treatment of this urgent topic, see Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P., “The Church
as the Defender of Conscience in Our Age,” Nova et Vetera (English)12, no. 1 (2014):
193–215.

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743

ified and enforced by courts of law. Eventually, the willing embrace of
the collective prejudice by each and every citizen will be regarded as an
indispensable entailment of loyal citizenship and as the proper expression of the national identity. When Catholics instead insist on following
the judgments of a well-formed theonomic conscience, the political and
ideological acolytes of such a secularist democratic régime will predictably conclude—to put it in Gladstone’s words—that such Catholics can
no longer “be trusted to participate loyally and thoughtfully in the nation’s civic life.”90
Consider how alarming and indeed extravagant must sound to the
acolytes of such a secularist democratic régime—not to mention to
Catholics thoroughly acculturated in the seductive material comforts
and consolations these usually affluent societies afford—what Newman
has to say about the manner in which a well-formed conscience (truly
so called) must regard papal instruction, even in those matters to which
the infallibility of the pope’s extraordinary magisterium does not pertain but that rather fall under the pope’s ordinary magisterium:
When [conscience truly so called] has the right of opposing the
supreme, though not infallible Authority of the Pope, it must
be something more than that miserable counterfeit which, as I
have said above, now goes by the name. If in a particular case
it is to be taken as a sacred and sovereign monitor, its dictate,
in order to prevail against the voice of the Pope, must follow
upon serious thought, prayer, and all available means of arriving at a right judgment on the matter in question. And further,
obedience to the Pope is what is called “in possession”; that is,
the onus probandi of establishing a case against him lies, as in
all cases of exception, on the side of conscience. Unless a man
is able to say to himself, as in the Presence of God, that he must
not, and dare not, act upon the Papal injunction, he is bound to
obey it, and would commit a great sin in disobeying it. Primā
facie it is his bounden duty, even from a sentiment of loyalty, to
believe the Pope right and to act accordingly. . . . He must vanquish that mean, ungenerous, selfish, vulgar spirit of his nature,
90

Newman, Conscience, 432.

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which, at the very first rumour of a command, places itself in
opposition to the Superior who gives it, asks itself whether he
is not exceeding his right, and rejoices, in a moral and practical
matter, to commence with skepticism.91
What then—according to Newman now rightly understood—is the
proper relationship between theonomic conscience and the magisterium of the Catholic Church?
It is by now sufficiently obvious that Newman holds that there are
two very different vicars of the one Christ who is the eternal Word of
God through whom the world was created, who became incarnate, who
was “handed over to death for our sins, and raised to life for our justification” (Rom 4:25).
As to the first vicar of Christ: the Word of God issues the spark
of conscience, synderesis, the origin of the light that illumines reason
by providing the natural habitus of the first principles of moral truth.
Thomas rather tersely identifies the office of synderesis as “inciting to
good and murmuring at evil” (ST I, q. 79, a. 12, resp.). Newman is pointing to no other reality at all when with characteristic rhetorical force
he states: “Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its
informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings
and anathemas.”92 As already discussed above, Newman offers here an
explicit theological identification of the theonomic root of conscience,
indeed a quite explicit Christological allusion to the threefold office of
Christ as prophet, king, and priest. But nota bene: this theological identification is not to be confused with the phenomenological description
of the mode in which this theonomic root of conscience is present in
human reason.
The second vicar of Christ is, obviously, the historical vicar, the pope.
Either directly through his ordinary magisterium or indirectly through
the universal magisterium of the bishops in union with him, the pope
informs, educates, instructs, and sharpens conscience. Newman rightly
emphasizes an obvious, but often forgotten truth. The pope’s instruction presupposes the reality of conscience—without the reality of con91
92

Newman, Conscience, 454–55; Difficulties, 257–58.
Newman, Conscience, 449; Difficulties, 248–49.

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

745

science, the pope’s instruction could not be properly received. Newman
drives home the point:
Did the Pope speak against Conscience in the true sense of the
word, he would commit a suicidal act. He would be cutting the
ground from under his feet. His very mission is to proclaim the
moral law, and to protect and strengthen that “Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world.” On the law of
conscience and its sacredness are founded both his authority in
theory and his power in fact. . . . [I]t is by the universal sense of
right and wrong, the consciousness of transgression, the pangs of
guilt, and the dread of retribution, as first principles deeply lodged
in the hearts of men, it is thus and only thus, that [the Pope] has
gained his footing in the world and achieved his success.93
At the same time, conscience needs the pope’s protection from being
muted or repressed by its counterfeit, the sovereign rule of self-will.
Newman states:
It is [the Pope’s] claim to come from the Divine Lawgiver, in
order to elicit, protect, and enforce those truths which the Lawgiver has sown in our very nature, it is this and this only that
is the explanation of his length of life more than antediluvian.
The championship of the Moral Law and of conscience is [the
Pope’s] raison d’être. The fact of his mission is the answer to the
complaints of those who feel the insufficiency of the natural
light; and the insufficiency of that light is the justification of
his mission.94
Newman is keenly aware that while synderesis will eventually always
break through with its own interior evidence, this echo of the divine
voice can nevertheless be all too easily ignored, muted, or distorted such
that the judgments of conscience become erroneous:

93
94

Newman, Conscience, 451–52 (my emphasis); Difficulties, 252–53.
Newman, Conscience, 452; Difficulties, 253.

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Reinhard Hütter

The sense of right and wrong . . . is so delicate, so fitful, so easily puzzled, obscured, perverted, so subtle in its argumentative
methods, so impressible by education, so biassed by pride and
passion, so unsteady in its course that, in the struggle for existence amid the various exercises and triumphs of the human
intellect, this sense is at once the highest of all teachers, yet the
least luminous; and the Church, the Pope, the Hierarchy are, in
the Divine purpose, the supply of an urgent demand.95
Newman’s view is consonant with Thomas’s teaching. If the secondary
precepts of the natural law are “blotted out from the human heart,” the
sense of right and wrong can be seriously obscured or perverted. In ST
I-II, q. 94, a. 6, Thomas explicitly addresses the question of whether
the law of nature can be abolished from the heart of man. His response
is unequivocal:
There belong to the natural law, first, certain most general precepts, that are known to all; and secondly, certain secondary
and more detailed precepts, which are, as it were, conclusions
following closely from first principles. As to those general principles, the natural law, in the abstract, can nowise be blotted out
from men’s hearts. But it is blotted out in the case of a particular
action, in so far as reason is hindered from applying the general principle to a particular point of practice, on account of
concupiscence or some other passion, as stated above [ST I-II,
q. 77, a. 2]—But as to the other, i.e., the secondary precepts,
the natural law can be blotted out from the human heart, either
by evil persuasions, just as in speculative matters errors occur
in respect of necessary conclusions; or by vicious customs and
corrupt habits, as among some men, theft, and even unnatural
vices, as the Apostle states (Rom 1), were not esteemed sinful.
(ST I-II, q. 94, a. 6, resp.)
The Church’s mission through the universal magisterium of the bishops
and especially through the ordinary magisterium of the pope is nothing
95

Newman, Conscience, 452; Difficulties, 253–54.

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747

but to support and strengthen the divine spark of conscience, synderesis,
by reaffirming explicitly the first principles of moral action, and to form
the conscience by making explicit the precepts of the natural law—the
general as well as the more detailed principles—and by confirming and
extending them through the catechesis of the divine law.96
And so it is indeed the case, as McInerny states, that “St. Thomas
would . . . agree with the order of precedence in Newman’s toasts: first
to conscience, then to the pope, since this means, God first, then the
pope.”97 For Newman’s sequence presupposes the theonomic constitution of conscience to obtain and not, as all too many have wrongly assumed, its very counterfeit, the sovereign rule of self-will. Consider once
more Newman’s formulation, but remember that for Newman the notion
of “religion” is virtually identical with the notion of “theonomy,” for religion is all about the knowledge of and the obedience to the holy will of
God: “If I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts . . . I shall
drink—to the Pope, if you please,—still, to Conscience first, and to the
Pope afterwards.”98
In his encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II explicitly affirms the sequence of conscience and magisterium as argued by
Newman:
The authority of the Church, when she pronounces on moral
96

Regarding the Church’s competence to interpret and apply the natural law, and thereby to instruct the theonomic conscience not only of Catholics but of all persons of
good will, Pope Pius XII stated unambiguously: “The power of the Church is not
bound by the limits of ‘matters strictly religious,’ as they say, but the whole matter of
the natural law, its foundation, its interpretation, its application, so far as their moral
aspects extend, are within the Church’s power. For the keeping of the natural law,
by God’s appointment, has reference to the road by which man has to approach his
supernatural end. But, on this road, the Church is man’s guide and guardian in what
concerns his supreme end” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 46 [1954]; 671–72; trans. J. R. Lerch, “Teaching Authority of the Church,” New Catholic Encyclopedia 13 [1967]: 964).
97
McInerny, “Conscience and the Object,” 106.
98
Newman, Conscience, 457; Difficulties, 261. For Newman’s understanding of “religion,” consider his poignant statement in the second of his famous University Sermons, “The Influence of Natural and Revealed Religion Respectively”: “What is Religion but the system of relations existing between us and a Supreme Power, claiming
our habitual obedience” (John Henry Newman, Fifteen Sermons Preached before the
University of Oxford between A.D. 1826 and 1843, introduction by Mary Katherine
Tillman [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997], 19).

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questions, in no way undermines the freedom of conscience of
Christians. This is so not only because freedom of conscience
is never freedom “from” the truth but always and only freedom “in” the truth, but also because the Magisterium does not
bring to the Christian conscience truths which are extraneous
to it; rather, it brings to light the truths which it ought already
to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith. The Church puts herself always and only at
the service of conscience, helping it to avoid being tossed to and
fro by every wind of doctrine proposed by human deceit (cf.
Eph 4:14), and helping it not to swerve from the truth about the
good of man, but rather, especially in more difficult questions,
to attain the truth with certainty and to abide in it. (§64)
Because conscience truly so called is theonomic in nature, the freedom
of conscience can only be a freedom in the truth. Rather than being
a negative freedom bent on safeguarding sovereign self-determination,
the freedom in the truth is positive freedom that—enlightened by the
spark of synderesis—is realized in seeking the due moral good. The formation of conscience by way of the magisterium serves and facilitates
the realization of positive freedom.
Freedom of Conscience as Freedom in the Truth:
How Is It Achieved and How Is It Sustained
under the Public Rule of Its Counterfeit?
The natural habitus of synderesis is an active potency, innate and determined, that requires activation by way of practical reason’s concrete
judgment (con-scientia) and operative realization by way of prudence’s
order (praeceptum). The positive freedom characteristic of theonomic
conscience always seeks its ongoing formation by way of counsel and
instruction. Characteristic of theonomic conscience is the interior forum that gives rise to the inner dialogue of the human being with himor herself, an inner dialogue that is open—and indeed ordered—to the
interior dialogue between the human person and God—who is not only
the author of the law but also the Triune one in whose image the hu-

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

749

man being is created and who is the final end of the human being.99 As
Pinckaers observes, conscience truly so called
makes judgments in the presence of God by listening to his sovereign voice . . . [and] lets itself be judged by God and guided by
his law through a fruitful, open, and intelligent obedience. One
sign that helps us distinguish true from false is certainly that true
conscience always presents a challenge, like the steep and narrow
way of the Gospel that stands in stark contrast to the broad and
easy way that leads to eternal sorrow. At the same time, true conscience gives those who follow it a peace and joy that no external
thing can trouble, while false conscience without fail provokes
doubt and division, compromise and confusion.100
The counterfeit of conscience is indeed nothing but one particularly
subtle and powerful instantiation of a false conscience—it is a false conscience in the very the state of self-justification as good conscience. As
Pinckaers rightly points out, a false conscience has distinctive characteristics, and so does the counterfeit of conscience. Wherever an appeal
to the freedom of conscience functions as a conversation stopper and
very often as an emotionally charged last resort that brings any inquiry
into the grounds for judgments made and actions done to an immediate
halt, there is a strong indication that we are dealing with the counterfeit
of conscience. This simulacrum camouflages the dictates of the sovereign self-determination that has no other reasons to offer than its own
de facto positing of a decision: theonomic conscience engenders judgments; the counterfeit of conscience posits decisions.101 The counterfeit
of conscience betrays itself in its eagerness of appealing rhetorically to
the primacy of conscience precisely in order to protect the sovereignty
99

“The importance of this interior dialogue of man with himself can never be adequately appreciated. But it is also a dialogue of man with God, the author of the law, the
primordial image and final end of man” (Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §58).
100
Pinckaers, Morality, 57.
101
Decisionism in modern moral and legal philosophy rests on the assumption that neither
God nor law (in the sense of natural law participating in the eternal law) exists. Differently put, there seems to obtain a direct correlation in philosophical ethics between the
theoretical dismissal of theonomic conscience and the ascendency of decisionism.

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of one’s self-determination from the challenges of the interior dialogue
and from the probings of exterior moral interrogation.102
The inner dialogue occurring in the interior forum of the human
being is, however, a proprium of mature personhood. Anamnetic witness, prospective exhortation, and retrospective evaluation (accusatory
or excusatory) are essential aspects of this inner dialogue. This dialogue
can indeed be repressed or avoided thanks to the stratagems of the selfwill but only at the cost of diminishing one’s own personhood and of
foregoing the positive freedom that is realized when the theonomic conscience is properly formed and heeded.103
What if the negative freedom of the counterfeit of conscience becomes dominant in a culture—by way of force, law, custom, or prejudice?
The sovereign rule of self-will and the concomitant appeal to the coun102

The very flight from theonomic conscience is therefore perfectly compatible with
the surprisingly frequent rhetorical appeal in the public life of secularist democratic
régimes to conscience, that is, of course, to the counterfeit of conscience.
103
Thoughtlessness, distraction, negligence, indifference, or subjection to strong passions (fear, lust, hatred) might be proximate causes for avoiding the interior forum
and thus muting the inner dialogue. Such consistent muting of the interior dialogue
amounts to a culpable self-debasement, a rejection of the synderistic root of one’s
human dignity. In her haunting book Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt encounters this phenomenon in Eichmann and calls it “thoughtlessness.” (Eichmann
in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil., rev. and enlarged ed. [New York: Penguin, 1977, 287–88]). Thomas identifies thoughtlessness (inconsideratio) as a special
sin included in the vice of imprudence (ST II-II, q. 53, a. 4). For Aquinas as well as
Arendt, thoughtlessness does not name a psychological or epistemological defect,
but rather a profound moral problem. The counterfeit of conscience is so pernicious
because by muting the inner dialogue it engenders thoughtlessness. In contemporary secularist democratic régimes, there is a dangerous self-congratulatory complacency abroad caused by the erroneous conviction that such thoughtlessness has
disappeared together with the totalitarian régimes of the last century. One can make,
however, a reasonable case that, on the contrary, since then such thoughtlessness has
become more widespread. Such a case can be, at least indirectly, supported by Neil
Postman’s far from outdated book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in
the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin, 1985). Life on the Internet, Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, and Netflix hardly encourages attending to the interior forum
and the inner dialogue. With few exceptions, a life immersed in superficiality and
distraction in cyberspace inculcates routines and habits that are the ideal breeding
ground for thoughtlessness. The exercise of theonomic conscience, on the contrary,
requires mindfulness, empathy, and moments of interior and exterior silence necessary for recollection, which is a prerequisite for the examination of conscience, truly
so called.

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751

terfeit of conscience might even become concentrated in a dominant
political party or symbolically represented in a political leader. To those
who grew up in the second half of the twentieth century, Nazism and
Communism have taught an important lesson: deny the reality of theonomic conscience, discourage, ridicule, and even attempt to suppress
its proper and rightful exercise, and the outcome is a system of moral
and political barbarity. Nota bene: democratic régimes are not per se immune to this danger. If democratic régimes embrace as publicly normative a materialist or naturalist secularism and a concomitant moral and
legal decisionism and are bent on imposing this ideology upon the body
politic, such secularist democratic régimes are prone to produce their
own subtle and refined versions of barbarity—versions albeit devoid of
the cynical cruelty typical of totalitarian regimes. Already in 1991, in
his encyclical letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II expressed a
warning that has become only more urgent: “Authentic democracy is
possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person. . . . As history demonstrates, a democracy
without values turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”104
Remove normatively the supposition of the theonomic conscience, as is
characteristic for ideological secularism, and the inherent dignity of the
human person from birth to natural death becomes unintelligible and
the reliable and objective perception of the “standard of ethical truth”105

104

Centesimus Annus, §46. Because of its striking relevance, it is worth recounting the
passage from Centesimus Annus in full: “Authentic democracy is possible only in a
State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person. It
requires that the necessary conditions be present for the advancement both of the
individual through education and formation in true ideals, and of the ‘subjectivity’
of society through the creation of structures of participation and shared responsibility. Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and sceptical relativism
are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of
political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere
to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not
accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there
is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideals and convictions
can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism” (Pope
John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, §46).
105
Newman, Conscience, 447; Difficulties, 246.

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inconceivable. Pope John Paul II articulated this looming consequence
with great clarity in his 1995 encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae:
When freedom, out of a desire to emancipate itself from all
forms of tradition and authority, shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth, which is the
foundation of personal and social life, then the person ends up
by no longer taking as the sole and indisputable point of reference for his own choices the truth about good and evil, but
only his subjective and changeable opinion or, indeed his selfish
interest or whim. (§19)
This flight from theonomic conscience does not remain without dire
political consequences, consequences that become increasingly tangible
in the political and social life of Western secularist democratic régimes.
Pope John Paul II clearly names the causes for the subtle but pervasive
disease and misery characteristic of the day-to-day life in contemporary
affluent secular societies in the Western Hemisphere:
This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If
the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend
oneself. Thus society becomes a mass of individuals placed side
by side, but without any mutual bonds. Each one wishes to assert
himself independently of the other and in fact intends to make his
own interests prevail. Still, in the face of other people’s analogous
interests, some kind of compromise must be found, if one wants a
society in which the maximum possible freedom is guaranteed to
each individual. In this way, any reference to common values and
to a truth absolutely binding to everyone is lost, and social life ventures on to the shifting sands of complete relativism. At that point,
everything is negotiable, everything is open to bargaining: even the
first of the fundamental rights, the right to life (§20).
Not so very long ago it was, of course, quite obvious to every person
with a well-formed theonomic conscience that the government of a

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body politic, in which the laws of the state have a constitutional and
de facto correlation to the “rule of ethical truth” as reflected in the natural law, cannot be expected legally to exempt individual appeals to
conscience that serve as warrants for breaking the law.106 A murderer
is to be punished by law whether he or she appeals for the crime to
conscience or not. But that same person with a well-formed theonomic
conscience might now ask: What if the laws of an explicitly and consistently secularist democratic régime become—suddenly or incrementally—unmoored from the natural law and the “rule of ethical truth” and
come to encode nothing but the arbitrary will of varying political majorities and their particular predilections—predilections that blatantly
contradict the moral law and bear witness to a flight from theonomic
conscience and to the identification of the common good with the contingent interests of whatever constitutes a statistical majority in opinion
polls? Again, in Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul II foresaw the political
consequences entailed in the flight from theonomic conscience, consequences that since then have become quite tangible in the dominant
political reality of the Western Hemisphere:
When the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the
sense of man, of his dignity and his life; in turn, the systematic violation of the moral law, especially in the serious matter of respect for
human life and its dignity, produces a kind of progressive darkening
of the capacity to discern God’s living and saving presence. (§21)
Is it completely unthinkable that the United Nations might eventually give in to the political pressure of strictly secularist democratic
106

G. W. F. Hegel puts this matter with great clarity, and alongside offers his own way of
distinguishing clearly between conscience truly so called and its counterfeit. Cf. G.
W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1942), 91 (§137): “What is right and obligatory is the absolutely rational element
in the will’s volitions and therefore it is not in essence the particular property of an
individual, and its form is not that of feeling or any other private (i.e. sensuous) type
of knowing, but essentially that of universals determined by thought, i.e. the form
of laws and principles. Conscience is therefore subject to the judgement of its truth
or falsity, and when it appeals only to itself for a decision, it is directly at variance
with what it wishes to be, namely the rule for a mode of conduct which is rational,
absolutely valid, and universal. For this reason, the state cannot give recognition to
conscience in its private form as subjective knowing.”

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régimes and attempt to impose upon the Catholic Church laws unmoored from the natural law and in contradiction to the revealed law
and make canon law comply with such laws?
It seems that if a secularist democratic régime—unmoored from
the natural law and the moral order—should impose laws in the service of the counterfeit of conscience that compel individuals and institutions to cooperate with grave systemic moral evil, such laws will
unmask the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religious exercise,
so-called, as nothing but an arbitrary function of the régime’s institutionalized collective subjectivity severed from the “rule of ethical
truth”107 and policed by the régime’s legal machinery.
In such a situation it might be unavoidable and indeed timely to
reconsider in all seriousness a position of Thomas Aquinas—summarized by legal theorists with the pithy phrase lex iniusta non est lex—
that takes on a new and surprising relevance in our day. I shall only
point to the two interconnected instances in Thomas’s teaching on human law where he formulates this position in rather uncompromising
terms. First, in ST I-II, q. 95, a. 2, Thomas raises the question whether
every human law is derived from the natural law and answers in the
affirmative: human law is derived from the natural law either as a conclusion from principles or as a determination of certain generalities.
Then Thomas concludes that “if in any point human law departs from
natural law, it is no longer a law but a perversion of the law” (ST I-II,
q. 95, a. 2, resp.; my translation). For in such a case it ceases to be an
ordinance of reason ordained to the common good. Subsequently, in
ST I-II, q. 96, a. 4, Thomas addresses the question whether human law
binds a person necessarily in the forum of conscience (in foro conscientiae). In the sed contra, Thomas quotes the Vulgate rendition of 1
Peter 2:19 that in translation reads “It is worthy of thanks if, because
of his conscience, someone endures sorrows, suffering wrongfully.” In
his response Thomas states that
laws may be unjust in two ways: first, by being contrary to
human good . . . —either in respect of the end, as when an authority imposes on his subjects burdensome laws, conducive,
107

Newman, Conscience, 447; Difficulties, 246.

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not to the common good, but rather to his own cupidity and
vainglory—or in respect of the author, as when a man makes
a law that goes beyond the power committed to him—or in
respect of the form, as when burdens are imposed unequally
on the community, although with a view to the common good.
The like are acts of violence rather than laws; because, as Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. I.5), a law that is not just, seems to be
no law at all. Wherefore such laws do not bind in conscience,
except perhaps in order to avoid scandal or disturbance, for
which cause a man should even yield his right, according to
Mt 5:40,41: If a man . . . take away thy coat, let go thy cloak
also unto him; and whosoever will force thee one mile, go with
him other two. Secondly, laws may be unjust through being
opposed to the Divine good: such are the laws of tyrants inducing to idolatry, or to anything else contrary to the Divine
law: and laws of this kind must nowise be observed, because,
as stated in Acts 5:29, we ought to obey God rather than men.108
Laws promulgated by secularist democratic régimes in service of the counterfeit of conscience may fall under Thomas’s first rubric being contrary
to the human good (especially pertaining to the authority of the lawgivers
extending beyond the power committed to them) and under the second
rubric, being contrary to the divine law. Remember, the divine law, according to Thomas, comprises the revealed aspects of the eternal law that
include in the Decalogue a revealed summary of the natural law principles
in their proximate conclusions (ST I-II, q. 100, a. 3, resp.) and that serve as
the indispensable guide to the supernatural final end of the human person
(ST I-II, q. 91, aa. 4 and 5; qq. 98–108). Most pertinent to the present discussion is one of Thomas’s arguments for the need of the divine law:
Because, on account of the uncertainty of human judgment, especially on contingent and particular matters, different people
form different judgments on human acts; whence also different and contrary laws result. In order, therefore, that man may
108

ST I-II, q. 96, a. 4, resp. For a brief discussion of the important principle lex iniusta
non est lex, see Appendix 6.

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know without doubt what he ought to do and what he ought to
avoid, it was necessary for man to be directed in his proper acts
by a law given by God, for it is certain that such a law cannot err.
(ST I-II, q. 91, a. 4, resp.)
A conscience that is illumined by divine faith109 and rightly formed will
always be docile to the divine law as interpreted by the ordinary magisterium and follow the fundamental principle enunciated in Acts 5:29:
“We must obey God rather than men” (RSV). For a fitting illustration it
is apposite to close the circle and return to one of Newman’s hypothetical
cases from the beginning: “Suppose, for instance, an Act was passed in
Parliament, bidding Catholics to attend Protestant service every week,
and the Pope distinctly told us not to do so, for it was to violate our duty
to our faith—I should obey the Pope and not the Law.”110
The full import of the contemporary analogical case seems to be by
now obvious. Suppose a contemporary secularist democratic régime in
the Western Hemisphere were to promulgate laws that would require
Catholics—by complying with these laws—to violate their duty to the
faith and morals as taught by the Catholic Church and put themselves
into the proximity of grave systemic moral evil or make themselves even
cooperate with such grave moral evil. And let us assume that the pope
together with the Catholic bishops of such a country had spoken out in
unison against such laws. Newman’s answer to this unfortunately less than
hypothetical case is clear: “I should obey the Pope and not the Law.” 111
Laws promulgated by secularist democratic régimes that are unmoored from the natural law and the moral order do not have the power to extinguish the spark of synderesis; nor do they have the power to
suppress the judgments of a properly formed theonomic conscience.
But such laws do indeed have the power to inflict grave damage on the
109

“Faith, which through assent unites [the human being] to divine knowledge, has
God as its principal object, and anything else as a consequent addition” (De veritate,
q. 14, a. 8, resp.). When in divine faith God engages the human intellect and thus
becomes its “object,” God engages the intellect as first truth, who reveals himself in
the Person of the Word—Scripture and Tradition constituting “one single deposit of
the Word of God,” as Dei Verbum 10 teaches.
110
Newman, Conscience, 444; Difficulties, 240.
111
Ibid.

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

757

body politic—unmooring it ever more thoroughly from the “rule of
ethical truth.”112
In the face of the sovereign secularism zealously promoted by not
a few democratic régimes in the Western Hemisphere today, the Catholic Church’s perennial proximate political vocation as the teacher of
conscience becomes ever more urgent—and simultaneously ever more
difficult. Through instruction in and public witness to the divine law
and through public argumentation based on the precepts of the natural
law, she forms conscience and thereby begins to remove the dullness of
practical reason consequent upon sin.113
In whatever political community the negative freedom of the counterfeit of conscience has become dominant in the past and will again
become dominant in the future—by way of force, law, custom, or prejudice—the Church has suffered and will suffer again milder or graver
forms of discrimination and even persecution. At the same time, as it
happened in the past, the positive freedom of theonomic conscience in
the truth—the splendor of the dignity of the human being, created in
God’s image—will be defended by acts of witness that in their heroic
extreme are traditionally called—martyrdom.114
Appendix 1
John Calvin’s teaching on conscience as the internal witness of both the
existence of God and the law of God is very clear, a teaching echoed by
Newman’s early pre-1845 reflections on conscience that were most likely
influenced by the Calvinist strand of his early evangelical phase. In the
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin regards conscience as an interior awareness of a divine judgment that engenders (1) the sense of divinity and (2) the distinction between good and evil. According to Cal112

Newman, Conscience, 447; Difficulties, 246.
This sentence I borrowed from my “Democracy after Christendom—Sovereign Secularism, Genuine Liberalism, and the Natural Love of God,” in Dust Bound for Heaven: Explorations in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2012), chap. 4, 124.
114
Pope John Paul II states the matter as clearly as one can wish in Veritatis Splendor
§92: “Martyrdom, accepted as an affirmation of the inviolability of the moral order,
bears splendid witness both to the holiness of God’s law and to the inviolability of
the personal dignity of man, created in God’s image and likeness.”
113

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Reinhard Hütter

vin (and pace Karl Barth’s questionable interpretation of Calvin on this
matter), every human has a knowledge of the natural law and also the
capacity and responsibility to judge whether human laws correspond to
the natural law. (See Inst. II. ii. 13; 16; 22; 24. For this reading of Calvin,
I rely on the extensive treatment of conscience in Günter Gloede’s classic study, Theologia naturalis bei Calvin [Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1935],
103–331, and therefore take sides in what seems to be an interminable
controversy. For an instructive summary of this intense intra-Calvinist controversy stretching over the twentieth century about the proper
interpretation of Calvin’s understanding of conscience and the natural
law, see William Klempa, “John Calvin on Natural Law,” in John Calvin and the Church: A Prism of Reform, ed. Timothy George [Louisville,
KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1990]: 72–95.) On the Lutheran side of
things, matters were a bit more complicated. After initially adopting the
concepts of synderesis and conscientia in the scholastic sense (for example in his 1513–15 Dictata on the Psalms and in his 1515–16 Romans
lectures), in the period of 1517–19, Martin Luther discarded synderesis
completely from his conception of conscience. For during that period
and from then on, conscientia came to indicate exclusively the human
soteriological relationship to God: conscientia mala captures the state of
estrangement from God under the condition of sin, conscientia fidelis
describes the new restored relationship of being reconciled with God
sola fide. Reinterpreted in such a radical way, conscience lost its function as the indicator of the rule of moral truth. It turned into a virtually
exclusive soteriological indicator of the human’s primordial relationship to God, either convicted by the law (which God gave to humanity not to be followed but rather solely in order to unmask humanity’s
sinfulness and drive humanity to the Christ) or justified by faith alone.
(See The Disputation against Scholastic Theology, WA 1, 372, 34ff; Large
Catechism, part III, 5th petition; Lectures on Galatians 1531, WA 40/1,
73–74.) Melanchthon saw this exclusively theological understanding of
conscience as a problem and reintroduced the concept of synderesis into
the notion of conscience as the relationship to God determined by justifying faith (or the lack thereof). (See his 1540 Commentary on Aristotle’s
De anima.) Under the salutary influence of Melanchthon, the Lutheran
scholastic theologian Georg Calixt (1586–1656) finally returned to the
Thomistic distinction of synderesis and con-scientia (Epitome theologiae

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759

moralis [1634]). The anti-Melanchthonian Gnesio-Lutherans and the
Lutherans of the early twentieth-century Luther Renaissance (a return
to the young “existentialist” Luther combined with elements of early
dialectical theology) continued to insist on an exclusively theological
understanding of conscience—with the predictable consequence of
modern Lutheran ethics (with only few notable exceptions) vacillating
between, on the one side, the positivism of the “orders of preservation”
of human existence under the condition of sin and, on the other side,
the antinomianism of an “agape-consequentialism.”
Appendix 2
If one gets clear on Thomas’s understanding of synderesis as a natural
habitus, there is no need in the contemporary consideration of conscience to replace the admittedly prima facie unfamiliar technical term
of synderesis with the by now equally unfamiliar concept of anamnesis,
as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger proposed in a very instructive essay
on conscience. (Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, On Conscience [San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007], 11–41; here 30–36.) While I regard the
overall thrust of this important essay as crucial and of ongoing relevance, I fail to be persuaded by the proposal of replacing synderesis with
anamnesis. I think this matter may be discussed in all due respect to
then-Cardinal Ratzinger and now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Since
anamnesis is the suggested replacement term of synderesis, then-Cardinal Ratzinger seems to understand anamnesis to pertain to the ontological level of conscience. On the ontological level, anamnesis can only be
an innate habitus (and hence identical with synderesis) or an innate act
(actus).
Let us consider first the option of understanding anamnesis as an
innate actus. This actus would need to be conceived as continuous, as
an ongoing interior illumination of the human agent with the first principle and the first precept. Consequently, anamnesis would not stand
in need of any further reduction to act and would therefore make the
interior judgment of con-scientia superfluous. The virtue of prudence
(with its two acts of counsel and command) would suffice to account for
the proper realization of the continuous innate actus of anamnesis in the
fitting specific exterior act. According to this construal, there might be

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Reinhard Hütter

either an imprudent realization the interior illumination of anamnesis
affords in the exterior act or worse a vicious rejection of the interior illumination by the will (presupposing a strong dichotomy between intellect and will). However, on the supposition that anamnesis is an innate
actus on the ontological level, there could never be an erring conscience,
that is, a conscience that is subjectively good but objectively wrong. Because illumination and error are mutually exclusive, the will becomes
the fulcrum of “decision” (n.b. decision and not judgment) either to follow the light that anamnesis constantly sheds into the intellect or to turn
against it. For these reasons the option of understanding anamnesis as
an innate actus seems unsustainable. Indeed, then-Cardinal Ratzinger
does not seem to support this first option either in its full implications.
Hence the second option, construing anamnesis as an innate habitus,
seems to be preferable.
Let us therefore turn to a brief consideration of this option. As already mentioned above, its central advantage is that it allows a conceptual account of the erroneous conscience. For in order to maintain the
concept of the erring conscience one must uphold, on the one hand, the
distinction between (1) the habitus of the first principle and the first precept and (2) the interior actualization of a concrete judgment (con-scientia) and, on the other hand, the distinction between (3) the interior
act of judgment and (4) the exercise of the virtue of prudence, which always has its term in an exterior act. Consequently, in order to avoid the
problem of the impossibility to conceptualize the erroneous conscience,
one would have to construe anamnesis not as actus, as illumination, but
as habitus. But in this case anamnesis becomes conceptually indistinguishable from synderesis. The only remaining question then would be
which word would be preferable for pragmatic, prudential, or pedagogical reasons to signify the innate habitus of the first principle and precept
of practical reason. If one is committed to maintaining the distinction
between a natural habitus on the ontological level of conscience (synderesis) and its reduction to act (con-scientia), as then-Cardinal Ratzinger
himself seems to suggest (37), the introduction of the concept of anamnesis might in the end only complicate the fundamental distinction
between the habitus and its actualization. In light of the potential misunderstanding of anamnesis as an innate actus, it seems preferable to
stay with the initially unfamiliar, but received technical term synderesis.

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

761

The proposal to adopt anamnesis instead seems to open the way to misunderstandings that could undercut the possibility to account conceptually for the erroneous conscience.
Appendix 3
Immanuel Kant, arguably under the ongoing influence of his early Pietist upbringing, offers a striking account of the interior forum:
Consciousness of an internal court in man (“before which his
thoughts accuse or excuse one another”) is conscience. Every
human being has a conscience and finds himself observed,
threatened, and, in general, kept in awe (respect coupled with
fear) by an internal judge; and this authority watching over the
law in him is not something that he himself (voluntarily) makes,
but something incorporated in his being. It follows him like his
shadow when he plans to escape. He can indeed stun himself or
put himself to sleep by pleasures and distractions, but he cannot help coming to himself or waking up from time to time;
and when he does, he hears at once its fearful voice. He can at
most, in extreme depravity, bring himself to heed it no longer,
but he still cannot help hearing it. (The Metaphysics of Morals,
trans. and ed. Mary Gregory [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996], 189).
But Kant passes over synderesis and consequently ends up with a dangerously unmoored interior forum. He is aware of this problem, of the
necessity of a “doubled self ” that if not resolved would lead to the collapse of the interior forum and consequently to the infallible decision of
the counterfeit of conscience. Hence Kant postulates:
For all duties a human being’s conscience will, accordingly, have
to think of someone other than himself (i.e., other than the human being as such) as the judge of his actions, if conscience is
not to be in contradiction with itself. This other may be an actual person or a merely ideal person that reason creates for itself.
(Metaphysics of Morals, 189)

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Reinhard Hütter

Rather unsurprisingly, there are some necessary qualities that must be
postulated about such an ideal person. And consequently,
since such a moral being must also have all power (in heaven
and on earth) in order to give effect to his laws (as is necessarily
required for the office of judge), and since such an omnipotent
moral being is called God, conscience must be thought of as the
subjective principle of being accountable to God for all one’s
deeds. In fact the latter concept is always contained (even if only
in an obscure way) in the moral self-awareness of conscience.
(Metaphysics of Morals, 190)
Kant’s phenomenological description of theonomic conscience is of surprising accuracy and echoes the traditional Christian accounts that can
be found in the preceding century in the Catholic Suárez and in the
Lutheran Calixt. However, in his theoretical account of conscience, Kant
replaces synderesis with the God-postulate, a move fully consistent with
his destruction of the deity of rationalist ontotheology in his Critique
of Pure Reason and the return of the shadow of the self-same deity as a
postulate of practical reason in his Critique of Practical Reason. It would
however, not take long after Kant until Nietzsche would regard the deity
of the postulate as a willful pretense of the self, an intentional construal
that camouflages the fact that the “doubled self ” is a fiction created by
those who flee the theonomic conscience.
Appendix 4
Relatively late in his life, Karl Rahner, published a brief, but programmatic, and therefore influential essay on conscience. The article appeared originally under the title “Vom irrenden Gewissen,” Orientierung
48 (1983) 246B–250A, and was reprinted one year later under the title
“Vom Gewissen: Gedanken über Freiheit und Würde menschlicher
Entscheidung,” in volume 16 of Karl Rahner’s Schriften zur Theologie
(Zurich: Benziger, 1984), 11–25, a volume edited by Paul Imhof, S.J.
Only seven years later did the essay appear in English. (N.b. While very
readable, the English translation flattens a delicate three-dimensional
and conceptually sophisticated text into a two-dimensional user-friend-

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

763

ly English. It abandons much of the precise terminology Rahner uses
in the German and seems to be driven by an all too transparent agenda
of ever so slightly simplifying and thereby radicalizing Rahner’s quite
nuanced position. See “Conscience: Freedom and the Dignity of Human
Decision,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 22, Humane Society and the
Church of Tomorrow, trans. Joseph Donceel, S.J. [New York: Crossroad,
1991], 3–13.). For Thomas as well as Newman, conscience signifies the
primordial constitution of the human soul in the truth (ontologically
as well as epistemologically) by way of the interior presence of the first
principles of theoretical as well as practical truth. Truth thus gives rise
to freedom, which in turn roots in the truth. In the center of Rahner’s
construal, on the contrary, stands the transcendental constitution of
the human subject as an essentially free spirit oriented to God. Conscience signifies the subject’s transcendental experience of freedom and
responsibility in relation to God. Consequently, according to Rahner,
theonomy is realized by way of autonomy. Conscience is fundamentally
the self-awareness of transcendental subjectivity arising from the experience of being handed over to oneself, the experience of a primordial
freedom and responsibility that qua creatureliness is essentially, though
unthematically, oriented to the theonomic truth. According to this construal of transcendentality, it is not the truth that sets free and thus constitutes freedom. Rather, it is the freedom of a primordial subjectivity
of conscience that makes possible the reception of a truth to which the
human spirit is oriented. The fundamental problem with this construal is that the first and constitutive moment of the human spirit is the
freedom of self-possession and not the innate habitual presence of the
theonomic first principle and first precept of moral truth. Rahner’s conceptual prioritization of the subject’s transcendental experience of freedom inverts the relationship between truth and freedom and thus creates a condition in which his construal in an ever so slightly radicalized
form becomes a justification for the counterfeit of conscience. Gaudium
et Spes does not support and Veritatis Splendor rejects Rahner’s move
to root the dignity of conscience in the transcendental experience of
freedom and responsibility. His concept of transcendental subjectivity
makes impossible the presence of the innate habitus of synderesis, since
the latter would always antecede the self-possession of freedom, would
be the truth that sets free, that, in other words, gives rise to freedom in

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Reinhard Hütter

the truth. Absent synderesis, the dignity of conscience must indeed rest
in the very constitution of the transcendental subject and the decisions
that correspond to the transcendental experience of freedom and responsibility. The step from transcendental freedom to the counterfeit
of conscience is minimal. For transcendental freedom is either somehow still aware of its creatureliness and hence its fundamental (even if
unthematic) responsibility to the Creator—or transcendental freedom
becomes “creative” and the dignity of the decisions it produces carry the
dignity of being creatures of the self-will. For Rahner, very clearly, conscience is the unconditional call to oneself (being inescapably delivered
up to oneself) and as such into radical responsibility (implicitly, at least,
always in relation to God). But however one may try to salvage the matter, every decision made by such a subject is ultimately “creative,” that is,
the subject’s own “creation” (of course, in radical responsibility to God).
Not acting according to one’s conscience seems, according to Rahner’s
construal, to be the one unforgivable sin—here Abelard echoes—because this way I would supposedly abdicate from the dignity of the transcendental freedom of personhood. But acting according to conscience,
thus conceived, does not mean making judgments based on synderesis,
but rather means making decisions that are essentially “creative,” arising
from the abyss of my transcendental freedom. In radical responsibility, I
offer these decisions up to God, but they are my decisions nevertheless.
If different by intention, there seems to be a rather striking de facto identity between this construal of conscience as transcendental subjectivity and any philosophically sophisticated construal of the counterfeit of
conscience. Without the supposition of synderesis and the phenomenon
of the erroneous conscience (which Rahner puts radically into question), “autonomy” and “creativity” become, if not de iure, nevertheless
de facto identical with “self-determination” and “sovereignty.”
Appendix 5
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), the spiritus rector of subjective idealism in the Germany of the 1790s, regarded the criterion for the correctness of our convictions to be purely interior to the subjective consciousness. Fichte calls this criterion conscience. In his System of Ethics
(1798), he states emphatically:

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

765

The present deduction has once and for all cancelled and destroyed the evasion of an erroneous conscience still present in
most systems of ethics. Conscience never errs and is unable
to err; for it is the immediate consciousness of our pure, primordial I, which no other consciousness transcends and which
cannot be interrogated and corrected by another consciousness;
which in and of itself is the judge of all our convictions and
which does not acknowledge any higher judge over itself. It [the
immediate consciousness of our pure, primordial I] decides as
the ultimate authority and cannot be appealed (my translation).
Es ist durch die soeben gegebene Deduction auf immer aufgehoben und vernichtet die nach den meisten Moralsystemen noch
stattfindende Ausflucht eines irrenden Gewissens. Das Gewissen irrt nie und kann nicht irren; denn es ist das unmittelbare
Bewusstseyn unseres reinen ursprünglichen Ich, über welches
kein anderes Bewusstseyn hinausgeht; das nach keinem anderen
Bewusstseyn geprüft und berichtigt werden kann; das selbst
Richter aller Ueberzeugungen ist, aber keinen höheren Richter
über sich anerkennt. Es entscheidet in der letzten Instanz und
ist inappellabel. (Johann Gottlieb Fichte, System der Sittenlehre
[1798], Werke IV [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971], 173–74)
In Fichte’s construal we can observe a radical instantiation of the counterfeit of conscience, the “conscience” of the sovereign self-determination as conceived by a consistent subjective idealism. If the primordial
I were God as absolutely different from the created, finite I, a form of
synderesis (identical with the eternal law) would obtain. However, the
primordial I being the root and origin of my transcendental subjectivity manifesting itself immediately through my consciousness, synderesis
and con-scientia coincide in the infallible decision the Fichtean conscience posits. The Fichtean conscience cannot be erroneous, because
the rule of ethical truth coincides with the immediate consciousness
of the primordial I. The interior forum—precondition for the interior
dialogue—collapses into the monologuous “creative” positing of decisions by the ultimate authority, the immediate consciousness of the

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Reinhard Hütter

primordial I, which is identical with the standard of moral truth. The
pure primordial I, in its concrete existence, is finite, but in its essential
activity is infinite—an infinite longing of the will that is the very root
of the primordial I. This longing is the source of the striving that is the
essence of freedom, realized in the positing of the decisions of the radically autonomous, self-creating I. In Fichte’s construal we can observe
a radical instantiation of the counterfeit of conscience, the “conscience”
of the sovereign self-determination as conceived by a consistent subjective idealism.
Appendix 6
Norman Kretzmann offers an instructive analysis of the complex issue
condensed in the principle lex iniusta non est lex. (“LEX INIUSTA NON
EST LEX: Laws on Trial in Aquinas’ ‘Court of Conscience,’” American
Journal of Jurisprudence 33 [1988]: 99–122). The only authority Thomas
quotes (and in a subtle way generalizes) in order to back his position is
Augustine, De libero arbitrio I, 5 (ML 32, 1227). Kretzmann points out
that there are, however, earlier important representatives of Thomas’s
position: Plato, Laws IV (715B; 712E–713A) and Statesman (293D–E);
Aristotle, Politics III, 6 (1282/b12–13) and IV, 4 (1292a31–34); and Cicero, De legibus II, v, 11. As Kretzmann rightly observes, Thomas has
in mind a “conscientious conscientious objection” based on a properly
formed conscience, which for a Catholic will always entail a genuine
docility to the guidance that the ordinary magisterium provides. There
is indeed the danger that the counterfeit of conscience takes the moral
high ground in form of a counterfeit moral revivalism that in the name
of a higher subjectivist morality takes exception to specific or all laws.
Allan Bloom describes this danger aptly:
Conscience, a faculty thoroughly discredited in modern political and moral thought and particularly despised by Marx, made
a great comeback, as the all purpose ungrounded ground of
moral determination, sufficient at its slightest rumbling to discredit all other obligations or loyalties. (Closing of the American
Mind, 326)

Newman and Aquinas on Conscience

767

To put this particular phenomenon of a quasi “charismatic moral decisionism” to the side, a body politic in which theonomic conscience is
respected has always the option to acknowledge legally certain forms
of conscientious objection, normally based on the principle of the freedom of religious practice. However, in recent years secularist democratic régimes in the Western Hemisphere have tended to ignore the
principle of the freedom of religious practice in favor of privileging the
full legal protection of the subjectivist counterfeit of conscience and its
N&V
sovereign self-affirmation.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 769-789

769

The Beauty of the Cross in Augustine’s Aesthetics*
David Lyle Jeffrey
Baylor University
Waco, TX

WHILE AUGUSTINE h as been generally regarded as the foundational figure for hermeneutics and biblical exegesis in the West, his name is
not so often associated with aesthetics. This is perhaps understandable,
given his famous self-deprecatory remark in his Confessions that while
he had once written a book entitled Of Beauty and Proportion—“in two
or three volumes, I think,” he says rather laconically—it was somehow
lost. There is not the slightest hint of lament in this remark, and given
that it forms part of Augustine’s acknowledgment of his preconversion
preoccupation with inferior subjects out of dubious motives,1 the lost
work on aesthetics can seem to be something that in his own mind he
lumped together with his adolescent pranks and other misdirected pursuits of the old life.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The questions which
he had attempted to pursue in the lost books, first among them the
nature of the beautiful and its compelling “allure,” as he calls it, are,
* An early version of this essay was presented as a paper for the Wilken Colloquium

at Baylor University, March 2, 2013; a later version was presented in Rome at the
Augustinianum on May 8, 2014. Portions of the first part of the paper have been
adapted for a larger excursus on Augustine’s Biblical Aesthetics, forthcoming from
Edinburgh University Press.
1
Confessions 4, esp. 4.13.20 through 16.31. I have used here the translation of J. G.
Pilkington, corrected on occasion by the translation of F. J. Sheed, recently reedited
by Michael P. Foley, Augustine’s Confessions (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2006).

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David Lyle Jeffrey

following his conversion, reframed in a larger intellectual context; far
from being dismissed as spiritually or philosophically unworthy, they
are revalorized and made central to the meaning of his new life. In
brief, the basic questions of the lost De pulchro et apto remain at the
center of Augustine’s work as a Christian theologian and philosopher.
Any reflection on his aesthetics must accordingly take into account
the theological and metaphysical matrix in which his aesthetic ideas,
as we have them, are formulated.
Two extrinsic contexts, one ancient, the other modern, have intervened to obscure the continuing pertinence for Augustine of his early
questions about the nature of corporeal beauty and its seductive allure.
The oldest of these draws heavily upon the language of Neoplatonism,
to which Augustine was certainly indebted, but by which he has been
sometimes characterized too narrowly as a metaphysical realist or
even a dualist.2 More recently, the paradigmatic post-Kantian disposition in aesthetics, namely to reject metaphysics altogether, has found
much of Augustine’s biblical and theological language, as well as his
argument, to be mere piety, a kind of mysticism. I want to suggest that
each of these approaches prevents a just appreciation, and to argue (1)
that Augustine is not such a strict Neoplatonist as some believe, and
(2) that his metaphysical teleology is not abstracted from physical reality and bodily experience. Considered canonically, Augustine’s aesthetic ideas reveal themselves to be fundamentally more Hebraic than
Hellenic—which is to say, much more biblical—historically grounded
and tangibly mediated than some of his apparently Neoplatonic language might on the surface seem to indicate. Thus, while metaphysical
realities are obviously crucial to Augustine’s overall theory of beauty,
his mature ideas about the beautiful, and indeed of the nature of its
allure (he uses the sensual word allicit, from allicere, “to entice”) depend absolutely upon sensible appreciation and corporeal experience.
In however paradoxical a fashion, his ideas about the beauty of the
Cross form the crux of his general theological aesthetics.

2

Augustine’s fellow North African Albert Camus wrote a master’s thesis with this
emphasis (1939, University of Algiers); the major study by K. Svoboda, L’Esthétique
de saint Augustine et ses sources (Brno: A. Píša, 1933), known to Camus, is the most
important study taking this view.

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The Beautiful as an Object of Love
To return to the Confessions (ca. 397–401 AD), as he reflects further on
the questions that prompted his lost work, we immediately encounter a
word that might seem indecorous in a Neoplatonic context and a type of
category mistake in a post-Kantian aesthetic: that word is love (amor):
I loved these lower beauties . . . and I said to my friends, “Do
we love anything but the beautiful? What, then, is the beautiful?
And what is beauty? What is it then that allures and unites us
to the things we love, for unless there were a grace and a beauty
in them, they could by no means attract us to themselves.” And
I marked and perceived that in bodies themselves there was a
beauty, from their forming a kind of whole, and another from
mutual fittingness, one part of the body with its whole, or a shoe
with a foot, and so on (Confessions 4.13.20, trans. Pilkington).
Augustine’s strong early connection of both pulchro et apto with desire
in the lost book is not at all lost in his subsequent Christian reflections
on beauty.
A Neoplatonic rhetorical ambience in his subsequent discussions
of beauty is nonetheless apparent. As Carol Harrison has observed in
her landmark study, Augustine’s familiarity with Plotinus in particular
provided him with both a useful paradigm and a vocabulary.3 Yet Plotinus’s Peri tou Kalou (Ennead 1.6), I would suggest, is as important as
a foil to Augustine’s own thinking as it was as a prompt.4 For Plotinus,
Supreme Beauty is part of the transcendent order to which all earthly
beauty is at best a pale simulacrum; he claims that only the soul can
come to know it, and then only by rising above sense-bound experience. Harrison speculates that after the hard and dualistic materialism
of the Manicheans had lost its appeal for Augustine, the transcendental
3

Carol Harrison, Beauty and Revelation in the Thought of Saint Augustine (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1992), achieves much better balance and is still the best general study.
See also her “An Essay in Saint Augustine’s Aesthetics,” Federación Agustiniana Española, Estudio Agustiniano (1990): 205–15.
4
Plotinus, The Enneads, 5 vols. , ed. Stephen Mackenna (London: Medici Society,
1917–30; reprint, New York: Pantheon, 1965). For Plotinus, the One (or Good) is
beyond Being; for Augustine, “God”—another name for Being—is highest.

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idealism of Plotinus must have seemed a refreshing antidote, and she
thinks that preference for the soul in his soul-body dialectic in the early
Christian works is clearly indebted to Plotinus.5
Any such indebtedness, however, involves a less mystical notion of
soul progress in Augustine than one finds in Plotinus. This is evident as
early as the De ordine (ca. 386 AD), a work of Augustine’s Cassiciacum
period, in which he stresses that the soul is ordered toward its higher
potential through a rigorous intellectual training in the disciplines of the
liberal arts. Reason is developed through experience, in which governance by number is seen to provide the order, harmony and form we observe and confirm in the created world.6 One of Augustine’s most favored
biblical texts supporting the thesis of De ordine is Wisdom 11:21, “Thou
hast ordered all things in measure, wisdom, and number.”7 This recurrent
text, referring as it does for Augustine to the physical Creation, offers an
important clue to his emphatic parallel, emphasized so strongly in the
De ordine, of divine authority with reason (2.9.26–27; cf. 2.4.12 through
2.5.14). In the De ordine Plotinus is never mentioned, nor is Plato; Aristotle is cited, however, and lineaments of Aristotle’s thought are visible
at a number of points (e.g., 2.11.31; cf. 2.5.16). There is an aspect, then,
of Augustine’s use of the notion of ascent in learning that sees “corporeal things as definite steps” en route to an apprehension of incorporeal
or intelligible realities, but in Augustine one should not pass too swiftly

5

Harrison, Beauty and Revelation, 4–6, 12–15; she notes that Augustine’s interest in
created beauty becomes much more pronounced in the course of his theological
writings. I wish to correct that contextually warranted view by showing how much it
already figures in his early writings.
6
De ordine, 1.8.24, trans. Silvano Barruso as St. Augustine: On Order (South Bend,
IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2007), 31. For a discussion of Augustine’s classification of
the arts, which differs slightly from later orderings of the trivium and quadrivium,
see Danuta R. Shanzer, “Augustine’s Disciplines: Silent diutius Musae Varronis?,” in
Augustine and the Disciplines: From Cassiciacum to Confessions, ed. Karla Pollmann
and Mark Vessey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 69–75.
7
Wisdom 11:20–21 is one of Augustine’s most frequently cited biblical texts in this
connection, though the aura of Pythagoreanism contextualizes it. Cf. the discussion
by Henri-Irénée Marrou in Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, 3rd ed. (Paris: Brossard, 1958), 262–75, and the contextualized ripostes to I. Hadot, Arts libéraux
et philosophie dans la pensée antique (Paris, 1984) by Shanzer as well as the articles
following, by William Klingshirn and Philip Burton, also in Pollmann and Vessey,
Augustine and the Disciplines, 113–64.

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over these “steps.”8 As he puts it in his De musica (ca. 397 AD), the things
of mortal beauty are beautiful in their own kind and order, and by an
overarching order they are joined together in a harmonious unity that he
describes as a “poem of the universe.”9 It is possible for Augustine to find
beauty even in a cockfight; in its own way, he insists, it too is an evidence
of the pervasiveness of apto, order:
We could see their intent heads stretched forward, hackles
raised, mighty thrusts of beak and spur, uncanny dodgings.
There was nothing amiss in every motion of those irrational
beasts. There was clearly another Reason controlling everything from on high, down to the universal law of victor and
vanquished. The first crowed in triumph and puffed its feathers
in a clear sign of superiority. The other had ended up with a
featherless neck, voiceless, and crippled. I don’t know how, but
everything was a hymn to the beauty and harmony of nature.
(De ordine 1.8.25)
What to some tastes might be a more fitting example of ugliness and
disorder, Augustine here describes as a “hymn to the harmony and
beauty of nature,” apparently in all seriousness. Later, in De libero
arbitrio (ca. 395 AD), he will return to this point in a more formal,
theological vein, praising the divine wisdom that “speaks to us in the
beauty of every created thing.”10 His characteristically frank appreciation for physical beauty in a wide range of objects and phenomena
portends later reflections on the way in which, for him, the beauty and
harmony of mortal life necessarily entails a frisson of opposition and
contraries.
It is clear thus that contemplation of beauty in the natural order is,
like Augustine’s view of the exercise of reason by training in the liberal
arts, certainly an anagogicus; it offers an upward leading way or ascent

8

Cf. his Retractions 1.6; Harrison, Beauty and Revelation, 25.
De musica 6.10.28; Robert C. Taliaferro, trans., Fathers of the Church, vol. 4 (New
York: Cima, 1947).
10
De libero arbitrio 2.16; Anna S. Benjamin and L. H. Hackstaff, trans., On Free Choice
of the Will: Saint Augustine (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964).
9

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David Lyle Jeffrey

of the soul toward a fuller vision of intelligible beauty.11 He has a variety of ways of troping out this notion of ascent, but as in this passage,
the motif of an educational journey predominates among them:
For those, therefore, who are ascending upwards the first action may be called, for the sake of instruction, quickening; the
second, sensation; the third, art; the fourth, virtue; the fifth,
tranquility; the sixth, entry; the seventh, contemplation. They
may also be thus named: of the body, through the body, about
the body, the soul towards itself, the soul in itself, towards
God, with God. And again thus: beauty from another thing,
beauty through another thing, beauty about another thing,
beauty towards the beautiful, beauty in the beautiful, beauty
towards Beauty, beauty in Beauty.12
That mortal beauty is a means to transcendent Beauty makes his point;
beauty of the soul does not cancel out beauty in the body, but necessarily begins in and depends upon it. This is a point he makes firmly
against Mani and the Manicheans (ca. 390s AD).13 The soul is “a great
11

Cf. Saint Bonaventure’s De reductione artium ad theologiam (Retracing the Arts to
Theology), written nine centuries later. Sister Emma Thérèse Healy, ed. and trans.,
Works of Saint Bonaventure, ed. Philotheus Boehner et al. (Saint Bonaventure, NY:
Franciscan Institute, 1955).
12
De quant. Animae, ee. 70–76; cf. 35.79; cf. Svoboda, L’Esthétique de saint Augustine,
60–61.
13
Sermon “On God’s Providence” (Dolbeau, 29), 4, in The Works of Saint Augustine,
series III, vol. 1,1 ed. John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (New York: New
City Press, 1997), 57. In Sermon 243.8, Augustine exclaims, “If such a great corporeal
beauty (tanta corporis pulchritudine) is manifest in our flesh even now, how much
greater will it be there.” In such remarks we hear echoes of Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians
2:9, “Eye hath not seen or ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, the
things which God has prepared for those who love him” (quoting, in turn, Is 64:4,
65:17). To Mani he says, “let us praise God because he has given such a great good even
to this beauty, though it is the least. Yet let us not cling to it as lovers of it, but let us pass
beyond it as lovers of God, in order that, situated above it, we may judge concerning it
and may not be entangled in it and judged with it. And let us hasten to the good that is
not spread out in space, and does not pass in time, and from which all natures in places
and times receive beauty and form. In order to see that good, let us cleanse our heart by
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, Blessed are the clean of heart because they shall
see God (Mt 5:8).” Answer to the “Letter of Mani,” known as “The Foundation” (Contra
epistulam Manichaei quam vocant Fundamenti) 42.48.

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force of a non-bodily nature” but its works we nevertheless see as they
are embodied, and by them, as with the works of the Creator God, we
are frequently “amazed”:
Look round at the order imposed on things, at the beauty of cultivated fields, of thickets uprooted, of fruit trees planted and grafted, all the things we see and love in the countryside; look at the
very order of the state, at the noble piles of buildings, at the variety of arts and crafts, at the number of languages, at the depths of
memory, at the ripeness of eloquence. All these things are works
of the soul. How many and how great are the works of the soul, all
of which you can see, and you can’t see the soul itself!14
It becomes apparent to Augustine that a keener awareness of the work
of the artist, including most notably the Divine Artist, makes us want to
know the artist. This is to him only natural:
Should one look at the works and not look for the craftsman?
You look at the earth bearing fruit, you look at the sea full of its
animals, you look at the air full of flying creatures, you look at the
sky bright with stars; you recognize the changes of the seasons,
you consider the four parts of the year, how the leaves fall from
the trees and come back again, how their seeds are given their
numbers, and each thing has its measurements, its weights, how
all things are being administered in their own ranks and order,
the sky up above with total peace, the earth down below having
its own proper beauty, the beauty sui generis of things giving way
to and succeeding each other. Gazing on all these things you behold them now all given life by created spirit, and you don’t go
looking for the craftsman of such a great work?15
This passage comes from a sermon whose purpose was explicitly Christian apologetics, and the language here is far more indebted to biblical passages Augustine quotes frequently than it is to Plotinus. Seminal
14
15

Sermon 360B.9; ibid., 371.
Sermon 198.31; ibid., 202.

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biblical texts in his address to the beauty of creation include Wisdom
11:20–21, alluded to here, and Psalm 19, a poem that provides much
of the framework for Augustine’s method and is likewise to be found
quoted everywhere in his writings. This biblical grounding is the element most often overlooked, I think, when Augustine’s “Neoplatonism”
is emphasized too strongly, as it certainly is in Karol Svoboda’s L’Esthetique de saint Augustin et ses sources,16 a work that has had a significant
influence in characterizing Augustine’s aesthetics in western scholarship
generally. James O’Donnell has more recently examined the role of Neoplatonism in Augustine’s writings and concluded more accurately, “It
is not that he discovered that the Plotinian method did not work; he
discovered that it did work, and that it was not enough.”17
Created Beauty
The distinction between use and enjoyment of something for its own
sake is basic to the argument of Augustine in On Christian Doctrine,18
his book on hermeneutics and what we should now call “literary theory.”19 Here Augustine is elaborating a method for reading the text of
Scripture in such a way that readers will not be distracted by aesthetic
preoccupation with matters of style and language (however important
these are) from a deeper intellectual purpose in reading, namely to come
to an understanding of the divine authorial intention. That is to say, we
are asked to refer from the beauty of the art object back to the intellectual being who created it. For Augustine, attention must be devoted to
matters of composition as a means we use en route to our enjoyment
of a primary encounter with meaning in the text. He allows that some
elements we may both “enjoy and use” (1.3), but his concern is that the
16

See note 2.
James J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions. Commentary in Three Volumes
(Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958). David Bentley Hart reflects Augustine
when he says that “the idea of the beautiful—which somehow requires the sensual to fulfill its ‘ideal’ nature—can never really be separated from the beauty
that lies near at hand,” in The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian
Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 20.
18
De doctrina Christiana 1.3–5, D. W. Robertson, Jr., trans., Saint Augustine: On Christian Doctrine (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958).
19
See David Lyle Jeffrey, People of the Book: Christian Identity and Literary Culture
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), chaps. 1 and 3, for an extended discussion.
17

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777

goal of our intellectual journey not be frustrated or detained through
arrested development, such as too narrow a preoccupation with style or
method, or indeed any other species of idolatry of the sign. He does not
deny to literary language its beauty; indeed, he will go on to say that its
various beauties are indispensable, the means of drawing us on in our
quest for meaning, and hence to be considered most carefully. His point
is cautionary, simply that we should guard lest
the beauty of the country through which we pass, and the very
pleasure of the motion, charm our hearts, and turning these
things which we ought to use into objects of enjoyment, we become unwilling to hasten to the end of our journey; and becoming engrossed in a factitious delight, our thoughts are diverted
from that home whose delights would make us truly happy.20
The rind or outer husk of an edible fruit is what attracts us to it, and
therefore is a critical element of our knowledge. Yet it is not the ultimate
good we seek; that is the kernel or meat within.21 Analogously, when we
are said to “enjoy” the company of a noble intellect or virtuous person,
says Augustine, we should not “stop short upon the road, and place our
hope of happiness in man or angel” (1.33.36), but rather recognize that
“when [we] have joy of a man in God, it is God rather than man that
[we] enjoy” (1.33.37). For Augustine, so far from denigrating the person
in question, this recognition gives to that person the full measure of his
value as a creature made in the image of God. In all of these examples,
the issue is right reference, and Augustine’s classic defense of Greek and
Roman pagan poetry in the education of Christians depends upon it.
But here too we see that the paradigm he draws upon is biblical, even as
he is acknowledging the value of Neoplatonism:
20

De doctrina 1.4 in the American edition of J. F. Shaw, trans., Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, 1st ser., vol. 2, St. Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine (1887; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004). For an account of the almost thirty-year
hiatus in his writing of this book, see David Lyle Jeffrey, “Self-Examination and
the Examination of Texts: Augustine’s Confessions and On Christian Doctrine,” in
Houses of the Interpreter: Reading Scripture, Reading Culture (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2003), 39–53.
21
De doctrina 3.7.11; cf. 3.5.9; see the discussion by H. I. Marrou, S. Augustin et la fin
de la culture antique (Paris, 1938), 413.

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Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially
the Platonists, have said aught that is true and in harmony with
our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it
for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of
it. For the Egyptians had not only the idols and heavy burdens
which the people of Israel hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and garments, which the
same people when going out of Egypt appropriated to themselves, designing them for a better use, not doing this on their
own authority, but by the command of God.22
Right reference for meaning is in this context essentially a matter of discernment between rightly ordered affection and idolatry of the mere
sign, in which, for Augustine as for most readers of the Bible in his day,
we are instructed by the Scriptures narratively: for example, it may occur to the reader of Exodus that the gold with which Aaron fashioned
the golden calf idol may well have had the same source as that which
was later, more properly, to be appropriated by the artists Bezalel, Aholiab, and the “wise-hearted women” to adorn with art the tabernacle for
God’s presence in the sanctuary.23 The issue is fittingness. This passage
is but one of many biblical archetypes on which Augustine drew for his
distinction between use and enjoyment. To distinguish is not to denigrate; Augustine shows that what is frequently at issue in such narratives
is an argument for the reader’s acquisition of rightly ordered love; such
love, he will say repeatedly, does not disparage the body or any beautiful thing in the world, since they are expressions of a universal language
of love emanating from the “Maker of all things, visible and invisible”
(Nicene Creed). In this context his pervasive praise for the beauties of
nature (Creation) is poetic, and itself beautiful. It may be too much to
say, as does Hans Urs von Balthasar, that such praise of nature constitutes
effectively a contradiction of all Platonism, but it certainly qualifies it.24
22

Shaw, St. Augustine’s City of God, 2.40.60.
See David Lyle Jeffrey, “Bible Translation and the Future of Spiritual Interpretation,”
Modern Theology 28, no. 4 (2012), 692; see also Jeffrey, People of the Book, 52–59.
24
Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, 7 vols., ed.
Joseph Fessio, S.J., and John Riches, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco:
Ignatius, 1982), 2.123. Cf. Harrison, Beauty and Revelation, 130–31.
23

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Creation itself, rightly viewed, is for Augustine the beauty that
awakens us to Beauty. Reciprocally, Beauty lets us in turn appreciate
mortal beauty in a fuller way. His rhetoric seldom soars as high as when
he turns his prose to this subject:
Ask the loveliness of the earth, ask the loveliness of the sea, ask
the loveliness of the wide airy spaces, ask the loveliness of the
sky, ask the order of the stars, ask the sun making the day light
with its beams, ask the moon tempering the darkness of the
night that follows, ask the living things which move in the waters, which tarry on the land, which fly in the air; ask the souls
that are hidden, the bodies that are perceptive; the visible things
which must be governed, the invisible things which govern—
ask all these things, and they will all answer thee, Lo, see we are
lovely. Their loveliness is their confession. And these lovely but
mutable things, who has made them, save Beauty immutable?25
Finally, in the Incarnation Christ made manifest God’s own immutable
Beauty in visible form; thus for Augustine the incarnate God is “beautiful in heaven; beautiful on earth; beautiful in the womb; beautiful in
his parents’ hands,” and even “beautiful on the Cross.”26 Here immutable
Beauty itself has come to have a corporeal form that draws us to the
beauty of Creation’s meaning; this is a principle that was to be realized
abundantly in the plastic and graphic arts over the next millennium and
beyond, especially in regard to the restoration of Creation (or re-creation) effected in the Atonement. Thus, for Augustine and the artists
who follow in this train, it is entirely fitting to speak of the Cross, of the
Crucifixion, as beautiful:
“He had no form or comeliness that we should look at Him.”
The deformity of Christ forms you. For if He had not wished to
25

Sermon 241.2.2, trans. Erich Przywara, An Augustine Synthesis (London: Sheed and
Ward, 1939), 116.
26
Enarrationes in Psalmos 44.3; cf. 45.7. A. Cleveland Cox, trans., Nicene and PostNicene Fathers, 1st ser., vol. 8 (1888; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 146,
148. See here Richard Viladesau, The Beauty of the Cross: The Passion of Christ in
Theology and the Arts from the Catacombs to the Eve of the Renaissance (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2006), 9–12, 31–33.

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be deformed you would not have received back the form that
you lost. Therefore, He hung deformed upon the cross, but His
deformity was our beauty.27
Transcendent Beauty
To a degree that can be obscure to our contemporaries, to refer to the
Cross as beautiful in the fourth century was to put considerable strain on
the aesthetic idea of proportion or “fittingness.” While Christians were
from the outset identified as the crucis religiosi, it was not a compliment;
the association of salvation with the ignoblest of executions was still, as
Paul put it, “a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Gentiles”
(1 Cor 1:23).28 To gesticulate on the forehead with the sign of Cross seems
to have become customary in the second century, at least according to
Tertullian. It seems likely that there was an implied biblical warrant, with
repeated self-crossing an indication of penitence and grief for the consequences of sin (perhaps recollecting the Tau on the foreheads of “those
who sigh” in Ezek 9:4–6) and a declaration of a willingness to take up one’s
cross (Lk 9:23), if necessary unto martyrdom.29 Alex Stock has argued that
Paul’s reference to the Cross as “stigma” and “stigmata” (Gal 6:17) is analogous to the branding of slaves, and yet also parallel to the commandment
in Deuteronomy 11:18 to bind Torah “as a sign on your hand and frontlets
between your eyes” (cf. Dt 6:8).30 But visual appearances of the Cross in
Christian art come later, and appear then slowly, even secretly. We do not
find the Cross in fresco art of the catacombs, for example, but where we
might expect it other symbols such as an anchor, lamb, shepherd, even the
cryptogram ichthys. Indirect references to Christ’s death such as the staurogram, a compression of the tau and rho in the Greek word stauros, may
have appeared as a proto-ligature, as a species of nomina sacra in Papyri
Bodmer P45, P66, and P75. As Larry Hurtado has noted, the two-letter
compendium to those prepared to look for it, might suggest the figure of a
man on a cross.31 Since these manuscripts considerably predate Constan27

Sermon 27.6, cited in Harrison, Beauty and Revelation, 234.
Tertullian, Apologeticus adversus genes pro Christianus, PL 1:365–66.
29
Viladesau, Beauty of the Cross, 42–43.
30
Alex Stock, Poetische Dogmatik: Christologie: Figuren (Paderborn: Ferdinand
Schöningh, 2001), 318–19.
31
Larry Hurtado, “The Staurogram in Early Christian Manuscripts: The Earliest Visual
28

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781

tine’s famous labarum, his cross in the sky vision on the Milvian bridge
and its triumphalist motto, in hoc signo vincis (in 312 AD), for Hurtado
the use of the staurogram suggests a proleptic art image such as will appear in more typical contexts only much later, in the middle to late fourth
century. Given the dating, the question naturally arises: was it Constantine who made the sign of the Cross publicly acceptable?
In the first part of his reign, Constantine continued to crucify convicted slaves. Eusebius tells us that later on he gave it up, in honor of the Passion.32 It is sometimes noted that a medallion with the bust of Constantine,
wearing a helmet with a tiny, nearly invisible Christogram, was minted
around 315 AD, but this is not really a representation of the Cross.33 About
thirty-five years later a Roman sarcophagus was carved with a cross, in
relief, on which the Christogram is superposed through the imposition of
a laurel wreath; with the head of Sol on the right and Luna on the left, we
have a clear imitation of earlier depictions of the emperors here attached
to the “triumphant cross” (see Figure 1).34 This example is unique, but
clearly Constantinian. Elsewhere, however, the use of the Cross continues
to be minimalist, even when a subject might seem to warrant it. In the
Mausoleum of Santa Costanza in Rome, a church built by Constantine as
a mausoleum for his daughter in 354 AD, there is an apse mosaic of the
traditio legis in which the representation of Christ who is passing on the
Law to Peter (Dominus legem dat) is identified in part by a tiny unadorned
“x” floating above his head, asymmetrically.35 All of these signs remain
cryptographic; none gives us the crucifixion of Jesus with verisimilitude.
Reference to the Crucified Jesus?,” in New Testament Manuscripts, ed. Thomas Kraus
(Leiden: Brill, 2006), 207–26.
32
Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae 1.8.
33
Johannes G. Deckers, “Constantine the Great and Early Christian Art,” in Picturing
the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art, ed. Jeffrey Spier (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 89; cf. Josef Engemann, Deutung and Bedeutung frühchristlicher
Bildwerke (Darmstadt: WBG; 1. Auflage, 1997).
34
Ibid., 105–6.
35
Deckers, “Constantine the Great and Early Christian Art,” 95; Fabrizio Bisconti,
“Variazioni sultema della Traditio legis: Vecchie e nuove acquisitioni,” Vetera christianorum 40 (2003): 251–70. It is a curiosity worthy of further reflection that Augustine’s vocabulary for divine beauty, while drawn from his exegesis, is synthetic, more
theological than philologically or semantically driven. He does not know Hebrew,
yet seems to have sensed, despite the filter of the LXX, what the Vetus Latina could
not alone give him. The Hebrew Scriptures use terms for beauty such as yafeh (beau-

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Figure 1

There are small but important exceptions. Somewhere around the
beginning of the third century, perhaps in Syria, someone carved an
amulet out of jasper, probably for a pagan magician, which depicts
Jesus hanging naked on the Cross, surrounded by magical names.36 It
tiful to look upon, e.g., Ezek 16:14–15; Ps 45:2) and tip ara (shapely, well formed,
e.g., Is 28:5; 44:13) more or less equally to refer to feminine beauty, artistic beauty,
Hebrew term for beauty, mareh, occurs in Isaiah 53:2, a passage crucial to Augustine
in our context. The Septuagint translates yafeh with doxa in passages in which the
term may signify “glory” or “radiance” as well as beauty (e.g., Ps 29:2; 96:6–8), but
kalos, kallon in places where aesthetic or feminine beauty would seem to be signified
(e.g., Ezek 27:2,4,11), as well as for “splendor” or “magnificence” (e.g., Ezek 28:12,
17; 31:8). In Isaiah 44, which refers to the realistic beauty of comeliness in a statue,
Hebrew tip ara is rendered with kale, and so also is mareh (Is 53:2) with kalos. When
we come to the Vetus Latina renderings, where there were several versions possibly
available, we can be less than certain, but if the Vulgate can be assumed to replicate
the norms of usage in regard to these terms, it is interesting to note that with regard
to those passages of Scripture that are crucial to Augustine’s view of the Beauty of
the Cross, the Latin texts themselves do not provide his vocabulary. Whereas in the
Vg for Isaiah 53:2 we have neque décor, for the doubled yafeh and kalei of Psalm 45:2
we have speciosa forma. Augustine will occasionally use the latter phrase, but in discussing the Psalm 45 and Isaiah 53 texts he prefers above all pulcher, pulchram, and
pulchritude, terms that in the Vulgate are most frequently found in the Song of Songs
referring to the beauty of the Bride and Bridegroom. Yet this is the term preferred
where Augustine is building up from those counterpoised passages his cruciform
aesthetics. Pulcher, however, comports better with the dominant Hebrew terms—a
result, perhaps, of Augustine’s often uncanny contextual discernment.
36
Spier, Picturing the Bible, 228.

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783

is not inconceivable that such a magical amulet, however such things
were discouraged by the bishops, may have given rise to a more orthodox gem stone carving of Jesus crucified with all twelve disciples
gathered round the Cross. In this later miniature, likely Syrian and of
the mid-fourth century, above Jesus’s head appears the acrostic ichthys.37 Like other medallions of the sort, it was probably used as a signet ring. But full scenes of the Passion, such as the four carved ivory
reliefs known as the Maskell ivories, do not appear until after the first
quarter of the fifth century. These, like the gemstone signets, are all
personal objects; so too would have been the plain iron cross worn by
St. Macrina (d. 379), discovered by her brother St. Gregory of Nyssa at
her death.38 None may be associated with public worship. Processional
crosses begin to appear in the fifth to sixth centuries but then as staurograms, not crucifixes.39
What Augustine calls the “beautiful cross,” the adorned, exalted
cross such as we find in the mosaic apses of prominent churches in
Rome, appears first around 400 AD. A splendid example is the figure
of Christ enthroned, surrounded by the apostles in the Heavenly City,
in the apse of Santa Pudenziana (ca. 400; see Figure 2).40 Here a beautiful jeweled cross hovers over the head of Christ on his throne. It is
striking, and not duplicated before the resplendent “beautiful crosses”
of churches in Ravenna more than a century later, such as in the apse
of Sant’ Appolinaire in Classe (about 549), whereas in Santa Pudenziana, the Cross is already meant to be both beautiful and a focus of
worship (see Figure 3).41 In Santa Pudenziana the images of the four
evangelical beasts suggest both the divine presence in Ezekiel’s vision
and the sign in the sky of the returning Christ from Revelation. In
Sant’ Appolinaire, the gem-studded golden cross has a head of Christ
where the beams cross, and the scene is of the Transfiguration, with
37

Ibid., 229; cf. the helpful notes by Felicity Harley.
Charles G. Hebermann et al., eds., Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 vols. (New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1908), 4.524b.
39
Spier, Picturing the Bible, 233–36, provides examples in iron from the fifth and early
sixth centuries.
40
Anne-Orange Poilpré, Maiestas Domini: Une image de l’Eglise en occident Ve-IX siècle (Paris: Cerf, 2006); Fabrizio Bisconti, ed., Termi di iconografia paleochristiana
(Rome: Vatican City, 2000); cf. Spier, Picturing the Bible, 113.
41
Herbert L. Kessler, “Bright Gardens of Paradise,” in Spier, Picturing the Bible, 129.
38

784

David Lyle Jeffrey

the Cross representing the transfigured Lord. In San Vitale, angels
hover over the Abraham akedah mosaic with a beautiful medallion
cross, and the Cross nimbus behind the enthroned Christ in S. Apollinaire Nuovo follows the pantocrator mosaics of Hagia Sophia and S.
Maria Maggiore; all are mid-fifth century or later, and the matchless
Vatican Cross, a reliquary cross of Justin II, is sixth century (see Figure
4). In the richly illustrated Rabbula Gospels (586 AD), the crucifixion
of Jesus is depicted with verisimilitude—the earliest known such depiction in painting.42

Figure 2

42

Written in Syriac translation (the Peshitta); the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension illuminations may have been lifted from a Greek gospel (Spier, Picturing the
Bible, 276, following Massimo Bernabò et al.).

The Cross in Augustine’s Aesthetics

Figure 3

785

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David Lyle Jeffrey

Figure 4
Thus, somewhere between about 350 and 425 AD, depiction of the
Cross went from being a code, a staurogram, a secret sign for believers,
to being a subject fit for the finest focal artwork of great sanctuaries.
What were the causes of this remarkable change?
One of the causes may simply be the public image of Christianity after the triumph of Constantine. Augustine seems indirectly to acknowledge this when he says of Christ in Sermon 87: “You see, he has come
forth from hidden obscurity to being a celebrity. Christ is known now,
Christ is preached everywhere. . . . He was once someone laughable”
(Serm. 87.9).43 Our bishop elsewhere seems to take a more nuanced view
of the public reason given for Constantine’s ban on public crucifixion:
Then, there was nothing more unbearable in the flesh; now,
there is nothing more glorious on the forehead. What did he
who gave such honor to his punishment save for his faithful?
Indeed, now among the punishments of the convicted it is no
longer in use by the Romans; for where the cross of the Lord
has been honored, it has been thought that a guilty man would
also be honored if he were crucified (Tractatus in Ioannem 36.5;
ca. 409 AD).
On Augustine’s view, the Cross had already gained more honorable than
dishonorable associations in the public square. What once had necessarily to be hidden had now, in a variety of ways, entered mainstream
culture; it could not be hidden anymore.
Yet there are deeper reasons—theological and aesthetic—why Augustine clearly wants to revise residually negative social views of the
Cross. For Christians, he will argue, it is no longer a symbol of shameful death, nor even just a permissible sign of the religiosi crucis; it is the
very signature of Divine Beauty. He asks his fellow Christians to see the
Cross not just through the eyes of faith, but in particular through the
eyes of love—the eyes of the Church as Bride of Christ. What this per43

John E. Rotelle, ed., The Works of Saint Augustine: Sermons on the New Testament,
trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991), 3.412. All sermon quotations are from this translation unless otherwise noted.

The Cross in Augustine’s Aesthetics

787

spective creates initially is irony and paradox where the crucifixion is
concerned, but such paradox as is interpretable by love, beginning with
the love of the Bride. Thus, though the beauty of the Bride has been degraded by sin, “it is made beautiful (pulchra) by him” (Serm. 138.6); she
then develops correspondingly a powerful spiritual love for the Bridegroom. In the thrall of this love she loves Christ “crowned with thorns,
ugly and without dignity” (Is 53:2). “What is it that she loves?” Augustine asks; “is it a fine figure of a man above the sons of men?” The reference here to Psalm 45 juxtaposes the two biblical texts in such a way
as to create contradiction for the unbeliever yet a beautiful paradox or
mystery for the Bride. “That bridegroom,” he says, “became ugly for
the sake of his ugly bride, in order to make her beautiful” (pulchram;
Serm. 95.4). Speaking elsewhere of these two texts (Is 53 and Ps 45),
Augustine calls them “two flutes, playing, as it were, differing tunes, but
one Spirit blows into both . . . [so] they are not discordant” (Tractatus
in Epistoli Ioannem 9.2; ca. 429 AD). The unbeliever hears only cacophony. Now we see where Augustine is going with his biblical trope. Just
as there can be no meaningful concept of Truth without the possibility
of falsification, that is, of giving the lie to a claim, so too there can be
no concept of the Beautiful without a contrary, the Ugly. On the Cross,
two poles, as John Donne would later say, “meet” in a startling frisson.
So Augustine: “For the sake of your faith Christ became deformed, yet
Christ remains fair—fair in form above the sons of men.” How so? Or,
as Augustine says in a similar passage (Serm. 44.2), “Where does all this
beauty come from?” His answer:
Christ’s deformity is what gives form (forma, formosa) to you. If
He had been unwilling to be deformed, you would never have
gotten back the form you lost. So He hung on the cross, deformed; but his deformity was our beauty (sed deformitas illius
pulchitrudo nostra erat). (Serm. 27.6; cf. Serm. 44.4)
In this way, “a foul sight, the sight of a man crucified . . . produced beauty. What beauty? that of the Resurrection” (Sermons on the Liturgical
Seasons, 346).44 Hence, for the Bride, who longs to see the Bridegroom’s
44

The question is well put by Viladesau, Beauty of the Cross, 9.

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David Lyle Jeffrey

face, “Woe to that love of thine, if thou canst conceive anything more
beautiful than Him, from who is all Beauty” (sup. Ps 44:16). Transcendent Beauty is the source and grounding of that beauty seen in her crucified beloved by the Bride. “He loved us first who is always beautiful,”
Augustine says elsewhere, and “by loving [him] we in turn are made
beautiful (Tractatus in Epistolam Ioannis 9.9).45
There is thus another paradox in Augustine’s idea of beauty in the
Cross, namely that transcendent Beauty reveals itself only to those who
have “eyes to see” in the sense that the prophets mean it. In this much,
for Augustine, we might almost say that “beauty is in the eyes of the
beholder.” Speaking of those who crucified Christ, he notes that “they
had not eyes whereby Christ could seem beautiful. To what sort of eyes
did Christ seem beautiful? To such as Christ himself sought” (sup. Ps
128:8). To see his beauty, he adds, our “eyes must be cleansed.” Beauty in
the Cross is possible to believers because “he healed our eyes” (Tractatus
in Ioannem 2.16.2). What counts as beautiful is not a matter of random
subjectivity, therefore, but is, in the manner the prophets understood,
determined by a precondition of the heart.
As Hans Urs von Balthasar puts it, it is in this “converted” sense that
Augustine can speak of the beauty of the Cross, and argue that Christ
crucified “is the basis and standard of everything that is beautiful and
all ideas of the beautiful . . . We have to learn from [him] what beauty
is.”46 When Augustine reads Psalm 45, “out of Zion is the semblance of
his beauty,” he sees transcendent Beauty informing terrestrial beauty,
yet for him, of course, this transcendent beauty actually inhabited the
world (sup. Ps 45:4). Christ never abandoned, even in his disfigurement
on the Cross, “that beauty which is in the form of God” (sup. Ps 104:5);
transcendent Beauty shines through the “form of one who hung upon
the cross,” he says, and it transfigures that form with glory. Since “God is
always beautiful, never deformed, never changeable” (Tractatus in Epistolam Ioannis, 9.9), our beauty, and our perception of beauty, will be
clarified to the degree our love recognizes his beauty.
This is the sense of “aesthetic” in Augustine that leads Michael Hanby
45

Translation by John W.W. Rettig, St. Augustine: Tractates on the Gospel of John
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 257.
46
Quoted in Valadesau, Beauty of the Cross, 10 (but the reference is inaccurate).

The Cross in Augustine’s Aesthetics

789

to his conclusion, following Balthasar, that for Augustine “salvation is aesthetic. It consists in the restoration of beauty from the beautiful itself, and
it takes the form of the love of the beautiful—because the beautiful is love,
and because apart from participation in this love there is finally nothing.”47
In Tractate 118 of his work on the Gospel of John, Augustine comments on the gospel accounts of the crucifixion of the Lord in such a
way as to show it to be the paradigmatic kairos, time and eternity conjoined. He applies to it the prayer of Paul in Ephesians “that Christ may
dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded
in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width
and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which
passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”
(Eph 3:17–19). He then interprets this beautiful apostolic prayer in a
cruciform way, saying of the Cross:
Its breadth lies in the transverse beam, on which the hands of
the Crucified are extended; and signifies good works in all the
breadth of love. Its length extends from the transverse beam to
the ground, and is that whereto the back and feet are affixed,
and signifies perseverance through the whole length of time to
the end. Its height is in the summit, which rises upwards above
the transverse beam; and signifies the supernal goal, to which
all works have reference, since all things that are done well and
perseveringly, in respect of their breadth and length, are to be
done also with due regard to the exalted character of the divine rewards. Its depth is found in the part that is fixed into the
earth, for there it is both concealed and invisible, and yet from
thence spring up all those parts that are outstanding and evident to the senses; just as all that is good in us proceeds from the
depths of the grace of God, which is beyond the reach of human
comprehension and judgment.48
The Cross of Christ is the sign of his glory, but it is rooted and

N&V

47
48

Augustine and Modernity (London: Routledge, 2003), 55.
Tractate 118.5; John Gibb and James Innes, trans., in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, MA: Hendrikson, 2004), 432.

grounded in the mortal dirt of our reality, indeed, in the reality of our
deformity. This, above all, makes the Cross beautiful in our eyes.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 791-836

791

The Sacraments as Causes of Sanctification
Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.
St. Patrick Church
Columbus, OH

IN THE COURSE of the twentieth century, many areas of catholic life
and thought were reconceptualized, and the Church experienced a great
deal of upheaval. Of course this affected not only the life of the Church
in its practical dimensions, but the conceptual world of theology as well.
It is well known that one of the areas in which this was felt most keenly
was the liturgy. Following the Second World War, a great deal of theological reflection focused on liturgical experience, and the connections between sacramentality, Church and culture were of great interest to many
emerging theologians. Trends within the ressourcement movement produced a renewed understanding of the history of liturgical practice and a
heightened awareness of the broader anthropological and cosmological
dimensions of the liturgy. These trends were accompanied by a reduced
emphasis on the shop-worn speculative categories associated with manualism and some strands of neo-Thomism.1
In the second half of the twentieth century, certain new trends in
speculative theology arose that tended to view the sacraments from a
postcausal perspective. Thinkers such as Karl Rahner and Louis-Marie
Chauvet favored an approach to the sacraments that was driven more

1

See Philip McShane, “On the Causality of the Sacraments,” Theological Studies 24
(1963): 433–34; Bernard Leeming, “Recent Trends in Sacramental Theology,” Irish
Theological Quarterly 23 (1956): 195–217. Both of these articles provide helpful insights into the state of this question at the midpoint of the twentieth century.

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

by the categories of sign and symbolism than the concept of causality.2
While the questions raised by these approaches cannot be adequately addressed here, this article will expose the historical importance of
the subject of sacramental causality, calling attention to those perennial
theological questions that gave rise to debates over sacramental causality
during the scholastic and modern periods. The Church has consistently
affirmed that the sacraments confer the grace that they signify; therefore
the question of the way in which the sacraments of the New Law confer
this grace must be of enduring theological interest.
This article will examine the concept of causality in relation to the
sacraments as instruments of sanctification. Because of the immense historical breadth of this subject, it will of course be impossible to offer an
exhaustive survey of the entire subject here. This essay will focus on those
aspects of historical and contemporary theology that can contextualize
the Thomistic approach to this subject. To this end, we will begin with the
reception of Augustinian sacramental doctrine during the Middle Ages,
exploring the ways in which various scholastic thinkers appropriated
this common Augustinian inheritance; we will then examine the historical role of Aquinas’s teaching in comparison with a variety of alternative
views, concluding with the fate of sacramental causality in twentieth-century theology, paying particular attention to influence of Odo Casel and
Edward Schillebeeckx. While an independent defense of Aquinas’s teaching cannot be undertaken here, this study intends to present the cogency of his approach in light of the historical sources and the issues which
concerned Aquinas himself and to which later commentators responded;
further, we hope to demonstrate that the Thomistic approach is a viable—
even an attractive—response to a set of perennial theological questions
that present themselves even in our own day.

2

For a summary of Rahner’s thought on this subject, see Karl Rahner, The Church and
the Sacraments, 3rd ed., trans. W. J. O’Hara (New York: Herder and Herder, 1964),
24–40. Chauvet’s approach to this issue relies heavily on Heidegger’s ontotheological
critique, which Chauvet sees as characteristic of most kinds of classical sacramental
theology, Thomist or no. See Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, trans. Patrick Madigan and Madeleine Beaumont (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), 7–45.

The Sacraments as Causes of Sanctification

793

Augustine and the Victorines
Beginning in the early middle ages, theories concerning the causality of
the sacraments were frequently proposed as interpretations of Augustine’s sacramental doctrine. Although speculative models varied, ranging from various forms of Neoplatonism to the Aristotelianism of the
emerging Dominican school, Augustine’s influence remains a constant
in this area until the twentieth century.3 On this issue, the theological
landscape of the Middle Ages was not defined by a split between Augustinianism and scholasticism; one of the issues that drove the debates
over sacramental efficacy in the emerging scholastic tradition was the
proper interpretation of the Augustinian heritage. How were theologians to understand, defend and preserve the teachings of Augustine in
the context of fresh challenges?
During the Donatist controversy, Augustine produced a series of
distinctions that would prove indispensible for sacramental theology.
Perhaps most importantly, Augustine drew a clear distinction between
a sacrament and its fruit: while baptism itself cannot be repeated, the
fruition or grace of the sacrament can be lost and subsequently regained.4
Although Augustine’s teaching on this subject is conditioned by the apologetic concerns of a particular period, the distinctions made by Augustine during the Donatist controversy were employed in a variety of subsequent historical periods, although the terminology and surrounding
theological context shifted perceptibly.
Much of the Augustinian doctrine inherited in the early scholastic
period was strongly influenced by the Berengarian controversy, which
3

4

Almost all Western theologians, including those of the Protestant tradition, have
been concerned to show some form of continuity between their own thought and
that of Augustine where the sacraments are concerned. It seems that this did not
change until the midpoint of the twentieth century. (Thinkers of this period such as
Rahner, Schillebeeckx, and Chauvet show decidedly less concern for the legacy of
Augustine’s sacramental doctrine). Augustine’s doctrines concerning sign and sacramental reality are complex and have been subject to much scholarly debate. We
have no intention of resolving these issues here. In the following pages, selections
of Augustine’s teaching that are of particular relevance to sacramental causality will
be offered as a lens through which the debates and theories of scholastic and subsequent thinkers can be understood; an independent investigation of Augustinian
doctrine must necessarily elude us here.
See De Baptismo CSEL 51, 3.16.21, et al.

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

significantly affected the interpretation of Augustine on the sacraments
in subsequent theology.5 As an outgrowth of this conflict, Augustine’s
distinction between sacramental elements and interior grace is gradually
transformed into the scholastic formula: res tantum, res et sacramentum,
and sacramentum tantum.6 However, Augustine’s central distinction be5

6

Elizabeth Frances Rogers, Peter Lombard and the Sacramental System (New
York: Columbia University, 1917), 30–38. Although Berengar’s teaching on the
Eucharist was condemned, many of his textual selections and interpretations from
Augustine came to be paradoxically normative for later theology. The threefold
division between res tantum, res et sacramentum, and sacramentum tantum was
gradually developed in response to this problem. N. M. Haring has convincingly
argued that the word sacramentum—a polyvalent term for Augustine—underwent
a transformation during the Berengarian controversy that gave rise to the later
medieval understanding of sacramentum as outward sign alone. See Nicholas M.
Haring, “Berengar’s Definitions of Sacramentum and Their Influence on Mediaeval
Sacramentology,” Mediaeval Studies 10 (1948): 109–47; Haring, “A Brief Historical
Comment on St. Thomas, Summa Theol. III qu. 67, a. 5: Utrum non baptizatus
possit sacramentum baptismi conferre,” Mediaeval Studies 14 (1952): 153–59, et
al. There are instances in which Augustine uses what appears to be the reverse of
the familiar medieval formula, using the phrase res visibilies to refer to “things”
or signs employed by the sacramentum, which can refer generally to the signate
event and the lasting sacramental effect. See De Baptismo 3.10.15, et al. However,
Augustine’s terminology is much broader than this. Elsewhere Augustine describes
the sacraments as the visible form of invisible grace; Epist. 105.3.12. It seems that
Berengar misappropriated the Augustinian understanding of sacramentum as
referring only to the passing outward sign, whereas Augustine used the term to
refer not only to signs, but to lasting effect as well. Lombard inherits this new postBerengarian formulation of Augustinian sacramental doctrine. In Sent IV, d. 4 c. 1,
Lombard teaches that infants and faithful adults receive the sacramentum et rem,
but someone who receives the sacrament unworthily only receives the sacramentum,
whereas an unbaptized martyr could receive the res alone. See Philipp W. Rosemann,
Peter Lombard (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 148–49. Unfortunately, a
more thorough investigation of this issue eludes us here.
For our purposes, this distinction between the end result of the sacraments (res tantum), the sacramental event (res et sacramentum), and the outward signs themselves
(sacramentum tantum) is significant for sacramental causality because of the relationship that necessarily exists between the outward signs and the effects toward
which they are directed. After Berengar, these Augustinian concepts are universally
expressed through the lens of this new threefold distinction. For a study of the development of this terminology, see Ronald F. King, “The Origin and Evolution of a
Sacramental Formula: Sacramentum Tantum, Res et Sacramentum, Res Tantum,”
The Thomist 31 (1967): 21–82. The mature use of this threefold division is usually
attributed to Hugh of St. Victor. In Hugh’s De Sacramentis, a post-Berengarian understanding of Augustine’s sacramental doctrine is evident in his treatment of the
distinction between res and sacramentum. De Sac., 1, 9, 2. PL 176: 317d–318b. This
understanding was inherited from Hugh by his student Peter Lombard. “For [Hugh]

The Sacraments as Causes of Sanctification

795

tween the sacramental sign or event and the lasting effect or fruit remained unobscured by these developments.7
Beyond his anti-Donatist writings, however, many other important
elements of Augustinian thought came to be of central importance for
subsequent discussions of sacramental cause. Although he did not speak
directly of the sacraments as causes in the scholastic manner, Augustine
had a strong sense of sacramental teleology; he saw sacraments as signs
through which the power of God flows into the soul.8 For Augustine, the

7

8

the rite itself (sacramentum tantum) not only resembled or pointed to the inner reality (res) but also contained and conveyed that inner reality (res et sacramentum). The
clarification was critical for the theology of the sacraments in general, a clarification
made permanent by the increasingly widespread use of Peter’s Sentences.” Thomas
Finn, “The Sacramental World in the Sentences of Peter Lombard,” Theological Studies 69 (2008): 568. Hugh of St. Cher (d. 1263), a Dominican contemporary of Aquinas, seems to have been the first to use the term res et sacramentum specifically to
describe the conferral of the character found in baptism, confirmation, and orders.
Others such as Albert, Bonaventure, Alexander of Hales, and Aquinas follow this
approach. See Bernard Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology (Westminster,
MD: Newman Press, 1963), 262.
Because Augustine lacks the technical precision of later theology, at times he uses
sacramentum to mean the lasting effect imparted by baptism, as distinct from its
fruit (baptismal grace). In this much, the word sacramentum can appear to be roughly equivalent with later notions of sacramental character. See De Baptismo, 1.1.2,
3.10.15, 3.14.19, 3.16.21, 4.25.32, et al. At other times he uses sacramentum to refer
to the baptismal formula of the rite, where the verba Evangelicis impart the power
and holiness of Christ to the recipient regardless of the holiness of the minister or
the worthiness of the recipient. See De Baptismo, 3.10.15, 3.15.20, 3.14.19, 4.25.32,
et al. (This use of sacramentum in connection with outward rite is distinct from the
use of res visibilis to indicate the transient material signs). Lacking the threefold
precision of later theology, it can be seen here that Augustine is forced to use the
same term (sacramentum) for what we might now call the form of the sacrament
(the verba Evangelicis spoken by the minister) and the lasting effect or character (as
distinct from grace). Both the conferral of the lasting effect and the spoken formula
comprise an essential part of what is now spoken of as the res et sacramentum—that
is, the reality and the sign or sacramental act taken as a whole. Taken in the broad
sense, the medieval categories of res et sacramentum, res tantum, and sacramentum
tantum appear not as a betrayal of Augustinianism but as a refusal of the Berengarian interpretation thereof.
Although the degree to which the concept of instrumentality is present in Augustine’s thought is disputable, his emphasis on the finality of the sacraments is clear.
Concerning the sacraments as signs, see Emmanuel J. Cutrone, “Sacraments,” in
Augustine through the Ages, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1999), 741–43. Concerning the efficacy of sacramental signs, Cutrone states: “Augustine insists sacraments have a power which remains even after the ritual has been
performed. The use of material things, elevated to the level of sacrament, has the

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

sacraments are visible words or signs that manifest their interior reality.
Because it is the power of the Word that sanctifies the soul, Augustine argues that inasmuch as this power flows through the physical things (res)
used in the sacraments, those same things become signs of the presence
of the Word.9 In this regard, Augustine taught that grace moved through
outward signs, even the sacramental actions of an unworthy minister, as
light through an unclean place or water through an aqueduct.10 Augustine is ambiguous, however, concerning the causal status of these signs
taken in themselves. Is it possible to attribute some power to the sacramental elements themselves, as instruments of God?11
ability to work spiritual realities. But that efficacy is not something in the material things, but flows from the very nature of the sacrament as a visible word. The
sacrament only has an efficacy because it is Christ’s word, the word of faith that is
preached . . . when such a sacrament functions within a believing Church, the power
of the sacrament is always effective.” Ibid., 745.
9
“Iam vos mundi estis propter verbum quod locutus sum vobis. Quare non ait, mundi
estis propter Baptismum quo loti estis, sed ait, propter verbum quod locutus sum
vobis; nisi quia et in aqua verbum mundat? Detrahe verbum, et quid est aqua nisi
aqua? Accedit verbum ad elementum, et fit Sacramentum, etiam ipsum tamquam
visibile verbum…Unde ista tanta virtus aquae, ut corpus tangat et cor abluat, nisi
faciente verbo: non quia dicitur, sed quia creditur? Nam et in ipso verbo, aliud est
sonus transiens, aliud virtus manens. Hoc est verbum fidei quod praedicamus, ait
Apostolus, quia si confessus fueris in ore tuo quia Dominus est Iesus, et credideris
in corde tuo quia Deus illum suscitavit a mortuis, salvus eris. Corde enim creditur
ad iustitiam, ore autem confessio fit ad salutem. Unde in Actibus Apostolorum legitur: Fide mundans corda eorum…quo sine dubio ut mundare possit, consecratur et
Baptismus. Christus quippe nobiscum vitis, cum Patre agricola, dilexit Ecclesiam, et
seipsum tradidit pro ea. Lege Apostolum, et vide quid adiungat: Ut eam sanctificaret, inquit, mundans eam lavacro aquae in verbo. Mundatio igitur nequaquam fluxo
et labili tribueretur elemento, nisi adderetur, in verbo…quamvis nondum valentem
corde credere ad iustitiam, et ore confiteri ad salutem. Totum hoc fit per verbum, de
quo Dominus ait: Iam vos mundi estis propter verbum quod locutus sum vobis.” Jo.
Ev. Tr. CCL 36, 80.3. See also Contra Faust. CSEL 25, 19.16.
10
“Qui vero fuerit superbus minister, cum zabulo computatur: sed non contaminatur donum Christi, quod per illum fluit purum, quod per illum transit liquidum
venit ad fertilem terram. Puta quia ipse lapideus est, quia ex aqua fructum ferre
non potest: et per lapideum canalem transit aqua, transit aqua ad areolas; in canali
lapideo nihil generat, sed tamen hortis plurimum fructum affert. Spiritalis enim virtus Sacramenti ita est ut lux: et ab illuminandis pura excipitur, et si per immundos
transeat, non inquinatur.” Jo. Ev. Tr. 5.15 (text as in PL 35:1422). The example of
light passing through an unclean place can also be found in De Baptismo, 3.10.15.
William Harmless, “Baptism,” in Augustine through the Ages, 88.
11
This issue will come to divide the Franciscan and Dominican schools on this subject for centuries. Philip Cary’s recent interpretation is more compatible with the

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797

Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) began a final synthesis of Augustinian
sacramental doctrine that would become normative for many scholastic
authors.12 Hugh was very much animated by the Augustinian worldview,
and was in large part responsible for recalling the intellectual culture of
twelfth-century Paris to the methodological perspective of Augustine’s
De Doctrina Christiana.13 Hugh’s De Sacramentis14 follows the lines of
creation and recreation in a manner similar in structure to Augustine’s
De Doctrina and Civitate Dei.15 Throughout his work, Hugh employs a
broad sense of sacramentality that reflects the influence of Augustine’s
doctrina signorum, in which the senses associated with the manifestation of the incarnate Word under the mode of the Biblical letter are seen
as a model for that same Word at work in the rites of the Church under
the veil of sacred signs.16
Hugh famously taught that the sacraments were signs or instruments
extrinsic legalism of the Franciscan Nominalists than with the Thomist tradition.
See Philip Cary, Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine’s
Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
12
Rogers, Peter Lombard and the Sacramental System, 52. The Victorine School, established in Paris in 1108, was of a decidedly Augustinian turn. Hugh’s principle work,
De Sacramentis (with which we are principally concerned here), “presents a synthesis of theology in the framework of an Augustinian vision of history as an account
of the two works of God: the opus conditionis (creation) and the opus restaurationis
(salvation). At some points he does draw expressly on texts from De Trinitate, Contra Adimantum, De Bono conjugali, and Enchiridion; for his eschatology (2.16-17)
on De civitate Dei 20-22.” Karlfried Froehlich, “Victorines,” in Augustine through the
Ages, 868.
13
Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), 83–106. For the structural influence of Augustine’s De Doctrina on Hugh of St. Victor, see ibid., 86, et al.
14
Hugh is best known for his work De Sacramentis, which covers not only the sacraments but also offers a comprehensive theological worldview beginning with creation. For a study of the textual history of this and other works by Hugh, see R. Barron, “Hughes de Saint-Victor: Contribution à un Nouvel Examen de san Oeuvre,”
Traditio 15 (1959): 223–97.
15
Smalley, Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 90.
16
Although ostensibly a work dealing with biblical interpretation and the nature of
Christian doctrine, Augustine’s De Doctrina roots the signate dimension of reality
in creation and the Incarnation. In a visceral sense, the created world is composed
of material signs that draw us to God. The Scriptural Word is understood in light
of this, and in book three Augustine contextualizes the Christian sacraments in this
way as well. De Doct. CSEL 80, 3.9.13. When Hugh treats the sacraments explicitly,
his use of the biblical letter as a means to understand sacramental signs mirrors
Augustine in this regard. De Sac. I, 9, 4 PL 176: 317b–318d.

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of sanctification, containing grace as medicine in a vial.17 We see immediately from this text that for Hugh this signate dimension of sacramentality is explicitly understood as instrumental (id est sacrorum signa vel
instrumenta). Hugh discusses causality to some extent, but only in terms
of what could be called formal or final causality, exploring God’s reasons
for instituting the sacraments.18 For Hugh, the manner in which the sacramental instruments or signs are related to this finality is more ambiguous.
Although Hugh’s medical metaphor does not define sacramental causality
with great precision, Hugh’s description of grace being communicated as
if it were held in a physical container does have materialist overtones. For
some, this could imply that the sacraments worked by a kind of material
causality—as if grace were physically contained in material things such as
water, bread, the sign of the cross and similar elements.19 This interpretation raises a number of problems: if the grace of the sacramentum is contained in the sacramental elements materially, it is difficult to explain the
relationship of this grace to the final recipient thereof.20 If grace is conceived of as a product held in a material container, it is difficult to simultaneously describe that same product as something that is effected as a final
result in the recipient. Furthermore, if the elements (or signs) as material
causes (and not efficient instruments) are still to be considered the visible
form of invisible grace, it would seem that water as a material element, for
example, would necessarily be the form of the sacrament even prior to its
use in baptism.21
17

“Vasa sunt spiritualis gratiae sacramenta, non ex suo sanant, quia vasa aegrotum
non curant, sed medicinia. Non ergo ad hoc instituta sunt sacramenta ut ex eis esset
quod in eis esset; sed ut peritiam suam medicus ostenderet in illo remedium praeparavit, a qui languidus occasionem morbi accepit.” De Sac. I, 9, 4 PL 176: 323.
18
“Est igitur triplex causa haec institutionis sacramentorum omnium: humiliatio, eruditio et exercitatio hominis. Quae causae si non essent, sacramenta omnio, id est
sacrorum signa vel instrumenta, elementa per se esse non possent.” De Sac. I, 9, 4
PL 176: 322A. (A parallel text from the Victorine school can be found in the Summa
Sententiarum 4.1, PL 176: 117).
19
De Sac. I, 9, 2 PL 176: 317D. Haring, “Berengar’s Definitions of Sacramentum,” 126–
27.
20
Haring, “Berengar’s Definitions of Sacramentum,” 127. This objection is also raised
by Bonaventure: In IV Sent. d. 1, p. 1, q. 3, contra 3.
21
This objection is raised by the author of the Summa Sententiarum (written between
1140 and 1146). Summa Sent. IV, 1; PL 176:117B. Haring, “Berengar’s Definitions
of Sacramentum,” 127. The authorship of the Summa Sententiarum is disputed. Although it was thought for a long while to be the work of Hugh of St. Victor himself,

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Although questions of causality became more refined in the early
scholastic period, Augustine’s teaching remained an enduring frame of
reference. As speculative theology progressed, Augustine’s teaching on the
efficacy of the Word in relation to the waters of baptism became an interpretive locus for sacramental causality. In his tractates on John, Augustine
taught that the water of baptism, made a sacrament by the presence of the
Word, not only touches the body but cleanses the heart as well: corpus tangat et cor abluat.22 Because Augustine says unambiguously that the waters
of baptism cleanse the heart, it seems that something causal is being said
of the water itself, albeit with obvious and necessary reference to the power
and presence of the Word. The interpretation of this phrase, broadly circulated by Peter Lombard, occupied the best minds of the scholastic period.23
Lombard and Early Scholasticism
More explicit discussion of the sacraments as causes of what they signithe Summa Sententiarum is now commonly held to be the work of a different member of the Victorine School, composed prior to the Sentences of Peter Lombard. See
King, “Origin and Evolution of a Sacramental Formula,” 36–37.
22
See note 9.
23
See Augustine’s text from Jo. Ev. Tr. 80.3, cited in note 9. This passage, taken from an
Augustinian sermon on John, was frequently cited during the medieval and scholastic period, largely owing to its use by Lombard as an explanation of the efficacy
of baptism. Sent. IV, dist. 3 c. 1. (However, an allusion to the same text also appears in the Summa Sententiarum of the Victorine School, which predates Lombard’s Sentences. PL 176: 129c.) This passage is of interest for at least two reasons:
the combination between Word and water, from which the mature understanding
of sacramental form and matter developed is present here. Concerning sacramental
causality specifically, the concept of exterior washing and interior cleansing is of
great importance. Many scholastic authors offered their theories of sacramental causality as interpretations of this passage. (For example: Bonaventure, In IV Sent. d. 1,
p. 1, art. unicus, q. 4; Richard of Middleton, In IV Sent. d. 1, a. 4, q. 2; Aquinas, In IV
Sent. d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 2, s.c. 1 and d. 3, q. 1, a. 5, qc. 3, expos. and d. 18, q. 1, a. 3, qc.
1, arg. 3 and d. 26, q. 2, a. 3, ad. 1; Summa theologiae (ST) III, q. 38, a. 6, arg. 5 and q.
60, a. 6, co. and q. 62, a. 4, s.c.; Quodlib. 12, q. 10, co.; Super Ioan. c. 15, 1; Super Tit.
c. 3, 1; Scotus, Ox. In IV Sent., d. 1, q. 4. All textual references to Bonaventure and
Scotus refer to the following editions (unless otherwise indicated): S. Bonaventurae,
Opera Omnia, ed. A. C. Peltier (Paris: Vivés, 1866); Joannis Duns Scoti, Opera Omnia, editio nova (Paris: Vivés, 1894). References to Richard of Middleton are taken
from Willibrord Lampen, ed., De Causalitate Sacramentorum iuxta Scholam Franciscanam, Florilegium Patristicum tam veteris quam medii aevi auctores complectens
26 (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1931). Textual citations from Aquinas will be indicated
individually.

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fy was introduced by Peter Lombard (d. 1160).24 Lombard studied under Hugh of St. Victor, and was strongly influenced by his sacramental
doctrine.25 Lombard argues that the sacraments should be understood as
both signs and causes because they not only signify the invisible grace at
work, but sanctify the recipient as well.26 For Lombard, it is the sanctifying effect of the sacraments that gives them their causal quality. Lombard
presents this causal understanding of sacramentality as an interpretation of the Augustinian doctrine of sign, in which the sign conveys an
imprint of what it signifies to the mind. Concerning the sacraments as
signs, Lombard explicitly uses the language of causality to define the relationship between the sacraments and their sanctifying effect in the soul.27
Sign and lasting effect were properly distinguished by Augustine against
the Donatists; by the thirteenth century, Lombard’s Sentences were widely used in the schools, and his use of the word causare to describe the
connection between these same sacramental signs and their effects was
frequently commented upon.
With the rising influence of Aristotle in the early scholastic period,
there was an impetus to describe this relationship between sacramen24

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (DTC) s.v. “Sacraments, Causalité,” 577. It appears that Lombard is the first to use the word causare in conjunction with the sacraments. However, the notion that the sacraments convey a real effect in the recipient
is clear from the Augustinian tradition. Lombard’s immediate predecessors in the
Victorine School maintained this as well. See the Summa Sent. tract. 4 c. 1, PL 176:
117, et al.
25
Peter Lombard studied with Hugh of St. Victor, beginning while the latter was completing his De Sacramentis christianae fidei. See Rosemann, Peter Lombard, 27. At
times Lombard literally transcribes selections from both Hugh’s De Sacramentis and
the Summa Sententiarium. Rogers, Peter Lombard and the Sacramental System, 66.
26
“Sacramentum enim proprie dicitur, quod ita signum est gratiae Dei et invisibilis
gratiae forma, ut ipsius imaginem gerat et causa exsistat. Non igitur significandi tantum gratia sacramenta instituta sunt, sed et sanctificandi” (emphasis mine). In IV
Sent. d. 1 c. 4.2.
27
Ibid. Lombard’s phrase invisibilis gratiae forma recall the words of Augustine that
he employed earlier in his text: “Sacramentum est invisibilis gratiae visibilis forma.” Sent. IV, d. 1 c. 2. Augustine’s original text can be found in Epistola CSEL 34,
105.3.12. See Wayne J. Hankey, “Reading Augustine through Dionysius,” in Aquinas the Augustinian, ed. Michael Dauphinais, Barry David, and Matthew Levering
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 250n19, 254–55,
et al. Use of this Augustinian phrase in this context reflects in part the legacy of
the Berengarian controversy. Haring, “Berengar’s Definitions of Sacramentum,”
109–16, et al.

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tal sign and effect using Aristotelian causal categories—accompanying
this trend was the risk of misapplication. William of Auxerre (d. 1232)
is seemingly the first to use explicitly Aristotelian categories to explain
the way in which the sacraments function as causes.28 William took up
Hugh’s metaphorical description of the sacraments as containers of grace
(as medicine in a vial), and made explicit Hugh’s implicit materialism,
arguing that the sacraments are causes in the material sense, rather than
the efficient.29
Roland of Cremona (d. 1259) argued against this idea explicitly, proposing instead that the sacraments operate as efficient causes.30 Cremona explicitly ruled out an extrincisist approach, arguing that the power
operative in the sacraments was not similar to the power of political or
rhetorical persuasion. Rather, Cremona argues that the power at work
in the sacraments is similar to the potency associated with an efficient
cause. Because of its emphasis on movement toward an intended finality,
the category of efficient cause would prove itself the most fitting ways to
speak of sacramental efficacy in the causal language of Aristotle. Both
Lombard and Augustine understood the power of the sacraments as
working toward its final completion as an effect in the recipient. Efficient causality preserves the distinction between the end intended and
28

John F. Gallagher, Significando Causant: A Study of Sacramental Efficiency, Studia
Fribugensia New Series 40 (Fribourg: University of Fribourg Press, 1965), 57n2.
29
“Ad hoc dicendum est quod cum dicitur sacramenta iustificant, attribuitur continenti quod est contenti. Est enim sensus: gratia contenta in sacramentis iustificat,
unde sacramenta non iustificant tamquam causa efficiens, sed tamquam causa materialis…sacramenta iustificant tamquam medicinalia vasa, quia in ipsis sacramentis
datur gratia.” De Sac., as cited by Gallagher, Significando Causant, 61. Gallagher is
reliant on the text of Simonin and Meersseman for this citation. See H. Simonin and
G. Meersseman, De Sacramentorum Efficientia apud theologos Ordinis Praedicatorum (Roma: Pont. Institutum Angelicum, 1936), 118. Much of William’s argument
in this regard hinges on the issue of the matter involved in the sacrament—partially
intending to preserve the nonarbitrary quality of the material elements employed in
the sacraments, William described their causality in terms of that same material. The
theory of dispositive causality, which was taken up by the early Aquinas in the Sentences commentary, seems to have originated here with William’s theory of material
causality. DTC, s.v. “Sacraments, Causalité,” 578.
30
In IV Sent. d. 1; fol. 79va. Roland seems to be contending with the thought of William of Auxerre (d. 1231), who argued that the sacraments were material causes,
rather than efficient. Ephrem Filthaut, Roland von Cremona, O.P., und die Anfänge der Scholastik im Predigerorden: Ein Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte der älteren
Dominikaner (Vechta i. O.: Albertus Magnus Verlag der Dominikaner, 1936), 165.

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the means by which it is accomplished, while at once speaking of the relationship between the two: efficient causality is in motion toward a final
end—for the sacraments, this means that the causality of sacred signs is
conditioned and defined by their directedness toward the sanctification
of the person, made possible by the operative presence of the power of
the Word.
Material causality, by contrast, is far less suitable. In this regard, Cremona recognized Hugh’s medicinal imagery for the metaphor that it was:
Cremona taught that the sacraments only “contained” grace in the sense
that an effect can be contained in an efficient cause.31 In this much, he saw
himself as standing in continuity with Augustine’s sacramental theology,
citing the same passage from Augustine’s tract on John used by Lombard
and many others.32 From this point forward, we begin to see efficient instrumental causality offered as an intrinsic interpretation of Augustinian
sacramental teleology. After Cremona, efficient causality was the category of choice for those interested in applying Aristotle to the problem
of sacramental causality in a manner that stood in continuity with the
Augustinian tradition.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Interpretive Traditions
In order to sift the multitude of causal models on offer at the beginning
of the scholastic period, we may distinguish between two trends—not
yet schools—of interpretation.33 The Berengarian controversy had made
31

In IV Sent. d. 1; fol. 79va. Ibid, 165.
“Virtutem dixerim, quia augustinus vocat illud virtutem, non est enim virtus politica
vel gramatica (!), sed vocatur virtus, sicut frigiditas vocatur virtus aque, aqua agit
in corpus baptizati.” In IV Sent. d. 1; fol. 85a-b (emphasis Filthaut), cited in Filthaut,
Roland von Cremona, 167.
33
In this much I follow J. Gallagher, a student of J. H. Nicholas, O.P., whose work
on this subject is to be commended. Gallagher distinguishes two main patterns of
thought that characterize the tradition received by St. Thomas: the first “sees real
power in the sacramental rites to cause, under God. Its earliest form spoke of the
sacraments as vials of grace, as in Hugh of St. Victor, Praepositinus, Alan of Lille,
William of Auxerre, and others, who were taking up the thought of the fathers that
grace was contained in the sacraments. This notion developed into seeing grace really in the rite, but as in its cause. At first, this meant as in its material cause, that
is, grace was in the sacraments; then as in its efficient cause. The work attributed to
Alexander, as well as Albert, Guerric of Saint Quentin and William of Meliton see
that causality as effecting a disposition in the soul for grace. It is this opinion that
32

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803

clear that in the hands of the wrong interpreter, the ambiguities inherent
in Augustine’s sacramental theology could actually conceal very serious
error. As a result, the need to articulate the way in which the sacraments
effect what they signify gradually emerged as a more urgent theological
topic. As patristic ambiguity slowly yielded to scholastic precision on this
topic, two distinct trends can be seen to emerge. The first approach could
be called intrinsic, because it understands the sacraments as integrated
into a causal action directed by God in which His power works through
the working of the sacramental sign. There were reactions against the attribution of the category of cause to the sacraments in themselves, however. Seeking to preserve the absolute sovereignty of God with respect to
grace, others insisted on a more extrinsic approach in which the sacraments were at best causes in the accidental sense, acting only as occasions,
conditions or legal arrangements which invite the causal involvement of
God in some way.34 For the intrinsic approach, the sacraments are true
Thomas will follow in commenting on the book of Sentences. Others, such as Roland
of Cremona and Hugh of Saint Cher, hint at a causality of grace itself, though not
clearly. This view will be developed by Thomas in his Summa.” Gallagher, Significando Causant, 80–81. The second “approach to the sacraments . . . sees in them no
real power to cause either grace or a disposition for grace. Rather God causes both
of these directly, and alone. He does so, a) on the occasion of the sacraments being
given; or b) on the condition of their being given, as in Abelard, Bernard, William
of Auvergne; or c) because of a pact, an ordination of the sacrament to grace . . .
we may place in this group William of Auvergne, Bonaventure, Fishacre, Hugh of
Strasbourg, and Kilwardby. Later, moral causality will follow in the same path.” Ibid.,
81. The intrinsic/extrinsic distinction is also applied by Jean-Pierre Torrell in the
context of Christ’s resurrection. See J.-P. Torrell, “La causalité salvifique de la résurrection du Christ selon saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste 96 (1996): 179–208, as cited
by Philip L. Reynolds, “Efficient Causality and Instrumentality in Thomas Aquinas’s
Theology of the Sacraments,” in Essays in Medieval Philosophy and Theology in Memory of Walter H. Principe, O.S.B., ed. James R. Ginther and Carl N. Still (Burlington,
VT: Ashgate, 2005), 67–84.
34
While we are aware that historical metanarrative can have serious limitations, the
distinction offered here between intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to sacramental
causality is of great utility because it provides a workable framework for understanding the main lines of doctrinal development that shaped this issue through the centuries. This distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to sacramental
causality is broadly congruent with the division between the physical and moral
causality that emerged in the schools during the modern period. However, it should
be noted that, for Thomists, the crux of the issue is more aptly expressed in terms
of act and potency. Gallagher’s distinction is most useful as a point of departure for
understanding sacramental causality; a well-developed understanding of the issue

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

causes in the proper sense, the functioning of which has real effect under
the direction of God. According to the extrinsic model, comparatively
little is said about the functioning of the sacraments themselves, lest the
causal sovereignty of God be compromised. In the former, instrumental
causality is portrayed as an analogical species of efficient causality; in the
latter, causality is attributed to the sacraments in a more equivocal sense.
These new speculative precisions brought fresh challenges for sacramental theology: not all scholastic theories proved equally suited for
conveying the received tradition. Early attempts at material and efficient
causality were clearly problematic, and while the extrinsic position does
avoid attributing a supernatural effect to a natural instrument, it is comparatively deontological, lacking the means to describe the causal dimension of the instrument’s action in language other than that of a legal
decree, in which something of no inherent value is declared invaluable,
by order of the king.
Concerning the Augustinian inheritance, one way in which the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic interpretations of sacramental
causality is manifested is in the interpretation of the virtus aquae described by Augustine in the above quoted passage.35 Augustine himself
makes it clear that this is not a power had by the water alone, but is
spoken of with necessary reference to the power of God. We have seen
that Hugh of St. Victor interpreted this teaching using the language of
instrumentality:36 as a tool takes on instrumental power in the hand of
a builder to work toward an end for which it has no native capacity, so
too are the material elements of the sacraments taken up as instruments
of divine power. Aquinas and the Thomistic School interpret this virtus
aquae as a form of real instrumental efficient power, under the direction and impulse of God as principle efficient cause.37 In this way, the
from a Thomistic perspective will necessarily transcend these categories. The categories of intrinsic and extrinsic also recall twentieth-century debates concerning
nature and grace. In light of this, the work of Gallagher and others not only provides
a useful paradigm for understanding the history of sacramental causality but also
draws attention to the possibility that a truly intrinsic doctrine of grace must be
accompanied and supported by an intrinsic sense of sacramental causality.
35
“Unde ista tanta virtus aquae, ut corpus tangat et cor abluat, nisi faciente verbo: non
quia dicitur, sed quia creditur?” Jo. Ev. Tr., 80.3. See the full text cited in note 9.
36
De Sac. I, 9, 4 PL 176: 322A. See note 18.
37
See In IV Sent. d. 1, q. 1, solutio I; ST III, q. 62 a. 1.

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material signs are made instruments of the Word, in whose power they
participate as instrumental causes directed toward a final end. However,
because of the conceptual difficulty involved in attributing any form of
causality to the sacramental elements without at the same time compromising divine sovereignty, the extrincisist approach was unable to
develop a technical vocabulary for the virtus aquae, and gravitated instead toward a view of the sacraments as conditions or occasions for the
expression of divine power.
While the Dominican school began to center around Aquinas’s intrinsic model of efficient instrumental causality, the emerging Franciscan school took a decidedly extrinsic approach. Concerning sacramental cause, Bonaventure’s (d. 1274) brand of Augustinianism can be understood in part as a reaction to the Aristotelian causal interpretations
emerging at the time—the work of both Auxerre and Cremona would
have been well known to Bonaventure.
In his treatment of sacramental cause in book four of the Sentences,
Bonaventure first proposes a version of dispositive causality current in
many of the schools: while the sacramental character may be the result of
efficient causality, grace itself is caused only dispositionally—that is, the
sacraments create the necessary condition in the soul for the reception
of grace. Concerning the final end of the sacraments, however, they are
causes sine qua non—causes without which the final effect is not possible.38 Bonaventure nods with deference to this position, but in the end
he tentatively proposes a more radical solution that would become the
favored position of the Nominalist tradition.39
Bonaventure acknowledges the Augustinian teaching received
through the Victorines: the sacraments are comprised of both the power of the Word and material elements. However, he is concerned with
38
39

In IV Sent. d. 1, p. 1, q. 4, respond.
In this much, Bonaventure is building in part on the thought of his teacher Alexander of Hales (d. 1245). Summa Theol. (Halensis), Pars IV, q. 5, a. 5. Lampen, De
Causalitate Sacramentorum, 6–17. DTC, s.v. “Sacraments, Causalité,” 579–80. Versions of occasionalist or sine qua non causality was taught by others before him, but
Bonaventure’s specific use of this approach in response to the scholastic approach to
sacramental causality ushers in a more idealistic approach to the sacraments which
comes to be adopted by the Nominalists. Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) proposes
an early form of this view, although his work predates the question of causality that
arose in the scholastic period after Lombard. See In Cena Domini, PL 183: 272a.

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the manner in which the spiritual power of the word comes to interact
with the material substrate of the elements, and is unable to supply a
fitting explanation for the way in which the natural potency or causal
power of the elements (or signs) can be used in tandem with the causal
power of the Word which works its effect in the recipient.40 Bonaventure
finds each of the four Aristotelian causes lacking in this regard,41 and
his resulting emphasis on divine potency alone foreshadows the causal
univocity of the Nominalists. While Aquinas will resolve this difficulty using efficient instrumentality, Bonaventure opts for a more idealistic solution to this problem. In an effort to explain the interrelation
between the material sacramental elements and the spiritual effect for
which God alone is principally responsible, Bonaventure defends the
legitimacy of sine qua non or occasionalist causality, in which the sacraments are conditions or occasions without which grace is not given;
the causal necessity here stems not from anything intrinsic to the function of the sacramental elements themselves, but from the authority of
God who has decreed that they be used for this purpose. To illustrate
this, Bonaventure uses the example of a promissory note sealed by the
king—the note in itself is completely dependent on the king’s power and
authority, having no intrinsic power of its own, and loses what power it
has upon the death of the king.42 As a result, Bonaventure will say that
if the sacramental elements are to be considered causes it must be only
40

“Sed difficile mihi videtur intelligere, virtutem illam simul esse verbo et element
collatam, quantum ad essentiam et naturam, quantum ad eius existentiam, quantum
ad durationis mensuram et etiam quantum ad operationis efficaciam; quae Omnia
necesse est ponere et explicare circa virtutem illam, si quis dicat, quod aliqua qualitas detur verbo et element, per quam agat et influat in ipsam animam.” In III Sent.,
d. 40, dub. III. Opera Omnia, ed. Ad Claras Aquas (1887). As in Lampen, De Causalitate Sacramentorum, 28.
41
Ibid.
42
“Sicut igitur litterae regiae anulo regis sigillatae magnae sunt dignitatis et virtutis et
valoris et magna dicuntur et posse et facere, tamen in eis nulla virtus est absoluta,
sed sola ordinatio per assistentiam virtutis regiae—quod patet, quia, mortuo rege,
non plus curator de litteris suis quam de aliis, tamen nihil absolutum amiserunt.”
In IV Sent., d. 1, p. 1, a. 1, q. 4, Resp. Opera Omnia, ed. Ad Claras Aquas (1887).
Lampen, De Causalitate Sacramentorum, 26. This example was used first by Bernard
of Clairvaux. See note 39. See also Johann Auer and Joseph Ratzinger, eds., Dogmatic Theology, vol. 6, A General Doctrine of the Sacraments and the Mystery of the
Eucharist, by Johann Auer, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, trans. ed. Hugh M. Riley
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 80.

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807

“in an extended sense.”43 Bonaventure emphasizes the principle causality of God, while acknowledging that the sacraments can dispose us to
receive grace through upbuilding faith and devotion by this same divine
power.44 Because Bonaventure is unable to articulate analogically the
relationship between secondary instrumental causes and the principle
causality of God, he shifts the focus of the conversation away from the
instruments and toward the causality of the principle agent, resulting in
a picture of the principle agent as cause in an all but univocal sense, the
instruments being comparatively equivocal. As these respective schools
continue to develop, the contrast between the Thomist and Franciscan
positions on the doctrine of analogy will mark their differing approaches to sacramental causality, the intrinsic approach expressing itself in
the analogical language of the Thomist school, and the extrinsic in the
comparative univocity of the Franciscan.
Aquinas and the Thomist Tradition
Working within the received tradition, Aquinas describes sacramental
causality intrinsically using the category of efficient causality. Following
the lead of Roland of Cremona, Aquinas chooses to use the categories of
potency and motion to describe the way in which the sacraments contain
the grace they confer. The sacraments contain grace as an instrument
contains the final effect intended by an artist. To this end, he understands
instrumental efficiency as a participation in the power of the principle
43

“Et si tu quaeras, utrum habeant virtutem aliquam creatam super increatam, respondent, quod praeter virtutem aliquam increatam est dicere aliquam virtutem habere
sacramentum, sed extensor nomine virtutis. Si enim virtus dicat aliquam qualitatem vel naturam sive essentiam advenientem sacramentum, sicut proprie dicitur,
sic secundum eos non est dicendum, quod habeat virtutem, sed extenditur nomen
virtutis ad aliquam ordinationem, ut quando aliquid habet efficacem ordinationem
ad aliquid, dicitur habere virtutem respect illius.—Et ponunt hoc exemplum: rex
statuit, ut qui habent tale signum, habeant centum marcas. Post istam institutionem
signum illud non habet aliquam proprietatem absolutam, quam non haberet prius;
ad aliquid tamen est ordinatum, ad quod non erat prius. Et quia habet efficacem
ordinationem, dicitur habere virtutem, ut faciat aliquem habere centum marcas, et
tamen nihil plus habet de bonitate nunc quam prius.” In IV Sent. d. I p. I, a. 1, q. 4,
Resp. 2.4. Opera Omnia, ed. Ad Claras Aquas (1887). As in Lampen, De Causalitate
Sacramentorum, 25–26.
44
“Sacramento enim dicunt assistere divinam virtutem, quae est causa gratiae, et fidem et devotionem sucipientis, quae disponit ad gratiam.” Ibid.

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agent, as color which moves through the air to be received by the eye,
containing the form of the final cause as something as yet incomplete, as
light still in potentia to be received by the eye. In this way, the sacraments
(and all instrumental causes) are causal not equivocally (as in Bonaventure’s “extended sense” of causality), but rather analogically, with necessary referent to the potency of the principle agent. Divine sovereignty is
not compromised, and yet the sacraments can be considered causes in a
real (non-equivocal) sense. This teaching also fits well with the inherited
Augustinian tradition. Aquinas describes this instrumental efficiency as
the power and intent of the principle agent flowing (fluere) through the
instrument to reach its point of actualization in the intended recipient,
working through the medium of motion to reach its end.45 In this much,
Aquinas’s description of instrumental efficient causality as light passing
through air to be actuated in its reception by the eye strongly resembles
Augustine’s description of the sacramental relationship of effect and sign
as water passing through an aqueduct to reach its intended recipient.
In an effort to resolve the problem of a natural instrument producing
a supernatural effect, in his Sentences commentary Aquinas bifurcates
efficient instrumental causality between dispositive and perfective instrumental causality, arguing that with respect to the finality of grace, the
sacraments are dispositive efficient instrumental causes.46 Aquinas dis45

“Ista dicuntur agentia univoca, sicut calor est in igne calefaciente. In quibusdam
vero est idem secundum proportionem sive analogiam, sicut cum sol calefacit . . . Ex
quo patet quod illud quod est in effectu ut forma dans esse, est in agente, inquantum
hujusmodi, ut virtus activa; et ideo sicut se habet agens ad virtutem activam, ita
se habet ad continendam formam effectus. Et quia agens instrumentale non habet
virtutem agendi ad aliquod ens completum, sed per modum intentionis, ut dictum
est, et forma introducta continetur in eo per modum intentionis, sicut sunt species
colorum in aere, a quibus aer non denominatur coloratus; etiam hoc modo gratia
est in sacramentis sicut in instrumento, non complete, sed incomplete…per modum
intentionis fluentis duplici fluxu: quorum unus est de potentia in actum, sicut etiam
in mobili est forma, quae est terminus motus, dum movetur ut fluens de potentia in
actum; et inter haec cadit medium motus, cujus virtute instrumentum agit: alius de
agente in patiens, inter quae cadit medium instrumentum, prout unum est movens,
et alterum motum.” In IV Sent. d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 4, co.
46
“Ad cujus evidentiam sciendum est, quod causa efficiens dupliciter potest divide…
scilicet in disponentem, quae causat dispositionem ad formam ultimam; et perficientem, quae inducit ultimam perfectionem…Hujusmodi autem materialibus
instrumentis competit aliqua actio ex natura propria, sicut aquae abluere, et oleo
facere nitidum corpus; sed ulterius, inquantum sunt instrumenta divinae misericordiae justificantis, pertingunt instrumentaliter ad aliquem effectum in ipsa anima,

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tinguishes between those instrumental efficient causes which touch the
finality intended by the principle agent (perfective) and those which do
not themselves touch this finality (dispositive), but are part of a chain of
efficiency which is working toward the intended finality under the aegis
of the principle agent—in this sense, these instrumental efficient causes
can be said to dispose for the final end. Unlike Bonaventure (for whom
dispositive causality is not a species of instrumental efficient causality),
this provides Aquinas with a working model for speaking of the sacraments as real efficient causes without compromising the principle agency
of God. The precise nature of Aquinas’s mature teaching on this matter has been the subject of prolonged debate, however. Although most
Thomists of the modern period came to see a development in Aquinas’s
teaching on sacramental causality between the Sentences and the Summa, Aquinas’s early doctrine of dispositive cause remained the predominant position of the Thomistic commentatorial tradition for centuries.
Because commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard persisted as the
standard for theological method and instruction though the fifteenth
century, Thomist theological methodology largely conformed itself to
this text.47 Early Thomistic commentators interacted with Thomas priquod primo correspondet sacramentis, sicut est character, vel aliquid hujusmodi. Ad
ultimum autem effectum, quod est gratia, non pertingunt etiam instrumentaliter,
nisi dispositive, inquantum hoc ad quod instrumentaliter effective pertingunt, est
dispositio, quae est necessitas, quantum in se est, ad gratiae susceptionem.” In IV
Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 1, co. Aquinas understands instrumental efficient causality
(both dispositive and perfective) as distinct from the principal efficient causality
attributable to God alone. See In II Sent. d. 1, q. 1, a. 1–2, et al.
47
It was not until the sixteenth century that St. Thomas’s Summa theologiae replaced
Lombard’s Sentences as the standard textbook for western theology. Rosemann, Peter Lombard, 3. Unsurprisingly, it seems that the Summa first gained this prominence in Dominican schools, where this transition began as early as 1480–83. Gallagher, Significando Causant, 137. However, Dominican commentators such as John
Capreolus (d. 1444) continued to use the Sentences as a medium for debating the
Nominalists at Paris in the early fifteenth century. By this time the content of these
“commentaries on the Sentences” often had less to do with Lombard directly; written
soon after the Dominican Order’s return to the University of Paris in 1407 (after a
long controversy surrounding the condemnations of the previous century), Capreolus’s writings are proposed as a defense of Thomist teaching against the criticisms
of the Nominalists, rather than a commentary on the thought of Peter Lombard.
See Philipp W. Rosemann, “The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard’s
Sentences,” in Rethinking the Middle Ages, vol. 2, ed. Paul Edward Dutton and John
Shinners (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2007), 139–48.

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marily through the framework that was in place in the wider university
and employed by their intellectual peers. Because of its dominance in
the academy, the Sentences formed the common intellectual medium for
different theological schools, each of which continued to express their
respective positions by commenting on this common text.48 In this way,
both intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to sacramental causality continued to be expressed through the medium of the Sentences. Conversely,
Thomists since the early modern period have understood the Summa
theologiae to be their primary window into the thought of St. Thomas—
as a result Aquinas’s earlier works have come to be viewed through the
doctrinal lens of the Summa. There are good reasons to favor the later
works of an author over his earliest; however, because of the lasting influence of Peter Lombard, early Thomism took Aquinas’s Commentary on
the Sentences as its point of departure, reading works such as the Summa
theologiae only later and most likely with reference to the Sentences. In
this way, the textual hermeneutic of early Thomists such as Capreolus
was vastly different than that of later Thomistic commentators and present students of Aquinas. Most other theologians during this period expressed their mature thought in Sentences commentaries, and one might
easily assume that Aquinas was no different in this respect. Further, the
practical need to shape theological discourse around the medium of the
Sentences was an unavoidable reality for the first generations of Thomists. It is helpful to recall that during this period Thomism was far from
dominant, and the need to respond to—and defend Aquinas from—the
rise of late scholastic Nominalist interpretations was very real. As in our
48

By the middle of the thirteenth century, “the Sentences commentary [had come]
into its own as a preferred medium of scholastic theological (and philosophical)
discourse, certainly rivaling, and often outshining, other vehicles of theological expression (e.g. Quodlibital questions, Summae, Biblical commentaries). During the
period of 1250-1320 it became increasingly common for theologians to produce
several Sentences commentaries (or several variations of their one Sentences commentary), having either lectured on the Sentences several times or having taken several opportunities to rework the material used in their lectures . . . parallel with the
development of the Sentences commentary into a major bearer of theological ideas,
the very structure of the commentaries themselves changed a great deal, and certainly the thought expressed in them saw a great deal of development . . . there arose
shared theological tendencies, best described as traditions: a Franciscan theological
tradition and a Dominican one.” G. R. Evans, ed., Mediaeval Commentaries on the
Sentences of Peter Lombard: Current Research, vol. 1 (Boston: Brill, 2002), 42.

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own times, to do this effectively meant entering into discourse within
commonly accepted theological mediums.49
An internal factor which extended the life of Aquinas’s early
thought on sacramental causality was the muted quality of his shift on
this subject in the Summa. While the explicit language of dispositive
sacramental causality is not employed in the Summa, it is also not explicitly repudiated. As a result, almost all early Thomistic commentators believed that the sacraments were dispositive causes of grace, following Aquinas’s explicit teaching in the Sentences. This position was
also held by the young Cajetan (d. 1534) in his own Sentences commentary, which he produced around the year 1493.50 Later, however,
Cajetan would revise this position in his commentary on Aquinas’s
Summa theologiae. Although Aquinas makes no mention of the distinction between dispositive and perfective instrumental causality in
the Summa, he speaks of sacramental causality in a way that for some
indicates that they are perfective instruments (in the manner described
in his Sentences commentary).51
Cajetan’s position was controversial at the time, and one of the
chief objectors was Sylvester de Ferrara (d. 1528). However, it would
subsequently become the standard explanation among Thomists of
sacramental cause, upheld by Domingo Bañez (d. 1604), John of St.
Thomas (d.1644) and many others.52 One of the central issues for these
49

For Capreolus, the Sentences provided the ground on which he could effectively engage the threat of Nominalism. See note 47, et al.
50
Cajetan’s Sentences commentary was not edited as a published final product, but
consists rather of notes from students or perhaps his own lecture notes. (His argument in favor of dispositive causality can be found in his commentary on the
fourth book of Lombard’s Sentences: Cajetan, In IV Sent. q. 1, a. 1). See Gallagher,
Significando Causant, 191. Capreolus and Sylvester de Ferrara argued for dispositive
physical causality as well. See Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 264.
51
“Causa vero instrumentalis non agit per virtutem suae formae, sed solum per motum quo movetur a principali agente. Unde effectus non assimilatur instrumento,
sed principali agenti: sicut lectus non assimilatur securi, sed arti quae est in mente
artificis.” ST III, q. 62, a. 1, co.
52
Cajetan was the first Thomistic commentator to interpret Aquinas after the Summa was adopted as the standard text in Dominican schools and noted the implicit difference between the Sentences commentary and the Summa theologiae on the
subject of sacramental cause. His position was not accepted by some older Thomist
contemporaries, such as Sylvester de Ferrara, who maintained in his commentary on
the Summa contra gentiles that Aquinas never abandoned dispositive causality. Both

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commentators is the definition of grace in relation to sacramental instrumentality.53
During the modern period and beyond, the position of Cajetan and
later Thomists on the subject of sacramental causality was frequently referred to as “perfective physical causality.” Although this terminology is
not used by Aquinas in the Summa, it is intended to clearly distinguish
Cajetan’s teaching from that of both the earlier Thomists and those who favored an extrinsic approach. The word “perfective” is not used by Aquinas
in his mature writings; however, its reference to the distinction between
dispositive and perfective efficient instrumental causes in his Sentences
commentary serves to rule out the option of a dispositive interpretation.54
The word “physical” indicates the motive potency of an instrumental effiCajetan’s commentary on the Summa theologiae and de Ferrara’s commentary on the
Summa contra gentiles have been standard companions for generations of Thomists—both appear in the Leonine edition of Aquinas’s Opera. For an example of this,
see In contra gentiles IV, c. 57, Opera Omnia S. Thomae, ed. iussu Leonis XIII, vol. 15,
p. 192. De Ferrara argues that the sacraments are dispositive causes of grace, whose
instrumental efficiency extends only to the sacramental character in the strict sense;
the character then disposes the soul for the reception of grace. Here de Ferrara is
interpreting the text of ST III, q. 62. He says that some have claimed that this text
teaches that grace is caused instrumentally by the sacraments in an absolute sense.
Regarding this interpretation of ST III, q. 62, de Ferrara has this to say: “Sed hoc ad
mentem S. Thomae esse non puto.” See Gallagher, Significando Causant, 137–41. De
Ferrara refutes this claim using texts from the De potentia and the Sentences. In this
much de Ferrara stood in line with the older commentatorial tradition claiming that
Thomism in its purity is found in the Sentences and that later works such as the De
veritate and De potentia support this teaching. The absence of an explicit retraction
of his earlier position in the Summa only further confirms this for de Ferrara.
53
The crux of the issue here is the status of grace as either created or uncreated. Because an instrument can have no role in the creative process, de Ferrara holds that
the instrumentality of the sacraments cannot extend to grace per se, but must be
limited therefore to the disposition. Gallagher, Significando Causant, 137-41. Unfortunately, we cannot offer a thorough treatment of the subject of created and
uncreated grace here. For a balanced treatment of this matter, see Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Grace: Commentary on the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, Ia IIae,
Q. 109-114, trans. Dominican Nuns of Corpus Christi Monastery, Menlo Park California (St. Louis: Herder, 1952), 110–15. Garrigou-Lagrange makes a crucial distinction between grace as the eternal love of God and grace as a potency produced
in the human person, by which we participate in His divinity. Simply put, grace is
a divinizing and participatory reality, bifurcated analogically along the lines of the
relationship already established between creature and creator, albeit in an elevated
and entirely supernatural sense.
54
Gallagher, Significando Causant, 190–91.

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813

cient cause in the Aristotelian sense, and eliminates those theories which
rely on external forms of legal pact or moral coercion.
Moral Causality
Around the time of the council of Trent, what came to be called “moral
causality” arose as a new development within the extrincisist tradition.
Advocates of this position argue that the sacraments do not cause grace
after the manner of a physical motive cause in the Aristotelian sense, but
are causes after the manner of moral or legal compulsion: God establishes the sacramental economy, and binds Himself to respond to the sacraments with the gift of grace.55 Although Melchior Cano (d. 1560) was the
first to argue for moral causality explicitly,56 some have claimed that it
55

This explanation of sacramental causality was extremely popular from the sixteenth
century to the early twentieth. Many claim that there are strong Nominalist tendencies in this school of thought. See Bañez, Comentarios Ineditos a la Tercera Parte de
Santo Tomas, vol. 2, De Sacramentis: QQ. 60-90, ed. Vincente Beltran de Heredia,
Biblioteca de Teologos Españoles 19 (Salamanca: 1953), 47–48. See also Aloisius M.
Ciappi, De Sacramentis in Communi: Commentarius in Tertiam Partem S. Thomae
(qq. LX-LXV), Pontificum Institutum Internationale Angelicum (Torino: R. Berruti,
1957), 70–71. Gallagher, Significando Causant, 158.
56
Melchior Cano (d. 1560) studied under Vitoria at Salamanca, and later succeeded
him as chair in 1546. He was deeply involved in the debates surrounding the sacraments at the Council of Trent, particularly those concerning the Eucharist and
Penance. His most influential work is De Locis Theologicis (Salamanca, 1563), which
proposes a new method for theology in relation to its sources. The Oxford Dictionary
of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. rev. (ODCC), s.v. “Cano, Melchior.” For more on the
nature and influence of Cano’s De Locis, see A. Lang, Die Loci Theologici des Melchior Cano und die Methode des Dogmatischen Beweises: Ein Beitrag zur theologischen
Methodologie und ihrer Geschichte, Münchener Studien zur Historischen Theologie
6 (München: Kösel & Pustet, 1925). Cano’s restructuring of theology in relation to
its sources in De Locis had wide-ranging effects on ecclesiology in the modern period. The manner in which theologians conceived of conciliar and papal magisterial
authority was deeply affected by his use of ecclesial authority. See Ulrich Horst, Unfehlbarkeit und Geschichte: Studien zur Unfehlbarkeitsdiskussion von Melchior Cano
bis zum I. Vatikanischen Konzil (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1982). Further, many of the manuals of the nineteenth and twentieth century are more indebted on a hermeneutical and methodological level to Cano’s De Locis than they are
to Aquinas’s Summa. Jared Wicks, “A Note on ‘Neo-Scholastic’ Manuals of Theological Instruction, 1900-1960,” Josephinum 18 no. 1 (2011): 242. Cano was also deeply
involved in ecclesial politics. He served as provincial of Castile, and opposed the
Jesuits on a number of issues, theological and otherwise. ODCC, s.v. “Cano, Melchior.” Cano remained a controversial figure at the University of Salamanca for several
centuries. During the reform of the curriculum, which began in 1771, attempts were

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was Francis de Vitoria (d. 1546), his mentor and immediate predecessor
at the University of Salamanca, who first proposed an early version of
this theory.57 Although there are certain differences between moral causality and occasionalism or sine qua non causality, many theologians see
a strong continuity between the theory of moral causality proposed in
the early modern period and the thought of some early Franciscan thinkers, including Bonaventure.58 We know that Bonaventure saw the sacmade to replace the Summa theologiae with Cano’s De Locis, whole or in part. This
curriculum controversy followed Salamancan disputes of the previous century concerning Jesuits, Dominicans, grace, Jansenism, and the Chinese rites. See George
M. Addy, The Enlightenment in the University of Salamanca (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 1966), 116–17, 189–202, et al. Some see a connection between the
Molinist controversy concerning the nature of grace and the sacramental systems
connected with the conferral thereof. Some see an intellectual lineage connecting
the Franciscan theological positions on the sacramental conferral of grace with the
later Jesuit position on grace and the development of moral theology under Melchior Cano. Subsequent thinkers who held that the sacraments were moral causes of
grace were likewise involved in arguing for the Molinist position. See Auer, A General Doctrine of the Sacraments, 79. Dominic de Soto (d. 1560), also a student of
Vitoria, initially supported a position substantially similar to Cano’s moral causality.
See Ciappi, De Sacramentis in Communi, 72n8. See also Bañez, Comentarios Ineditos
a la Tercera Parte de Santo Tomas, vol. 2, De Sacramentis: QQ. 60-90, 45. For a study
of Soto on this subject, see Alfonso F. Feliziani, “La Causalita Dei Sacramenti in Domenico Soto,” Angelicum 16 (1939): 148–94. The University of Salamanca provided
a meeting place for a wide variety of ideas and intellectual trends in the sixteenth
century. Paradoxically, the move toward a renewal in the humanities and classics
within the arts faculty that preceded the Thomistic revival (roughly coterminus with
Vitoria’s tenure) did not transition into the enlightenment along with the rest of the
continent, but existed in a comparatively harmonious relationship with scholastic
theology and other traditional disciplines for some time. See Crisogono de Jesus,
The Life of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kathleen Pond (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1958), passim. See also Addy, passim.
57
See Ciappi, De Sacramentis in Communi, 71n7, et al. Vitoria inherited certain Nominalist tendencies which undergird moral causality while studying theology in Paris.
Sacrae Theologiae Summa, vol. 4, De Sacramentis, De Novissimis, 3rd ed.,(Madrid:
Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1956), 73n9. Francis de Vitoria (d. 1546) assumed
his chair in sacred theology at the University of Salamanca in 1526. At this time, the
Summa theologiae was already in use as a textbook for theology at the University. It
was de Vitoria that began the Thomistic revival at Salamanca that would eventually
produce the Carmelite Thomistic commentatorial school known as the Salmanticenses. It is of anecdotal interest that, during the early stages of this revival, the Carmelite masters at Salamanca would influence a young clerical student who would
come to be known as St. John of the Cross. See Crisogono de Jesus, The Life of St.
John of the Cross, 33.
58
“We can see [moral causality’s] roots in Scotus, Bonaventure and other Franciscans

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815

raments as “occasions” for the reception of grace. The sacraments were
causes of grace sine qua non: necessary conditions for the reception of
grace established by divine decree.59 Duns Scotus expands upon this by
speaking of the relationship between merit and reward as a kind of wage
contract. Scotus argued that the sacraments conferred grace not because
of any intrinsic power or form contained within them, but because God
has promised to give graces to those who receive the sacraments.60 To this
extent, Scotus’s mature Nominalism can be seen as a mature manifestation of something already proposed by Bonaventure.61 By describing the
instrumentality of the sacraments solely in terms of merit and reward,
Scotus’s position stands as a deeper expression of the extrinsic tradition.
Although Bonaventure proposed sacramental occasionalism as a means
of preserving God’s causal role in the sacraments, in committing to this
model, however preliminarily, he starts down a path which will close in
behind the Franciscan thinkers who follow him, making it impossible
. . . the chain of thought is clear, even if the diverse expressions of it do not state it
in the same way, or leave implicit what is explicit in another form.” Gallagher, Significando Causant, 158. Representatives of the Jesuit theological tradition in twentieth-century Spain include Ockham (In 4, d. 1, q. 1, 2) and Biel (In 4, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2,
concl. 7) in this lineage as well. Sacrae Theologiae Summa, vol. 4, De Sacramentis, De
Novissimis, 65n4. (This series was produced by the Spanish Jesuits in the mid-twentieth century). In at least this much, Jesuits and Dominicans are not divided theologically: a clear lineage exists linking the early Franciscan tradition, the Nominalists,
and later proponents of moral causality. This opinion is shared by twentieth-century
Dominican commentators as well such as Aloisius Ciappi. Ciappi, De Sacramentis in
Communi, 70–71. Ciappi is not alone in this regard, but rather stands in continuity
with the classical Thomist commentatorial tradition: Bañez argues that in various
ways, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Ockham, Richard Fishacre, Scotus, Durandus, and Gabriel Biel all hold that the sacraments are causes of grace because, either
through their presence or use, God is moved to confer grace. Bañez, Comentarios
Ineditos a la Tercera Parte de Santo Tomas, vol. 2, De Sacramentis: QQ. 60-90, 44.
59
For Bonaventure, only the sacramental character or ornatus can be attributed to
efficient causality. Concerning grace, the sacraments function as “occasions” or “dispositions” for grace. In IV Sent. d. 1, p. 1, a. 1, q. 4, resp., s.c. 4, et al. Lampen, De
Causalitate Sacramentorum, 22–23.
60
“Merita sunt causa instrumentalis respectu praemii et quod per merita acquiritur
praemium.” Ox. In IV Sent. d.1 q. 5: Op. omn., vol. 16, 167. See Auer, A General Doctrine of the Sacraments, 79–80. Lampen, De Causalitate Sacramentorum, 56–57.
61
While Bonaventure and Scotus differ in many ways, in the case of sacramental cause
later Thomists saw a deep continuity between the two. See Bañez, Comentarios Ineditos a la Tercera Parte de Santo Tomas, vol. 2, De Sacramentis: QQ. 60-90, 44. Ciappi,
De Sacramentis in Communi, 71. Gallagher, Significando Causant, 152.

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to retreat to the place from whence they had come. Unlike their Thomist contemporaries, for Scotus and later the Nominalists there can be no
analogical resolution to the problem of instrumental efficient causality.
Melchior Cano’s theory of moral causality is based on a similar system
of promise, merit and reward.62 Cano argues that there is a distinction
between natural (or physical) causes, which involve physical motion, and
moral causes, which involve the exercise of free will. Cano argues that
physical causes cannot reach the essence of the sacramental action, while
moral causes can. To illustrate this, he distinguishes between a stick in the
hand used for murder (natural cause) and the one who councils murder
(moral cause).63 (This distinction is significant because the image of a stick
in the hand is used by Aquinas to describe the sacraments as instrumental causes).64 Cano is clear that a moral cause does not cause a physical
change of any sort, but functions in the order of merit.65 Using Scriptural
texts from Paul, 1 John and Revelation, Cano argues that the causal power
62

Cano uses the idea of a note as an example of a moral cause: “Consequentia videtur
esse nota, quoniam id vocamus causam, qua applicata sequitur effectus.” Relectio
de Sacramentis, pars IV, in Melchior Cano, Opera (Padua: Typis Seminarii, 1734)
(facsimile reprint of the Hyacinth Serry edition, Kila, MT: Kessinger, 2011), 483.
63
“Causas esse in duplici differentia, alteras naturales, alteras morales. Morales autem
appellamus causas liberas, quae scilicet libere movent: ut qui consulit, qui imperat,
ejus rei causa est, quae per ejus aut imperium, aut consilium efficitur. Juxta quam
distinctionem cum actio peccati duplictiter consideratur, & in ordine effectuum
naturalium, & in ordine effectuum moralium, Deus quidem causa naturalis dicitur
actionis, quae peccatum est: concurrit siquidem ad brachii motionem, qua hominem interficio, quemadmodum & coelum, motorque angelus simul etiam concurrit. At concursus hic naturalis est: non tamen illius actionis Deus est causa moralis:
neque enim aut consulit, aut praecipit, quin potius prohibet. Inter has autem causas
discrimen est. Nam naturales suos effectus attingunt per vim a natura inditam, ut
ignis calefacit per calorem. Morales vero non attingunt actione physica effectus suos,
nec influunt, aut producunt qualitates aliquas. Neque enim oportet, ut qui consulit
homicidium, actione aliqua physica & naturali quicquam efficiat, quemadmodum
natura efficere consuevit.” Relect. de Sacram., Pars IV, concl. 6, in Cano, Opera, 488.
64
ST III, q. 65 a. 5, co.
65
“Deinde magnopere considerandum, omnia quae de Sacramentis novae legis asseruntur, eadem & de sanguine Christi in sacris literis affirmari—1. Joan. I. Sanguis
Jesu Christi emundat nos ab omni peccato. Apoc. I. Lavit nos a peccatis nostris in
sanguine suo. & c. 12. Vicerunt eum propter sanguinem agni: & ad Rom. 3. quem
proposuit Deus propitiationem in sanguine ipsius. Eodem ergo sensu Sacramenta
dici poterunt lavate, mundare, causae esse nostrae victoria ac remissionis peccatorum, quo sanguis Christi lavat, mundat, peccataque remittit.” Relect. de Sacram.,
Pars IV, concl. 6, in Cano, Opera, 488.

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at work in the sacraments is the blood of Jesus Christ.66 Although these
Biblical references are uncontroversial in themselves, Cano uses them to
propose a sacramental theology based largely on a legalistic sense of redemptive merit: the sacraments are moral causes of grace in which the
blood of Christ pays the price for our sins. Cano uses the example of a
Christian held captive by the Turks, for whom a price of ransom must be
paid. Cano argues that a ransom such as this is a true instrumental cause
of the redemption of the prisoner, but in the moral rather than the natural
(or physical) sense.67 While these statements are not without their clear
Biblical resonances, the reduction of the sacraments to an otherwise arbitrary external legalism is less than desirable.
Cano’s theory of moral causality was the favored position of many
theologians during the modern period, including Jesuits involved in the
Molinist controversy such as Vázquez (d. 1604) and de Lugo (d. 1660);
moral causality was also favored by many of their nineteenth-century
descendants such as Franzelin (d. 1886).68
Subsequent Thomists such as Domingo Bañez who were prominent figures in the De Auxiliis controversy would respond with strong
criticism to Cano’s theory, rearticulating the position of Cajetan in the
face of these new challenges.69 Bañez reminds his reader that Aquinas
66

Ibid.
“Sacramenta esse causas efficientes instrumentales nostrae salutis, gratiae, & justitiae, loquendo de causa morali . . . Quemadmodum, si ego essem apud Turcas
captivus, & eum qui daret pecunias redemptionis, videlicet pretium, & manum qua
pecunias porrigeret, & pecunias etiam ipsas, quae sunt instrumenta ad redimendum, redemptionis causas esse, non naturales quidem, sed morales, nemo sanae
mentis ibit inficias.” Ibid, 489.
68
Auer argues that the history of Cano’s theory begins with Bonaventure, and can be
traced though the Scotists to the Jesuits of the modern period who held the Molinist
position (e.g., Vásquez, de Lugo, and Franzelin). Auer, A General Doctrine of the Sacraments, 79. The connection intimated here by Auer between sacramental causality
and the de Auxiliis controversy further highlights the importance of the definition
of grace in this debate and its governing role as final cause in sacramental motion.
69
See Bañez, Comentarios Ineditos a la Tercera Parte de Santo Tomas, vol. 2, De Sacramentis: QQ. 60-90, 43–51, et al. Bañez argues that, while Christ’s passion is certainly
the meritorious cause of our redemption, this assertion does not substitute for a
discussion of the role of the sacramental signs themselves as physical instruments
in the conferral of grace. Bañez points out that the leaden coin found in Nominalist explanations of sacramental causality and the redemptive merit of Cano’s moral
causality both need some form of physical instrumentality to explain the actual accomplishment of the sacramental action itself. See Bañez, Comentarios Ineditos a la
67

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himself acknowledges a category of meritorious causality present in the
redemptive power of Christ’s passion; however, this teaching is already
couched within the framework of instrumental efficient causality, the
humanity functioning as conjoined and the sacraments as separated instruments, effecting grace in the soul. Bañez argues that although the
redemptive merits of the passion can be partially described by Cano’s
moral causality, the actual functioning of the sacraments themselves
cannot. Recall that Augustine taught that the elements, taken up in
union with the Word, became sacraments, working toward the sanctification of man by the power of God. Later thinkers such as Hugh of St.
Victor use the category of instrumentality to describe the way in which
the sacraments effect what they signify. Cano’s reworking of Nominalist
occasionalism raises for us a new question: is it sufficient to view the
sacraments as rites ordained by God for our use, the successful completion of which God subsequently rewards? More fundamentally, should
the action of sacraments themselves be understood as something we do,
or something God does? In response to Cano, Bañez describes sacramental instrumentality by giving the example of a pencil worked by the
hand of an artist to effect an image on a sheet of paper—so too are the
sacraments moved by the action of the Holy Spirit as physical causes
to effect grace in the human soul.70 Bañez highlights the importance of
the Thomistic doctrine referred to as “physical perfective causality,” in
which the sacraments are understood as instrumental or analogical extensions of divine potency, functioning according to God’s wisdom.
Interestingly, Francisco Suárez (d. 1617), who reacted in part against
the Nominalist tradition and rejected Cano’s theory of moral causality,71
argued for a version of physical causality, claiming to affirm the teaching
of Cajetan in this regard. However, the differences between these two
thinkers concerning the concept of physical premotion (which had such

Tercera Parte de Santo Tomas, vol. 2, De Sacramentis: QQ. 60-90, 47–48.
“Sicut revera penicillus attingit ad productionem imaginis quatenus movetur ab artifice, ita sacramenta attingant ad productionem gratiae quatenus sunt instrumenta
et movetur a Spiritu Sancto.” Bañez, Comentarios Ineditos a la Tercera Parte de Santo
Tomas, vol. 2, De Sacramentis: QQ. 60-90, 47–48. Bañez is commenting on ST III, q.
62, a. 1.
71
In ST III, q. 62, a. 4, disp. 9 sec. II n. 10, 18–23.
70

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wide-ranging implications for the doctrine of grace) affect their respective understandings of sacramental instrumentality as well.72
72

Suárez affirms Cajetan’s use of obediential potency in the context of sacramental
causality seemingly without qualification. In 3, q. 62, a. 4, disp. 9 sec. II n. 13. However, Thomists are quick to point out that Suárez’s failure to accept the Thomist doctrine of physical promotion compromises his understanding of obediential potency.
For Suárez this is an active potency rather than a passive one. See Ciappi, De Sacramentis in Communi, 73n10. Suárez presents his teaching on active obediential potency in the context of the sacraments as an interpretation of a familiar Augustinian
phrase: “Quaenam sit illa virtus, per quam possunt instrumenta Dei concurrere,
quando elevantur. Diximus enim non esse rem aliquam superadditam, sed esse ipsammet entitatem rei, quae hoc ipso, quod creata est, et subordinata primo agenti,
est in potentia obedientiali active . . . Haec enim ratio obedientialis potentiae communis est sacramentis, quorum elevatio divina solum in hoc consistit, quod Deus
altiori modo concurrit dando auxilium sufficiens, ut res operetur secundum hanc
potentiam. Necque ad hoc refert, quod sacramenta sint imperfecta in sua entitate.
Quia hic concursus non fundatur in naturali eorum perfectione, sed in praedicta
virtute obedientiali et in infinita Dei virtute, cui omnia subordinantur . . . Quanquam fortasse non efficiant solum per ipsum motum, qui est ens imperfectum, seu
modus entis, et significatur nomine ablutionis vel unctionis, sed per ipsasmet res
quae moventur, vel applicantur, dum sacramenta fiunt, vel accipiuntur, ut per oleum,
aquam, species panis, etc.; sic enim dixit Augustinus aquam esse, quae corpus tangit
et cor abluit.” In 3, q. 62, a. 4, disp. 9 sec. I n. 21 (emphasis mine). Francisci Suarez,
Opera Omnia, tom. 20, Commentaria ac Disputationes in Teriam Partem D. Thomae,
de Sacramentis in Genere, de Baptismo, de Confirmatione, de Eucharistia usque ad
Questionem LXXIV (Paris: Vivés, 1877), 147. Suárez considers this active form of
obediential potency more thoroughly in his commentary on the Prima Pars: disp.
31 sect. 5 and disp. 36 sect. 6. Further divisions between Suárez and Cajetan emerge
regarding the issue of natural form and potency in the context of instrumental causality. Where Cajetan says that the natural form of the instrument is taken up in the
potency of the principle agent, Suárez seems to imply that it remains, to be assisted
by divine power in the attainment of its supernatural end. Aquinas’s own teaching
on this subject in the Summa directly denies this in ST III, q. 62 a. 1, co.; Cajetan’s
commentary on this same text reinforces this teaching. Elsewhere Cajetan returns
to this concept, using the example of a musician and his instrument to demonstrate
the relationship that exists between a principal agent, the instrumental causes he
employs, and the final effects that only he can intend: “Exemplum utriusque motus perspice in cithara: cuius fides si moveantur a non-musico, sonabunt tantum; si
vero moveantur a musico, efficient non solum sonum, sed sonum musicum, qui est
effectus proprius artis musicae.” Cajetan, Commentary on ST III, q. 62 a. 4, n. IV.
Other non-Thomist theologians of the modern period argued for so-called “physical
perfective causality” as well: Belarmine (De sacramentis in genere, 2.11), Valentia
(Commentaria theologica, 4 disp. 3, q. 3, p. 1), Ripalda (De ente supernaturali, disp.
40 s. 3 n. 13). See Sacrae Theologiae Summa, vol. 4, De Sacramentis, De Novissimis,
71n3. Even here, however, in a manual sympathetic to the Suarézian approach, the
Thomist and Suarézian traditions are explicitly contrasted as intrinsic and extrinsic
approaches, respectively, to efficient causality in the sacraments. Ibid., 71.

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Trent
The Council of Trent (1545–63) proved to be a major watershed for
sacramental theology. Called principally to respond to the crisis of the
Protestant Reformation, the council clearly teaches that the sacraments
both contain (continere) grace and confer (conferre) or give (dare) it to
their recipients, and that their use (or a desire therefore) is necessary
for salvation.73 The council’s description of the sacraments as containing
and conferring grace is reminiscent of prescholastic Victorine Augustinianism, and clearly rules out those most radical forms of occasionalism which had taken root in the doctrines of the Protestant reformers.
However, this acknowledgement does little to resolve the longstanding
conflict between the intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to sacramental
causality that developed after the time of the Victorines.
Of the theological advisors present at the Council, many favored
a more extrincisist approach to sacramental causality. Although Cajetan died before Trent (d. 1534), Melchior Cano was deeply involved
in drafting the council documents, particularly the treatise on the sacraments.74 Some have argued that the ambiguity present in the final draft
of the council document reveals that the council fathers sought to focus
solely on the Protestant error, avoiding the condemnation of existing
Catholic positions.75 Some scholars argue that the use of the word con73

“Si quis dixerit, sacramenta novae legis non continere gratiam, quam significant, aut
gratiam ipsam non ponentibus obicam non conferre, quasi signa tantum externa
sint acceptae per fidem gratiae vel iustitiae, et notae quaedam christianae professionis, quibus apud homines, discernuntur fideles ab infidelibus: a.s.” Conc. Trid. Sess.
7 decl. 1 c. 6. “Si quis dixerit, non dari gratiam per huiusmodi sacramenta semper
et omnibus, quantum est ex parte Dei, etiam si rite ea suscipiant, sed aliquando et
aliquibus: a.s.” Conc. Trid. Sess. 7 decl. 1 c. 7. “Si quis dixerit, per ipsa novae legis
sacramenta ex opere operato non conferri gratiam, sed solam fidem divinae promissionis ad gratiam consequendam sufficere: a.s.” Conc. Trid. Sess. 7 decl. 1 c. 8. “Si
quis dixerit, sacramenta novae legis non esse ad salutem necessaria, sed superflua,
et sine eis aut eorum voto per solam fidem homines a Deo gratiam iustificationis
adipisci, licet omnia singulis necessaria non sint: a.s.” Conc. Trid. Sess. 7 decl. 1 c. 4.
74
Cano was the theologian for Philip II at the Council of Trent. He was particularly
involved in framing the Council’s teaching on the Eucharist and Penance. ODCC,
s.v. “Cano, Melchior.” Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 297.
75
While the explicit definition of the sacraments as instruments was proposed in a
plenary session, it was rejected in the final draft in favor of the more minimalist
phrase ex opere operato. Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 10. H. Lennerz
states: “In canone praeparato concilii Tridentini legabatur: ‘per ipsa sacramentorum

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821

ferre in the Council documents is an intentional attempt to avoid the
use of the word causare.76 This is not to say that the council fathers did
not believe that the sacraments were causes—rather, it seems that it was
deemed most useful to avoid an official teaching that would favor one
school’s interpretation of the word causare over another’s. In the climate
of the Protestant Reformation, further division within the Church over
sacramental theology was extremely undesirable; instead, universally
acceptable language was actively sought so as to present a unified stance
against Protestant doctrine. This is not to say, however, that all causal theories are equally in accord with the council. Although Trent did
not advocate for a specific causal model, the council does clearly teach
against radical forms of occasional causality, building on the Decree for
the Armenians from the Council of Florence (1439), which also insists
that the sacraments “contain” and “confer” the grace they cause.77 While
the sacramental doctrine of the Protestants was radically occasional and
extrincisist, other ostensibly Catholic theories that we have already examined share some of these tendencies. Recall that Bonaventure and the
Nominalists favored an occasionalism which emphasized divine causality and saw little causal role for the sacraments themselves beyond
disposing the recipient in faith and devotion to receive the grace which
God alone confers.
Trent clearly ruled out, among other things, theories which reduced

opera’; haec paucis placebant, quia erant verba Lutheri; sed pluribus displicebant,
qui proposuerunt vel ‘per ipsa sacramenta,’ vel ‘per ipsa sacramenta tamquam instrumenta,’ vel ‘per sacramenta ex opere operato,’ ‘per usum sacramentorum,’ ‘per
opus operatum sacramentorum,’ ‘ex vi, virtute ipsorum sacramentorum.’ Electa et
approbata deinde est forma ‘per ipsa sacramenta ex opere operato.’ Dicit ergo concilium, per ipsum ritum sacramentalem valide positum dari gratiam; hoc definitur
contra Protestantes; hinc proxime et directe in oppositione ad opus operantis ipsius subiecti, sed ex sensu quem terminus eo tempore universim habebat opponitur
etiam operi operantis ministri.” From this much, we can see that the Council actively
sought language that would target the Protestants without causing further internal
division. H. Lennerz, De Sacramentis Novae Legis in Genere, editio secunda (Roma:
Typis Pontificiae Universitatis Gregorianae, 1939), 220. See also Sacrae Theologiae
Summa, vol. 4, De Sacramentis, De Novissimis, 66.
76
Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 10–12.
77
DS 1310–11, Decr. Pro Armeniis. See P. Pourrat, Theology of the Sacraments: A Study
in Positive Theology, authorized translation from the French edition, 4th ed. (St. Louis, MO: Herder, 1930), 182–83.

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

the sacraments to mere external signs.78 Aquinas’s original objection to
the extrincisist approach was that it reduced the causality operative in the
sacraments of the new law to the accidental status of a sign, no different
from the sacraments of the old law.79 To this extent, Trent’s determination
to avoid sacramental models which reduce the sacraments to mere outward signs broadly reflects Aquinas’s original concerns.
After Trent, theologians tended to avoid the most radical positions of
pre-Tridentine Nominalism because it too closely resembled the teachings condemned by the Council.80 This aversion to radical occasionalism
did not lead to widespread acceptance of the Thomistic position, however. Aside from ruling out the extremes of occasional causality, many
theologians after Trent remained very willing to consider theories of causality which were less than Aristotelian in their structural underpinnings.
It was generally held that physical causality, taught by the Thomists, and
moral causality, held by (post-Tridentine) Scotists and many Jesuits, were
both equally compatible with the letter of Trent.81 Generally speaking, the
positions established in the theological schools during the Tridentine period regarding sacramental causality persisted without significant change
until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although Cajetan’s position
came to be accepted almost universally by Thomists, it was widely misunderstood and rejected by many other theologians during this period.
However, Trent did affirm that the sacraments function ex opere operato, rather than ex opere operantis.82 This distinction—between
the working of the sacraments themselves (opere operato) and our use
of them (opere operantis)—was developed during the middle ages as a
means of preserving an Augustinian distinction with which we are al78

Conc. Trid. Sess. 7 decl. 1 c. 6. See note 73 for text.
“Sed si quis recte consideret, itse modus non transcendit rationem signi. Nam denarius plumbeus non est nisi quoddam signum regiae ordinationis de hoc quod
pecunia recipiatur ab isto.” ST III, q. 62, a. 6, co. The position described by Thomas
here using the example of a leaden coin was held by Fishacre (In IV Sent., d. 1), Kilwardby (In IV Sent., d. 1) and Bonaventure (In IV Sent., d. 1, a. unic., qu. 1); cited in
Summa Theologiae, Editiones Paulinae (Torino: Comerciale Edizioni Paoline s.r.l.,
1988), 2172n3. See also ST III, q. 62, a. 6.
80
A strict sine qua non occasionalism was almost universally recognized as unacceptable after Trent. Pourrat, Theology of the Sacraments, 185.
81
See Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, trans. Patrick Lynch, ed. James
Canon Bastible (Cork: Mercier Press, 1958), 330.
82
Conc. Trid. Sess. 7 decl. 1 c. 8. See note 73 for text.
79

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823

ready familiar, forged during the Donatist controversy: the actions of
an unworthy minister are distinct from the action and effect of the rite
itself.83 Aquinas himself insisted that this distinction differentiated between the sacraments of the old law and the new: while the sacraments of
the old law function as signs which do not in themselves confer grace, the
sacraments of the new law work ex opere operato, conferring grace in an
intrinsic manner consonant with the Augustinian approach, functioning
as instrumental causes participant in divine power.84 Subsequent Thomists saw the working of the sacraments ex opere operato as an essential
means of defending an intrinsic conception of the sacraments as “physical” or efficient instrumental causes.85
Trent clearly teaches that the sacraments are effective because of
a power intrinsic to their operation; as such a view of the sacraments
as fundamentally human actions that God subsequently rewards is
radically inadequate. As we have said previously, one of the questions
raised by moral causality and other extrincisist systems is this: should
the sacraments be understood fundamentally as something we do, or as
something God does? There is no question that, for Cano and the extrincisist tradition that went before him, God—and not human agents—
is responsible for causing grace. But what about the sacraments themselves? Many occasionalist theories used the example of a leaden coin,
made valuable only by decree of the king. Applied to the sacraments,
the coin frequently represents human sacramental action—that is, a
sign we invoke or participate in, such as water being used to wash. Later
Protestant sacramental theories would exhibit highly exaggerated forms
of occasionalism, which Trent clearly condemns. But Trent’s insistence
that the sacraments function ex opere operato also militates against an
understanding of the sacraments as ritual human actions which God
rewards, and seems to speak in favor of an intrinsic causal approach—it
is the working of the sacraments themselves—ex opere operato—which
sanctifies the human person.
Despite this Tridentine teaching, however, many theologians in the
modern period and into the first half of the twentieth century found
83

Pourrat, Theology of the Sacraments, 162–65.
In IV Sent. d. 1, q. 1, a. 5. ST III, q. 62, a. 6, co.
85
Ciappi, De Sacramentis in Communi, 69–70.
84

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

Cano’s moral causality to be an attractive alternative to an unmodified
occasionalism—it shared many of the basic characteristics which made
occasionalism appealing in the first place. However, moral causality had
the added benefit of appearing less extrincisist and tenuous, because of
Cano’s added emphasis on the presence of the blood of Christ in the sacraments. Although emphasizing this Pauline concept86 does not resolve
the important questions raised in the scholastic debates over sacramental
cause, it does reinforce the sense that there is some saving reality contained in and conferred by the sacraments themselves, even if this explanation is lacking on speculative grounds and the extrinsic legalism of the
Nominalist approach is not avoided.87
Contemporary Implications
At the beginning of the twentieth century, interest in sacramental causality among theologians remained widespread.88 During this time, Louis
Billot proposed a then-popular theory of sacramental causality called in86

Cano refers to Romans 3:25. “Iustificati gratis per gratiam ipsius, per redemptionem, quae est in Christo Iesu, quem proposuit Deus propitiationem per fidem in
sanguine ipsius, ad ostensionem iustitiae suae propter remissionem praecedentium
delictorum in sustentatione Dei, ad ostensionem iustitiae eius in hoc tempore: ut sit
ipse iustus, et iustificans eum, qui est ex fide Iesu Christi” (Rom 3:24–26). Alberto
Colunga and Laurentio Turrado, eds., Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Clementiam novo
editio, 12th ed. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2005). This text, taken
from the Clementine Vulgate, reads “per fidem in sanguine ipsius,” where Cano’s
citation omits the phrase per fidem. While this omission may very well be the result
of textual variants, the larger context of faith in Christ in which this passage occurs
renders it a less obvious reference to the blood of Christ as a form of efficient sacramental causality. However, Cano also employs other passages such as 1 Jn 1:7, where
the image of washing from sins has more discernable baptismal overtones. Cano
further references 1 Cor 1, wherein the connection between Christian baptism and
the crucifixion is clearly drawn. Relect. de Sacram., Pars IV, concl. 6, in Melchior
Cano, Opera, 488. See note 65 for portions of Cano’s text.
87
Despite its deep continuity with the Nominalist tradition, many authors see moral
causality as somewhat distinctive because of its heavy focus on merit and the notion
that the sacraments “contain” the blood of Christ, the price of our redemption. It is
this language of containing that makes moral causality appeal as a post-Tridentine
model. See Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 299.
88
We cannot offer a comprehensive history of sacramental causality in the twentieth
century and its many related theological topics here. With the exception of Odo Casel, the selection of authors presented here all engage more or less directly with the
classical causal categories employed by their predecessors.

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825

tentional causality, which emphasized the identity of the sacraments as
signs which expressed the intention of the agent—although their material elements did not contain a spiritual force as such, their sign function
was similar to that of a will, that conveys real property to an heir.89 When
compared with the instrumental physical motion of Aquinas’s causal
system, the difference between this theory and moral causality seems
minimal. Billot sees a kind of physical effect in the character, but the disposition to receive grace itself is a kind of moral cause.90 Billot’s emphasis on sign indicates a broader shift in sensibilities that would manifest
itself elsewhere in theological circles. This is due in part to the liturgical
movement; equally significant was the rise in existentialist alternatives
to classical metaphysics. By this point, however, the sacramental systems
inspired by moral causality, and their overtones of legalism, seemed less
appealing to some. As a result, many sought completely new alternatives.
Influenced in part by Rahner and Chauvet, in the mid-twentieth century
widespread interest arose in the use of categories such as symbolism and
experiential participation as modes of expressing sacramental efficacy.91
This interest in experience and liturgy-as-event has its roots in the mystery theology of Odo Casel, and to some extent the liturgical movement
begun by Romano Guardini and others.92 When moral causality rose to
89

Billot’s theory can be found in his work De Ecclesiae Sacramentis, t. I in III S. theol. q.
62.3, et al. See A. H. Maltha, “De Causalitate intentionali Sacramentorum animadversionnes quaedam,” Angelicum 15 (1938): 337n1.
90
A. H. Maltha provides a useful description of Billot’s theory in comparison with the
works of Aquinas (both his early and his mature writings). Maltha, “De Causalitate
intentionali Sacramentorum animudversionnes quaedam,” 337–66.
91
Fully formed alternative sacramental systems emerged in the middle and later twentieth century and had their roots in these historical developments. If time and space
permitted us to do so, a study of Karl Rahner’s symbolic approach to the sacraments
would be of great interest. For a treatment of this subject generally sympathetic to
Rahner, see Daniel A. Tappeiner, “Sacramental Causality in Aquinas and Rahner:
Some Critical Thoughts,” Scottish Journal of Theology 28 (1975): 243–57. Louis-Marie Chauvet has also provided an influential account of sacramentality, using the
Heideggerian notion of symbol and event. See Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament, 46–
83, et al. For a critique of this approach from a Thomistic perspective, see Bernhard
Blankenhorn, “The Instrumental Causality of the Sacraments: Thomas Aquinas and
Louis-Marie Chauvet,” Nova et Vetera (English) 4 (2006): 255–94.
92
The liturgical movement served as a context for the work of both Casel and Schillebeeckx. See Erik Borgman, Edward Schillebeeckx: A Theologian in His History, vol. 1,
A Catholic Theology of Culture (1914-1965), trans. John Bowden (New York: Continuum, 2003), 199–207.

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

prominence in the early modern period, it represented a shift from one
form of efficient cause to another: originally, moral causality was proposed as a (non-Aristotelian) form of efficient instrumental causality.
However, Casel seems to express the general sentiments of the liturgical
movement in shifting the conversation away from speculative arguments
about efficient causality entirely and focusing instead on the experience
of entering into the mystery of the liturgy.93 Casel frequently interprets
the institution of the Eucharist in light of texts such as First Corinthians
11:26.94 He portrays the Eucharist as a representation of—and a participation in—the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, under
the veil of mystery.95 This approach begins with liturgical experience, and
speaks of the gift of grace in light of our participation in the mystery of
Christ. Under this approach, no kind of efficient cause is explicitly proposed as an explanation of sacramental efficacy. Rather, it is understood
that, through our participation in the represented mysteries of Christ,
the sacraments have their effect. Although Casel is not particularly interested in traditional speculative categories, his emphasis on mystery can
be understood as part of a larger trend in theology during the modern
period. Much of the disinterest in traditional causal language during this
period was driven by a desire to escape the empty legalism which had
marked those sacramental systems influenced by the Nominalist tradition;96 it would be extremely unfortunate if in some way, these same
93

See Odo Casel, The Mystery of Christian Worship and Other Writings, ed. Burkhard
Neunheuser (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1962), 58–60, et al.
94
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death
until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26, RSV). See Odo Casel, Die Liturgie als Mysterienfeier,
vol. 9, Ecclesia Orans: Zur Einführung in den Geist der Liturgie (Freiburg im Breisgau:
Herder, 1923), 63.
95
Referencing the institution of the Eucharist, Casel says: “Deshalb sagt auch Paulus
(I Kor. 11, 26) ‘So oft ihr dieses Brot esset und den Kelch trinket, verkündet ihr den
Tod des Herrn, bis er kommt.’ . . . Dieser Tod aber war unsre Erlösung; er findet
seinen krönenden Abschluß in der glorreichen Auferstehung, wie ja auch der nunmehr in der Eucharistie Gegenwärtige der Auferstandene und Verklärte ist. So wird
die Eucharistiefeier zum Gedächtnis des gesamten Erlösungswerks; die Menschwerdung, das Leiden, die Auferstehung, die Glorie des Gottmenschen ist Gegenstand
der Gedenkfeier. Vielmehr ist der Herr, wenn auch mystisch verhüllt, selbst unter
seiner Gemeinde zugegen; er vollzieht immer wieder unter ihnen sein Opfer.” Ibid.,
63–64.
96
Joseph Martos, Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to the Sacraments in the
Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 92–96, 134–37.

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tendencies were not definitively banished, but merely cloaked in mystery. Some scholars see the emphasis on mystery that appears during the
modern period as an extension of the Nominalist emphasis on the radical omnipotence and freedom of God and its accompanying reticence regarding causal connections. Where causal explanation fails, the rhetoric
of mystery can appear as a supplement for metaphysical explanation.97
The shift away from the traditional language of causality was welcomed by many theologians in the first half of the twentieth century, who
wanted a renewed focus on the sacraments as signs rather than continued debate over the nature of the sacraments as causes.98 It seems that
for many, the interminable debates waged over ossified school positions
had lost its savor—more to the point, the significance of the question of
causality was no longer of central concern.
Scholastic explanations of efficient causality tend to begin and end
with divine intentionality. For Thomists, whether one holds to perfective
or dispositive physical causality, the sacraments function as instrumental efficient causes operating under the agency of God, whose motive
power is extended analogically through the instrument as a vis fluens.99
While other traditions from the scholastic period such as Nominalism
may have lacked the analogical subtlety to speak clearly about instrumentality, they certainly did not underemphasize divine volition. Moral causality, although distinct from the scholastic tradition, also focuses
somewhat univocally on divine agency and identifies the value of the
blood of Christ alone as a form of efficient cause. Thus, most of the standing theological positions found in seminary manuals at the beginning of
the twentieth century expressed various models of efficient causality, all
with reference to divine agency. In Casel and his confreres, however, we
see a strong focus on the liturgical subject in history as the recipient of
the fruit of a mystery in which he participates through experience. The
ideas of Casel and his contemporaries reflect the turn toward the subject
97

Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche (LThK) (1965), s.v. “Voluntarismus,” 871–72.
For evidence of this, see either of the following: Leeming, “Recent Trends in Sacramental Theology,” 204–9, et al., or Colman O’Neil, “The Role of the Recipient and
Sacramental Signification,” 2 parts, The Thomist 21 (1958): 257–301, 508–41. Many
other examples of this can be found during this period. Of particular interest is the
work of Rahner and Schillebeeckx in this regard.
99
Aquinas defines the actuation of potency through efficient motion as power flowing
toward an end. See note 45.
98

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

that is characteristic of post-Copernican thought. Casel’s mystery theology can offer many insights about the nature Christian participation
in liturgical action, and its popularity might also partially explain the
disinclination of many post-Ressourcement theologians to appropriate
sacramental models that emphasize with stronger language the category
of efficient cause. For some scholars, however, the ambiguities of Casel’s
theory only further beg the question of sacramental cause: if the sacraments are fundamentally encounters with mystery, how do they cause
what we say they effect?100 Casel’s disengagement from this question is a
result of his own methodological choices. However, some scholars have
asserted that Casel’s position seems to be essentially a form of moral causality.101 Although Casel’s supporters might bristle at this, the suggestion
seems plausible. At the very least, the absence of any discernable form
of physical instrumentality in his system could point to a minimalist approach to efficiency.
Although not everyone in the twentieth century was convinced
by the arguments of Casel, there was a decided shift toward liturgy-as-event using the category of symbol or sign, even among those of
Thomist sympathies. Technically speaking, the focus here can be described in terms of the familiar threefold division of sacramental reality:
sacramentum tantum, res et sacramentum, and res tantum. When this
sequence was first formed, discussions of efficient causality in the sacraments frequently centered on the production of grace. For Aristotle and
Aquinas, physical efficiency is tied to the final cause, which in this case
is the perfection of the subject in grace. This is also called the res tantum.
(This is especially true when Thomists speak of sacramental efficacy in
the perfective sense, as opposed to the dispositive). For some, a perceived focus on the causality of the res tantum alone seemed to preclude
serious consideration of the sacraments as signs (sacramentum tantum).
Because of the turn to the subject, there was an increasing tendency to
view the sacraments through the lens of experience, which produced a
much different perspective. If we view the categories of sacramentum
tantum, res et sacramentum, and res tantum according to the chronology
of human experience, we see that the res et sacramentum, as both sign
100
101

See McShane, “On the Causality of the Sacraments,” 433–34.
See Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 288.

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and thing effected, represents the liturgical event. Because of this, the res
et sacramentum becomes the locus for (at least) three kinds of theological concern: ecclesiology, liturgical experience (or active participation),
and symbolism.
In the twentieth century, widespread theological interest in viewing
the efficacy of the sacraments through the lens of either liturgical event,
symbolism or ecclesiology gave renewed focus to the res et sacramentum
among some Thomists interested in sacramental causality. Because dispositive causality focuses on the natural scope of action proper to the
instrument rather than its participation in the potency of the principle
agent, the res et sacramentum enjoys a special focus under this theory.102
As a result, interest in the res et sacramentum during this period (and
therefore by extension dispositive causality) is not always fueled by a
close study of the primary texts of Aquinas, but rather by other extratextual concerns.
From the time of Trent until the middle of the twentieth century, the
early Thomistic theory of dispositive physical causality was all but abandoned.103 Most Thomists followed Cajetan, arguing instead for physical
perfective causality. For those twentieth-century dogmatic theologians
still concerned to argue for some form of physical causality, however, describing the sacraments as dispositive causes came to have its advantages:
dispositive causality effects the res et sacramentum directly, while only
disposing for the finality of grace (res tantum). By shifting the causal focus in this way, it becomes possible to emphasize the causality of the sign
action itself as part of the liturgical event of the res et sacramentum using
traditional speculative categories.104 Writing in the 1950s, Bernard Lee102

Cajetan notices that one of the principal differences between the Sentences and the
Summa in this regard is that in the Summa the natural form of the instrument is taken up in the potency of the principal agent. By contrast, dispositive efficient causality
concerns those efficient causes whose natural form cannot “touch” the final cause.
See In IV Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, solutio I; ST III, q. 62, a. 4, co.; Cajetan, Commentary
on ST III, q. 62, a. 4, n. IV.
103
Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 348.
104
Although he does not share many of the sensibilities of twentieth-century theologians, Capreolus teaches that dispositive causality, as proposed by Aquinas in the
Sentences, is focused in a certain sense on the res et sacramentum. Because the instrumentality of the sacraments only reaches (pertingunt) the res et sacramentum
(which is the sacramental character or its equivalent), there is a sense in which the
efficacy of the sacraments is focused there. Speaking of material elements as sacra-

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

ming argues in favor of dispositive physical causality and argues that it
is preferable to perfective physical causality because the line of causality
passes directly through the sign—it is the symbolic reality that causes—
that is, the res et sacramentum.105 This is appealing to Leeming because
it focuses attention on the causality present in the sacramental event; it
also allows for the articulation of a kind of sacramental cause operative
through the mystical body of Christ—that is, the Church gathered in liturgical prayer.106 Whether or not this is faithful to the original thought of
Aquinas, this model was appealing to some because of its causal emphasis on sacramental character, which unites us to Christ and imparts a capacity for the reception of sacramental grace through the liturgical action
of the Church. Taken in this way, the sacraments cause our union with
Christ in the Church, through which we then receive the gift of grace. In
this way, Leeming believed that a new articulation of dispositive physical
mental instruments, he says: “Inquantum sunt instrumenta divinae misericordiae
justificantis, pertingunt instrumentaliter ad aliquem effectum in ipsa anima, qui
primo correspondet sacramentis, sicut est character, vel aliquid hujusmodi. Ad ultimum autem effectum, qui est gratia, non pertingunt etiam instrumentaliter, nisi
dispositive, inquantum hoc ad quod instrumentaliter effective pertingunt, est dispositio, quae est necessitas, quantum in se est, ad gratiae susceptionem.” Capreolus,
lib. 4 d. 1, 2, 3, q. 1, a. 1 concl. 3. See Johannis Capreoli, Defensiones Theologiae Divi
Thomae Aquinatis, vol. 6, ed. Ceslai Paban and Thomae Pègues (Turonibus: Alfred
Cattier, 1906), 3–4.
105
“The earliest and most authoritative commentators on St. Thomas not only accepted
the symbolic reality but judged it to be the immediate cause of grace: Herve of Nedellec (Natalis), d. 1323, Paludanus, d. 1342, Capreolus, d. 1444, Sylvester of Ferrara,
d. 1528, and Cajetan in his Commentary on the Sentences, written about 1493. These
theologians developed the system of ‘dispositive’ causality, which explained that the
rite causes the symbolic reality, and this in turn, unless there be an impediment,
causes grace. Later theologians, however, felt that this concept of sacramental causality was not acceptable, and in consequence paid less attention to the res et sacramentum, although they all held it. Thus Cajetan in his Commentary on the Summa,
and Dominic de Soto, d. 1560, reject the symbolic reality as an explanation of the
validity of sacraments and of the ‘reviviscence.’” Leeming, Principles of Sacramental
Theology, 264. That is, the res et sacramentum remains the seat of sacramental character for Cajetan and de Soto (indicated here by the term “reviviscence”), but not
the final cause that directs the motion of the efficient cause. Leeming correctly notes
that later Thomists shift the emphasis of efficient instrumental causality in the sacraments away from the res et sacramentum, where it has only a dispositive relationship
with grace, and toward the res tantum, where efficient causality truly works toward
the perfection of the final cause as a vis fluens that touches the final cause.
106
See Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 346–55.

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831

causality could serve the wider interests of the Church by responding
to the ecclesiological and liturgical trends of the early to mid-twentieth
century.107 However, the way in which the Church then imparts this grace,
the reception of which our membership in the ecclesial body disposes us
for, remains an open question.
Other Thomists in the twentieth century also felt that the res et sacramentum had ecclesiological significance.108 Among these must be counted the young Edward Schillebeeckx, who argued that the Church is the
fundamental locus for sacramental activity. According to Schillebeeckx,
sacraments can be viewed from the perspective of the recipient community or from the perspective of God—either way, the medium through
which the sacraments work is the ecclesial symbolism of the Church.
This is a sign of the Church’s symbolic action, and a “personal symbolic

107

In 1956, B. Leeming observed that current trends in sacramental theology displayed
“an inclusive tendency, greater emphasis upon the mystery of the sacraments, clearer
recognition of the permanent efficacy of sacraments and stronger insistence upon
the connection between sacraments and the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.”
Leeming, “Recent Trends in Sacramental Theology,” 204. For Leeming, these trends
are “manifest first in an outlook, which tries to reconcile opposing views than to
stress differences; for instance on the question of sacramental causality the intransigent disputes about “moral,” “physical” and “intentional” causality have far less
prominence and the effort is rather to incorporate into synthesis the differing elements stressed by different theologians…the trend is genial, but sometimes results
in a lack of clearness and blunt facing of the problems.” Ibid. Leeming lists the
following authors as exhibiting these sentiments: Scheeben, Billot, Gonthier, Vonier, de Lubac (specifically referencing Catholicism and Corpus Mysticum), Mersch,
N. M. Haring, Landgraf, Weisweiler, Danielou, H. Rahner, Graber, Roguet, Haynal,
Marin-Sola, Bouüessé, A. M. Henry, L. Richard, M. M. Philipon, Taymans d’Eypernon, and A. Piolanti. Ibid., 204n1.
108
For an example of this tendency, see Toshiyuki Miyakawa, “The Ecclesial Meaning
of the Res et Sacramentum: The Sevenfold Cultic Status in the Visible Church as the
Effect of the Sacraments,” The Thomist 31 (1967): 381–444. J. M. Donahue states
that “The special sacrament-community orientation of Vatican II theology invites
renewed attention to the doctrine of the sacramental character. For in the traditional
sacramental synthesis this instrumental participation in Christ’s priestly power and
mission is vitally involved in both the existential liturgical action and in its continuing influence on the Christian soul. The character is essential to every phase of the
Church’s sacramentality.” John M. Donahue, “Sacramental Character: The State of
the Question,” The Thomist 31 (1967): 445. For a recent attempt to adapt Thomistic
sacramental doctrine in light of the teaching of Lumen Gentium, see Benoît-Dominique de la Soujeole, “The Economy of Salvation: Entitative Sacramentality and Operative Sacramentality,” The Thomist 75 (2011): 537–53.

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

act of Christ through the institutional medium of the Church.”109 This
ecclesial focus within the category of sacramental sign or symbolism is,
broadly speaking, congruent with other trends in the twentieth century
that desired to speak of the sacraments less as causes than as ecclesial
events. This focus on ecclesiology in the context of the sacraments reflects a more anthropological—and less metaphysical—understanding of
the sacraments as causes. It goes without saying that Schillebeeckx exerted an incredible degree of influence in many areas of theology throughout the second half of the twentieth century; sacramental theology was
no different in this respect.110
Although perhaps not readily apparent, Schillebeeckx and Casel are
more intimately related than one might suppose: both Schillebeeckx and
Casel developed their respective theories within the context of the liturgical movement, as responses to the isolated individualism of modern
times and the equally isolated speculations of dogmatic theology. Both
can be understood as Catholic theologies of culture, which use the liturgy to express the corporate identity of the Church in society in different
ways.111 In fact, E. Borgman argues that Schillebeeckx’s doctoral thesis
can be understood as a systematic interpretation of Casel’s mystery theology in light of his own Thomistic training.112 Here an ecclesiological
109

Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, trans. Paul
Barrett (Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward, 1999), 74, et al.
110
From within the Thomistic commentatorial tradition, a constructive response to
these trends was offered by Colman O’Neill in the late 1950s. See Colman O’Neill,
“The Instrumentality of the Sacramental Character: An Interpretation of Summa
Theologiae, III, q. 63, a. 2,” Irish Theological Quarterly 25 (1958): 262–68; O’Neill,
“The Role of the Recipient and Sacramental Signification,” 2 parts, 257–301, 508–41.
111
“Casel’s theology was not only, or even primarily, an interpretation of the Catholic
liturgy, though his work was usually read in this way. Casel himself was primarily interested in a theology of culture—but not in the same way as Schillebeeckx.”
Borgman, Edward Schillebeeckx, 201. “In Casel’s view the liturgy, in the midst of
a modernity which had been stripped of any sense of mystery, was the only place
where God’s holiness was still experienced and venerated . . . in Schillebeeckx’s view
the liturgical celebration of the sacraments was ultimately a concentration of the
human quest for God . . . Like Casel’s work . . . De sacramentele heilseconomie (Schillebeeckx’s thesis) in fact contained a theological view of human nature, modern culture and the significance of the Christian tradition.” Ibid., 206. Borgman argues that
there are important differences between Casel and Schillebeeckx, but their fundamental point of departure is very similar.
112
“Schillebeeckx’s major study on the sacramental economy of salvation [Borgman
refers to his dissertation, De sacramentele heilseconomie] . . . began especially with

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833

response to questions of cultural identity again reflects the generally anthropological focus of this new theological hermeneutic.
For many twentieth-century theologians, the impulses of both Schillebeeckx and Casel were extremely influential. However, to say that grace
is mediated through the sacramental mystery of the Church does not
in and of itself provide a specific account of the way in which this effect
is reached. Writing in 1971, Johann Auer proposed an explanation of
sacramental causality influenced by both Schillebeeckx and Casel. (This
theory appears in a series of textbooks on dogma that he co-edited with
Joseph Ratzinger.)113 Although in dialogue with modern trends, Auer
retains several traditional causal categories from the broader tradition.
Auer proposes that while sacramental character is “ontically real,” the
subsequent causation of grace is not physical but moral. Auer emphasizes that sacraments have objective efficacy as signs within the mystery of
the Church. In this regard he seeks to follow Schillebeeckx, and implicitly
Casel.114 Auer does not specify the mode of causality involved in producing the sacramental character. However, his phrase “ontically real” leaves
open the possibility that some form of physical instrumentality could
be involved, albeit of the dispositive kind.115 Even if there is dispositive
physical causality involved here, however, it is clear that all physical inthe so-called ‘mystery theology’ of the German Benedictine Odo Casel . . . In a sense,
De sacramentele heilseconomie is to be regarded as a critically modified development
of Casel’s theology of the mysteries.” Ibid., 201. To support this, Borgman cites LThK
(1961), s.v. “Mysterientheologie,” 724–27.
113
The series Dogmatic Theology, edited by Johann Auer and Joseph Ratzinger, has appeared in English translation from the Catholic University of America Press. The
volume in question here, A General Doctrine of the Sacraments and the Eucharist,
vol. 6, is authored by Johann Auer. (The German original, Allgemeine Sakramentenlehre und das Mysterium der Eucharistie, was first published in 1971 by Friedrich
Pustet Verlag, Regensburg).
114
See Auer, A General Doctrine of the Sacraments, 67–82. Auer defines the sacramental
character as “ontically real,” and as “dispositive for grace, not in the physical but in
the moral sense.” Ibid., 73. He further claims that “The decisive consideration for
the understanding of sacrament and its objective efficacy is that it is not regarded
as a thing or object, but rather as a sign and a function within the mystery of God,
Christ, and the Church, as an organ for humans of their encounter with God (Schillebeeckx), as an answer to fundamental questions of human existence (Smulders),
and as a ‘sign’ in the comprehensive sphere of the Christian mysterium.” (The parenthetical references here are Auer’s). Ibid., 77.
115
Any efficient instrumentality operative here must be dispositive because its action
clearly does not touch the finality of grace.

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

strumentality is ruled out with respect to the finality of grace. Here Auer
seems to make explicit what Casel and Schillebeeckx only implied: while
sacramental character may be affected physically or “ontologically,” sacramental grace is given through the mystery of the Church’s liturgy via
moral causality.116
The Second Vatican Council ushered in a new era of reflection on
the ecclesiological dimension of sacramentality which has born much
fruit in recent years. However, as the example of Auer shows, an ecclesiological approach to sacramentality does not of itself guarantee an intrinsic causal approach to the sacraments. Duns Scotus taught that the
sacraments were effective because a pact had been established between
God and the Church, ensuring that God would give grace when the sacraments were correctly performed.117 Melchior Cano’s system of moral
causality is an adaptation of this model. Although modern ecclesio-sacramental systems ostensibly reject the legalism of previous thinkers and
offer a more explicitly communal anthropology, the degree to which
these new systems are truly distinct from classical moral causality is not
always clear. In the case of Auer, however, it would seem that the affinity
between the new and the old is greater than one might wish. The age-old
question of the way in which the sacraments confer what they signify reasserts itself: the issue here remains the role of instrumental causality in
the context of the relationship that exists between God and the recipient
of grace, whether this recipient is conceived of in individual or ecclesiological terms.
In many ways, the theological paradigm set by persons such as Casel
and Schillebeeckx has dominated the discussion of liturgical theology in
our time. At the risk of oversimplification, one might say that theological
discussion of the sacraments in the mid to late twentieth century has
116

This is reminiscent of the dispositive model inherited by Bonaventure from Alexander of Hales and others, in which the character is the product of efficient causality,
but grace itself is given sine qua non.
117
“Ad questionem secundam patet per idem, quod nec manifeste possibile, nec aliquo
modo necessarium est ponere illam virtutem, quae sit forma realis in sacramento . .
. nec per illam, si poneretur, aliquid causaretur in anima, nec causaretur ipsa regulariter, nisi ex pactione divina cum Ecclesia et sic sine tot superfluis in aqua et anima
intermediis potest salvari, quod pactio divina sit immediata respectu effectus conferendi recipient sacramenta.” Ox. In IV Sent., d. 1, q. 5, resp. Lampen, De Causalitate
Sacramentorum, 58.

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835

been centered on liturgical praxis or experience within the context of the
Church, rather than on the nature of instrumental causality. Although
some like Auer and Leeming have retained a vestige of the classical vocabulary of causality, they are clearly in the minority. For many students
of sacramental theology and liturgical studies, the question of causality is
not even a consideration. Be that as it may, even those who would reject
the classical causal theories must turn to other conceptual models to explain the teachings of Trent and the lived experience of the Church, both
of which confirm that that the operation of the sacraments themselves
(ex opere operato) confers the grace signified. Our attempts to understand the sacramental reality of grace at work in the Church must necessarily raise the question of the way in which the sacraments have this
effect. Regardless of theological vocabulary, this unavoidable question at
play here is that of causality. Because the sacraments effect the sanctification of man, any functional theological hermeneutic must necessarily
have something to say about this saving reality. Whether one chooses to
embrace a classical approach or no, the question of sacramental causality
will be theologically relevant so long as the sanctifying effects of the sacraments themselves remain so. This is a question that, in the end, is not
always served well by ambiguity. In response to the emphasis on mystery
and liturgical experience found in Casel and many authors in our own
day, Bernard Lonergan warns against confusing speculative theology
with the warmth of religious feeling. Although the former cannot directly
stimulate the latter, the categories of speculative theology remain proven
tools that can assist our own assimilation of the light of faith.118 Although
twentieth-century theologians such as Rahner and Chauvet prefer the
ambiguity of symbolic language to the tight precision of scholastic vocabulary, twentieth-century Thomist Colman O’Neill, O.P. reminds us
that Aquinas’s choice of the category of cause represents an intentional
decision to describe the sacraments as something more than symbols—
118

“Just as the equations of thermodynamics make no one feel warmer or cooler . . . so
also speculative theology is not immediately relevant to the stimulation of religious
feeling. But unless this fact is acknowledged explicitly and systematically, there arises a constant pressure in favor of theological tendencies that mistakenly reinforce
the light of faith and intelligence with the warmth of less austere modes of thought.”
Bernard Lonergan, “Theology and Understanding,” Gregorianum 35 (1954): 643. As
cited by McShane, “On the Causality of the Sacraments,” 434.

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Reginald M. Lynch, O.P.

the causal language of creation itself can be extended to describe Christ’s
saving interaction with the symbolic reality of the sacraments.119 Unlike
its medieval, modern and contemporary alternatives, the Thomistic approach to sacramental causality offers an integration between cause and
effect, sign and sacred reality, that relates intrinsically to the human person in the order of grace; this is accomplished in no small part by addressing the subject of causality—the way in which the sacraments confer
what they signify—with a degree of clarity and theological precision that
is not often found in contemporary sacramentology.
N&V

119

“The medievals, had they wanted to say of the sacraments ‘they cause because, and
to the degree that, they are symbols,’ had sufficient command of Latin to say it clearly, and clarity was a tool of their trade. In fact, they used the word ‘cause’ in their
sacramentology because that was the term they used to speak of God’s creating the
world; a [sic] St. Thomas used it because he considered that it could be extended to
signify as well the active intervention of Christ in the symbolic act of the sacrament;
and he went to the trouble of explaining that he was choosing this word so as to
make it clear that an exclusively symbolic account of the sacraments does not measure up to the tradition of the Fathers (Summa theol., III, q. 62, a.1; ib., ad 1).” Colman E. O’Neill, Sacramental Realism: A General Theory of the Sacraments (Chicago:
Midwest Theological Forum, 1998), 127. (The essay was originally published in 1983
by Michael Glazier).

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 837-861

837

John Capreolus: Prince of Thomists
or Corruptor of Thomism?
Charles D. Robertson
Center for Thomistic Studies
Houston, TX
THOMISTIC STUDIESin the twentieth century have been largely
dominated by a desire to recover the authentic sense of St. Thomas by
focusing on his doctrine of the real distinction of essence and existence.
The great Thomistic commentators, such as John Capreolus, Cajetan,
John of St. Thomas, etc., according to this project, have obscured the
meaning of this distinction by adopting terminology not found in the
writings of St. Thomas. Not all scholars, however, have been convinced
that the commentators have been unhelpful in understanding this distinction. In a paper published in 1964, John Deck argued that St. Thomas’s doctrine of the real distinction between essence and existence prevents one from considering things to be totally dependent on God for
everything that is in them. He held that there cannot be a thing that is
both dependent on another and composed of essence and existence, for
this latter would imply a causeless component. In other words, essence
is considered causeless, and so the reality composed of esse and essence
is not entirely dependent on God, but only in part.1 Lawrence Dewan
1

John Deck, “St. Thomas Aquinas and the Language of Total Dependence,” in Aquinas:
A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Anthony Kenny (Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1969), 237–54. Deck’s main concern is with an argument from
Summa Contra Gentiles II, q. 52, art. 6: “The substance of anything is to it through
itself and not through something else...But the existence of any created thing is to
it through something else . . . Therefore the existence of no created thing is its substance.” His reading of this passage is that to exist “through itself ” is to be uncaused:

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Charles D. Robertson

responded to Deck’s paper by examining an argument that John Capreolus used to explain the necessity of a real distinction between essence
and existence.2 Dewan thus saw the fifteenth-century commentator as a
helpful pedagogue in coming to understand the thought of St. Thomas
on this important point of doctrine.
However, in a paper published shortly before Deck’s, Norman J.
Wells accused, not St. Thomas, whom he explicitly exonerates of the
charge, but Capreolus of rendering essence impervious to causal influence in the latter’s interpretation of his master’s doctrine. According
to Wells, Capreolus’s use of St. Albert in explaining the doctrine of St.
Thomas leads him astray:
Whereas St. Thomas sets off a creature’s essence and its esse by
contrasting the per se character of the one with the per aliud
character of the other, St. Albert makes use of a seipso in regard
to the essence and ab alio in reference to esse . . . However, in
St. Albert’s text, unlike St. Thomas’s, it is quite explicit that the
per se or a seipso character of essence or id quod est persists and
is operative apart from esse and apart from any efficient cause.
A seipso, then, positively excludes any and all penetration of an
efficient cause. This is the sense of per se that Capreolus would
have his reader take from the text of St. Thomas—essence has a
being of its own, altogether independently of an efficient cause. 3
When all is said and done, the sources Capreolus used to help explain St.
Thomas’s doctrine of the real distinction ultimately obscure the teaching
of the Angelic Doctor:
St. Thomas Aquinas, avowedly, is Capreolus’ chief proxy; but
in the text (the defense of the first thesis) we have examined he
“The meaning here is unmistakable. A created, caused thing has its existence through
something else (its cause), but its substance is to it through itself.” Deck, “St. Thomas
Aquinas and the Language of Total Dependence,” 244.
2
Lawrence Dewan, “St. Thomas, Capreolus, and Entitative Composition,” Divus Thomas 80 (1977): 355–75.
3
Norman J. Wells, “Capreolus on Essence and Existence,” Modern Schoolman: A Quarterly Journal of Philosophy 38 (1960): 11.

Capreolus: Prince or Corruptor of Thomism?

839

has been textually superseded by St. Albert, Robert Grosseteste,
St. Augustine, Avicenna, and now Henry of Ghent. St. Thomas,
however, is not superseded doctrinally, for all of these citations
are offered as positions on essence and existence which to Capreolus “videntur de mente S. Thomae fuisse.” And the over-all
burden of such texts holds for an uncreated essence on the part
of the creature as contrasted with a created existence. Whereas
the existence of creatures is due to God as efficient cause, their
essence does not come to be by an efficient cause. For Capreolus, consequently, essence is distinguished from existence as
that which is not produced by a creative efficient cause is distinguished from that which is produced by a creative efficient
cause. It is a distinction between the necessary and the contingent, neither of which can be identified with the other. It seems
to be clear that this is what Capreolus thinks is “de mente S.
Thomae.” I think, though, it is a position that is not true to the
doctrine of St. Thomas himself.4
In other words, Capreolus’s interpretation of St. Thomas is such that the
latter’s doctrine on the real distinction between essence and existence
is approximated to the doctrine of Henry of Ghent. Capreolus thus
introduced the notion of the being of essence (esse essentiae) into the
Thomist tradition, betraying the thought of the master by obscuring the
true meaning of existence.5 Wells’s examination of Capreolus was an ex
4
5

Ibid., 24.
Lawrence Dewan, “Capreolus, Saint Thomas et l’Être,” in Jean Capreolus Et Son Temps
1380–1444: Colloque De Rodez (Paris: Cerf, 1997), 83n3: “J’ai pensé un moment utiliser l’occasion pour répondre à certaines critiques de Capreolus publiées pendant ce
siècle. On sait qu’il est accusé d’avoir permis à la doctrine d’Henri de Gand sur l’esse
essentiae d’envahir le thomisme, et ainsi d’avoir trahi la pensée de S. Thomas. Ceux
qui le disent ont tort. Cependant je vais attendre une autre occasion pour le montrer
en détail.” In an unpublished translation of this article, Fr. Dewan expands this note
to read: “I considered at one point using this occasion to reply to certain criticisms
of Capreolus published in this [twentieth] century. He has been accused of having
permitted the doctrine of Henry of Ghent on esse essentiae to invade Thomism, and
thus of having betrayed the thought of St. Thomas. This is not true. However, I have
decided to await another occasion to show this in detail. The critic I have chiefly in
mind is Norman J. Wells, “Capreolus on Essence and Existence,” in Modern Schoolman 38 (1960): 1–24. In contrast I might recall the paper of Cornelio Fabro, “Per la

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Charles D. Robertson

professo attempt to add to the historical background of an earlier paper
by W. Norris Clarke S.J.,6 and to identify Capreolus as “a very influential exponent of the position he [i.e., Clarke] has criticized.”7 In order
to evaluate Wells’s account of Capreolus, therefore, it will be helpful to
understand the position he was attempting to buttress.
Clarke’s intent in his 1955 article “What Is Really Real?” was to
explore some of the implications of the “existential interpretation of
Thomistic metaphysics.”8 He saw himself as participating in “a systematic and highly fruitful program of rethinking the whole of Thomistic
philosophy in the light of this great central insight.”9 The examples of
scholarship that he provides in the footnotes as representing the aim
of this program set the stage for his own essay. Joseph Owens, in his
article “A Note on the Approach to Thomistic Metaphysics,” insisted
that the subject of metaphysics, being as being, “can never remain in the
metaphysical order, once it is severed from its basis of real and actually
exercised existence.”10 George Klubertanz, in his article “Being and God
According to Contemporary Scholastics,” was concerned to outline the
various Thomistic positions about the starting point of metaphysics. He
sided quite clearly what he calls the “Metaphysical Approach,” which

semantica originaria dello ‘esse’ thomistico,” Euntes Docete 9 (1956): 437–66. In this
paper on the vocabulary of being in the Thomistic school, he noted that Capreolus,
like almost everyone else, had fallen into the use of the verbal formulations of the very
adversaries he was facing; nevertheless he, rightly in my judgment, called [at 461] the
Thomistic doctrine ‘genuine’ in the writings of Capreolus.”
6
W. Norris Clarke, “What Is Really Real?,” in Progress in Philosophy: Philosophical Studies in Honor of Rev. Doctor Charles A. Hart, ed. James A. McWilliams (Milwaukee:
Bruce, 1955), 61–90.
7
Wells, “Capreolus on Essence and Existence,” 1.
8
Clarke, “What Is Really Real?,” 61n1: “The aim of this essay is not to validate this interpretation but to explore some of its implications. For the explanation and defense
of the whole approach, the reader is referred to the many well-known writings on
the subject, such as Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers (2nd ed., Toronto, 1952);
Maritain, Preface to Metaphysics (New York, 1939), and Existence and the Existent
(New York, 1948); J. de Finance, S.J., Etre et agir (Paris, 1945); the entire volume of the
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 1946, devoted to the
subject, etc.”
9
Ibid., 61.
10
Joseph Owens, “A Note on the Approach to Thomistic Metaphysics,” New Scholasticism 28 (1954): 463.

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841

he identified with the existential interpretation.11 Spurred on by these
studies, Clarke would himself enter the fray and essay to purify Thomism from an alien metaphysical tradition that had infiltrated it, namely,
“the traditional practice among Thomistic metaphysicians (traditional,
that is, for the past three or four centuries) of describing the content of
‘real being,’ the object of metaphysics, as ‘that which is or can be,’ thereby
including within its extension two classes of beings, actual and possible.”12 The inclusion of the “possibles” within the object of metaphysics
is “inseparably linked,” according to Clarke,13 with “the analysis of being
taken as a noun (the object of metaphysics) as signifying essence with
some relation to existence but prescinding from the actual exercise of
this existence.”14 Consequently, his point of attack was to show that this
analysis of being as a noun fails from the standpoint of normal gram11

George P. Klubertanz, “Being and God According to Contemporary Scholastics,”
Modern Schoolman 32 (1954): 1–17. The article is a summary of three then-current
approaches to Thomistic metaphysics. Claiming that “this study will make no attempt
to determine the issue,” he proceeds to subject caricatures of the so-called “conceptual approach” (that of Capreolus, Cajetan, and John of St. Thomas) and the “physical
approach” (Laval-River Forest) to devastating criticism while claiming that the “metaphysical (read: existential) approach” alone relies on the very words of St. Thomas,
offering us the undiluted wisdom of the master.
12
Clarke, “What Is Really Real?,” 62.
13
To me, it does not seem so inseparable, for the inclusion of possible being in the object
of metaphysics is found also in those manuals that lack this analysis of being as a noun.
Indeed, Clarke himself gives examples of such texts within the body of his essay.
14
Clarke, “What Is Really Real?,” 62–63. In Being and Some Philosophers (98), Gilson
focuses on the way that Suarez analyzes “being” as participle and noun. This appears
to be the basis for Clarke’s claim that this manner of identifying the object of metaphysics had been “traditional . . . for the past three or four centuries.” However, Mark
Gossiaux, in his article “Thomas of Sutton and the Real Distinction between Essence
and Existence,” Modern Schoolman 83 (2006): 263–84, points out that this way of analyzing the word “being” is found in Sutton and Giles: “One should note that this same
division of being reappears in other works of Sutton, and it is also found in Giles of
Rome, who makes use of it to show how a created being may be regarded as a being
per suam essentiam and per participationem” (266). Gossiaux considers both of these
defenders of the real distinction to have failed in their understanding of St. Thomas:
“In the De esse et essentia, he [Sutton presents a largely Aegidian theory of essence and
existence, which he claims to be in harmony with the thought of Aquinas. In his final
discussions of essence and existence in Quodlibet III one finds no criticism or repudiation of Giles’ theory from the attacks of Henry and Godfrey. A study of his texts fails
to substantiate the claim that he arrived at an authentically Thomistic understanding
of the real distinction between essence and existence” (277).

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Charles D. Robertson

matical usage. Once the precise meaning of the word “being” is clarified,
it will be clear that “as applied to actual and possible being is used in
two radically and intrinsically different senses which, though related by
dependence and analogy of extrinsic attribution, cannot be reduced to
any one single meaning applicable to all by proper and intrinsic analogy.”15 It will then remain for him to respond to objections to his position.
In evaluating Clarke’s essay, I will first determine whether his critique
of the analysis of the word “being” is sound. Second, I will outline the
various senses in which the term “object” is used in relation to science
in order to evaluate fairly his responses to the objections he proposes.
Finally, I will point out the danger he wants to avoid by his approach
to the object of metaphysics and relate it directly to Wells’s critique of
Capreolus.
Clarke presents two examples of the analysis of the word “being”
and the identification of being as a noun with the object of metaphysics.
It is worth citing the latter of these, taken from a “Lavaliste” manual by
Henri Grenier, in full:
Wherefore being taken concretely, as the participle of the verb
“to be,” is used in two ways:
1) As a participle or formally, including to be or to exist as actually exercised, i.e. the very exercise of the act signified by the verb, just as
currens, as a participle, means one who is actually running;
2) As a noun or materially, designating the essence or subject which
is ordered to actual existence, but prescinding from whether or not
it actually possesses this existence. Hence being as a noun signifies
being in actu signato, i.e. as designated or denominated from the
act of existence, although it neither affirms nor denies the exercise
of this act.16
It is the noun that expresses the formal object of metaphysics. To this
analysis, Clarke objects:

15
16

Clarke, “What Is Really Real?,” 68–69.
Henri Grenier, Cursus Philosophiae, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Quebec: Le Séminaire de Québec,
1937), 7, cited in Clarke, “What Is Really Real?,” 65.

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The Latin present participle allows of three uses, one participial and two substantival. In ordinary grammatical parlance the
participial use is strictly adjectival, requiring always the presence of some substantive which it modifies . . . There remain
two noun uses. According to the first it signifies the subject of
an action understood as actually exercising this action. Thus:
Studens non debet simul audire musicam (“Someone studying
should not simultaneously listen to music”). In the second it
signifies the same subject as one whose characteristic or proper
activity is the action expressed by the participle but prescinding
from whether or not he is at present actually carrying on this
activity or state. Thus: Studens debet satis dormire (“A student
should get sufficient sleep”).17
Since there are two noun uses, it remains to be determined which of the
two is the object of metaphysics: that which includes the actual exercise
of the act, or that which is capable of the act? Clarke asserts rather than
argues that it is certainly not the latter, for
“being” as applied to actual and possible being is used in two
radically and intrinsically different senses. . . The serious danger
in attempting to include both actual and possible being under
the single, apparently more ultimate category of real being is
that it almost inevitably misleads one into believing, and at the
very start of metaphysics, that there is some common element
intrinsic to both of these orders which constitutes them to be
real precisely as real. . . the only element common to both is
intelligible essence precisely and exclusively as intelligible, since
a possible essence has no more in it than that.18
I grant that the only element common to both is essence as intelligible,
but will argue that this is what suits “being taken as a noun” to be the
formal object of metaphysics. However, first I will show that his identification of two distinct noun uses of the participle is simply mistaken.
17
18

Clarke, “What Is Really Real?,” 66–67.
Ibid., 69.

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Charles D. Robertson

Thus his conclusion, namely, that “being” is used in two radically and
intrinsically different senses, does not follow.
The grammatical rule governing the use of the participle in a sentence is that it must express activity contemporaneous with the main
verb of the clause governing it.19 Both examples given by Clarke are of
a present indicative active participle (studens) contemporaneous with a
present indicative active verb requiring a complementary infinitive (debet + audire/dormire). In this respect they are the same. The difference
between the two, however, is that the first denotes a subject engaged in
the activity of studying (Studens, i.e., one engaged in the act of studying,
non debet simul audire musicam) whereas the second (Studens debet satis dormire) denotes a subject who is described by a characteristic activity in which he may or may not be currently engaged. The first example is
precisely what is meant by the participial use of a participle, for it cannot
stand alone without an understood subject of the activity, and thus corresponds to ens as a participle or adjective (the thing engaged in an act
of existing). The second example is precisely what is meant by using the
participle as a noun, standing as the very subject of the main verb, and
thus corresponds to ens used as a noun (the thing that is characterized
by the act of existing but may or may not be currently engaged in said
activity). Consequently, since Clarke explicitly grants that “being used
as a noun” is the object of metaphysics, and that this analysis of the word
“being” is “inseparably linked” with the inclusion of the “possibles” in
the object of metaphysics, the case should be closed.20
19

Charles E. Bennett, New Latin Grammar, 3rd ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1918),
217ff.
20
Perhaps Clarke spoke loosely in saying that the two issues are “inseparably linked,” for
he is fully aware that Henri Grenier’s third edition of his Cursus Philosophicus lacks
the analysis of the word ens while maintaining the traditional division. See Henri
Grenier, Cursus Philosophiae, 3rd ed., vol. 2 (Quebec: Le Séminaire de Québec, 1947),
12. We will have the opportunity to comment on this text below. He also notes that H.
D. Gardeil’s manual lacks a discussion of being as noun and particle while expounding the traditional division: “Primarily, ‘being as being’ (the object of metaphysics)
signifies existence (esse) in its immediate sense of real and actual existence: ens actuale, as the expression goes. But ‘being as being’ is not limited to this: ens possibile,
i.e. anything capable of entering the world of concrete existence. Thus, whatever has
been, or is, or will be, or could really be, under whatever mode or manner, is comprised under the object of metaphysics, yes even that which is affined to the concrete
order of things by way of privation or negation. One thing only is debarred, the being

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845

However, there are independent reasons, of which Clarke seems to
be aware, for holding that real being is divided into actual and possible.
After citing various texts of St. Thomas that he thinks establish conclusively that the object of metaphysics excludes possible being, he engages
two arguments that demand its inclusion on the basis of the “Aristotelian conception of science as concerned only with essential predicates.”21
First, there is the problem of the need for properties essentially predicated of being in order to arrive at a sound conclusion. Since existence
belongs only to God as an essential predicate, existence itself cannot be
the object of metaphysics. This objection, he thinks, “can be disposed of
quite briefly.” His response to this line of argument is “simply to refuse
to accept its premises in a rigid and univocal sense and to insist that the
too narrow concept of Aristotelian science be enlarged to make room
for the new sui generis element of reality brought into focus for the first
time by St. Thomas and for the sui generis character of the science of
metaphysics resulting from the nature of its object.”22
Second, for metaphysics to be a true science, it “must have the characteristics of absolute necessity and immutability.”23 If only actually existent
things are the proper object of metaphysics, we will lack that necessity and
immutability, for we only have direct access to contingently existing beings. Hence we have recourse to the essential order to found the necessity
of the science. This position is identified as presupposing that the mutable
world “cannot bear within itself any necessity or immutability whatsoever,” which has the marks of a “Platonic-Augustinian depreciation of the
contingent.”24 Also, it assumes that “only essences in the strict sense can be
abstracted,”25 which is to ignore that Thomistic epistemology “has found a
way, by its theory of the special mode of abstraction of the notion of being
through the judgment of separation . . . to disengage and retain for intelof reason (ens rationis), which is the subject of logic.” H. D. Gardeil, Introduction to
the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. John A. Otto, vol. 4 (St. Louis: B. Herder,
1956), 42. Interestingly, the translator inserted a footnote referencing Clarke’s article
at the end of this passage to point out that this interpretation of the object of metaphysics was controversial.
21
Clarke, “What Is Really Real?,” 79.
22
Ibid., 80.
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid., 81
25
Ibid.

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Charles D. Robertson

lectual analysis not only the essential but the existential aspects of the real
beings that are its object.”26 Consequently, on the basis of the Aristotelian
notion of science, there is no reason to object to the idea that “Thomistic
metaphysics . . . studies real being (essence-existing) formally as existent
(that is, under the unifying formal object of the act of existence), which is
not at all the same as to say formally as particular.”27 Interestingly, as if to
support this position, he refers the reader to an article by Gerald Phelan,
who notes about the formal object of metaphysics that
when, therefore, the question is asked, “What is the formal object of metaphysics,” there can be but one answer, namely, that
which formally constitutes its object, being (ID QUOD est), as
being (id quod EST); and this is the act of being. Metaphysics
cannot, consequently, be regarded as a philosophy of form or
philosophy of essence. It is a philosophy of whatever is or can
be in any manner whatsoever, considered specifically in the
light of the ultimate existential actuality of all reality, the act
of being (esse).28
Here Phelan explicitly includes what can be, the possible, within the
formal object of metaphysics. Why, then, does Clarke seek to exclude
the possible from the formal object of metaphysics? Is it confusion on
his part about the various meanings of subject and object in the Aristotelian notion of science? Here it will be good to discuss the various
meanings of “subject” and “object” of a science, including in our consideration Capreolus’s use of these terms, for it will have some bearing on
our evaluation of Wells’s view.29
26

Ibid., 83.
Ibid.
28
Gerald B. Phelan, “A Note on the Formal Object of Metaphysics,” New Scholasticism
18 (1944): 199.
29
Melvin Glutz begins his treatment of the subject and object of a science by pointing
out the difficulty of coming to a uniform terminology: “There is a difference of terminology and viewpoint among the scholastics regarding the subject of a science.
This can be confusing, especially when we are reading the text of St. Thomas and
paralleling his doctrine with that of his commentators.” Melvin A. Glutz, The Manner
of Demonstrating in Natural Philosophy (River Forest, IL: Dominican House of Studies, 1956), 41. Glutz follows the terminology of John of St. Thomas “as being more in
27

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847

First, it is to be noted is that science, psychologically considered,
is an intellectual habit that is formed by individual acts of science. We
engage in an act of science when we come to know something previously unknown by means of recognizing the connection of the predicate
with the subject through a middle term. Each act is related to a habit,
and is thus placed in its proper species by the habit. The first division
of scientific knowledge is between speculative and practical knowledge,
a division that is made on the basis of the end of the science, namely,
whether it is ordered to knowledge itself or to some further operation. If
there are going to be diverse habits of speculative science, they must be
diversified by being ordered to diverse objects. The proximate basis for
the division of objects of science is what Capreolus calls its genus scibile:
the division of sciences according to kind, or also of their unity
according to kind, is to be observed according to the general
division or unity of the knowable object insofar as it is knowable; thus it is that all those sciences are the same according to
genus whose objects are reduced to the same knowable genus
(genus scibile); and those differ in genus whose objects are not
reducible to the same knowable genus, but to diverse genera;
likewise, it is the case that those sciences differ in genus whose
demonstrative or probative middle terms are not reduced to
one knowable genus but to diverse ones.30

harmony with the usage of St. Thomas,” but points out that most others follow Cajetan. Cajetan’s terminology resembles that of Capreolus, and since it is the latter with
which we are primarily concerned, we will pay special attention to Capreolus’s formulation. See also the attempt to harmonize the different ways of speaking in William
A. Wallace, The Role of Demonstration in Moral Theology: A Study of Methodology in
St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Thomist Press, 1962), 23–27. He relies directly
on Capreolus.
30
Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones Theologiæ Divi Thomæ Aquinatis, ed. Ceslaus Paban
and Thomas Pègues, 7 vols. (Frankfurt: Minerva, 1967), I:36b: “divisio scientiarum
secundum genus, vel etiam earum unitas secundum genus, attendenda est paenes divisionem vel unitatem generalem scibilis in quantum est scibile; ita quod omnes illae
scientiae sunt eaedem secundum genus, quarum objecta reducuntur ad idem genus
scibilis; et illae differunt genere, quarum objecta non sunt reducibilia ad idem scibile,
sed ad diversa genera; similiter quod illae scientiae different genere, quarum media
demonstrativa vel probativa non reducuntur ad unum scibile, sed ad diversa.”

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Charles D. Robertson

Since the genus scibile is the basis for the division of the speculative
sciences, one and the same habit of science can embrace a diversity of
objects. Here it is a matter of determining which object belongs per se to
a particular habit and thus serves to unite diverse acts of knowing under a single habit as opposed to those objects that are only accidentally
related to the habit:
But in the object something is considered as formal and something as material. But what is formal in the object is that according to which the object is referred to a potency or habit; but
what is material is that in which this is founded. . . From which
it is clear that a power or habit is referred to the formal notion
of the object per se; but to that which is material in the object
per accidens. And those things which are per accidens do not
vary a thing, but only those things which are per se: therefore
a material diversity of object does not diversify a power or a
habit, but only a formal diversity does. For there is one power of
sight, by which we see rocks and men and the sky, because that
diversity of objects is material, and not according to the formal
notion of the visible.31
The material object of a habit of science, then, is that which admits of
multiplicity but is united under a single formal notion. One can have
multiple acts of knowledge terminating in diverse conclusions, but the
diversity of conclusions does not diversify a habit of science. In this connection, it is important to note the difference between the subject and
the object of a science, for the terms are sometimes used interchangeably: “the subject of a science is not entirely the same as its object . . . for
the object of a science, properly speaking, is the demonstrated conclu31

Ibid., I:37a: “Sed in obiecto consideratur aliquid ut formale et aliquid ut materiale.
Formale autem in obiecto est id secundum quod obiectum refertur ad potentiam vel
habitum; materiale autem id in quo hoc fundatur . . . Ex quo patet quod potentia vel
habitus refertur ad formalem rationem obiecti per se; ad id autem quod est materiale
in obiecto, per accidens. Et ea quae sunt per accidens non variant rem, sed solum
ea quae sunt per se: ideo materialis diversitas obiecti non diversificat potentiam vel
habitum, sed solum formalis. Una est enim potentia visiva, qua videmus et lapides et
homines et caelum, quia ista diversitas obiectorum est materialis, et non secundum
formalem rationem visibilis.”

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sion. But the subject of a science it that which serves as the subject in the
demonstrated conclusions.”32 What diversifies habits of science, then, is
not the diverse conclusions achieved, for nothing prevents two sciences
from reaching the same conclusion. It is the means of getting there that
determines which science it belongs to. So it is the formal object of a science that will unify the various acts of knowledge under a single habit.
But the formal object itself can be considered in different ways:
The specific unity of a scientific habit is observed according to
the unity of the formal notion of the object which that habit regards first and essentially; thus it is that all those habits are the
same in species that regard the same object under the same formal notion first and adequately, whether that notion is general
or special. And I am speaking of the formal notion of the object
insofar as it is knowable. Likewise, concerning the formal notion, I understand not only what is related to it as what (quod)
is known, but also what is related to it as that by which (quo) the
object is known. For diverse habits can regard the same object
under the same formal notion in the first way, but are distinguished by the notion of object taken in the second way . . . It is
clear therefore that a diversity of means of demonstration takes
away the unity of a habit . . . For the specific unity of a habit
there is required a twofold unity of formal notion, namely of
that which is related to it as that which (quod) and of that which
is related to it as that by which (quo).33
32

Ibid., I:46b: “subjectum scientiae non omnino est idem quod objectum ejusdem . . .
quia objectum scientiae proprie est conclusio demonstrata. Sed subjectum scientiae
est illud quod subjicitur in conclusionibus demonstratis.”
33
Ibid., I:36b–37a: “Unitas specifica habitus scientifici attendenda est paenes unitatem
rationis formalis objecti, quam ille habitus primo et per se respicit; ita quod omnes
illi habitus sunt idem specie, qui respiciunt idem objectum sub eadem ratione formali
primo et adaequate, sive illa ratio sit generalis sive specialis. Et loquor de formali ratione
objecti in quantum est scibile. Similiter intelligo de ratione formali, non solum quae se
habet ut quod cognoscitur, sed etiam de ratione formali quae se habet ut quo objectum
cognoscitur. Nam habitus diversi possunt respicere idem objectum sub eadem ratione formali primo modo, qui tamen distinguuntur per rationem objecti secundo modo
sumptam . . . Patet ergo quod diversitas mediorum demonstrativorum tollit unitatem
habitus . . . Ad unitatem ergo specificam habitus requiritur duplex unitas formalis rationis, scilicet illius quae se habet ut quod, et illius quae se habet ut quo.”

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Charles D. Robertson

Here the formal notion of the object (ratio formalis objecti) is divided into that which is primarily and essentially regarded in the object (quae se habet ut quod), called the formal object quod, and that by
means of which the object is known (quae se habet ut quo), the formal
object quo. The formal object quod, called also the ratio formalis quae,34
is the subject of demonstration viewed as the adequate subject of the
properties to be demonstrated of it.35 The formal object quo, also called
the ratio formalis sub qua,36 determines the means of demonstration and
so it is the definition of the subject that serves as the middle term joining
it to the predicate in the conclusion.37 This determines the genus scibile
as it is the means by which that which is primarily attained is attained,
and so it is the proximate basis for the division of scientific habits:
not just any diversity of means of demonstration diversifies the
habit of science, but only the diversity of means that require a
diverse notion of knowing (ratio scibilis) according to genus;
just as the middle term in natural science differs from that in
mathematical and divine: for the means of demonstration of
34

See Josef Gredt, O.S.B., Elementa Philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae, 7th ed., 2 vols.
(Freiburg: Herder, 1937), I:187.
35
Thus it is that John of St. Thomas calls this the “formal subject”: “The material subject
is that thing about which something is demonstrated in some science; but the formal
subject is that condition or notion according to which that subject is considered in
such a science; and that subject to which such a condition primarily and essentially
belongs is called the principal subject or the subject of attribution. Subjectum materiale est res illa, de qua aliquid demonstratur in aliqua scientia; formale vero est illa
habitudo, seu ratio, secundum quam subjecta illa considerantur in tali scientia; et illud
subjectum cui primo et per se convenit talis habitudo, dicitur subjectum pincipale seu
attributionis.” Johannes a Sancto Thoma, Cursus Theologicus in Summae Theologicam
D. Thomae, vol. 1 (Paris: Vivès, 1883), q.1, d.2, a.11 (402).
36
Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae, I:187.
37
John of St. Thomas calls the formal object quo simply the formal object: “the material
object is that proposition which is proven by inference and is known as an inferred
truth; but the formal object is that notion under which and through which such a
conclusion is illustrated and manifested: which indeed is found among the inferential
principles as in the means that prove the conclusion. . . . objectum materiale est illa
proposito quae per illationem probatur et scitur tamquam veritas illata; formale vero est
ratio illa sub qua, et per quam illustratur et manifestatur talis conclusio: quae utique in
principiis inferentibus invenitur tamquam in medio probativo conclusionis.” Johannes
a Sancto Thoma, Cursus Theologicus in Summae Theologicam D. Thomae, vol. 1, q.1,
d.2, a.11 (402).

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Physics are taken from something which is suited to mobile being not per accidens, such as motion or sensible matter or the
principle of motion; thus it is that there is always implied in
such middle terms something pertaining to motion. But mathematical middle terms imply something suited to quantity insofar as it is of this kind; thus it is that middle terms of this kind
fall in diverse genera contained under the knowable insofar as
it is of this kind.38
The formal object primarily attained, then, is determined by the way
the subject is viewed: as subject of properties that belong to it in virtue
of mobility, quantity, or being. In order that the principles of demonstration in the science have the requisite necessity to cause the necessity of the conclusion, there must be some degree of abstraction from
the particular. As the adequate objects of our knowledge are material
beings, having matter as their individuating principles, the formal object quo will differ inasmuch as it defines the subject of demonstration
in accordance with some grade of materiality. Hence the being that is
studied in physics has certain properties demonstrated of it in view of
needing sensible matter for its existence and for our understanding
of it. But sensible matter, as the principle of individuation, must be
left out of our consideration. The subject, then, must be considered as
including matter in its definition, but prescinding from individual or
signate matter. The activity proper to material beings, motion, is that
by which we have intellectual access to a universal science of sensible
beings. The formal object quod of natural philosophy, then, focusing
on the actuality proper to material beings as such, is being insofar as
it is capable of motion. This restricts the science to those things that
38

Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones, 1:44b–45a: “non quaelibet diversitas mediorum
demonstrationis diversificat habitum scientiae, sed solum diversitas mediorum quae
requirit diversam rationem cognoscendi secundum genus; sicut differt medium naturale a mathematico et divino: media enim demonstrationum Physicae sumuntur ab
aliquo quod convenit rei mobili non per accidens, sicut motus vel materia sensibilis
vel principium motus, ita quod semper in talibus mediis implicatur aliquid pertinens ad motum; media autem mathematica implicant aliquid conveniens quantitati in
quantum hujusmodi; ita quod hujusmodi media cadunt in diversa genera contenta
sub scibili in quantum hujusmodi.”

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are composed of form and matter; but it includes whatever it does not
explicitly exclude, and so the special sciences of nature that examine
things in their most particular aspects belong to this same degree of
abstraction and are included within the formal object of the philosophy of nature.
Likewise, then, the being studied in Metaphysics is defined not
in terms of what belongs per se to sensible being or being marked by
quantity (which belongs to the second degree of abstraction), but to
being as such. And so all things proper to materiality are left out of
the quasi-definitions of being used as middle terms. The conclusions
of the science will be verified in anything that exists, that is, whatever essences there are to which existence accrues. But they are equally
applicable to anything that can be considered as capable of extramental existence. The formal notion of being, which is the formal object
quod of metaphysics, includes whatever it does not explicitly exclude,
considering all beings, possible and actual, in their order to the act of
existence. This can be confirmed by the words of St. Thomas himself
when speaking of God’s power:
whatever can have the notion of being (rationem entis) is contained under absolute possibles in whose respect God is called
omnipotent. But nothing is opposed to the notion of being
except non being (non ens). Therefore that which implies in
itself simultaneous existence and non existence is repugnant
to the notion of absolute possibility which falls under divine
omnipotence. Moreover, this does not fall under omnipotence, not because of a defect of divine power, but because it
has neither the notion of something that can be made nor the
notion of the possible. Therefore, whatsoever does not imply a
contradiction is contained under these possibles, in respect of
which God is called omnipotent. But those things that imply a
contradiction are not contained under omnipotence for they
do not have the notion of the possibles.39
39

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 25, art. 3c: “quidquid potest habere rationem
entis, continetur sub possibilibus absolutis, respectu quorum Deus dicitur omnipotens. Nihil autem opponitur rationi entis, nisi non ens. Hoc igitur repugnat rationi
possibilis absoluti, quod subditur divinae omnipotentiae, quod implicat in se esse et

Capreolus: Prince or Corruptor of Thomism?

853

Here the possibles are things, intelligible essences, that God can
create. That is, they are things that are in potency to an act of existence.
Thus they are sharply divided off from that nonbeing called a being of
reason (ens rationis). These latter beings are purely mental relations
that, although they may be founded in reality, cannot exist outside the
mind. Consequently, the possibles must be considered real precisely
in the sense that they have in their own intelligible content a strict
ordination to the act of existence. They are not considered without reference to the act of existence, but are always considered as something
to which that act may accrue.
But, to this line of interpretation Clarke objects:
in the possible essence this ordering is still only a purely rational relation, the essence as related by thought to its possible
existence as thought, whereas in the actual being the relation
is a real one between real essence and real existence. There
still remains the unbridgeable gap between real and nonreal
relations, and we are still left with the minimum note of intelligibility as the ultimate constitutive note of reality as such.40
This objection brings to sharper focus that the term real has not yet
undergone analysis. What constitutes the real? To what is the real opposed? The traditional Thomists, criticized by Clarke, included potential being along with actual being in their understanding of real being as
the formal object of metaphysics. But real being is certainly opposed to
the being of reason that the possible essence seems to be in virtue of its
“purely rational relation” to existence. But it is not as if the traditional
Thomists were unaware of this problem. A couple of examples from the
manualists cited by Clarke himself show this to be the case.
non esse simul. Hoc enim omnipotentiae non subditur, non propter defectum divinae
potentiae; sed quia non potest habere rationem factibilis neque possibilis. Quaecumque igitur contradictionem non implicant, sub illis possibilibus continentur, respectu
quorum dicitur Deus omnipotens. Ea vero quae contradictionem implicant, sub divina omnipotentia non continentur, quia non possunt habere possibilium rationem.”
Citations of Summa from Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, ed. Institut d’études
médiévales (Ottawa: Studium Generalis O. P., 1953.) See also Lawrence Dewan, “St.
Thomas and the Possibles,” New Scholasticism 53, no. 1 (1979): 76.
40
Clarke, “What Is Really Real?,” 70.

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Charles D. Robertson

First, there is the division of being given by Josephus Gredt:
Being (ens) is divided a) as a (logical) potential whole analogue
α) by a quasi-essential division into real being and being of reason. Real being is what has existence in nature; a being of reason
is what does not have objective existence except in the intellect.
Real being is divided into ens a se or uncreated being (God)
and ens ab alio or created being. Created being is divided into
the ten categories. Being of reason is divided into negation and
relation of reason, which are the quasi-categories of being of
reason—Being of reason properly speaking is not being, or does
not have essence, but is only conceived as a being; therefore it
does not essentially pertain to the science of being as being or
Metaphysics. β) By a quasi-accidental division, being by reason
of its state into actual and possible insofar as it has being (esse)
actually or only possibly. – b) As an actual whole, being is divided into entitative parts, which are essence (which in created
being is a potential part or potency) and existence (which is
the act of a being). The division of being into complete being,
which is the whole thing composed of essence and being, and
incomplete being, which is partial, i.e., essence and being taken
individually, follows this division.41
This division is given of immaterial being in general, and so it indicates
being as attained at the third degree of abstraction. Gredt includes being
41

Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae, 2:5: “Dividitur ens a) tamquam totum potentiale (logicum) analogum α) divisione quasi essentiali in ens reale et ens rationis. Ens reale est,
quod habet esse in rerum natura: ens rationis est, quod non habet esse obiective nisi
in intellectu. Ens reale dividitur in ens a se seu ens increatum (Deum) et ens ab alio
seu ens creatum. Ens ab alio dividitur in decem praedicamenta. Ens rationis dividitur
in negationem et relationem rationis, quae sunt quasi praedicamenta entis rationis.
– Ens rationis proprie non est ens, seu non habet essentiam, sed concipitur tantum
ut ens; ideo etiam per se non pertinet ad scientiam circa ens ut ens seu ad Metaphysicam. β) Divisione quasi per accidens dividitur ens ratione status in ens actuale et possibile, quatenus habet esse actu aut possibiliter tantum. – b) Tamquam totum actuale
ens dividitur in partes entitativas, quae sunt essentia (quae in ente creato est pars
potentialis seu potentia) et existentia (quae est actus entis). Hanc divisionem sequitur
divisio entis in ens completum, quod est totum compositum ex essentia et esse, et ens
incompletum, partiale: essentiam et esse singillatim sumpta.” See also ibid., n. 21.

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of reason at this third degree of abstraction, and in the logical section
of his work, he identifies logic as a speculative science dealing with immaterial being, but not without qualifying how being is said of beings
of reason: “Logic relinquishes matter by a merely negative abstraction,
attaining nothing perfect, but only being of reason, which is a being
only in a qualified sense.”42 It seems to me that he should further qualify
how logic is included among the speculative sciences,43 but this point is
not essential to the issue at hand. More importantly, we must identify
that which the science of metaphysics primarily and essentially attains,
namely, that of which being is essentially predicated. Since being, used
as a participle, is essentially predicated of God alone, the being that is
essentially predicated of all the things studied in metaphysics, the whole
universe of being, must be being used as a noun. In this way, metaphysics will treat common being, abstracting from corporeal imperfection
while remaining open to the entitative composition of act and potency.
So anything of which being, used as a noun, can be essentially predicated, falls in the formal object of metaphysics, whereas that of which it is
only improperly predicated does not:
Being taken as a noun is not only said of every actual being, but
also of every merely possible being, as is clear from the concept
of being taken nominally; it is said not only of complete being,
but also of incomplete or partial being: that being taken nominally is said of essence is clear in itself; for being taken nominally is essence, but it is also said of existence, not as “that which”
but as “that by which.” Being as a noun is likewise said even of
42

Ibid., 2:190: “Logica abstractione mere negativa relinquit materiam, nihil perfectionis
attingendo, sed ens rations, quod est ens tantummodo secundum quid.”
43
Thomas Aquinas, In de trinitate, q. 5, art. 1, ad 1 (Leonine 50:139): “But the things
logic deals with are not sought to be known for their own sake, but as a kind of tool for
the other sciences; and therefore logic is not contained under speculative philosophy
as if a principal part, but as something reduced to speculative philosophy inasmuch as
it serves philosophy by its instruments, namely, syllogisms and definitions and other
things of this kind which we need in the speculative sciences. Res autem de quibus est
logica non queruntur ad cognoscendum propter se ipsas, set ut amminiculum quoddam
ad alias scientias; et ideo logica non continetur sub speculatiua philosophia quasi principalis pars, set sicut quiddam reductum ad philosophiam speculatiuam prout ministrat
speculationi sua instrumenta, scilicet sillogismos, et diffinitiones, et alia huiusmodi quibus in scientiis speculatiuis indigemus.”

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Charles D. Robertson

being of reason, though improperly, as a being of reason is only
improperly a being.44
Second, there is the division given by Henri Grenier, in the third edition
of his Cursus Philosophicus, which relinquished the analysis of the word
being as noun and participle:
The division of being: 1st. Being, taken universally, is divided
into real being and being of reason. Real being is that which has
existence (esse) in nature. Being of reason is being that has objective existence in reason, to which no existence corresponds
in reality; e. g., species, genus. 2nd. Being is again divided into
actual being and possible being. Actual being is that which has
existence in reality. Possible being is that which does not have
existence in reality, but which does not have a repugnance to existence. In possible being, two things ought to be distinguished:
a) thing or essence; b) the state of possibility. On the part of
thing, possible being is called something real, not existing in act,
but as the object of a real power, insofar as it can be made by a
real power. On the part of state, possible being is a being of reason, because the state of possibility excludes actual existence.45
On this account, the state of possibility, treated by Gredt as a quasi-acci44

Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae, 2:6: “Ens nominaliter sumptum non tantum dicitur de
omni ente actuali, sed etiam de omni ente mere possibili, ut patet ex conceptu entis
nominaliter sumpti, quod abstrahit ab existentia; dicitur non tantum de ente completo, sed etiam de incompleto seu partiali: Ens nominaliter sumptum dici de essentia,
per se patet; ens enim nominaliter sumptum est essentia, at dicitur etiam de existentia, non ut ‘quod,’ sed ut ‘quo.’ Ens ut nomen tandem dicitur etiam de ente rationis, etsi
improprie, sicut improprie tantum ens rationis est ens.”
45
Grenier, Cursus Philosophiae, 12: “Entis divisio: 1. Ens universaliter sumptum dividitur in ens reale et ens rationis. Ens reale est ille quod habet esse in rerum natura. Ens
rationis est ens habens esse objective in ratione, cui nullum esse correspondet in re;
v.g., species, genus. 2. Ens adhuc dividitur in ens actuale et ens possibile. Ens actuale
est illud quod existentiam habet in re. Ens possibile est illud quod existentiam non
habet in re, sed quod repugnantiam non habet ad essendum. In ente possibili duo
distingui debent: a) res seu essentia; b) status possibilitatis. Ex parte rei, ens possibile
dicitur aliquid reale, non actu existens, sed ut objectum potentiae realis, quatenus
fieri postest ab aliqua potentia reali. Ex parte status, ens possibile est ens rationis, quia
status possibilitatis excludit existentiam actualem.”

Capreolus: Prince or Corruptor of Thomism?

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dental division of being as a potential logical whole, falls under being of
reason for it explicitly excludes actual existence. The intelligible essence,
on the other hand, although not existing in act, is called real for it is the
object of a real power. That is, it is the kind of thing that is within God’s
power to make.
This brings us to Clarke’s final objection to calling this kind of being
real. Although an intelligible but nonexistent essence is “founded on the
most real of all realities, the divine essence seen by the divine intellect
as really and existentially imitable in this particular way,” to call this a
real being is to make “a subtle and elusive, but nonetheless illicit, transition from thought to reality.”46 Granting that the intelligible content of a
possible essence differs from that of a being of reason, he considers that
it proves too much to call this a real being: “But it does not follow that
what is being thought about thereby acquires any ontological status of
its own as opposed to ontological or extramental nonbeing.”47 If it did
follow, then even the being of reason should be called real, for it too
has intelligible content. Consequently, the possible essence can only be
called real by way of extrinsic attribution, for in itself it has only intentional being: “Thus an object of thought can be called ‘a being’ or ‘real’
not because it is a real being in itself, but because it is thought by a real
being, and, in the case of a possible, has an intelligible relation to the
real order.”48
But this response presupposes that he has established conclusively
that being as a noun, the formal object of metaphysics, means nothing
other than the actually existent essence. Consequently, the proper use
of the term real applies only to actual existents. We have seen, however,
that this is not the proper meaning of being as a noun. The formal object
of metaphysics does not exclude possible being, for it is by a definition
of being that can be essentially predicated of both created and uncreated
being that we can have demonstration about being as such. Being as
actually existent is essentially predicated only of God, and can only be
used as a middle term in the demonstrations of the divine attributes.
Because of this fundamental disagreement about the meaning of being
46

Clarke, “What s Really Real?,” 85.
Ibid., 86.
48
Ibid., 87.
47

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Charles D. Robertson

taken as a noun, Clarke’s criticism of calling possible being real is based
on terms that are not shared by his opponents. Having refused to allow
the meaning of being as essence any ontological significance unless understood as existing in act, he is attributing to his opponent a view that
the latter would certainly not accept. He is saying that by calling the
possible essence real, his opponent attributes an independent existence
to it. His opponent, however, would not accept that the term real is entirely coterminous with existent or actual. His opponent takes the term
real in a sense closer to its etymological roots, as derived from res, thing.
Consequently, that is real which is an intelligible essence, even when
considered apart from its actual existence, as long as existence is not
explicitly excluded from its consideration. It is real precisely as a thing
or essence to which the act of existence can or does accrue.
Although Clarke is certainly correct to point out that being refers
primarily to actually existent things, he errs when identifying the object of metaphysics as “being taken as a noun, signifying existing essence precisely as existent,”49 to the exclusion of possible being, for his
analysis of being used as a participle and a noun is flawed. But part of
the reason he errs is that he nowhere clarifies exactly what he means by
the term “object” as related to a science, and uses it in different ways at
different times. We have seen, however, that the object of metaphysics can be understood in three ways: first, there is the material object,
namely, the conclusions attained in the science; second, there is the
formal object quo, the definition of the subject as the middle term in
the demonstrations; third, there is the formal object quod, which is the
subject as viewed from the standpoint of the intelligibility provided by
the formal object quo. The formal object quod of metaphysics, then,
must be that of which being can be essentially predicated in such a
way that it includes both created and uncreated being. Possible being,
though it has no actual existence, falls under the formal object of metaphysics, for being can be predicated essentially of it. But the possibles
are only considered real in relation to the active power of God, who can
give them actual existence.
At this point, we can briefly consider Wells’s treatment of Capreolus
mentioned at the beginning of this essay. Wells brings up some very good
49

Ibid., 90.

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859

texts to show the mind of Capreolus with respect to nonactual essences,
and his interpretation of these texts seems to be correct. It is his evaluation
that Capreolus’s thought is at variance with that of St. Thomas with which
I take issue. The main issue treated by Wells is how Capreolus understands
St. Thomas when the latter says: “The substance of each thing belongs to it
essentially (per se), and not by another (per aliud) . . . but of every created
thing, esse belongs to it by another; for otherwise it would not be created.”50
The concern is that Capreolus interprets this in such a manner that he
makes essence impervious to any efficient causality.51 That Capreolus does
have this interpretation is confirmed by the way he explains the demands
of per se predication such that any consideration of the efficient cause of
an essence is left out of the picture. Consequently, what is necessary in the
essential order is the prerequisite of the existential order: “In short, he is
arguing from essence to existence; that is, if this is what essence is, then
existence must be such and such.”52 Further, to say that essences come to
be by an efficient cause on this view would introduce multiplicity into the
divine essence, for the necessary and immutable truths about them are
founded in the divine intellect. But “this solution takes place because the
problem has been posed in terms of an esse essentiae and an esse existentiae and the tradition behind them.”53 Confirmation of this can be found
in Capreolus’s approval of Henry of Ghent’s terminology: “as Henry says,
and well in my judgment, essence has a twofold esse, namely a being of
essence and a being of existence.”54 It belongs to this metaphysical tradition, as opposed to that of St. Thomas himself, that “essence as essence has
being proper to itself,”55 and so does not need any creative efficient cause.
However, Capreolus himself, in a passage cited by Wells, warns
against understanding him to be saying that essence has some being
that is not from God. After saying that a “safer” way of dealing with the
50

SCG II, q. 52, as cited in Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones, 1:302a: “Substantia uniuscujusque est ei per se, et non per aliud . . . Sed cujuslibet rei creatae esse est ei per
aliud; nam alias non esset creatum.”
51
Wells, “Capreolus on Essence and Existence,” 11.
52
Ibid., 15.
53
Ibid., 19.
54
Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones, 3:76a: “sicut dicit Henricus, et bene, meo judicio,
essentia habet duplex esse, scilicet esse essentiae, et esse existentiae.”
55
Wells, “Capreolus on Essence and Existence,” 21

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Charles D. Robertson

essences of creatures is that given by St. Thomas in De potentia,56 he says
about his own way of dealing with the problem: “Nevertheless, the other
way is not erroneous, nor proximate to error, except insofar as it seems
to posit that essence has some being (esse) and not from God.”57 With
this proviso, he approves of Henry’s terminology and clarifies that the
“being of essence” is dependent upon God as exemplar cause, whereas the “being of existence” is from God as efficient cause. The former
should not be said to be created, for it is nothing other than the divine
essence as understood by the divine intellect. It is that by which God
creates rather than that which God creates.58 That essence as essence has
a being proper to itself in the way Wells understands it is not a position
that Capreolus holds. Rather, Capreolus is willing to talk about the being
of essence as existing in the divine intellect to ground the necessary and
immutable truths about nonactual beings. He thus keeps strictly to the
demands of Aristotelian science by insisting on elaborating our understanding of essences on the basis of what can be predicated of them per
se. He clearly understands that the formal object of metaphysics is that
which belongs to being as such, and that this includes those intelligible
essences that have no actual existence but are possible in relation to the
active power of God. Wells, who follows Clarke’s understanding of the
formal object of metaphysics, cannot help but judge Capreolus’s thought
to be a departure from that of St. Thomas.
Wells’s interpretation of Capreolus has not been without its adherents. Maurer relied explicitly on Wells for his characterization of the
great commentator, pointing out that Capreolus’s manner of distin-

56

Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, art. 5, ad 2: “To the second it ought to be said that
from the fact that being is attributed to the quiddity, not only being, but the quiddity
itself is said to be created, for before it has being it is nothing, except perchance in the
intellect of the creator, where it is not a creature but the creating essencce. Ad secundum dicendum, quod ex hoc ipso quod quidditati esse attribuitur, non solum esse, sed
ipsa quidditas creari dicitur: quia antequam esse habeat, nihil est, nisi forte in intellectu
creantis, ubi non est creatura, sed creatrix essentia.” Thomae Aquinatis, Quaestiones
Disputatae, ed. Raimondo Spiazzi and P. Bazzi, 8th ed., vol. 2 (Turin: Marietti, 1949),
49b.
57
Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones, 3:76a: “Nec tamen alia via est erronea, nec errori
proxima, nisi pro quanto videtur ponere quod essentia habet aliquod esse, et non
a Deo.”
58
This is not alien to the thought of St. Thomas himself. See, for example, ST I, q. 44, art. 3.

Capreolus: Prince or Corruptor of Thomism?

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guishing essence from existence is vulnerable to the critique of Suarez.59
Both Wells and Maurer followed the lead of Gilson who saw Suarez’s
analysis of being used as a noun and participle as the foundation for the
latter’s denial of the real distinction of essence and existence.60 In light of
Gilson’s critique of Suarez, Clarke was concerned to identify the object
of metaphysics as that which is, and not that which can be. But Clarke’s
attempt to overthrow the “traditional Thomist” position has been found
wanting. A critical reappraisal of Gilsonian critiques of the commentatorial tradition then seems to be called for. Capreolus, and those he influenced, had formulated their notion of the formal object of metaphysics in light of St. Thomas’s interpretation and application of Aristotlian
science as exemplified in the Posterior Analytics. Consequently, a proper
assessment of Capreolus and the other commentators should take that
N&V
logical doctrine into account.

59

See Armand Maurer, Medieval Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Medieval Studies, 1982), 348, 423n3.
60
Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 96–107.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 863-912

863

The Personhood of the Separated Soul
Mark K. Spencer
University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, MN

A DEBATEhas recently arisen over the questions of whether, on the

Thomistic view, the human soul is a person after death and prior to resurrection, and whether it is the same person as the soul-matter composite of which it was a part before death. Such questions are of great
importance for those who hold to the immortality of the soul. Answering them requires us to inquire deeply into what we human persons
are, and into the plausibility of the Thomistic answer to that question.
According to many Thomists, a person is a substance with the highest
degree of dignity that a substance can have, is incommunicable, and is
capable of ruling itself (dominus sui, sui iuris) and acting autonomously
with subjective interiority.1 If the separated soul lacks these character1

Aquinas uses “lord of oneself ” (dominus sui) and “lord of his acts” (dominus sui actus) in his account of free will, not as a defining mark of personhood as such (though
it is of the essence of persons to be free) at Scriptum super sententiis I, d. 17, q. 2, a.
3; II, d. 7, q. 1, a. 2; III, d. 18, q. 1, a. 2; Quaestiones disputatae de veritate q. 5, a. 10;
Summa contra gentiles (SCG) II, c. 23; III, c. 111–13, 155; Summa theologiae (ST)
I-II, q. 6, a. 2, ad 2; II-II, q. 64, a. 5, ad 3; q. 122, a. 1. He uses “a law to himself ” (sui
iuris) similarly at ST II-II, q. 104, a. 5. All citations from Aquinas are from www.corpusthomisticum.org (Navarre: Fundación Tomás de Aquino, 2012), and all translations are mine. The later Thomistic tradition considered these to be defining marks
of personhood as such; cf. Thomas de Vio Cajetan, Expositio super sancti Thomae
Aquinatis (Rome: Leonine ed., 1888), vol. 4, I, q. 29, a. 1, n. 11, 329; Salmanticenses,
Cursus theologicus (Paris: Victor Palme, 1877), vol. 3, t. 6, d. 9, dub 1, 341; Edouard
Hugon, “Si l’âme séparée est une personne,” Revue Thomiste 17 (1909): 593; Norris
Clarke, Person and Being (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1993), 117. Oth-

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Mark K. Spencer

istics, then it is difficult to see how the soul’s existence after death can
provide me with a rational basis, apart from supernatural hope and faith
in the resurrection, for the commonly held beliefs that I shall live on
after death, and that my dead loved ones are now alive in another place.2
Most Thomists have denied that the separated soul is a person because
they hold that the human person is essentially a composite of matter and
soul.3 It is thought that to hold that the separated soul is a person is to be
a substance dualist, not a Thomistic hylomorphist.4 Each account of the
separated soul thus runs into problems.
In this essay, I argue that a Thomist can hold that human persons
survive their deaths constituted by separated souls, and thus can hold
the common beliefs about personal immortality. Unlike others who
have defended this “alternative” or “survivalist” view (in distinction to
ers in this tradition describe the person as “autonomous,” “for oneself,” “interior to
oneself ” or “possessing oneself ”: Mariasusai Dhavamany, Subjectivity and Knowledge in the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (Rome: Gregorian University Press,
1965), 34; Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerard Phelan (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 463; The Person and the Common
Good (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 41; Clarke, Person
and Being, 30–32. Aquinas calls the human person incommunicable in his Commentary on the Sentences at In III Sent d. 5, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2, and this is examined by all his
major commentators.
2
Aquinas argues that the immortality of the soul satisfies somewhat one’s personal
desire for immortality at SCG II, c. 79.
3
When writing strictly, I say “matter and soul,” not “body and soul,” because the body
is matter formed by the soul, on one sense of “body”; on another sense, the body
is matter under quantified dimensions, without any powers. Still, I think it makes
sense and is in accord with the standard usages of the Thomistic tradition to say that
the soul is “apart from the body” to refer to the state of the soul when not informing
matter, and to say that the soul is “in the body” when it is in the state of informing
matter. Phrases like “the soul in the body” just mean “the soul in the state of informing matter such that they constituted the body.” Cf. De ente et essentia c. 2; SCG IV,
c. 81; ST I, q. 75, a. 5, ad 1; q. 76, a. 5, ad 1. Cf. Eleonore Stump, “Non-Cartesian
Substance Dualism and Materialism without Reductionism,” Faith and Philosophy
12 (1995): 512; Patrick Toner, “St. Thomas on Death and the Separated Soul,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (2010): 590–91; Christina Van Dyke, “Not Properly a
Person: The Rational Soul and Thomistic Substance Dualism,” Faith and Philosophy
26 (2009): 195; John Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 298–99.
4
David Oderberg, “Hylemorphic Dualism,” Social Philosophy and Policy 22 (2005): 72;
Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (London: Routledge, 2003), 208–16; Stump, “Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism,” 517–23.

The Personhood of the Separated Soul

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the “standard” or “corruptionist” view that the separated soul is not a
person), I shall show that Aquinas and many of his followers did not
hold this view, implicitly or explicitly.5 Nor do I think that the corruptionist view is an implausible interpretation of Thomism. However, I
argue that one can (and perhaps should) hold the survivalist view, while
also holding to other, more fundamental Thomistic positions on being
and personhood. A full investigation of the question of whether a Thomist can hold the survivalist view requires inquiry into and synthesis of
the historical Thomistic tradition, in a deeper way than has been done
by others in this debate. I engage in that inquiry and synthesis in this
essay, and locate the current debate within that tradition. I show which
elements of the Thomistic tradition can be held, and how these must be
interpreted, to be both a Thomist and a survivalist. I first summarize the
arguments of the two views, considering the metaphysical arguments
for these views, not the moral arguments related to the punishment or
rewarding of the soul.6 Next, I present an interpretation of Thomistic
views on existence, personhood, and the separated soul. Finally, on that
basis, I argue for my position.
The Survivalist View
A first argument for the survivalist view is based on the fact that Aquinas
thinks that the separated soul can engage in the acts typical of persons;7 I
5

For this terminology, see Christopher Brown, Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus
(London: Continuum, 2009), 120–21; Patrick Toner, “Personhood and Death in St.
Thomas Aquinas,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 26 (2009): 121; Toner, “St. Thomas on Death,” 597.
6
For moral arguments for the survivalist view, see David Hershenov, “Soulless Organisms? Hylomorphism vs. Animalism,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
85 (2011): 474–76; David Hershenov and Rose Koch-Hershenov, “Personal Identity and Purgatory,” Religious Studies 42 (2006): 441; Stump, “Resurrection and the
Separated Soul”, in Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump, eds., The Oxford Handbook
of Aquinas, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 463. For a response from the
corruptionist view, see Toner, “Personhood and Death,” 130–31. Cf. De veritate q.
13, a. 3, ad 1; ST I, q. 21, a. 1; q. 23, a. 3; q. 75, a. 4; I-II, q. 1, a. 1; II-II q. 61, a. 4, ad
1; John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus thomisticus, vol. 3, Philosophia naturalis,
De anima (Paris: Vives, 1883), q. 9, a. 1, 432–33.
7
For those who hold this view, see Brown, Aquinas and the Ship, 77–79; Christopher
Brown, “Souls, Ships, and Substances,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81
(2007): 655–68; Jason Eberl, “Aquinas on the Nature of Human Beings,” Review of
Metaphysics 58 (2004): 341–42; “Do Humans Persist between Death and Resurrec-

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Mark K. Spencer

refer to this as the Argument from Acts.8 The separated soul thinks, wills,
loves, and desires;9 it experiences pleasure or pain;10 it remembers forms
that it abstracted in the body;11 it has relationships and communicates with
other separated souls, angels, and God;12 it can pray and hear prayers;13
it can appear to composite humans.14 One of Aquinas’s axioms is that the
way that a thing acts follows from the way that it exists, that is, its mode (or
kind) of operation follows its mode of being.15 The fact that the separated
tion?,” in Metaphysics and God, ed. Kevin Timpe (New York: Routledge, 2009); “The
Metaphysics of Resurrection,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical
Association 74 (2001): 215–30; “Varieties of Dualism,” International Philosophical
Quarterly 50 (2010): 39–56; David Oderberg, Real Essentialism, (New York: Routledge, 2007), chap. 10; Oderberg, “Survivalism, Corruptionism, and Mereology,”
European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 4 (2012): 1–26; Stump, Aquinas, 50–
54; Eleonore Stump, “Resurrection and the Separated Soul,” in The Oxford Handbook
of Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ed. Brian Davies and Eleonore
Stump, chap. 34; Eleonore Stump, “Resurrection, Reassembly, and Reconstitution,”
in Die menschliche Seele: Brauchen wir den Dualismus?, ed. Bruno Niederberger and
Edmund Runggaldier (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2006); J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae,
Body and Soul (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 206.
8
Stump, Aquinas, 52–53, 208. Cf. Mary Rousseau, “Elements of a Thomistic Philosophy of Death,” Thomist 43 (1979): 582–601; Victor Edmund Sleva, The Separated
Soul in the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1940), 120–77.
9
De veritate, q. 19, a. 1; Quaestiones de quodlibet 3, q. 9, a. 1; In II Sent d. 19, q. 1, a. 1;
SCG II, c. 83; ST I, q. 89, a. 1; ST Supplement q. 69, a. 2; q. 70, aa. 2 and 3. Although
the last source is not by Aquinas but a compilation of his other writings, I cite it
because those who defend the survivalist view cite it, and I wish to convey their
views here.
10
De veritate, q. 8, a. 4, ad 12; Quaestiones de quodlibet 7, q. 1, a. 1, and q. 2, a.un.; SCG
IV, c. 91; ST I-II, q. 4, a. 5; Supp q. 70, a. 3.
11
Sentencia libri de anima, I, lect 10, n. 152; Quaestio disputata de anima, a. 15, ad 17;
De veritate q. 19, a. 1; Quaestiones de quodlibet 3, q. 9, a. 1; In IV Sent d. 50, q. 1, a. 2;
SCG II, c. 81; ST I, q. 89, a. 4–6.
12
De veritate, q. 19, a. 1; Quaestiones de anima, a. 15, ad 11 and 20; Quaestiones de
quodlibet 3, q. 9, a. 1; In IV Sent d. 50, q. 1, a. 1; ST I, q. 89, aa. 2 and 8.
13
De veritate, q. 8, a. 4, ad 12; In IV Sent d. 15, q. 4, a. 5, qu. 1, corpus and ad 3; ST IIII, q. 83, a. 11; Supplement q. 72, aa. 1–3. Aquinas says that prayers are acts, and acts
are attributed to persons, at In IV Sent d. 45, q. 3, a. 2, ad 3, and Supplement, q. 72, a.
2, ad 3, though at ST II-II, q. 83, a. 11, ad 5, he says that separated souls are invoked
as persons only because they were parts of persons and will be part of persons after
the resurrection. Cf. Eberl, “Do Humans Persist?,” 193; Hugon, “Si l’âme,” 590. I am
grateful to Tim Pawl for this point.
14
In IV Sent d. 45, q. 1, a. 1, qu. 3; ST I, q. 89, a. 8, ad 2; Supplement, q. 69, a. 3.
15
Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 2; Quaestiones de anima, a. 1 and 2;

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soul engages in acts typical of human persons suggests that it is a human
person, so as to be the kind of thing capable of such acts. The person is
in an unnatural condition without matter, lacking nonintellectual powers
and operations, except insofar as these are “rooted” in the soul.16 Despite
being unable to exercise these powers, it can at least weakly exercise the
rational powers, which are the powers most proper to human nature.17
A second argument for the survivalist view turns on the claim that
for Aquinas, composition or constitution is not identity; I refer to this as
the Argument from Constitution. Aquinas holds that a substantial whole
is greater than the sum of the parts that compose it, or the principles
that constitute it, that is, that internally give it existence of some kind.18
For example, in the present life, the whole human being is composed
of, but greater than, not identical to, soul and matter.19 The survivalist
view holds that a thing can lose parts, and the remaining parts can still
Quaestiones de quodlibet 10, q. 3, a. 2; SCG III, c. 113; ST I, q. 50, a. 5; q. 75. aa. 2 and
3; q. 105, a. 5. Cf. Clarke, Person and Being, 8; Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on
Human Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 373.
16
SCG IV, c. 81; ST I-II, q. 4, a. 5, ad 2; Eberl, “Do Humans Persist,” 194–96, 201.
Aquinas says the nonintellectual powers remain “in root” (radice) in the separated soul, not as actually present, because they require bodily organs to be actually
present, at Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 3; Quaestiones de anima, a. 19,
ad 5; Quaestiones de quodlibet 9, q. 4, a. 2. One thing is in another “in root” when
the latter immediately causes the former when placed in the right conditions. Cf.
Sentencia libri De anima I, lec. 14, n. 199; Domingo Bañez, Scholastica commentaria
in primam partem, vol. 1 (Salamanca, 1585), q. 76, a. 1, dub 5, concl 1 n. 2, 162. John
of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9, a. 2, 441, says the soul
contains the powers eminenter, able to “emanate” or cause them when placed in its
natural condition of informing matter.
17
Stump, Aquinas, 52–53; Eberl, “Aquinas on the Nature,” 339–41. Cf. Quaestiones de
quodlibet 10, q. 4, a. 2; Quaestiones de anima, a. 6, ad 14; a. 19, od, 5; ST I, q. 89, a. 1;
q. 117, a. 4.
18
Sententia libri metaphysicae VII, lect 17, n. 1674: “quia aliquid est sic ex aliquo compositum ut omne, idest totum sit unum, et non hoc modo sicut cumulus lapidum,
sed sicut syllaba, quae est unum simpliciter; in omnibus talibus oportet, quod ipsum
compositum non sit ea ex quibus componitur: sicut syllaba non est elementa.”
19
Stump means the same thing by “constitution” as Brown means by “composition.”
Aquinas and later Thomists sometimes use compositio/compositum and sometimes
use constitutio/constitutum for situations where one set of principles gives rise to a
whole that is greater than their sum. See Oderberg, “Survivalism, Corruptionism,
and Mereology,” 15, on the lack of distinction between constitution and composition. Cf. Quaestiones de quodlibet 2, q. 2, a. 2, a. 9; q. 2, a. 1, ad 1; SCG II, c. 68; ST I,
q. 76, a. 1; III q. 2, a. 1, ad 2.

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Mark K. Spencer

constitute the original whole, if the remaining part or parts retain these
characteristics: first, the principle of specific identity for the original
whole, that is, that in virtue of which the original whole is the kind of
thing that it is; second, the same act of existence as the original whole,
that is, the same ultimate actuality whereby the whole exists; third, what
remains must be able to perform the operations typical of the species
of thing that the original whole was. In the human person, the soul is
the principle of identity. The soul is the primary bearer of the human
person’s act of existence, and so is able to exist apart from matter, while
continuing to bear that same act of existence. And, as we saw in the
Argument from Acts, the soul is that in virtue of which the person performs intellectual operations, the operations most typical of the human
species, and it can perform these operations separated from the composite.20 So a human person could lose all of his or her matter and still be
constituted, as the same whole, by the soul, though he or she would not
thereby be identical to the soul.21 On this basis, the survivalist holds that
identity of soul is necessary and sufficient for personal identity.22 Some
proponents of this view contend that I ordinarily refer to myself as “I”
and others refer to me by name in virtue of my soul, my “chief part,” because it is the subject of my intellect, and I am identified by myself and
others in virtue of my psychological or intellectual characteristics and
behavior. For this reason, I can still refer to myself as “I” and others can
refer to me by name when I am constituted just by my soul.23
The separate soul does not seem to fulfill the definition of a person as an “individual substance of a rational nature,” because it lacks
20

Quaestiones de anima a. 1, 3, 5; SCG II, c. 50; ST I, q. 75, a. 2; q. 76, a. 1; q. 79, a. 1. Cf.
Sleva, Separated Soul, 71.
21
Brown, Aquinas and the Ship, 78–79; Eberl, “Do Humans Persist,” 340; Stump, Aquinas, 52; Stump, “Resurrection,” 461.
22
Brown, “Souls, Ships, and Substances,” 657; Eberl, “Do Humans Persist,” 194; Oderberg, Real Essentialism, 255–57; Stump, “Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism,” 516.
An extreme version of this position is held by J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae, who hold
as Thomists that human persons are essentially just souls, though souls are substantially united as form to matter; matter becomes part of what is essentially a soul. This
is contrary to what Aquinas says, but we shall see later (at note 164) that it is not as
at odds with Thomism as might be at first thought. Cf. Moreland and Rae, Body and
Soul, 14, 201, 206; Van Dyke, “Not Properly a Person,” 187–88, 196–200.
23
Oderberg, “Hylemorphic Dualism,” 96. The soul is called “what is principally” (quod
est principale) in the human person at ST I, q. 75 a. 4.

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869

a complete nature.24 Still, the survivalist holds that a separated soul retains what is necessary and sufficient to constitute a human person. The
survivalist agrees with Aquinas that a human person is not identical to
a soul, but contends that, in the separated state, a person is constituted
by a soul, while remaining an individual rational animal and individual
substance of a rational nature.25 This situation is similar to a thought
experimental situation in which a human person is reduced to a disembodied head; persons are not just heads, though they can be constituted
by heads.26 Despite the strangeness of the claim that there could be disembodied animals, it is necessary for the survivalist to maintain that the
separated soul is an animal, since Aquinas holds that human persons are
essentially animals.
The Corruptionist View
The texts of Aquinas are on the side of the corruptionist view.27 The main
argument for this view is that the separated soul cannot be or constitute
a human person because it lacks complete human nature.28 I refer to this
24

Quaestiones disputatae de potentia dei, q. 9, a. 2; In I Sent d. 25, q. 1, a. 1; ST I, q. 29,
a. 1: persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia.
25
Stump, Aquinas, 52–54; “Resurrection,” 462. Aquinas denies that the soul is a person
at ST I, q. 75 a. 4, and Super I epistolam beati Pauli ad Corinthios lectura 15, lec. 2:
“anima autem cum sit pars corporis hominis, non est totus homo, et anima mea non
est ego.”
26
Brown, “Souls, Ships, and Substances,” 657.
27
This view has been defended or presented in the contemporary debate by: Anthony
Kenny, Aquinas on Mind (London: Routledge, 1993), 138; Brian Davies, The Thought
of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 215–20; Leo Elders, The Philosophy of Nature of St. Thomas Aquinas (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1997), 274–84; Robert George and Patrick Lee, Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 66–81; John Haldane, “The Examined Death and the Hope of the Future,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74 (2001): 253–54; Toner, “St. Thomas on Death”; Patrick Toner,
“Hylemorphic Animalism,” Philosophical Studies 155 (2011): 65–81; “On Hylemorphism and Personal Identity,” European Journal of Philosophy 19 (2009): 454–73;
“Personhood”; “Thomas versus Tibbles,” American Catholic Philosophical Quaterly
81 (2007): 639–53; Van Dyke, “Not Properly a Person.”
28
De potentia, q. 9, a. 2, ad 14; ST I, q. 29, a. 1, ad 5: “…anima est pars humanae speciei, et
ideo, licet sit separata, quia tamen retinet naturam unibilitatis, non potest dici substantia
individua quae est hypostasis vel substantia prima; sicut nec manus, nec quaecumque
alia partium hominis. Et sic non competit ei neque definitio personae, neque nomen.” Cf.
Sleva, Separated Soul, 110; Van Dyke, “Not Properly a Person,” 202–3.

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Mark K. Spencer

argument as the Argument from Nature.
Things belong to their species essentially, and, in order to belong to
a species, a thing must have all the essential parts of that species: in our
case, matter and soul. Patrick Toner argues that the idea of something
retaining animality while constituted by only an immaterial soul is incoherent, since humanity requires animality, animality requires being able
to sense, and this requires having bodily organs.29 In this way, he objects
to some of the premises of the Argument from Constitution. Aquinas
consistently holds that without matter the soul is not a person; for example, in considering “raptures,” experiences in which one has a direct experience of God, he says that if this involves one’s soul leaving the body,
then one is dead and is not a person or a human during the experience.30
The corruptionist view holds that if the separated soul alone had human nature, then it would be unnecessary and impossible for it to unite
to matter because it would be substantially complete on its own, or, at
least, matter would be just accidentally, not naturally and substantially,
united to the soul.31 Matter would be a mere instrument of the soul, as
Plato thought.32 But the soul does need to unite to matter for substantial
completion and for its natural operations. So the separated soul, though
the principle of specific identity for the human person, does not have
complete human nature and is not a human person.
Furthermore, as Toner objects to the Argument from Constitution
in what I call the Argument from Parthood, it is unclear what a person
is on the survivalist view. A thing cannot be constituted by just one of
its proper parts without a supplementing proper part. There is no supplementing proper part in the separated soul, and so, on the survivalist
view, after death and before the resurrection, the person is constituted
by just one part. But then there is no way to distinguish the soul and the

29

Toner, “Hylemorphic Animalism,” 74–77. As Kenny, Aquinas on Mind, 28, argues,
we do not have bodies; rather, we are bodies, that is, matter formed by a soul. Cf.
Toner, “St. Thomas on Death,” 589.
30
De veritate, q. 13, a. 5, ad 3; ST II-II, q. 175, a. 6, ad 1. Cf. Toner, “St. Thomas on
Death,” 595.
31
Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 3, ad 10.
32
Quaestiones de anima, aa. 1–2; Sentencia libri De anima I, lect 8–9; ST I, q. 76, aa. 1–2.

The Personhood of the Separated Soul

871

person, such that they could be related as constituting thing to constituted thing. So the separated soul cannot constitute a person.33
Corruptionists also diffuse the claim that their view lessens our rationally based hope for personal immortality. I refer to this set of arguments as the Arguments from Death and Resurrection. Toner emphasizes
that although the soul is not the person, the relation between them is
unique; no other thing besides the human person has a form that is
subsistent, capable of surviving the things’ demise because the form is
the primary bearer of its act of existence. Death deprives me of existence, but it does not destroy my act of existence.34 Bearing that act of
existence, and being the form by which the person has human nature,
allow intellectual activity to continue in the soul, and they provide the
possibility that the person could return to existence through resurrection. We cannot know, except by faith, that there will be a resurrection,
but we can know that this is a possibility because of the nature of the
soul.35 So there is room for rationally based hope.36 But death is still an
33

Toner, “Hylemorphism and Personal Identity,” 456–62. But Oderberg, “Survivalism,
Corruptionism, and Mereology,” 14–15, suggests that Aquinas did not hold to the
principle of supplementation presented here, and that there is independent reason
not to hold to this principle: two things (he gives the example of a statue and the
clay that constitutes it) can share all their proper parts but still be different things.
Furthermore, the mereological principle invoked here has to do with spatial things
and does not apply in the case of the soul. Later in the essay, I shall present a version
of this principle of supplementation.
34
Quaestiones de anima, a. 1; SCG IV, c. 80, 81; ST III, q. 50, a. 4: “Pertinet autem ad
veritatem mortis hominis vel animalis quod per mortem desinat esse homo vel animal, mors enim hominis vel animalis provenit ex separatione animae, quae complet
rationem animalis vel hominis.” Cf. Toner, “St. Thomas on Death,” 593. As we have
seen, some (e.g., Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 387–89) think that the
person could partially survive as the separated soul, but this is not Aquinas’s meaning. In some places, he does seem to allow this as when, at In IV Sent d. 43, q. 1, a. 1,
qq. 1, ad 2, he says “anima Abrahae non est, proprie loquendo, ipse Abraham, sed est
pars ejus”; one could interpret proprie loquendo as allowing for an “improper speaking,” according to which the soul is partially the person. But Aquinas just means
that we can refer to the separated soul as the person, but this is just to refer to a part
by the name of the whole of which it is or was a part. When John of St. Thomas, at
Cursus philosophicus, vol. 2, q. 7, a. 3, 114, says of death that “perit esse hominis, ut
hominis, non ut animae,” then this must be taken similarly.
35
Toner, “St. Thomas on Death,” 594; “Personhood and Death,” 130; Charles Hart,
Thomistic Metaphysics (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1959), 157.
36
George and Lee, Body-Self Dualism, 73, urge caution here: we are here at the limits
of what reason can tell us about life after death.

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Mark K. Spencer

evil for us, because it deprives us of existence. The corruptionist view
claims that the survivalist view lessens both the sense of evil that we feel
about death, and the marvelousness of the resurrection. The resurrection is wonderful, the corruptionist view holds, because it restores my
very self, whereas on the survivalist view, the self survives death and is
not restored, but only completed at the resurrection.37
The proponents of the corruptionist view furthermore point out, in
response to the Argument from Acts, that although personal acts continue in the separated soul, they are diminished, and this is evidence that
the separated soul is not a person; I refer to this as the Argument from
Weakness. The separated soul is only capable of limited thought since
it cannot turn to phantasms, which is its natural mode of operating.
It must rely on forms that it abstracted while in the composite, on the
insights it can have into other separated souls, and on divine infusion
of forms. It lacks most moral virtues, since most of these are habits of
bodily powers, which it lacks. These diminished powers indicate that it
is not a person, despite the fact that it will have more perfect self-knowledge than it had in this life, and will be able to understand forms directly without phantasms. This higher mode of cognition is not better for
souls, because it is contrary to their nature, which is to inform matter.38
Toner argues that the separated soul is, strictly speaking, “nobody.”39 The
fact that something acts like a person does not necessitate that it is a
person; indeed, Aquinas thinks that there are things, like the Eucharistic
species, that act like something—for example, bread and wine—without
actually being that thing.40 Since there are independent reasons to say
that the separated soul is not a person, the corruptionist holds, the fact
that it acts like a person does not show that it is a person. We can refer
to separated souls as persons, as when we pray to saints, but in doing so

37

ST III, q. 50, a. 4; Supplement q. 86, a. 2, ad 3. Toner, “St. Thomas on Death,” 592.
Cf. Giuseppe Butera, “The Immaterial Grounds of Transcendentality,” St. Anselm
Journal 6 (2008): 5–6.
38
Quaestiones de anima, a. 19, ad 5; ST I, q. 89; Capreolus, Defensiones theologiae divi
Thomae Aquinatis (Turin: Alfred Cattier, 1900), IV, vol. 7, d. 50, q. 1, concl 2, 259;
Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 2, q. 76, a. 1, dub 5, concl 1, 162. Cf. Rousseau, “Elements of a Thomistic Philosophy”; Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics, 156–57.
39
Toner, “Personhood and Death,” 129.
40
I am grateful to Patrick Toner for raising this point.

The Personhood of the Separated Soul

873

we employ synecdoche, referring to a part by the name of the whole of
which it was, and hopefully will again be, a part.
David Hershenov objects that both views fall prey to a “too many
thinkers problem.” On both views, the soul after death can think. But if
the soul after death can think, and it is the same soul as was part of the
composite prior to death, then the soul prior to death would be capable
of thinking. But then there are two thinkers where there appear to be
only one: the soul and the soul-matter composite. This is one thinker
too many. According to Hershenov, whether or not the soul is a person,
it is a thinker, and thus either view seems to lead to the unacceptable
situation of too many thinkers thinking a human person’s thoughts.41
Toner responds to this argument on behalf of the corruptionist
view, and turns it into an objection to the survivalist view. He argues
that, on the Thomistic view, prior to death, the composite is what (quod)
thinks, and the soul is that by which (quo) it thinks. So when I say, prior
to death, that my soul thinks, what I mean is that I think in virtue of a
power that belongs to me only in my soul, not in my body.42 At death, as
John Haldane explains, the powers of the soul are “transferred” to the
soul alone, just as, when one chemical is precipitated out of another, the
precipitated chemical takes on powers that belonged to the prior chemical.43 Prior to death, there is one thinker, the composite person, and
after death, there is another thinker, the soul. Thus, on the corruptionist
view, there are not too many thinkers. However, Toner argues that for
the survivalist, the problem remains. The survivalist view says that the
person constituted by the separated soul can think. But Aquinas says
that the separated soul itself can think, since it can operate intellectual
powers. But then, Toner contends, on the survivalist view, there are two
thinkers there: the separated soul and the person it constitutes; this is
one thinker too many.44
The corruptionist view is thus able to raise at least five arguments in
its defense and in objection to the survivalist view. A complete defense

41

Hershenov, “Soulless Organisms,” 474–76.
Toner, “Hylemorphic Animalism,” 73; “Personhood and Death,” 133–34.
43
Haldane, “Examined Death,” 254.
44
Toner, “Personhood and Death,” 134.
42

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Mark K. Spencer

of the latter, and response to the former, requires a deeper understanding of the traditional Thomistic view of personhood.
Thomism on Existence
In order to understand fully the place that this debate has in traditional Thomism, and in order to understand my own later arguments, one
must understand more deeply the Thomistic metaphysics of existence;
what follows is my interpretation of that metaphysics, according to
which the thesis that the separated soul is the person can be held.
Central to this metaphysics is the real distinction between the essence of a created thing and its existence;45 this is at the core of the Thomistic account of personhood and of my expansion on the Argument from
Constitution. The essence of a thing, considered either as its specific or
individualized nature, can be understood without a thing having that
essence actually existing; what a thing is, is separable from that a thing
is.46 For example, what a human is—a rational animal—is different from
the reality that some human actually exists. In order for there to be really existing created beings, essences must be actualized, or made to exist;
to exist is to be actual, and not to be nothing or a mere conceivable or
causable possibility.47 Existence is what is most actual in and “intimate”
to a thing; that is, it is the complete fullness and actuality of a thing and
of all of its parts. It is the perfection of an essence, even more perfect and
actual than the form that is part of every created essence.48 The act of ex45

46
47

Expositio libri Boetii de hebdomadibus lec. 1; De ente, c. 4; De potentia, q. 7, a. 2; De
veritate, q. 1, a. 1; SCG II, c. 52; ST I, q. 3, a. 4. Cf. Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 82,
a. 3, n. 13, 300; Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 1, q. 3, a. 4, dub 2, concl
2, 222; Ralph McInerny, Praeambula Fidei (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press, 2006), 61–68, 142–50; Lawrence Dewan, “Etienne Gilson and the
Actus Essendi,” Maritain Studies 15 (1999): 70–96; Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of
Thomas Aquinas, 136.

De ente c. 4.

De potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9; De ente, c. 4; ST I, q. 5, a. 1, ad 1. Cf. Bañez, Commentaria
in primam partem, vol. 1, q. 3, a. 4, dub 1, concl 3, 216; John of St. Thomas, Cursus
theologicus in summa theologiam divae Thomae, vol. 1 (Paris: Vives, 1883), I, q. 3, d.
4, a. 1, n. 25, 606–7; Ludovico Billot, De verbo incarnato (Rome: Propaganda Fide,
1895), 135; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 454.
48
In II Sent d. 1, q. 1, a. 4: “Esse autem est magis intimum cuilibet rei quam ea per
quae esse determinatur”; De potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9: “esse est inter omnia perfectissimum . . . esse est actualitas omnium actuum, et propter hoc est perfectio omnium

The Personhood of the Separated Soul

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istence or of being (actus essendi, esse, esse actualis existentiae) formally
causes a being, its essence, and its parts, actually to be.49
Like other actualities, such as substantial forms, in order to be individuated the act of existence must be received and limited by a potentiality really distinct from it, an essence.50 For example, in order for an act
of existence to be mine, it must be received and limited by my human
essence. The act of existence is prior to and more fundamental to a thing
than the essence, in the sense that actuality is prior in the order of nature
to potentiality. The essence entirely depends on the act of existence for
its reality.51
One might object that a thing must exist in order to receive and
limit, and thus an essence would have to exist in order to receive exisperfectionum”; SCG II, c. 54; ST I, q. 8, a. 1. Cf. Bañez, Commentaria in primam
partem, vol. 1, q. 3, a. 4, dub 1, concl 3, 216; Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. L. K. Shook (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1956), 33–34; Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 190;
Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Brian McNeil, et al., trans., The Glory of the Lord, vol. 4,
The Realm of Metaphysics in Antiquity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 402.
49
The first two terms are used by Aquinas, and all three are used by his commentators.
Cf. Expositio De hebdomadibus, lec. 2; De ente c. 4; De potentia, q. 7, a. 2; Quaestiones
de anima, a. 6, ad 2; SCG I, c. 22, 28; ST I, q. 3, a. 4; q. 4, a. 1; q. 7, a. 1; q. 8, a. 1. On
esse as what is most formal in a thing: Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 1, I, d. 8, q. 1, a. 3,
ad Aur, 328; Defensiones, vol. 5, III, d. 6, q. 1, a. 3, ad 1Aur, 119; Bañez, Commentaria
in primam partem, q. 3, a. 4, dub 1, ad 3, 220; Lawrence Dewan, “A Text from Cajetan
Touching on Existence,” Acta Philosophica 16 (2007): 306; “Gilson and the Actus
Essendi,” 78, 87.
50
De ente, c. 4; Super librum de causis expositio lec. 9; Quaestiones de anima, a. 1, ad 16;
Quaestiones de quodlibet 9, q. 2, a. 1, ad 4; De potentia, q. 3, a. 4, ad 4; SCG I, c. 32; II,
c. 52; ST I, q. 7, a. 3; I-II, q. 85, a. 4. This is developed in Francis Sylvester of Ferrara,
Commentary on Summa contra Gentiles (Rome: Leonine ed., 1918–26), vol. 13, II, c.
68, n. 4.1–2, 442–43: the form or forma partius formally gives existence to the composite, while the essence or formal totius, including form and matter, is the proper
recipient (susceptivum) of an act of existence. Cf. Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 5, III, d.
6, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3 aliorum, 121; Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol. 13, II, c. 52, n. 3.2
and 9.3, 388, 391; John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 2, n. 26,
607; Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 1, q. 3, a. 4, dub 1, concl 4, 217; dub
2, ad 2, 4, 223–24; Billot, De verbo incarnato, c. 2, a. 1, q. 2, 130; Dewan, “St. Thomas
and the Ground of Metaphysics,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical
Association 54 (1980): 151; Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 186–89.
51
In II Sent d. 1, q. 1, a. 4; De potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9; ST I, q. 3, a. 4; Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 5, III, d. 5, q. 3, a. 3, ad 3 Scotus, 106; Bañez, Commentaria in primam
partem, vol. 1, q. 3, a. 4, dub 1, concl 5, and ad 2, 217 and 219; Gilson, Christian
Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 34.

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Mark K. Spencer

tence, leading to a vicious circle.52 The Thomist responds that in any act
of generation, a whole being, including both essence and act of existence
is generated, but with a structure of actuality and potentiality, that is, of
act of existence and essence. Neither is temporally prior to the other, but
the act of existence is, as actuality, prior metaphysically and in the explanation of the thing as a real being. The essence explains the limitation
of this act to being the act of a particular thing of a specific kind, but it
does not exist temporally prior to receiving existence. A potentiality can
receive an actuality without existing temporally prior to that actuality, if
it is what explains the limitation of that actuality in the thing of which
they are both principles. For example, when a human person is generated, he or she comes into existence as a complete being, with a human
essence and an act of existence. But the act of existence explains why he
or she really exists, while the essence explains why he or she is not pure
actuality, but an actual human being. The essence explains the limitation
of the act of existence, but this essence did not exist prior to its actualization in the event of generation.
The two principles of being, act of existence and essence, are two
sorts of completion in a thing. A thing is complete in the order of essence (esse essentiae) when it has everything that it needs to be the kind
of thing that it is, such as form, individual matter, and substantial modes.
A thing is complete in the order of existence or being (esse existentiae),
when this essence is actualized by an act of existence.53 The relation between these two orders will be important for my version of the Argument from Constitution and my response to the Argument from Nature.
The act of existence is not a part or an accident. According to Thom52
53

I owe this objection to Tim Pawl.
Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 1, I, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, concl 1–2, 301–12; Cajetan, Expositio,
vol. 4, I, q. 3, a. 5, n. 3, 43; vol. 11, III, q. 17, a. 2, n. 18, 228; Ferrara, Commentary
on SCG, vol. 13, II, c. 68, n. 7.2, 444; Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem q. 3,
a. 4, 213; John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 4, a. 19, aa.
25–27, 603, 606–7; Salamanticenses, Cursus, vol. 14, d. 9, dub 1, 148; Billot, De verbo incarnato, 72; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 454–57. For an argument, wrong
in my view, that this is not Aquinas’s position, see Norman Wells, “Capreolus on
Essence and Existence,” Modern Schoolman 38 (1960): 24. Wells is correct that Capreolus bases this distinction on the work of Henry of Ghent (Quodlibet 1, q. 9,
Opera omnia, vol. 5; available at http://philosophy.unca.edu/henry-ghent-series), as
Capreolus says, but Capreolus also shows the roots of this distinction in the work of
Aquinas, e.g., SCG II, c. 52; Quaestiones de quodlibet 2, q. 2, a. 1.

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ism, one principle can add to another without adding in the manner of a
part or accident; this point will be central to my response to the Argument
from Parthood. The act of existence does give a thing kindhood; it is because I have a human essence, not because I have an act of existence, that
I am human. Likewise, the act of existence does not add any definable
content to what a thing is, as parts and accidents do; knowing that I have
an act of existence does not add to my knowledge of the kind of thing that
I am.54 Though it inheres in a created being, the act of existence comes to
a being from without, not from its own formal or material causality, as do
a thing’s parts.55
The act of existence that belongs to a given thing fits or is proportioned to that thing’s essence.56 This is important for my expansion on
the Argument from Constitution. Furthermore, the act of existence helps
to explain a thing’s transcendental properties. A thing is one insofar as its
principles are actualized by one act of existence.57 Acts of existence are
indivisible, so there are no partial existences, because the act of existence
is an actuality, and things are only divisible insofar as they have potenti54

De potentia, q. 5, a. 4, ad 3; q. 7, a. 2, ad 9; Sententia libri metaphysicae IV, lect 2, n.
558. Cf. Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 1, I, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, concl 3, 313; Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 4, a. 2, n. 12, ad 4, 77; Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem,
vol. 1, q. 3, a. 4, dub 1, concl 3, 216–17; Billot, De verbo incarnato, c. 2, s. 1, q. 2, 122;
Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 36; Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics,
87; Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 106.
55
Expositio de hebdomadibus, lec. 2; De potentia, q. 1, a. 1: “esse significant aliquid
completum et simplex sed non subsistens”; q. 7, a. 2, ad 7: esse non est subsistens sed
inhaerens; SCG II, c. 52; ST I, q. 75, a. 5, ad 4; Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol. 13,
II, c. 52, n. 9.1, 390; John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 4,
n. 18, n. 25, 602, 606; Balthasar et al., Realm of Metaphysics, 402–3; Gilson, Christian
Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 35–36.
56
SCG I, c. 42; II, c. 52; ST I, q. 75, a. 5, ad 1; q. 104, a. 1, ad 1. On what it is for one
thing to “fit” or “be proportioned” (convenit) to another, see Sentencia libri De anima
I, lect 8, n. 130; Super epistolam Beati Pauli ad Collosenses, 1, lec. 4, n. 41; ST III, q.
1, a. 1. Cf. Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 76, a. 1, n. 33, ad 1 Scotus, 214; Ferrara,
Commentary on SCG, II, c. 80–81, n. 1, ad 1, n. 2.2, 507; Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics,
208; Balthasar et al., Realm of Metaphysics, 401–3; Gilbert Narcisse, Les Raisons de
Dieu (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1997), 102–4, 164–76; Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 107; Dewan, “Gilson and the Actus
Essendi,” 83.
57
Quaestiones de anima, a. 2; Quaestiones de quodlibet 6, q. 1; 9, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2; ST III,
q. 17, a. 2. Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 76, a. 1, n. 32, 214; Expositio III, vol. 11, q.
17, a. 2, n. 3–4, 223–24.

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Mark K. Spencer

ality.58 Existence, as a thing’s supreme actuality, is the cause of knowledge
of that thing;59 this is important for my expansion on the Argument from
Acts. Existence also makes a thing good.60 It is the highest perfection, and
it confers value or “nobility” (nobilitas) on a thing, so that the greater the
potency for existence a thing has, the more perfection and nobility it has.61
This is important for the Thomistic account of personhood.
For my expansion on the Argument from Constitution and my response to the Arguments from Nature and from Death and Resurrection,
and in order to understand the traditional Thomistic view on personhood
and the separated soul, we must consider how the above principles are
58

Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 5, III, d. 6, q. 1, a. 3, ad 1 aliorum, 120; John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 4, n. 1, 594. The Thomistic tradition is
opposed to the view of Francisco Suárez, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in
libros Aristotelis de anima (Madrid: Salvador Castellote, ed., 1992), vol. 1, d. 2, q. 4,
n. 18 (available at http://www.salvadorcastellote.com); Disputationes metaphysicae
(hereafter DM) d. 31, s. 11, n. 15, n. 32, n. 35, that every entity is its essence and
existence, and matter and soul each contributes its partial existence to the complete
existence of the whole person; cf. P. Joseph Gredt, Elementa philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae, vol. 1 (Freiburg: Herder, 1909), 419. The tradition is also opposed
to Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 387–89, 461, who holds, building on
the non-Thomistic arguments for partial survival in Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 245–306, that the separated soul could have
“part” of the existence of the human person.
59
ST I, q. 5, a. 2; q. 14, a. 3; q. 16, a. 1, ad 3; q. 87, a. 1. Cf. Dewan, “Text from Cajetan,”
306; Lawrence Dewan, “Is Truth a Transcendental for St. Thomas Aquinas?,” Nova et
Vetera (English) 2 (2004): 13.
60
De veritate, q. 1, a. 1; q. 21, a. 1; q. 22, a. 2, ad 2; ST I, q. 5, a. 1; q. 16, a. 4; Cajetan,
Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 82, a. 3, n. 13, 214. Cf. Balthasar et al., Realm of Metaphysics,
406; Dewan, “Text from Cajetan,” 297–98, 302.
61
De ente, c. 1; Sentencia libri De anima III, lect 10, n. 733; Quaestiones de anima, a. 1, ad
18; De veritate, q. 2, a. 3, ad 2; Compendium theologiae, c. 17; SCG I, c. 23, c. 28; II, c.
52, c. 62, c. 68; ST I, q. 5, a. 5; q. 50, a. 5; q. 75, a. 2–3. Ferrara explains the link between
actuality and nobility well at Commentary on SCG I, c. 11, n. 8.2, 27; c. 18, n. 5, 50; c. 23,
n. 7, 73; c. 28, n. 2.4, 86; c. 65, n. 10, 183; c. 77–78, n 2.4, 86; II, c. 50, n. 2, 385. Cajetan
links nobility to intellect, freedom, and lordship at Expositio vol. 4, I, q. 26, a. 3 n. 5,
n. 7, 302–3; cf. Expositio vol. 4, I, q. 44, a. 4, n. 4, 462; vol. 5, I, q. 82, a. 3, n. 1–2, n. 12,
299, 300. Dhavamany, Subjectivity and Knowledge, 47–49, emphasizes the link between
personhood, existence, and having the transcendental properties to a high degree. Cf.
Balthasar et al., Realm of Metaphysics, 404; Dewan, “Gilson and the Actus Essendi,” 74;
Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 30; Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics, 90;
McInerny, Praeambula Fidei, 143; Caitlin Smith-Gilson, The Metaphysical Presuppositions of Being-in-the-World (New York: Continuum, 2010), 101; Albert Wingell, “‘Vivere viventibus est esse’ in Aristotle and St. Thomas,” Modern Schoolman 38 (1961): 117;
Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 187.

The Personhood of the Separated Soul

879

found in human persons. This can be understood through a contrast between humans and nonhuman material things. In the latter, the whole
composite, both form and matter, receives and exercises the act of existence. It does so in virtue of (quo) its essence.62 Form and essence receive
existence “first” in that they are the principles by which (quo) a thing is the
act of existence, but the whole composite receives this act “first” in that it
is what (quod) exists.63
An act of existence is an essence’s dynamic self-manifestation into
reality as an actual being capable of and oriented to operations, which
perfect the existing being. The act of existence is not a static and passive placement into existence, or merely something received, but is an
“exercised” actuality.64 Essential parts, form and matter, are joined by a
thing’s efficient causes and then receive their actuality, the act of existence,
from God, and they thereby “constitute” and exercise the existence that
has been conferred on them and inheres in them.65 When essential parts
come apart, then the potentiality that underlies that act of existence ceases
to be, and the being goes out of existence.66 For example, when a nonrational animal, such as a horse, is generated, it is essentially composed of
matter and soul, which it receives from its parents. When these two come
together to compose a complete individual essence, they receive existence,
and thereby are the potentiality that constitutes and exercises that act, and
a real horse comes about. When the horse dies, the essential parts that
62

One thing acts in virtue of another when the former is properly the agent, but the latter
is the proximate subject of the power whereby the former performs this action.
63
SCG II, c. 54. Cf. Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 1, I, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, concl 2, 313; Cajetan,
Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 76, a. 1, n. 28, 213; Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas
Aquinas, 33; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 461.
64
Capreolus argues that created substances have their existence in themselves (in se)
received (susceptivum) and exercised (elictium) at Defensiones, vol. 5, III, d. 5, q. 3,
a. 3, ad 4 Aureolus, 110. Cf. Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 82, a. 3, n. 13, 300; Clarke,
Person and Being, 7–9; Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 191;
Smith-Gilson, Metaphysical Presuppositions, 101–2; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge,
460–63.
65
Sentencia libri metaphysicorum IV, lec. 2, n. 558: “Esse enim rei quamvis sit aliud
ab eius essentia, non tamen est intelligendum quod sit aliquod superadditum ad
modum accidentis, sed quasi constituitur per principia essentiae. Et ideo hoc nomen
ens quod imponitur ab ipso esse, significat idem cum nomine quod imponitur ab
ipsa essentia.” Cf. Expositio De hebdomadibus, lec. 2; McInerny, Praeambula Fidei,
144, 155; Balthasar et al., Realm of Metaphysics, 402.
66
In II Sent d. 19, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2; De veritate, q. 13, a. 4, ad 2.

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Mark K. Spencer

received, constituted, and exercised its act of existence are no longer able
to do so, and the horse ceases to exist.
In human beings, by contrast, the soul first exists, both in that it is
that by which (quo) the human being receives its act of existence, and in
that it is what (quod) first exists in the order of nature. Unlike in nonhuman material things, the human soul is complete in the order of being
before being complete in the order of essence.67 The human body exists
only because it shares in the soul’s act of existence. We can know that
the soul receives and exercises the act of existence prior in the order of
nature to the body, because it can operate on its own. One thing is prior
to another in this sense just in case the former can exist without the latter and the latter is substantially united to the former but is dependent
for existence on the former; the former “communicates” existence to
the latter. The soul does not temporally preexist the body, but is created
in its natural condition of informing and “communicating” existence
to the body.68 It is individual because it receives existence in individual
matter, but once it has individuality, it does not need to stay in matter to
remain individual, though it always is oriented to matter.69
The soul’s perfection and nobility exceeds that of the body, though
the perfections of both soul and body belong to the whole human per-

67

Quaestiones de anima, a. 8; SCG II, c. 68; ST I, q. 76, a. 1; I-II, q. 4, a. 5, ad 2. Cf.
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 76, a. 1, n. 5, 211; Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, II,
c. 68, n. 2.3, 442; John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9,
a. 2, 437–43; Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 2, q. 76, a. 1, dub 1, ad
2, dub 5 sol, 154, 161–62; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 457; Hart, Thomistic
Metaphysics, 159.
68
Quaestiones de anima, a. 1, ad 1, 16–18; Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 2–3;
SCG II, c. 68. Cf. Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 76, a. 1, n. 24, ad 5; n. 30, 213, 214;
Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, II, c. 68, n. 6.3, 444; Bañez, Commentaria in primam
partem, vol. 2, q. 76, a. 1, dub 4, concl 2, 159; John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 2, q. 7, a. 2, 110; vol. 3, De anima, q. 9, a. 1, 428–30; a. 2, 441; Clarke, Person
and Being, 35; Stephen Hipp, The Doctrine of Personal Subsistence (Fribourg: Studia
Friburgensia, 2012), 219–20; Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 360.
69
De ente, c. 4; Quaestiones de anima, a. 1, ad 2: “unumquodque secundum idem habet
esse et individuationem”; Quaestiones de anima, a. 3; ST I, q. 50, a. 5; q. 76, a. 2, ad
1. Cf. John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9, a. 1, ad 2, 435;
James Lehrberger, “The Anthropology of Aquinas’s ‘De ente et essential,’” Review
of Metaphysics 51 (1998): 839; Maritain, Person and the Common Good, 36; Sleva,
Separated Soul, 103; Stump, Aquinas, 208.

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881

son,70 because the soul has an infinite potency for existence and for operation, so that it can know and love all things, and so has the highest
degree of dignity that a created substance can have.71 The body can share
in this potency, as it will after the resurrection, but it does not have it
in itself.72 Since the soul is more perfect than the composite, it more
perfectly exercises the human act of existence than does the composite;
the human act of existence is a spiritual actuality, in which the body
imperfectly shares.73
This account of the human act of existence points to the need for
a deeper account of the human essence, which will be important for
my expansion on the Argument from Constitution and responding to
the Argument from Nature. The human person is essentially a “rational
animal.” Our genus, “animal,” refers to our essence as undetermined,
and our specific difference, “rational,” refers to the species’ determination of that essence. Animality and rationality are not two things; rather,
the whole human person is an animal wholly determined in a rational
way.74 Genera are ascribed to species analogously; there is no univocal
content that all animals share, for the animality of different animal spe-

70

Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 3, resp., ad 4; Quaestiones de anima a. 1, ad
17–18; SCG II, c. 65.
71
Not all created persons have the same value. Although human persons have infinite
value in the ways described here, they have less value than angels, who have more
actuality and so more value; the Thomistic view is thus committed to different “degrees” of infinite value. Cf. Super librum de causis, lec. 4–5; Quaestiones de anima,
a. 1, ad 18. Another source of the dignity of persons is their obediential potency to
receive grace and the supernatural end of union with God; cf. ST I-II, q. 113, a. 10;
Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas
and His Interpreters (Ave Maria: Sapientia Press, 2010), 159.
72
SCG IV, c. 81, c. 89; Compendium theologiae, c. 177; Supplement, q. 6, a. 2, ad 3. Cf.
Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol. 15, IV, c. 81, n. 2.1.
73
In II Sent d. 17, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2; Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 2, resp., ad 4;
Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol. 13, II, c. 68, n. 2.1–2, n. 7.2, n. 8.1, 441–45; John of
St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9 a. 1, 429; a. 2, 441. Since, on
this view, there is just one act of existence in the human person, which is properly the
spiritual soul’s, this act is itself spiritual; on a view like Suárez’s, the soul’s existence is
spiritual, but that of the composite person is material; cf. In libros de anima vol. 1, d. 2,
q. 4, n. 13; vol. 3, d. 14, q. 1, n. 3; DM d. 31, s. 11, n. 15; d. 34, s. 5, n. 7–8.
74
De ente, c. 1–2; Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis a. 3, ad 3, ad 15. Cf. Expositio
libri posteriorum analyticorum ,2, lec. 2, lec. 4, lec. 7, lec. 20; Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 30.

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cies is determined differently by each species’ difference.75 Humans are
essentially animals, requiring matter, but the human soul either is or
potentially is the lowest member of the genus of spiritual substances; it
can exist and act like the spiritual substances, but in this life it is just in
potential to such a state, because it is naturally a form of a body.76 The
human animal exists in a spiritual manner, since it receives its existence
from a spiritual substance, which is a part of the composite and which
communicates itself to the material composite. Indeed, as Francis Sylvester of Ferrara says, the act of existence is in the soul according to its
proper nature, but the composite human body just exists as drawn to the
soul, raised to a higher level of existence than the normal way of existing
for a material thing.77
But Aquinas also says that the soul is “reductively” and incompletely in the genus “animal” because it is our form.78 The actuality and po75

In I Sent d. 19, q. 5, a. 2, ad 1; Quaestiones disputatae de malo, q. 2, a. 9, ad 16; ST I,
q. 88, a. 2, ad 4. Cf. Armand Maurer, “St. Thomas and the Analogy of Genus,” New
Scholasticism 29 (1955): 127–44; Dhavamany, Subjectivity and Knowledge, 44–45.
76
The human soul either is or potentially is in the lowest species of spiritual substance,
or is of the same genus as the angels at: Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 2; In
II Sent d. 3, q. 1, a. 6, ad 2; SCG II, c. 68, c. 91; IV, c. 11; ST I, q. 55, a. 1; q. 55, a. 2; q.
87, a. 1; q. 88, a. 2, ad 4; q. 89, a. 1; q. 90, a. 4, ad 2; III, q. 8, a. 4, ad 1; In librum beati
Dionysii de divinis nominibus expositio 7, lec. 4. Because of this, and because our act
of existence first belongs to the soul, James Lehrberger argues that the human person
could be defined as an “incarnate spirit.” He cautions that we cannot understand this
definition in this life since we cannot, in our current life, understand what a “spirit”
is; see Lehrberger, “Anthropology of Aquinas’s,” 842–44. However, if Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being, trans. Kurt Reinhardt (Washington, DC: ICS, 2002), 298, 396,
is correct that we can grasp in this life what spirit is, then such a definition might
be available to us. Clarke, Person and Being, 32–34, 40–41, defines “human person”
as “embodied spirit,” and Smith-Gilson, Metaphysical Presuppositions, 168–69, says
the human person shares a genus with the angels (though this is not quite in accord
with Aquinas). Such a definition might problematically imply either that we must
always be embodied, or the possibility of the soul preexisting the body, or not being
united to the body as its form; cf. Alexis Lépecier, Dello Stato e Della Operazione Dell’
Anima Umana Separata Dal Corpo (Rome: A. Befani, 1895), 95–96, cited in Sleva,
Separated Soul, 69.
77
Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, II, c. 68, n. 2.2, 442.
78
Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 2, ad 16; Quaestiones de anima, a. 1, ad 4; a.
2, ad 10; ST I, q. 90 a. 4 ad 2. Domingo Bañez and Vicente Beltran de Heredia, eds.,
Comentarios ineditos a la tercera parte de santo Tomas, vol. 1 (Matrita, 1951), q. 2, a. 2,
n. 14, 84, explains that although the soul raises the body above every sensible genus,
it always remains limited to the animal genus, since it is the form of an animal.

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883

tentiality that constitute a being are in the same categories as that being
not simpliciter but by “reduction,” that is, in virtue of their ordering to
constituting a being of that category. The soul is not an animal simpliciter but, as the form of an animal, it is an animal “reductively.” The human soul is not, on Aquinas’s view, a substance in the fullest sense of
the term, because it is also naturally the form of the body and so lacks
complete human nature, but it is a substance in that it is a “this something” (hoc aliquid), is subsistent, and is able to underlie accidents. We
are the kind of animals that we are because of our form, which is a spiritual substance; we exist as animals through a spiritual act of existence.
Aquinas’s guiding principle here is that the highest of each substantial
genus participates in the perfections of the lowest of a higher genus.79
The human soul, and the whole human person in virtue of the soul, is
on the “border” and “horizon” between the spiritual and the corporeal.80
It seems that what primarily exists is the soul, but that human nature includes both soul and matter, and so the composite only exists
derivatively upon the existence of the soul.81 There seems to be a problem of too many existing things here, similar to the too many thinkers
problem: where there should be one existing thing, the person, there
seem to be two, the soul and the person. Answering this requires that we
now examine Thomistic views on personhood.

79

In librum de divinis nominibus ,7, lec. 4; SCG II, c. 68: “infimum supremi generis con-

tingere supremum inferioris generis.” cf. Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, II, c. 68, n.
8.1, 445. We are metaphysical “amphibians,” both spiritual and material; cf. Stump,
“Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism,” 514; Clarke, Person and Being, 38; Pasnau,
Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 19.
80
Quaestiones de anima, a. 1; De potentia, q. 3, a. 9; In III Sent pr.; In IV Sent d. 50, q. 1,
a. 1; SCG II, c. 68: “anima intellectualis dicitur esse quasi quidam horizon et confinium corporeorum et incorporeorum”; SCG II, c. 80: “anima humana . . . in confinio
corporum et incorporearum substantiarum, quasi in horizonte existens aeternitatis
et temporis, recedens ab infimo, appropinquat ad summum”; ST I, q. 77, a. 2; Super
librum de causis, lec. 9. Aquinas defines “horizon” at Super librum de causis, lec. 2:
“circulus terminans visum, et est infimus terminus superioris hemispherii, principium autem inferioris”; it is applied by analogy to the person; cf. Ferrara, Commentary
on SCG, vol. 13, II, c. 68, n. 8.1, 445; Clarke, Person and Being, 38; Smith-Gilson,
Metaphysical Presuppositions, 167.
81
Other things belong properly to the soul, and only by communication to the composite: the image of God (ST I, q. 93, a. 6), grace (ST I-II, q. 110, a. 2), and beatific
vision (ST I-II, q. 4, a. 5).

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Thomism on Personhood
Most Thomists have held that something must be added to human nature to constitute a human person.82 Discovering what this constitutive
principle is will help to answer Toner’s Arguments from Parthood and
from Nature, and to expand on the Argument from Constitution.
Aristotle argued that acts are attributed to singulars, not common
natures. But accidents, and substantial parts, forms, and matter are all
singular, but cannot act on their own, so singularity is insufficient for a
thing to be an agent. Supposits or hypostases, not mere singulars, exist
and act. A supposit or hypostasis is something subsistent, that is, exists
per se not through another, that has or “subsists in” its nature, and that
is capable of acting per se.83
Thomists argue for a distinction between person and individual nature primarily because of the Incarnation. Christ has a human nature,
but is not a human person, so personhood must be constituted by some-

82

Aquinas is not always clear on this issue. In III Sent d. 5, q. 1, a. 3; SCG IV, c. 55; De
potentia, q. 9, a. 1; Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 5, ad 9, say that nature
and personhood differ in human persons, in which a principle of individuation is
added to the nature, but not in angels. Quaestiones de quodlibet 2, q. 2, a. 2, a passage taken by many later Thomists to be decisive, says that in all created persons,
personhood really adds to individual nature; ST III, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3, implies this by
saying that one of the divine persons could hypostatically unite Himself to an angelic
nature but not an angelic person. On reconciling these, see Capreolus, Defensiones,
III, d. 5, q. 3, a. 3, ad 4 Aureolus, 110; Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 4, I, q. 3, a. 3, n. 5–8,
43; vol. 11, III, q. 2, a. 2, n. 4, ad 1, 26–27; Thomas Mullaney, “Created Personality:
The Unity of Thomistic Tradition,” New Scholasticism 29 (1955): 369–402; James Reichmann, “St. Thomas, Capreolus, Cajetan, and the Created Person,” New Scholasticism 33 (1959): 1–31, 202–30; Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas,
240–52. They are reconciled by saying that person and individual nature name the
same thing, according to intrinsic essential content, but that they do so by different
formalities: person adds to individual nature a formal constitutive principle that is
not part of the nature.
83
ST I, q. 29, a. 2; III, q. 2, a. 2; a. 3, ad 2; Quaestiones de quodlibet 9, q. 2, a. 1; Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 1, I, d. 4, q. 2, a. 1, concl 2, 228–29; Suárez, In libros de anima,
vol. 1, d. 2, q. 4, n. 4; Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 2, a. 2, n. 1, 25–26; John of St.
Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 2, q. 7, a. 2, 109–10; Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics,
200–201. Suárez, DM d. 34, s. 7, n. 6–12, distinguishes “being a supposit” from “being subsistent”; actions belong to supposits, but subsistence is a necessary condition
for being a supposit. The separated soul, though not a supposit, can act because it is
a “principle of life.”

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thing more than nature. It cannot be constituted by matter or form,84 or
by biological life.85 It cannot be constituted morally, as if what constituted it were free will or responsibility; or religiously, as if what constituted
it were the ability to make religious acts, or have religious experiences;
or by consciousness or personal character.86 Christ has all these, but He
is not a human person, so none of these constitutes personhood. Since
any individual nature can be assumed by a divine Person, no nature
alone constitutes personhood.87
Persons cannot be “assumed” by other persons, and still remain
persons.88 Christ’s human nature is not a person because it has been
“assumed” by a divine Person, Who gives existence to the nature and
84

George Duggan, “The Teaching of St. Thomas Regarding the Formal Constitutive of
Human Personality,” New Scholasticism 15 (1941): 327–28, following Casper Freithoff, De mysterio incarnationis (Rome, 1939), argues that individual essence ordered
to existence constitutes personhood, but this is rejected by other Thomists because
Christ too has a human essence ordered to existence; cf. Mullaney, “Created Personality,” 370–77. Similar views, which hold that created personhood is constituted by
an individual nature connoting or ordered to the act of existence or accidents, without any positive addition, are rejected by Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 4, a. 2, n.
3, views 2, 3, 5, who finds them in Hervaeus Natalis and Capreolus. Cf. Capreolus,
Defensiones, vol. 5, III, d. 5, q. 3, a. 3, ad 1 Scotus, where Capreolus says that personality adds to individual nature a “connotation” of existence, though this is generally
taken not to be his considered view.
85
Toner, “Hylemorphic Animalism,” 77–78, says that life on the Thomistic view is
having certain powers and a certain sort of essence, not a biological phenomenon.
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 17, a. 2, n. 17, 227, argues that life is having a certain
sort of essence (esse essentiae), not of existence (esse existentiae), with an animating
form in matter, which is lost at death, and is not present in the separated soul. But,
as Wingell, “Vivere viventibus est esse,” 100, 108–9, emphasizes, Aquinas sometimes
speaks of life as the existence of the living thing, which remains in the separated
soul; cf. Gredt, Elementa philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae, vol. 1, 423. On life, cf.
De veritate, q. 4, a. 8; SCG I, c. 98; ST I, q. 18, a. 2; III, q. 50, a. 4–5; the former three
support Wingell’s view, the last supports Cajetan’s. Aquinas says that the soul has life
at Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 3, ad 6.
86
Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Trinity and God the Creator, trans. Frederic Eckhoff, Introduction p. 3; c. 3, q. 29, a. 1, n. 302 (available at http://www.ewtn.com/
library/theology/trinity.htm); Billot, De verbo incarnati, 87–88; Alexis-Henri-Marie Lépicier, Dell’anima umana separata dal corpo, suo stato, sua operazione, 2nd ed.,
(Rome: Libreria pontificia Federico Pustet, 1901), 103–4; Sleva, Separated Soul, 113.
87
Cf. ST III, q. 4, a. 2.
88
Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 5, III, d. 5, q. 3, a. 1, concl 2, 86–87; Cajetan, Expositio,
vol. 11, III, q. 4, a. 2, n. 1, 74; John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d.
4, a. 1, n. 1, 551.

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operates its powers. Capreolus likens this to a branch that is grafted
onto a tree: the branch continues to produce leaves and fruit according
to its nature, but its powers are now exercised by the supposit, the tree,
by which it has been assumed.89 Stump likens this union to the situation in Robert Heinlein’s novel The Puppet Masters, in which aliens
take over humans and thereby experience their consciousness and direct their actions.90 To be a person is not only to have free will, but to
be the one who can autonomously exercise it; it is not only to have an
intellect, but to be the one who can experience and exercise it, and
thus to have “interiority” or “subjectivity.”91 Nature, act of existence,
intrinsic accidents, and acts are all united in a person and are the person’s own.92 Personhood requires “incommunicability” (incommunicabilitas), that is, being a complete totality, not existing in or being apt
to exist in another.93
Aquinas presents at least five definitions of “person,” since, as

89

Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 5, III, d. 5, q. 3, a. 3, ad 4 Aureolus, 110. For the image,
see Aquinas, In I Sent d. 18, q. 1, a. 5; d. 19, q. 3, a. 2; In III Sent d. 1, q. 1, a. 1; Super
epistolam beati Pauli ad Romano lectura 6, lec. 1; c. 11, lec. 3.
90
Stump, Aquinas, 420–21.
91
An inquiry into the nature or phenomenological character of this interiority or subjectivity is beyond the scope of this essay. But it should not be taken from what is
said here that persons are necessarily conscious or always able to exercise or experience their intellects or wills; no claim is being made here as to whether, for example,
human fetuses or those in persistent vegetative states are persons. The key Thomistic
point is that to be a person requires that one, in one’s metaphysical constitution,
possesses one’s intellect and will as one’s own. Some persons, such as human fetuses,
may not be able currently to exercise or experience these powers, but, if they are
persons, then they have them as their own and not as belonging to another, and this
is sufficient to say that they have autonomy and interiority or subjectivity. The subjective experience of self-possession follows upon the metaphysical constitution of
self-possession, not vice versa. I am grateful to Matthews Grant for calling this point
to my attention. Cf. SCG III, c. 112–13.
92
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 2, a. 2, n. 6, 27.
93
In I Sent d. 25, q. 1, a. 1, ad 6, ad 8; In III Sent d. 5, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2; ST I, q. 29, a. 3, ad
4; Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 1, I, d. 4, q. 2, a. 1, concl 2, 228–29; a. 3, ad 9 Aureolus,
237; vol. 5, III, d. 5, q. 3, a. 3, ad 2 Aureolus, 108; Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 4, I, q. 3, a.
3, n. 1, 40; vol. 11, III, q. 4, a. 2, n. 11, 76–77; Bañez, Comentarios a la tercera parte,
vol. 1, q. 2, a. 2, n. 12, 83; John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4,
a. 1, n. 2, 552; a. 2, n. 5, 569 Garrigou-Lagrange, Trinity and God the Creator, c. 3, q.
29, a. 1, corollary, n. 1; Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics, 204–9.

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he says, we do not know the specific difference of “person” as such:94
Boethius’s definition, according to which a person is an “individual
substance of a rational nature”;95 Richard of St. Victor’s definition according to which a person is an “incommunicable existent of a rational
nature”;96 “a hypostasis distinguished by a proper characteristic pertaining to nobility” (or “dignity”);97 “what is complete in intellectual
nature”;98 and “what has existence subsisting per se in an intellectual
nature.”99 Aquinas considers these to be equivalent.100 On Aquinas’s
94

De potentia q. 9, a. 2, ad 5.
In I Sent d. 23, q. 1, a. 3; d. 25, q. 1, a. 1; In II Sent d. 3, q. 1, a. 2; In III Sent d. 6, q. 1,
a. 1, qq. 1; SCG IV, c. 38; ST I, q. 29, a. 1; q. 34, a. 3; q. 40, a. 3; III, q. 2, a. 2: persona
est rationalis naturae individua substantia, from Boethius, Contra Eutychen, c. 3–4:
naturae rationabilis individua substantia (available at http://individual.utoronto.ca/
pking/resources/ boethius/Contra_Eutychen.txt).”
96
In I Sent d. 25, q. 1, a. 1, ad 6, ad 8; ST I, q. 29, a. 3, ad 4: rationalis naturae incommunicablis existentia, from Richard of St. Victor, “De Trinitate IV, c. 23–24,” in Opera
Omnia, Patrologia Latina, vol. 196 (Paris: J. P. Migne, 1855), 945–47. Hugon, “Si
l’âme,” 592, defines the person as “an individual substance of a rational nature completely and entirely incommunicable.”
97
In I Sent d. 25, q. 1, a. 1, ad 8; ST I, q. 29, a. 3, ad 2: hypostasis distincta proprietate ad
nobilitatem pertinente; In I Sent d. 10, q. 1, a. 5: “oportet ad hoc quod constituatur
persona, quod determinetur per specialem modum ad dignitatem pertinentem.” Cf.
In I Sent d. 23, q. 1, a. 1. This definition is attributed to Alexander of Hales, Glossa
in IV Libros Sententiarum (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventura, 1957), I, q. 23,
a. 9, 225–26: “persona est hypostasis distincta proprietate ad dignitatem pertinente”; Summa Fratris Alexandri (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventura, 1948), I, 387,
9, 570, by Walter Principe, Alexander of Hales’s Theology of the Hypostatic Union
(Toronto: PIMS, 1967), 66–68, though Principe says some features of the definition
are found in Alan of Lille’s Theologicae regulae. Alexander takes dignity to be what
distinguishes persons from other hypostates. Alexander and Aquinas attribute the
definition to unnamed magistri. The definition is attributed to Peter Lombard by
Michael Smith, Human Dignity and the Common Good in the Aristotelian-Thomistic
Tradition (Lewiston: Edwin Mellon, 1995), 49–51.
98
In I Sent d. 23, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2: quid completum in natura intellectuali.
99
In I Sent d. 23, q. 1, a. 2: “quod habet esse per se subsistens in natura intellectuali.”
100
In I Sent d. 23, q. 1, a. 1–2; d. 25, q. 1, a. 1, ad 6, ad 8; ST I, q. 29, a. 3, ad 4; Cajetan,
Expositio, vol. 4, I, q. 29, a. 1, n. 14. Some medieval philosophers, like Scotus, Quaestiones in I Sententiarum, Opera Omnia, vol. 10 (Paris: Vives, 1893), d. 23, q.un., 261,
and some contemporary philosophers, like John Crosby, The Selfhood of the Human
Person (Washington: CUA Press, 1996), 59–60, have taken the second to be superior
to the first because they did not equate them like Aquinas, as Cajetan notes in the
case of Scotus. Richard (De Trinitate IV c. 21) rejects Boethius’s definition as not fitting the divine persons, since it refers to “substance,” which is one in God. Previous
to Aquinas, Alexander of Hales took the first three to be equivalent; see texts from
95

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Mark K. Spencer

view, “incommunicable existent” is what is meant by “individual substance” in Boethius’s definition, rather than “something that underlies
accidents”; otherwise, Boethius’s definition would not apply to the divine Persons, who are not each substances, but are incommunicable.101
Having nobility follows from being incommunicable and having the
existence pertinent to a rational nature, since the act of existence is the
foundation of nobility. Thus the definition based on nobility reduces
to Boethius and Richard’s definitions. To be incommunicable is to be
maximally complete, unable to be assumed by others, and to exist and
subsist of oneself, and so the last two definitions reduce to the others.
Personal incommunicability requires being complete, not a part,
since parts communicate themselves to wholes. Integral parts like organs, essential parts like forms, and logical parts like rationality, cannot be persons. Personal incommunicability requires being a particular,
not a universal, which communicates what it is to particulars. Personal
incommunicability requires self-possession, not being assumed by another.102 But persons are not incommunicable in every way: Francisco
his Glossa cited in Principe, Alexander of Hales’s Theology, 66–69. Cf. Smith, Human
Dignity, 49–51. Carolus Billuart, Cursus theologiae juxta mentem divi Thomae, vol.
2, Tractatus de Incarnatione (Paris: Mellier, 1847), diss 4, a. 1, a. 2, a. 1, 362, defines
the person by combining these definitions as intellectualis naturae individual et incommunicabilis substantia.
101
Aquinas follows Albert the Great, Commentaria in Sententiarum, Opera Omnia
(Paris: Vives, 1893), vol. 25, I, d. 23, a. 2, ad 4, 586; and William of Auxerre, in the
texts from his Summa aurea cited in Walter Henry Principe, William of Auxerre’s
Theology of the Hypostatic Union (Toronto: PIMS, 1963), 44. Cf. Hipp, Doctrine of
Personal Subsistence, 99–102. I am grateful to Stephen Hipp for calling these texts to
my attention.
102
For these three sorts of incommunicability, see In III Sent d. 5, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2: “triplex incommunicabilitas est de ratione personae: scilicet partis, secundum quod est
completum; et universalis, secundum quod est subsistens; et assumptibilis secundum quod id quod assumitur transit in personalitatem alterius et non habet personalitatem propriam. Non est autem contra rationem personae communicabilitas
assumentis.” Aquinas draws these from Albert the Great, In I Sent, vol. 25, d. 23, a.
6, ad 2, 599, and they have roots in earlier writers who held that the person is per se
una and so the soul is not the person, e.g.,William of Auxerre, Summa aurea, cited in
Principe, William of Auxerre’s Theology, 46–47; Gilbert of Poitiers, cited in Principe,
William of Auxerre’s Theology, 190; Alan of Lille, Theologicae regulae, Opera omnia,
Patrologia latina, vol. 210 (Paris: J. P. Migne, 1855), r. 32, 637. Cf. Hipp, Doctrine
of Personal Subsistence, 51–54, 101. Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 4, I, q. 3, a. 3, n. 1, 40,
lists five necessary marks of supposits: substantiality, completion, individuality, subsistence, incommunicability. Cf. Suárez, DM, d. 34, s. 7, n. 1; Garrigou-Lagrange,

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Suárez shows that they communicate existence as efficient and final
causes, and by giving existence to accidents.103 Persons can give existence to other beings, but not their own proper existence; they cannot
communicate themselves such that they cease to be their own.
Some, like Scotus, consider incommunicability to be a set of negations: to be a human person is to be an individual human nature that has
not been assumed by another person, and that is not apt or able to be
assumed by another.104 Thomists allow that these negations follow from
being incommunicable, but that incommunicability itself, because of the
nobility or dignity that it confers, requires a positive perfection over and
above perfections of essence.105 The formal constituent of incommunicability must be a real addition to the nature of created persons, but not
so as to add a new part or essential principle, that is, not so as to alter the
individual nature.106 There are two main Thomistic theories as to what
this constitutive principle is. On either view, and on a combination of
them, one can hold that the separated soul constitutes the person.
The first theory is that what constitutes human personhood is the
act of existence;107 when a “this something” (hoc aliquid) that has a comTrinity and God the Creator, c. 3, q. 29, a. 1, corollary, n. 1; Hipp, Doctrine of Personal
Subsistence, 251; Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 239.
103
Suárez, DM, d. 34, s. 5, n. 54–57. Cf. Albert, Commentaria, vol. 28, III, d. 5, a. 3, 100.
104
Scotus, Quaestiones, vol. 10, I, d. 23, q.un., 261–62. Some Thomists—e.g., O. Schweitzer,
Person und hypostatische Union bei Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg, 1957), 114–17, cited in
Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 252—defend this view of incommunicability.
105
We frequently refer to simple things negatively, when they are really positive things,
since we cannot conceive of them insofar as they are, but just as they are not; see ST
I, q. 10, a. 1, ad 1.
106
Theologically, it must also not be the sort of thing that Christ would have had to assume in order to redeem us, given that what He did not assume, He did not redeem.
107
Billot, De verbo incarnato, c. 2, s. 1, q. 2, 69–75; Dhavamany, Subjectivity and Knowledge, 38–41; Reichmann, “St. Thomas, Capreolus, Cajetan, and the Created Person,”
229; Clarke, Person and Being, 27, 29: a person is “an actual existent (i.e., with its own
act of existence) [sic], distinct from all others, possessing an intellectual nature, so
that it can be the self-conscious, responsible source of its own actions”; Smith-Gilson, Metaphysical Presuppositions, 101–2. This view is often attributed to Capreolus
(e.g., by Dhavamany and Reichmann), Defensiones, vol. 5, III, d. 5, q. 3, a. 3, ad 1
Scotus, ad 4 Aureolus, 105, 110; d. 6, q. 1, a. 3, ad 8 Scotus, ad 1 aliorum, 118–19.
These thinkers draw on Aquinas, In III Sent d. 5, q. 1, a. 3; Quaestiones de quodlibet
2, q. 3–4; 9, q. 3, ad 2; ST III, q. 19, a. 1, ad 4: esse pertinet ad ipsam constitutionem
personae. Cf. Hipp, Doctrine of Personal Subsistence, 147–50.

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plete individualized nature has been actualized by an act of existence,
it is incommunicable and is a supposit or person.108 When actualized,
a human subsists in its nature, with personal dignity, able to perform
actions proper to persons.109 Once the act of existence is received by a
nature, it can never be given to anyone else; to be a person is to possess
an act of existence proportioned to one’s nature. The act of existence is
not a part of the person, but is added to a nature by composition of actuality and potentiality.110
The second theory is that a “mode” of subsistence or personality
constitutes a person prior to its reception of the act of existence.111 This
108

Thomas Sutton, De principio individuationis (available at www.corpusthomisticum.
org), cited in Capreolus (where it is wrongly attributed to Aquinas), Defensiones,
vol. 3, II, d. 3, q. 1, a. 1, concl 2, 201; cf. Capreolus, Defensiones, III, d. 5, q. 3, a. 3, ad
1 Scoti, ad 4 Scoti, 105–6. Cajetan argues for the second theory, but he admits this
much about the unification in existence, at Expositio, vol. 11, II, q. 17, a. 2, n. 23, 229.
109
In III Sent d. 15, q. 1, a. 3; ST III, q. 17, a. 2; Billot, De verbo incarnato, c. 2, s. 1, q.
2, 72, 75.
110
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 4, a. 2, n. 3, view 4, and Garrigou-Lagrange, Trinity
and God the Creator, c. 3, q. 29, a. 1, rightly object to the idea that existence constitutes the person by adding a part, but this is not the view endorsed here. I endorsed
that view in my “A Reexamination of the Thomistic Theory of Death,” Review of
Metaphysics 63 (2010): 852, but I now reject it for the reasons given here.
111
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 4, a. 2, n. 10–12, 76–77; Ferrara, Commentary on
SCG, vol. 13, II, c. 68, n. 7.3, 445; vol. 15, IV, c. 43, n. 3.1, 146; Bañez, Commentaria in
primam partem, vol. 1, q. 3, a. 4, concl 2, 222; Comentarios a la tercera parte, vol. 1, q. 4,
a. 2, n. 2, 144; John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 1, n. 10, 556;
Salmanticenses, Cursus, vol. 3, t. 6, d. 9 dub 1, 343; vol. 14, d. 9 dub 1, 147–51; Billuart,
Cursus, vol. 2, diss 4, a. 1, a. 2, a. 1, 362; Vincent Louis Gotti, Theologia Scholastico-Dogmatica, vol. 3 (Bologna, 1786), t. 1, q. 6, d. 2, s. 1, 58; Garrigou-Lagrange, Trinity and
God the Creator, c. 3, q. 29, a. 1; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 454–55; Mullaney,
“Created Personality,” 398–402; Peter Coffey, Ontology (London: Longmans, Green,
1914), 270–71. This view is attributed to Capreolus (by Mullaney), Defensiones, III,
d. 5, q. 3, a. 3, ad 2 Aureolus, 108. Cf. Aquinas, In III Sent d. 5, q. 3, a. 3; De veritate,q.
21, a. 6, ad 5; De potentia, q. 9, a. 2, ad 6. In I Sent d. 10, q. 5, a. 5 says that persons are
constituted through a special mode pertaining to dignity. It is helpful to contrast this
view to that of Suárez, DM d. 34, s. 4, n. 20, n. 23, who holds that the mode is posterior
to existence, since an entity is its existence on his view; if existence differed from an
entity, it would render it incommunicable, but as things are on his view, existence requires a completing mode to be incommunicable. Billot, De verbo incarnati, 81, argues
that this makes the mode an accident, since it is posterior to substantial existence; this
is problematic because this makes an accident constitute substantial incommunicability. Suárez, DM d. 34, s. 5, n. 59–62, distinguishes the modes of subsistence and of
suppositality. The former renders a thing unable to inhere in another as an accident,
but it can belong to a part, like the soul. Suppositality renders a thing entirely incom-

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is priority in the order of essence, not in the order of being: an essence
first receives the mode, and only then the act of existence, though the
latter still is prior in that it is the actuality of both the mode and the
essence. The act of existence can only be received and exercised by an
individual essence that is already incommunicable. A mode is a way of
being a kind of thing, or a determination or limitation of some actuality;
it is not a part or form, and it could not exist on its own, apart from that
of which it is the mode.112 The mode of personality is the “completion”
or “termination” of an essence; it is having one’s essence as one’s own,
capable of receiving and exercising per se existence.113 The composition
of mode and essence is not a composition of parts; rather, the mode is
added by a composition of what can be determined or completed, and
its determination or completion. Cajetan likens this mode to the point
that ends a line; such a point is not anything separable from the line,
and does not add any new essential content to the line but is what completes the line. Likewise, the mode completes an essence “in the order
of essence,” and renders it capable of being completed in the order of
being.114 When a human person is generated, this mode immediately
follows upon the composition of the essential parts and the principle of
individuation, unless some other person, such as a divine Person, intermunicable, and only belongs to something with a complete nature, like a person. By
this distinction, Suárez precludes the possibility of the separated soul being a person.
Cf. Hipp, Doctrine of Personal Subsistence, 150–64.
112
De veritate, q. 21, a. 6, ad 5; ST I, q. 5, a. 5; q. 49, a. 2; I-II, q. 85, a. 4; Cursus, vol. 1,
q. 3, d. 4, a. 1, n. 22, 560; Mullaney, “Created Personality,” 392–96. Other examples of
modes include: the compatibility that a subject has for an accidental form such that
it is able to receive it, the possibility that an accidental form has for being succeeded
by a contrary form, the impossibility of a subject receiving incompatible accidental
forms simultaneously, and the possibility of a subject receiving such forms successively; cf. John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 1, Ars Logica, I, c. 20, 40–41.
113
John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 2, n. 10, n. 13–14, 571,
573–74, who cites SCG IV, c. 49; ST I, q. 29, a. 1, ad 2; a. 2. cf. Bañez, Comentarios
a la tercera parte, vol. 1, q. 2, a. 2, n. 2, 79; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 462–63.
Bañez says the mode adds a determination of the nature such that it has existence of
a specific kind through which it subsists; Comentarios a la tercera parte, vol. 1, q. 2,
a. 2, n. 6: tale esse existentiae per quod natura subsistat.
114
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 4, a. 2, n. 10, 76; Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol.
15, IV, c. 43, n. 3.1, 145; Salmanticenses, Cursus, vol. 14, d. 9, dub 1, 148–51. Bañez,
Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 1, q. 3, a. 4, dub 3, ad 6, likens existence to a
point that ends a line as well.

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venes and assumes that nature; the mode is intrinsic to the person, not
requiring divine causality as existence does.115 The mode is a perfection
over the nature, as it is that whereby the nature is a separate whole, able
to develop through acts, virtue, and grace.116
I contend that both the act of existence and the mode of subsistence
are necessary for personhood, though I think that on either theory, the
separated soul constitutes a person; thus, for the remainder of the paper,
I will incorporate aspects of both theories into my argument.117 I follow
John Crosby in holding that, since to be a person is to be wholly incommunicable and complete, to be a person is to possess fully both one’s essence
and existence in a unique and personal way, since it is in virtue of principles of incommunicability that we are autonomous subjective agents.118
There is a difference between incommunicably possessing one’s essence,
that is, all that one definably is, and incommunicably existing, that is, being a complete being and agent; it is fitting to ascribe the two sorts of
incommunicability to two different principles, the mode and the act of
existence.119 Dignity is a defining mark of personhood, corresponding to
115

Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol. 15, IV, c. 43, n. 3.1, 145; Bañez, Comentarios a
la tercera parte, vol. 1, q. 4, a. 2, n. 3.3, n. 8, 145, 148; q. 35, a. 5, n. 4, 351; John of St.
Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 1, n. 34, 564; Billuart, Cursus, vol.
2, diss 4, a. 3, cor 2, ad 1, 375.
116
Billuart, Cursus, vol. 2, diss 4, a. 3 cor1, 375; Hugon, “Si l’ame,” 596.
117
One person is a being (ens) by its act of existence, a thing (res) by its nature, a
“this” (hoc) by its individuation, and a “something” (aliquid) complete in itself and
separate from all others by its mode, its existence, or both; cf. De veritate, q. 1 a.
1; Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol. 15, IV c. 43, n. 2, 145. Supposit is related to
the transcendental aliquid by Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics, 201–2; cf. Jan Aertsen,
Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 225–26; Wippel,
Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 239, 241.
118
Crosby, Selfhood of the Human Person, 44–48, 50–51, 59–65. Cf. Maritain, Degrees of
Knowledge, 462–63; Person and the Common Good, 41; Salmanticenses, Cursus, vol.
3, d. 9 dub 1, 341; Anton Pegis, At the Origins of the Thomistic Notion of Man (New
York: Macmillan, 1963), 58; Smith-Gilson, Metaphysical Presuppositions, 163–71. Cf.
Clarke, Person and Being, 31–32, on the definition of a person as ens autonomum
intellectuale from Umberto degl’Innocenti, Il Problema della persona nel pensiero di
San Tommaso (Rome: Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1967).
119
Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics, 204–9, says existence completes a person, but he wrongly thinks that it does not render a person incommunicable, since existence is communicable to everything. But a person does not receive existence as such, but existence
proportioned to its species (Quaestiones de anima, a. 1, ad 16), which is incommunicable to others and renders the being incommunicable as a being.

The Personhood of the Separated Soul

893

one’s degree of existence, and a creature has its degree of existence from its
essence, which must be incommunicably its own. Both incommunicable
essence and existence constitute a person as a person, and render it the
most complete and perfect sort of substance there is.120
Thomism on the Separated Soul
Having seen how the Thomistic tradition understands personhood,
we must now consider how the Thomistic tradition understood the
relation between the separated soul and personhood. This will aid my
expansion on the Argument from Constitution, and my response to the
Arguments from Nature, Parthood, and Death and Resurrection.
Although Thomists typically deny that the separated soul is a
person, they allow that it retains characteristics typically associated
with personhood.121 The human composite is subsistent by sharing the
mode of subsistence of the soul, just as it exists by sharing the soul’s act
of existence. There can be only one mode of subsistence in the soul and
the composite, because this mode is indivisible, and is that by which
the person is able to receive its proper act of existence. This mode
must belong primarily to the soul, so that the soul can first receive
existence, and can remain a unified agent, capable of intellectual acts
120

Thomism allows multiple sources of incommunicability; e.g., matter renders form
incommunicable, and the act of existence renders a being incommunicable. Cf. In II
Sent d. 3, q. 1, a. 2; Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 3, II, d. 3, q. 1, a. 1, concl 3, 203; John
of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 1, n. 34, 564; Garrigou-Lagrange, Trinity and God the Creator, c. 3, q. 29, a. 1, corollary, n. 3; Maritain, Degrees
of Knowledge, 463; Maritain, Person and the Common Good, 37–43; Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 40. Bañez, Comentarios a la tercera parte,
vol. 1, q. 17, a. 2, n. 1, distinguishes having complete essence (esse essentiae), being a
complete supposit (esse subsistentiae), and complete being (esse existentiae), each of
which confers a different sort of incommunicability; cf. Suárez, DM d. 31, s. 1, n. 2.
Albert distinguishes individuality and incommunicability at Commentaria vol. 28,
III, d. 5, a. 15, 115, though he says human incommunicability is from matter at vol.
25, I, d. 19, a. 14, 535.
121
Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 1, I, d. 4, q. 2, a. 1, concl 2, 229; Cajetan, Expositio, vol.
11, III, q. 6, a. 3, n. 2, 98; Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol. 13, II, c. 68, n. 7.2, 444;
Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 2, q. 76, a. 1, dub 3, concl 2, 160; John of
St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 2, n. 18, 574–75; Billot, De verbo
incarnato, 128; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 463; Hugon, “Si l’âme,” 594; Gredt,
philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae, 423–44; A.D. Sertillanges, O.P., Foundations of
Thomistic Philosophy, trans. Godfrey Anstruther, O.P., (St. Louis: Herder, 1931), 226.

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and relaGodfrey Anstruther, O.P., ,tionships, in its separated state, with the
same existence as the composite.122 The separated soul retains “in root”
every essential feature of the person, as Ferrara explains, including its
corporeality, the forms of “mixed bodies,” vegetative nature, sensitive
nature, and humanity in general.123 Alexis Lépecier contends that the
same “stream of consciousness” as was in the composite is in the separated soul, though without any of our current sensitive consciousness,
so the separated soul can call itself “I,” with the same sense of “I” as the
composite used prior to death.124
But the separated soul is unable to implement most of the powers that it contains “in root.” For a substance to have the actual perfection of its nature, all that is contained in the nature must be able
to be “explicated”; that is, the nature must be able to cause all of the
powers and properties that it is naturally oriented to cause. The separated soul cannot explicate its whole nature because it lacks matter,
which is required for many of the powers that it is oriented to cause.125
Proper accidents (propria) follow necessarily from a nature; humans
have proper accidents that require matter, so the separated soul can
be known to lack human nature, and not be a person, because it lacks

122

Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 6, a. 3, n. 2–3, 98; Bañez, Commentaria in primam
partem, vol. 2, q. 76, a. 1, dub 3, concl 2, 160; Maritain, Person and the Common
Good, 41; John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 2, q. 7, a. 2, 110; Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 2, n. 18, 574–75. Relationality is a key feature of personhood according to some Thomists; e.g., Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol.
1, q. 29, a. 4, concl 2, 930, argues that since created persons are persons by analogy
to the divine persons, divine persons are constituted by relations, and personhood is
constituted by incommunicability, which involves a relation to others, then created
personhood mediately and inadequately signifies relationality. Cf. Mullaney, “Created Personality,” 399–401; Clarke, Person and Being, 14, 64–65, 69–70, which cites Josef Pieper, Living the Truth (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1983), 83; Maritain, Person and
the Common Good, 47; Smith-Gilson, Metaphysical Presuppositions, 189; Matthew
Walz, “What Is a Power of the Soul? Aquinas’ Answer,” Sapientia 60 (2006): 344.
123
Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol. 15, IV, c. 81, n. 6.1–5, 256–57.
124
Lépecier, Anima Umana, 103–4, cited in Sleva, Separated Soul, 113.
125
Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 2, ad 5: “Non est autem aliquid perfectum
in sua natura, nisi actu explicari possit quod in eo virtute continetur.” Cf. John of
St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 2, n. 18, 575; Salmanticenses,
Cursus, vol. 14, d. 9, dub 2, 161. “Nature” here is said analogically, since in Aquinas’s
view the soul does not, strictly speaking, have a nature, as it is a mere part.

The Personhood of the Separated Soul

895

some human proper accidents.126 The separate soul does not subsist as
a complete substance because it is oriented toward communicating its
subsistence to matter.127 Human personhood is spiritual, but this spirituality is oriented toward matter.128 Likewise, the separated soul has
the existence of a human person, but as communicable to matter, not
as its own complete act of existence, and so its existence in the separated state cannot be called “the existence (esse) of a human being.”129 The
separated soul is capable of actions, even the most satisfying action,
contemplating God, but even during that action, it longs to be joined
to matter and so to be a complete substance.130 Human persons lose
existence when soul and matter, which naturally constitute the human
act of existence, come apart, even though this act of existence continues, constituted by the soul.131 If the human person did not essentially
have matter, then it would be false to say that the human person is
mortal, corruptible, or composite.132 Traditional Thomism supports
the corruptionist Arguments from Nature and Death and Resurrection.
The most decisive reason why most Thomists think that the separated soul is not a person is that the separated soul is not incommunicable,
since it is by nature a part, and so does not fulfill the definition of “person”; I refer to this as the Argument from Incommunicability.133 The soul
126

ST I, q. 29, a. 4. John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 2, n. 1,
567. Cf. Ferrara, Commentary on ScG, II c. 68 n. 13 reply; Bañez, Commentaria in
primam partem, q. 3, a. 4, resp.; Coffey, Ontology, 264; Sleva, Separated Soul, 107.
127
Coffey, Ontology, 263; Sleva, Separated Soul, 109.
128
Maritain, Person and the Common Good, 43.
129
John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 2, q. 7, a. 3, 114; Cursus theologicus,
vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 2, n. 18, 575; Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 2, q.
76, a. 1, dub 4, ad 6, 161; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 457; Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics, 203–4.
130
SCG II, c. 79; ST I-II, q. 4, a. 4, ad 4; ST I-II, q. 4, a. 5, ad 2. Cf. Coffey, Ontology, 264;
Hugon, “Si l’âme,” 592–93; T. L. Cardinal Mercier, A Manual of Modern Scholastic
Philosophy, trans. S. A. Parker, vol. 2 (London: Kegan Paul, 1932), 485; Sleva, Separated Soul, 111–12; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 457.
131
In II Sent d. 19, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2; De veritate, q. 13, a. 4, ad 2; ST III, q. 50, aa. 4–5. Cf.
Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 2, q. 76, a. 1, dub 4, ad 4, ad 6, 161;
Wingell, “Vivere viventibus est esse,” 112; Toner, “St. Thomas on Death,” 597.
132
John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9, a. 2, 437.
133
ST I, q. 50, a. 4; Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 1, I, d. 4, q. 2, a. 1, concl 2, 229; John
of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9, a. 2, 438; Garrigou-Lagrange, Trinity and God the Creator, c. 3, q. 29, a. 1, corollary, n. 1.

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is independent in existence and subsistence, but dependent by its orientation to matter.134 Though conscious, its consciousness is of a different
experiential character from ours, since it lacks sensible powers.135 Persons cannot be assumed by other persons, but the soul can be assumed
by the composite; that is, it can be substantially united to the complete
person, revealing its incompletion.136 According to some Thomists, the
fact that the soul continues to bear the composite’s act of existence is
what prevents it from being a complete person. When any other part of
any other subsistent thing, such as an integral part like the heart, is detached from the whole of which it was a part, it takes on a new mode of
subsistence and a new act of existence, and becomes a new supposit, and
is no longer the mere part that it was. But because the soul continues
to bear the composite’s act of existence, it retains its parthood, because
it retains its orientation to communicating its act to the composite.137
All of this supports the corruptionist objections to the Argument from
Constitution, since it provides further reasons for thinking that the soul,
being communicable, could not constitute or be identical to a person.
But the Thomistic tradition also provides a basis for building on the survivalist Arguments from Acts and from Constitution, and for responding
to the corruptionist Argument from Weakness, by considering the new
perfections that the soul attains in its separated state.
The separated state is not the soul’s “natural” state, informing matter. But most Thomists contend that the state of separation is not “violent” or “contrary” to the soul’s nature (contra naturam). A state is violent to a thing when that thing cannot, when in that state, exercise its
134

John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9, a. 1, ad 2, 435. Cf.
Hipp, Doctrine of Personal Subsistence, 119–20.
135
Sertillanges, Foundations, 199, 227. Clarke, Person and Being, 40–41 emphasizes
that human action must unfold on both the material and the spiritual “levels.” Pegis,
At the Origins, 34–58, argues that the structure of human existence reveals that, experientially, a human person is an intellectual being that lives out its intellectuality
in the composite and so is characterized by history and the drama of engagement
in the world. To lose the “lived experience” of “incarnated intelligence” is to lose
something essential to human personhood; cf. Pegis, St. Thomas and the Problem of
the Soul in the Thirteenth Century (Toronto: PIMS, 1978), 152–56.
136
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 6, a. 3, n. 2, 98.
137
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 2, a. 2, n. 10, 27; q. 4, a. 2, n. 28, 90; q. 6, a. 3, n. 4,
98; Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 1, q. 29, a. 1, resp., 918; John of St.
Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 1, q. 3, d. 4, a. 2, n. 18, 575.

The Personhood of the Separated Soul

897

powers or attain its proper end. But the separated soul can exercise its
highest powers, and attain its ends, knowledge of and union with God.
The separated state is a “preternatural” state (praeter naturam), that is, a
state of existing and attaining knowledge higher than its natural state.138
It participates in the intellectual way of life proper to the separate intellectual substances.139 The soul is potentially in the genus of intellectual
substances, and this potentiality is actualized in its separated state.140
The soul has the potential for subsisting forever separate from the composite. Although actions are attributed to supposits, supposits exercise
actions in virtue of their subsistence, and the soul is subsistent, so the
soul can act even if always separated.141
On the Thomistic view, the soul attains a new perfection in its separated state, though it also loses a perfection in being separated from
the body.142 When in the composite, the soul is naturally, immediately,
and substantially united to matter. In virtue of being united, the soul
has a special mode; John of St. Thomas calls it the mode of “being in
se applied (applicata) and communicated” to the body.143 Because the
soul exists as communicated to the body, it is properly the composite
as a whole that exists. Ferrara argues that although the human soul first
receives and exercises the act of existence, it does not do so as a person,
but only in such a way that it immediately communicates this act to the
138

SCG IV, c. 81; ST I, q. 50, a. 4; Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 89, a. 1, n. 13, 373;
Suárez, In libros de anima, vol. 1, d. 2, q. 4, n. 26, ad 9; John of St. Thomas, Cursus
philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9 a. 2, 438. Ferrara, Commentary on ScG, vol. 13,
II, c. 83 n. 7–9, 526–27, contends that it is contrary to the nature of the soul, which is
oriented to matter. Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 1, q. 76, a. 1, dub 5,
concl 1, n. 2, ad 4 notes that these positions are reconcilable: separation is contrary
to the soul’s nature in one sense, but not in another.
139
The separated state is not “supernatural”; i.e., it is not unattainable by any creature without divine assistance, since the soul is raised to the natural level of higher creatures.
140
Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 7, IV, d. 50, q. 1, a. 1, concl 5, 262.
141
John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9, a. 2, 440–41; Hugon,
“Si l’âme,” 592–93; Sleva, Separated Soul, 111.
142
Cajetan, Expositio, I, q. 76, a. 1, n. 33, ad 2 Scotus, 214; vol. 11, III, q. 6, a. 3, n. 3, 98;
John of St. Thomas, Expositio, vol. 4, I, q. 55, d. 21, a. 2, n. 13, 721. ST I, q. 89, a. 1,
says the soul has one mode in the body and one when separated. Contrast to Suárez,
In libros de anima, vol. 3, d. 14, q. 1, n. 2–3; DM d. 34, s. 5, n. 28–29, 32–34, who says
it just loses a perfective mode of union, though it retains its subsistence.
143
John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9 a. 2, 442. Cf. Capreolus, Defensiones, vol. 5, II, d. 6, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3 Scotus, 117.

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whole composite person.144 Because of this mode, when in the composite, the soul only thinks by turning to phantasms. But, in the composite,
the soul, because of its subsistence, also potentially exists as a separate
substance, subsistent in itself, not as communicating subsistence and
existence to the composite.145
When the soul is separated, a new mode of separate existence is
actualized, but the old mode of being communicated to the body is lost.
The soul always has the same mode of subsistence, but it changes another mode when it leaves the composite.146 The new mode of “being separate” renders the soul capable of acting in new ways. It can understand
without turning to phantasms, perfectly understand itself, and intuit the
existence of things.147 In many ways the separated soul’s cognition is diminished, but in other ways it is enhanced. Though the soul is naturally
in the body, in some respects the separated state is better for it.148
Cajetan holds that this new mode constitutes the separated soul as
144

Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, II, c. 68, n. 6.3, 444; II, c. 69, n. 4, 448–49, argues that
the soul is not, while in the body, properly speaking subsistent and abstracted from
the body, but rather subsists with the mode of subsistence that belongs properly
to the composite; II, c. 68, n. 6.3, 444, argues that although the act of existence belongs to the soul and by communication to the composite, the mode of subsistence,
whereby the person formally is a person, just belongs to the composite. But this view
is rejected by later commentators in favor of Cajetan’s view, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 76,
a. 1, n. 23, 213, that the soul, even while in the body, subsists; i.e., it has the capability
to receive existence per se, prior to the composite (and thus, though he does not say
it in that passage, has the mode of subsistence prior to the body); cf. Bañez, Commentaria in primam partem, vol. 2, q. 76, a. 1, dub 3, ad 4, 157.
145
John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 2, q. 7, a. 3, 114; Cursus theologicus,
vol. 1, I, q. 3, d. 4, a. 2, 571. Cf. Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas,
195–96; Sleva, Separated Soul, 72–73. Henri-Dominique Gardeil, Introduction to the
Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. John Otto, vol. 3, Psychology (St. Louis:
Herder, 1956), 231: the human person has a “dual nature,” “body-dependent” and
“body-transcendent.”
146
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 76, a. 1, n. 33, ad 1 Scotus, 214; vol. 11, III, q. 6, a. 3,
n. 4, 98.
147
Sentencia libri De anima, II, lect 6, n. 301; ST I, q. 89, a. 1; Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5,
I, q. 89, a. 1, n. 13, 373; John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima,
q. 9 a. 2, 440; Cursus theologicus, vol. 4, I, q. 55, d. 21, a. 2, n. 13, 721; Billot, De verbo
incarnato, 237; Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. M. Timothea Doyle (available at www.christianperfection.info), part 3, c. 31, n. 38; Sertillanges, Foundations, 230; Gardeil, Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 3, 230–31.
148
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 89, a. 1, n. 13, 373; Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, vol.
13, II, c. 79, n. 1.2, 500; Suárez, In libros de anima, vol. 3, d. 14, q. 9, n. 6.

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a “semiperson,” having everything necessary for personhood except a
complete nature. The semiperson subsists, but it has its act of existence
“inadequately,” because its existence is the actuality of a whole composite person.149 In virtue of this new mode, the soul’s essence is immediately present to its intellect, and it knows itself fully. In order to understand
why this is, we must consider the nature of self-cognition, according
to Aquinas; this will aid my revision of the Argument from Acts. In the
composite state, one is capable of acts of intellectual self-cognition, such
as perceiving that one exists, only when one is aware of oneself understanding other things, because in the composite, the intellect is directed
toward forms received through the senses, and can only self-cognize
by reflection on outward directed acts of understanding. But actual
self-cognition is possible because the soul has “habitual self-cognition,”
the potential to become aware of oneself. This “habitual self-cognition”
is not literally a habit, but is like a habit insofar as it is a tendency to
perform certain sorts of acts, acts of self-cognition. Rather, this habitual
self-cognition is identical to the soul. The soul is an immaterial spiritual
substance, and so its nature is to understand and to be capable of acts of
self-cognition through the intellectual power.150 Immaterial substanc149

Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 11, III, q. 6, a. 3, n. 3, 98. Inadequate exercise of existence is
not partial existence, in the manner described by Suárez or Pasnau. Suárez, In libros
de anima, vol. 3, d. 14, q. 1, n. 5, calls the soul a “semiperson” both when separate
and when in the composite; he denies, contrary to Cajetan, that the soul has more
personal characteristics when separated than in the composite.
150
De veritate, q. 10, a. 8, resp., ad 1, esp. ad 14: “quod notitia qua anima seipsam novit,
non est in genere accidentis quantum ad id quo habitualiter cognoscitur, sed solum
quantum ad actum cognitionis qui est accidens quoddam; unde etiam Augustinus
dicit quod notitia substantialiter inest menti, in IX de Trinitate, secundum quod mens
novit se ipsam.” In I Sent d. 3, q. 5, a. 1, ad 1: “ipsa essentia animae, prout est mota a
seipsa, habet rationem habitus.” In I Sent d. 3, q. 5, a. 1, ad 2: “habitus isti erunt consubstantiales, cum sint in ipsa substantia animae, nec sunt ibi alii habitus.” SCG IV, c. 11;
ST I, q. 87, a. 1. The soul is likened to a habitual rather than an operative actuality at
Sentencia libri De anima II, lec. 1, n. 227. Cf. Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 470–71;
Smith-Gilson, Metaphysical Presuppositions, 76; R. T. Lambert, “Habitual Knowledge
of the Soul in Thomas Aquinas,” Modern Schoolman 60 (1982): 1–19. Dhavamany,
Subjectivity and Knowledge, 67–74, argues that habitual self-cognition is not identical
to the soul but to the power of the intellect, though he thinks it is rooted in the “ontological self-presence” of the soul, and so is “consubstantial” with the substance of
the soul, since self-knowledge is “proper to every spirit”; my argument based on the
identity of habitual self-cognition and the soul works just as well, mutatis mutandis, if
Dhavamany’s view is correct.

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es understand themselves immediately insofar as they are actual and
thereby intelligible, and their essence is to understand.151 Here again we
see the status of the human person on the “border” between the material and the immaterial: the composite human person is composed
of matter formed by a soul that is essentially habitual self-cognition or
subjectivity.
After death, the soul is immediately aware of itself, because the soul
is its own habitual self-cognition, and, when separated, it is not impeded from understanding itself immediately by its immersion in the body
and consequent orientation toward the senses. To be known adds a perfection to a thing, and to know is a perfection for the soul and involves
formally becoming that which is known; in knowing itself and being
known by itself, the soul is more intimately united to itself and more
perfected than it was in the composite.152 As John of St. Thomas says, it is
present to itself both insofar as it exists and gives rise to the intellect, as
the subject underlying the intellect, and insofar as it immediately knows
itself, as object of the intellect.153 This semipersonal mode is a personal
perfection, and thus, in the resurrected body, the soul will be present
both semipersonally, with the consequent cognitive perfections, and as
communicating existence to the body, such that it will also know by
turning to phantasms. When resurrected, the human person will have
all the modes of existence and action of which it is capable.
It must be noted that a philosopher influenced by Thomism prior
to the contemporary debate, Edith Stein, held that the person survives
in the separated soul. Her views will aid my expansion on the Argument
from Constitution. Stein argues that a person is an incommunicable
“bearer” or “carrier” of a rational nature.154 To bear a rational nature is to
have an interiorly experienced life “as one’s own,” and thus to understand
151

Super librum de causis, lec. 13; cf. John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De
anima, q. 9, a. 1, ad 4, 436.
152
cf. De veritate, q. 2, a. 2.
153
John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 4, q. 55, d. 21, a. 2, n. 6, n. 13, 720–21. Cf.
Garrigou-Lagrange, Ages of the Interior Life, part 3, c. 31 n. 38; Gardeil, Philosophy of
St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 3, 182–83, 230–31; Stump, Wandering in Darkness (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010), 133–34; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 470.
154
Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being, trans. Kurt Reinhardt (Washington: ICS, 2002),
81, 343, 361. I leave aside the question here of how Thomistic she was; the important
point is that she argued using Thomistic terms that the separated soul is the person.

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oneself and have free control over oneself.155 Self-possession arises from
the soul because it is a spiritual substance, in virtue of which the person
is a self and calls itself “I.” The way in which a person manifests him- or
herself in actions “radiates” from the interiority of the soul, wherein is
the image of God, and the body only exists through and is formed by the
spiritual and personal existence of the soul. This foundation of personal
interiority whereby the person bears his or her nature persists even in
the separated soul.156 Thus the person, the bearer of a rational nature,
persists in the separated soul, albeit with a diminished nature.157
Arguments for the Survivalist View
The contemporary arguments for the survivalist view need to be expanded in light of the foregoing exploration of the Thomistic tradition.
First, I shall expand on the Argument from Constitution, and then on
the Argument from Acts, while responding to the corruptionists. In order to expand on the Argument from Constitution, I first respond to
the Argument from Incommunicability, so as to show that the separated
soul has the sorts of incommunicability necessary for being a person.
I contend that the Thomistic requirements regarding which kinds of
incommunicability are necessary for personhood require revision. It
is clear that a person must be an individual, but the other two requirements—that the person must be unassumable and cannot communicate as a part to a whole—require more exploration.
There is good reason to say that certain parts can constitute the
person. For example, if I were to lose all of my integral parts except my
brain, but this was sustained by a machine so that it was still capable of
cognitive activity, then it seems plausible to say that I would be constiIbid., 361–62.
Ibid., 441–42, 448. However, Stein says that “the soul has neither its only nor its true
being in the informing of the body”; such a claim may sound as though she denies
that the soul is a form. But she says that the soul naturally forms the body at ibid.,
364. Her point is the Thomistic point that the soul’s existence and primary operations are not dependent on the body.
157
Ibid., 597. Bernard Lonergan, Insight (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992),
543, makes a similar argument: the human form is spiritual and so retains its identity apart from matter. The human person has identity through its form, which makes
a person intelligible as a person, and grounds one’s core personality; the person survives as long as this “core” survives.
155
156

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tuted by that brain. The brain would retain my power to perform the
intellectual activities that are indicative of the human species, and thus
it would retain my act of existence and mode of subsistence. I would
not thereby, strictly speaking, be a brain; rather, I would be constituted
by a brain, because my brain, a composite of soul and matter, would be
completed by my mode of subsistence and actualized by my act of existence. This mode and act would continue to constitute me as a person.
It seems possible for me to be constituted by an integral part, although
that part is communicable to a whole body, that is, as a part it does not
possess itself but is oriented to giving its existence and nature to, and
being possessed and controlled by, a whole body. This is contrary to the
Thomistic view that no part can be or constitute a person, and suggests
that the conditions for incommunicability require revision. It could be
objected that the brain alone, or at least the cerebrum alone, cannot
constitute the person, since it lacks animal sensory and vegetative powers; since it does not seem to be an animal, it cannot be a human person.158 Later, I shall show how something that lacks these powers can
still be an animal.
Furthermore, Aquinas’s requirement that, for a thing to be a person, it must be able to “explicate” all of its powers, that is, actually have
the powers that follow from its nature, is too stringent a requirement.
Taking such a requirement strictly, it is questionable whether a person
missing any organs or powers is a person. For example, a human that
was blind because it lacked all the organs pertinent to sight—both the
eyes and the entire neurological visual system—would thereby lack the
visual power. Such a human would be unable to “explicate” some of human nature’s powers and proper accidents. As Matthew Walz explains,
bodily powers require their organs in order to be actual powers, since
the matter of these organs is the proper potentiality for these powers.
Without their organs, the powers remain only “virtually” or “in root” in
and identical to the essence of the soul, not as actual powers rooted in
a subject. But surely, just like the disembodied brain considered above,
the blind human has the human nature that is the root of these powers,
as well as the mode of subsistence and the act of existence, and thus
is a person. Certain material conditions required for explicating all of
158

I owe this objection to Patrick Toner.

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his or her powers are just lacking.159 Aquinas probably did not mean
for his claim about the explication of powers to be taken in so strict a
sense. However, it seems that the claim can be opposed on even a looser interpretation: surely a person can lack most parts or powers, even
all integral parts but the brain, and still be a person. This does not yet
show that the human person could be constituted by a soul that wholly
lacked matter, but it does show that a human person can lack powers
and proper accidents proper to his or her nature and still be a human
person. Contrary to what Aquinas seems to claim, a thing need not actually have all of the powers proper to a given nature in order to retain
that nature, so long as other conditions remain.160
The requirement regarding explication must be modified: a creature is a person just in case it is an individual with a rational nature, a
mode of subsistence, and an act of existence, and would immediately
have its natural powers and proper accidents were it in the right conditions. In the case above, the brain would not, upon being rejoined
to a whole body, communicate itself to another person with its own
complete nature; rather, were the rest of the body to be restored, the
same person would just have gained some parts, to which the one unifying act of existence and human nature would be communicated. The
person can be constituted by what was a mere part, provided the act
of existence, mode of subsistence, and individual nature remain in it,
and provided that it cannot be assumed by another person, but can just
be taken up into a fuller completion of the same person, a fuller explicating of one and the same complete nature. Aquinas’s theory must be
159

Cf. Quaestiones de anima, a. 12; Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 11, ad 20; ST
I, q. 77, a. 6, ad 1; Walz, “What Is a Power,” 340–43.
160
In a sense, the blind person, the disembodied brain, and the separated soul have
all the human proper accidents; this allows a partial response to the part of the Argument from Nature that claims that the separated soul cannot have human nature
because it lacks some human proper accidents. Ferrara, Commentary on SCG, II,
c. 68, n. 13, 446, explains that a thing can have proper accidents according to “first
act” or “second act”: in the former, a thing has them in that it has a natural aptitude
to take on these accidents; in the latter, it actually expresses them. For example,
one can have risibility according to first act, without actually being able to express
this in laughter—that is, exercise it according to second act—because one lacks
the material structures necessary to laugh. Likewise, as I shall argue, the separated
soul has all the proper accidents of the human person just according to first act,
insofar as it has a nature capable of giving rise to them.

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amended: there are degrees of explication of a nature, and a minimal
degree, so long as the whole nature is present, is sufficient for the same
person being present.
It will be objected that the case of the brain does not parallel the
case of the separated soul. The brain is an integral part, which has its
nature following upon the nature of the whole person. It is composed
of soul and matter, and thus still has the essential principles of the human person. But the soul is an essential part, explanatorily prior to the
person, and, in itself, lacks the other essential part of the human person, matter. The objector can maintain that even if a person could be
constituted by a brain, it would not follow that one could be constituted
just by the soul.
Such an objection, which builds on the corruptionist Argument
from Nature, can be met by the defender of the Argument from Constitution by showing that the separated soul still has human nature.
The separated soul retains the same act of existence, or actuality of the
whole human person, as was had by the composite. Every actuality that
is received in a potentiality is proportioned to that potentiality. My act
of existence fits my essence and is this act of existence because it has
been received by my essence. Once it has been received by my essence,
it can never be communicated to another or be the actuality of another person than me. Since actuality is prior to potentiality, I am first a
being (ens), and only on that basis a thing (res), that is, what has an
essence. Since the act of existence remains in the separated soul, and
is the same actuality as was in the composite, and acts of existence can
only be received and exercised by a thing in proportion to its essence,
then the separated soul must retain the human essence, so as to retain
the same act of existence. Otherwise, my human act of existence could
not remain in and actualize my separated soul. It is clear that a great
deal is missing from the separated soul. But the separated soul retains
corporeality, vegetability, and sensitivity “in root,” that is, in its essence;
it does not retain these powers in actuality, and they are not present in
it as in a subject, but it retains the essence that gives rise to them, as a
potential whole capable of giving rise to many powers.161 If it did not
161

Quaestiones de quodlibet 10, q. 3, a. 1. Cf. Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas
Aquinas, 278–80.

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retain that essence, then it would be incapable of retaining my act of
existence, for an act of existence is always proportioned to its proper
essence. But if there is continuity of this essence, as well as of mode of
subsistence and act of existence in the separated soul, then everything
necessary for constituting a person is in the separated soul. And thus
my separated soul, along with its mode of subsistence and its act of
existence, will constitute me, an incommunicable person unassumable
by another person, albeit in a defective state, that is, only imperfectly
expressing my nature. The soul is like the brain in the above thought
experiment; it lacks all actual human powers but the intellectual powers, yet it retains the nature that gives rise to all human powers, because
only that nature is capable of receiving and exercising one’s unique human act of existence. In this way, building on the Thomism’s account
of existence, personhood, and the separated soul, the Argument from
Constitution can be defended.
This expansion on the Argument from Constitution can be given
in another way, using Stein’s terminology. The person is the bearer of
human nature. But the person is a person, is unified, and can bear this
nature in virtue of either the mode of subsistence or the act of existence
or both. Having human nature renders one capable of having this mode
and this act of existence, and only what has this nature is capable of so
being completed and actualized. But the separated soul has the same
mode and act of existence as the composite, and so the separated soul
can bear this nature. Bearers of natures are supposits, and supposits
with rational natures are persons; thus the separated soul is person.
The separated soul cannot be another person besides me, because it has
my mode of subsistence and act of existence, and thus it must be me.162
In order to give a full defense of the Argument from Constitution,
a response must be given to the Argument from Nature. The Argument
from Constitution does not lead to the conclusion that a human person
is always just a soul. Rather, a human person is what receives, exercises,
and is actualized and unified by its act of existence. In the composite,
this is both soul and matter. After death, this is the soul, and so then the
162

We can see now the sense in which Moreland and Rae’s position (see note 22 above)
is true: the human soul is the primary bearer of human nature and is a necessary
and sufficient condition for personal identity. But their position is false in that it
identifies the human person just with the soul.

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person is constituted by just the soul, because by itself the soul has the
formal constitutive principles of personhood. It is true that in the composite, the soul receives and exercises the act of existence in a way that
is prior to and nobler than the way that it is received and exercised by
the composite. This does not make the person to be constituted by just
the soul then because the whole composite receives and exercises that
act. The survivalist view does not turn Thomistic hylomorphism into
substance dualism. There is only one substance and one nature for each
human person. In the natural state, the one substance is constituted
by soul and matter, though its substantiality comes from the spiritual
substantiality of the soul; in the state of separation, the one substance is
constituted by just the soul. The human person is incomplete without
matter, since matter is needed for the complete explication of its nature;
matter is substantially, not accidentally, united to the soul.
However—and this is an expansion on the Thomistic view of human nature to which the survivalist must be committed—the soul, both
in the composite and when separated, has human nature; this ensures
personal identity, but it is not to say that soul in the composite constitutes a person other than the composite. Rather, human nature, rational animality, belongs to the soul prior to belonging to the composite,
just as the human act of existence belongs to the soul prior to belonging to the composite. Both human nature and the act of existence are
communicated to the composite by the soul, which substantially unites
matter to itself; human nature has, in itself, a structure unique among
natures, belonging primarily to the soul, and by communication but
naturally and substantially to the composite. The separated soul has human nature, but expresses it in a defective way, needing matter for the
full explication of that nature. When the soul again informs a composite at the resurrection, it will not be assumed by another person, but it
will just take matter to itself, and the same person that was constituted
by the separated soul will resume the full explication of its nature, as a
single substance.163
163

Cf. Stump, Aquinas, 409. The separated state is just a stage in the person’s life wherein the person expresses its nature imperfectly; John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 1, Ars logica, II, q. 14, a. 1, 427, contends that some stages, such as that of
the embryo, express human nature “imperfectly” and so are “parts” of the human
person, in that they tend to a further perfection; cf. Suárez, In libros de anima, vol. 3,

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Since acts and existence are attributed primarily to supposits, this
response to the Argument from Nature provides a solution to the problems of too many thinkers and too many existing things. There is one
and the same supposit or person, that is, one thinker and one existing
thing, before and after death. Before death this person is constituted
by soul and matter, and after death it is constituted by the soul, along
with the mode and the act of existence in each case. If the separate soul
did not constitute a person, then the problems would remain, because
then the composite person would think and exist derivatively upon the
nonpersonal soul. Such a person would be no person at all, but would
lack substantial existence, unity, and thought in its own right. But since
personhood is constituted by the mode of subsistence and the act of existence, then these problems are avoided: the person goes where these
principles go, and the one thinking and existing person is whatever
has these principles. Since these cannot be had without human nature,
whatever has these also has human nature.
All this allows a response to the contention of the Argument from
Parthood that there is nothing in the separated soul besides the soul
that could constitute a person, and so it is unclear what the person is
over and above the soul. Because being a person requires the mode of
subsistence and the act of existence, the separated soul constitutes the
person without being identical to the person; there are principles supplementing the soul. The supplementation is not by another part, but
by other principles, which can constitute things differently than their
essential parts constitute them.164 Regardless of which principle constitutes personhood, the soul retains it, and so, with either principle, or
both, constitutes a person. Although, strictly speaking, the person, not
the separated soul, thinks, it is correct to say that the separated soul
d. 14, q. 9, n. 6, resp.; Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 89, a. 1, n. 3. By “parts” here, John
seems to mean something like the contemporary notion of “temporal part,” though
he is not a four-dimensionalist; he means that certain temporal stages of a substance
only imperfectly express that substance’s nature, though they still have that nature.
164
On the importance of different kinds of composition besides the composition of
parts, including composition of actuality and potentiality, and of terminating mode
and terminated nature, see Billuart, Cursus, vol. 2, diss 4, a. 2, ad 2, 371. Cf. Quaestiones de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 1; De substantiis separatis, c. 6; De ente, c. 2; SCG
II, c. 54; ST I, q. 75, a. 5, ad 4; Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics, 87; Sleva, Separated Soul,
80–83; Oderberg, “Survivalism, Corruptionism, and Mereology,” 13–23.

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thinks, since the person and the separated soul differ not as two things,
but as what is complete and what is able to be completed. This is a further response to the too many thinkers problem.
On the basis of the foregoing discussion of the Argument from
Constitution, it can be concluded that the soul with its mode and existence alone is necessary and sufficient for continuity of human nature
and personhood. This does not entail that we should define the human
person through these constitutive principles, because they are not parts
of the essence; the definition of the human person is still “rational animal.” Seeing how this can be allows the final step in my response to the
Argument from Nature. The soul “bears” this nature not in the sense
that it somehow includes matter, but in the sense that it bears the “core”
of rational animality, the essence in virtue of which the human person
can receive and exercise the human act of existence, and which is the
“root” from which is “explicated” all actual human powers and corporeality. Essence should be primarily understood as the potential for an
act of existence, and only on that basis should it be understood in terms
of its principles, such as form and matter.
On my revision of Thomistic principles, the human person can be
said to be “essentially” material in the sense that this is its natural state
and is necessary for the human person’s ordinary and perfected life, but
not in the sense that actually having matter is necessary to be a human
person. Considered in the former sense of “essential,” the soul is a part
of human nature; considered in the latter sense, it contains full human
nature, albeit defectively expressed. To be able to receive and exercise,
in its separated state, the act of existence of an animal and of a body,
the soul must have an essence capable of receiving and exercising these
sorts of existence. In the separated state, it is incapable of exercising
them fully, because it lacks matter. But it does exercise these sorts of
existence in a sense when separated because the human act of existence
is one act, and the separated soul exercises that whole act. It must have
human nature such that it can exercise this act of existence, which is the
act of a bodily, vegetative, animal, and intellectual supposit. Since this
human nature in the soul is the nature of a spiritual substance, and we
cannot in this life fully understand the natures of spiritual substances,
we cannot fully understand in this life what human nature, rational
animality, is, or what it means for a spiritual substance to be an animal,

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that is, have an animal essence, but we can know that this must be the
case.
That the human person has such a curious sort of animality follows
from its place in the hierarchy of being; considering the implications
of our place in this hierarchy allows a response to the claims of the Arguments from Death and Resurrection that the survivalist view leads to
a faulty view of human mortality, death, and resurrection. The human
person is the highest of the animals, but is an animal just analogously
to other animals, because its animality is determined by its rationality.
The human person has this rationality through its form, the lowest of
the spiritual substances. The human form is only a form analogously
to material forms, in that, unlike them, it is subsistent and does not
depend on its composite for existence.165 Since it is through this soul
that the human person is an animal, we should expect human animality
to be different from the animality of other animals. The human animal
has spiritual existence; other animals have material existence. The human person is an animal in that it senses, but it has sensation for the
sake of the fulfillment of its soul. The highest animal exists for the sake
of a spiritual substance, which is also the form by which it is an animal.
Animality and spirituality are united in the one human essence, which
persists in the separated soul. Just as the human body, unique among
material things, exists by a spiritual act of existence, so human animality, unique among animal natures, continues to exist in the spiritual
substance by which it is.166
Just as “form” and “animality” mean something different when applied to the human person than they do when applied to other animals,
so do terms like “mortal” and “corruptible.” As in other cases, to say
that the human person is “mortal” is to say that its soul and its matter
are capable of coming apart, and to say that a human person “corrupts”
165

Cf. Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 197–99; Lehrberger, “Anthropology of Aquinas’s,” 838–39.
166
Pegis (see note 135 above) is correct that the human person’s act of existence is oriented toward the body, and that the human person is thereby oriented toward living as a
“pilgrim” in history and the drama of “incarnate intelligence,” but we also transcend
history and embodiment. Indeed, because we transcend these, we can subjectively
enter into history and embodiment without being entirely immersed in them. Our
pilgrimage traverses the embodied and separated states, before being completed in the
resurrected state. Cf. Smith-Gilson, Metaphysical Presuppositions, 168–71.

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or “dies” is to say that its soul and its matter in fact come apart. But
to say that a human person corrupts is not to say that he or she has
gone out of existence, for the person survives constituted by the separated soul. As even Toner admits, human death is a sui generis kind
of substantial change: it is a substantial change, because it is a loss of a
substantial principle, matter, but a substantial change of a unique sort,
because it does not produce a new substance.167 It is not a complete going out of existence.168 Human death is just the event of the soul ceasing
to communicate its existence to the composite. The human person is
corruptible and mortal because it is an animal, but immortal because
it can be constituted by a spiritual substance; “mortal” and “immortal”
here are analogous, not univocal, with their uses in other cases. This
view does not mitigate the evil of death: death is still contrary to human
nature, in that it separates what is naturally joined. The resurrection is
no less wonderful on this view: it rejoins what could never be rejoined
naturally, but only by divine intervention. But the survivalist view gives
more reason to hope for personal immortality than does the corruptionist view, and it affirms the common belief that the souls of the dead
are persons. It makes sense of the possibility that the soul could remain
separated forever, without a resurrection, and that this would not be an
injustice to the person.169
Finally, the above exploration of the Thomistic tradition allows an
expansion on the Argument from Acts and a response to the claim of
the Argument from Weakness that the soul’s powers are too weak to be
167

Cf. Suárez, In libros de anima, vol. 3, d. 14, q. 1, n. 6; Toner, “St. Thomas on Death,”
593; Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 372–73. Human generation is also
sui generis: the human person comes to be, like other material things, when its form
and matter come together. Unlike other material things, human parents just dispose
the matter, but the soul that forms the matter is created by God; cf. Quaestiones de
spiritualibus creaturis, a. 3, ad 12; SCG II, c. 87; ST I, q. 90, a. 2. From the joining of
soul and matter in human generation a two-fold unity results, of nature and person,
but I hold that both unities remain, at death, in the soul; cf. ST III, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2.
168
Cf. SCG IV, c. 81: death is “quasi-accidental” to the human person: “mors quasi per
accidens superveniens homini per peccatum, considerata institutione humanae naturae”; In II Sent d. 19, q. 1, a. 2; Quaestiones de anima, a. 5. Cf. Brown, Aquinas and
the Ship, 124; Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 198; Toner, “St.
Thomas on Death,” 593.
169
Cajetan, Expositio, vol. 5, I, q. 89, a. 1, n. 14, 373; John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus, vol. 3, De anima, q. 9, a. 1, 431.

The Personhood of the Separated Soul

911

those of a person. The separated soul can engage in acts that directly indicate its personhood, and its new mode and abilities indicate that it is
not weak in the manner that would prevent it from constituting a person. The soul is “habitual self-cognition,” and this self-cognition will be
fully actualized in the separated soul. My actual self-cognition arises
from the same root both in the composite and in the separated state.
Maritain contends that self-cognition is an awareness of one’s act of existence, in virtue of which we are aware of ourselves as selves.170 In the
separated state, this experience will be stronger and more certain than
it was in the composite. But if this experience of the self persists in the
separated soul, then if the separated soul were not the person, it would
be deceived fundamentally about itself. The separated soul would be
aware of itself as “I,” but would in fact be, as Toner put it, “nobody.” But
to be a self, to be “somebody” with subjectivity, is to be a person. If this
self-cognition is an infallible understanding of my existence as a person in the composite, then it must be likewise infallible in the separate
state, since the experiences are the same and they arise from the same
habitual self-cognition, which is the soul. If this experience of one’s
own existence is ever to be trusted, and it is the most trustworthy of experiences, it must be able to be trusted in both cases, and the separated
soul must constitute a person. Likewise, when separated souls know
and love one another, they do so in virtue of the same act of existence
by which they did these things in the composite state, and, because of
that act of existence, it has the dignity that is a defining mark of personhood. The same basic experiences of knowing and loving another can
thus be had with respect to other composite human persons and other
separated souls. If we are to make sense of the relations among separated souls, then separated souls must constitute persons.171
170

Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics (London: Sheed and Ward), 43–48; Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 470–71; Challenges and Renewals (Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1966), 74–75; Clarke, Person and Being, 77. Cf. De veritate, q. 10
a. 8; Smith-Gilson, Metaphysical Presuppositions, 102.
171
Loving another involves entering into the interiority of the other, and this, like self-love and
knowledge of another’s interiority, will be possible more for the separated souls than for
composite persons before death. Cf. Anthony Flood, “Aquinas on Subjectivity,” American
Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84 (2010): 69–83; In III Sent d. 27, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4; q. 2, a. 1;
ST I-II, q. 28, a. 1, ad 2; q. 28, a. 2; II-II, q. 25, a. 4. Cf. Maritain, Challenges, 74–75, cited and
explicated in Clarke, Person and Being, 77; Maritain, Person and the Common Good, 39.

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We can thus see that the separated soul, with its mode of subsistence and its act of existence, constitutes the same person as was constituted by form and matter. Interpreted in the way presented here, this
follows from a consistent application of Thomistic principles. A Thomist can (and perhaps should) hold that the separated soul constitutes
the person, that we shall survive our deaths constituted by separated
soul, that we can know this by purely natural and rational means here
and now, and that we can take comfort in this knowledge.172
N&V

172

I am grateful to Lawrence Feingold, Matthews Grant, David Hershenov, Stephen
Hipp, David Oderberg, Tim Pawl, Michael Rota, Eleonore Stump, Patrick Toner,
and an anonymous referee for their comments on earlier drafts of this essay and for
conversations that aided me a great deal.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 913-946

913

Natural Self-Transcending Love
According to Thomas Aquinas
Ezra Sullivan, O.P.

Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas
Rome, Italy

HUMANS ARE ANIMALS that can think and love. Human love, inextricably united to rationality, has the potential to embrace all persons,
all things it encounters, including God and the human self. The power and extent of love raises meaningful questions: how does self-love
relate to the love of others? Is the love of others more altruistic, more
detached, more “pure” than love of one’s self? These questions center on
what I will call “self-transcending love,” that is, love that is centered on
another and not oneself.1 Modern French thinkers may deserve credit
for describing self-transcending love as a “problem,” but they were not
the first to notice that it is also a puzzle.2 There is a long and venerable
Herbert Schneider posits that one of the most fundamental questions about love is
this: “As creatures, are we not too much related to ourselves and to what is of equal
footing with us, so that we cannot transcend the way we are made?” John Duns Scotus and the Question: Can I Love God above All? A Treatise in Four Languages and a
Commentary (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1999), 83.
2
Pierre Rousselot gave a great impetus to this contemporary discussion with his work
Pour l’histoire du problème de l’amour au moyen âge, Beiträge zur Geschichte der
Philosophie des Mittelalters 6.6 (Münster: Aschendorffsche Buchhandlung, 1908),
recently translated by Alan Vincelette as The Problem of Pure Love in the Middle
Ages: A Historical Contribution (Milkwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001).
The discussion was taken up in Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, L’Amour de Dieu et
la Croix de Jésus (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1929). Chapter 2 of that work treated “Le
Problème de L’Amour pur.” In translation: The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus, 2
vols. (St. Louis: Herder, 1947). Two years later, a more historical study was made in
1

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Ezra Sullivan, O.P.

conversation about self-love that spans Western thought and reaches a
high point in the exposition of St. Thomas Aquinas.3
Many Thomistic scholars have noted that, in his various works, St.
Thomas often unites the themes of self-love, love of the common good,
and love of God. These scholars typically fall into one of two groups:
those who focus on questions about self-love, and those who focus on
questions about the common good.
The first strand of thought focuses primarily on the issue of love in
the thought of Aquinas. For example, Stephen Pope, David Gallagher,
Christopher Malloy, and Thomas Osborne discuss the common good as
it is situation within a larger context of St. Thomas’s conception of how
self-love relates to love of God.4 The second strand of Thomistic thought
H.-D. Simonin, “Autour de la solution thomiste du problème de l’amour,” Archives
d’Histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 6 (1931): 174–275.
For Dominican rejections of Rousselot’s position, see Louis-B. Geiger, Le problème de l’amour chez saint Thomas d’Aquin (Montreal: Institut d’Etudes Médiévales,
1952); Jean-Hervé Nicolas, “Amour de soi, amour de Dieu, amour des autres,” Revue
Thomiste 56 (1956): 5–42; Avital Wohlmann, “Amour du bien proper et amour de
soi dans la doctrine Thomiste de l’amour,” Revue Thomiste 81 (1981): 204–34. For an
excellent discussion of related issues, see Peter A. Kwasniewski, “The Ecstasy of Love
in Thomas Aquinas” (PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 2002).
3
For a thorough overview of the philosophical and theological optic within an historical framework, see Alan Roy Vincelette, “The Problem of Love: The Relationship
between the Love of Self and the Love of Others, Self-Fulfillment and Self Denial”
(PhD diss., Marquette University, 1999). See also Jan Österberg, Self and Others: A
Study of Ethical Egoism (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1988); Robert Shaver, Rational Egoism: A Selective and Critical History (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1999).
4
Stephen Pope, “Expressive Individualism and True Self-Love: A Thomistic Perspective,” Journal of Religion 71, no. 3 (1991): 384–99. David M. Gallagher’s work is indispensible here; see his articles “Person and Ethics in Thomas Aquinas,” Acta Philosophica 4 (1995): 51–71; “Desire for Beatitude and Love of Friendship in Thomas
Aquinas,” Mediaeval Studies 58 (1996): 1–47, esp. 34–39; and “Thomas Aquinas on
Self-Love as the Basis of Love of Others,” Acta Philosophica 8 (1999): 23–44. Important also is the work of Christopher J. Malloy, “Love of God for His Own Sake
and Love of Beatitude: Heavenly Charity According to Thomas Aquinas” (PhD diss.,
Catholic University of America, 2001), esp. 180–97. See also Dom Gregory Stevens,
who insists on the centrality of the part-whole argument. Though he follows Aquinas’s thought, Stevens relies heavily on the manuals of his day. See his thorough
article: “The Disinterested Love of God According to St. Thomas and Some of His
Modern Interpreters,” The Thomist 16 (1953): 307–33, 497–541. Finally, see Thomas
Osborne, Love of God and Love of Self in Thirteenth-Century Ethics (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), esp. chap. 3.2, 87–94.

Self-Transcending Love According to Thomas

915

focuses on the common good in the realm of political philosophy and
considers love within that realm. In this strand, we find the debate between Charles De Koninck and I. Th. Eschmann, which partly involved
Jacques Maritain.5 This debate is foundational to the contemporary articulation of a Thomistic understanding of the common good. Those
who allude to this debate while recognizing its implications for self-love
include such scholars as Michael Novak, Michael Sherwin, David Hollenbach, and Susanne M. DeCrane.6
Seeing that scholars who discuss connections among self-love, the
common good, and God tend to concentrate either on the self or on the
common good, that is, on human-centered reality, the present essay is devoted to addressing the primary subject: God who is the common good.
I begin by establishing Thomas’s position by examining three similar arguments he proposes in three different sections of the Summa theologiae.
After this, I provide a synthetic presentation of Thomas’s understanding
of self-transcending love in light of God and the common good.

5

See I. Thomas Eschmann, “A Thomistic Glossary on the Principle of the Preeminence of the Common Good,” Medieval Studies 5 (1943):123–65. In the same year
came a controversial work by Charles De Koninck, De la primauté du bien commun
contre les personalistes; le principe de l’ordre nouveau (Laval: Editions de l’Université
Laval, 1943). In response was I. Thomas Eschmann’s “In Defense of Jacques Maritain,” Modern Schoolman 22, no. 4 (May 1945): 183–208. After this: Charles De
Koninck, “In Defense of Saint Thomas: A Reply to Father Eschmann’s Attack on the
Primacy of the Common Good,” Laval théologique et philosophique 1, no. 2 (1945):
8–109. All three of these works have been collected and, in the case of De Koninck, translated, in The Writings of Charles De Koninck, vol. 2, ed. and trans. Ralph
McInerny (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), which is the
source I will cite for both Eschmann and De Koninck works, hereafter “De Koninck,
Writings, vol. 2.” Jacques Maritain’s key work in this regard is La personne et le bien
commun (Desclée de Brouwer, 1947); in English: The Person and the Common Good,
trans. John J. Fitzgerald (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947).
6
See Michael Novak, Free Persons and the Common Good (Lanham, MD: Madison
Books, 1989), 30–35. Michael Sherwin, “St. Thomas and the Common Good: The
Theological Perspective: An Invitation to Dialogue,” Angelicum 70 (1993): 307–28;
the first section of this article (308–14) addresses how self-love relates to love of God
and the common good. David Hollenbach, The Common Good in Christian Ethics
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 4, 129–36. Susanne M. DeCrane,
Aquinas, Feminism, and the Common Good (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004), 52–69 passim.

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Ezra Sullivan, O.P.

The Position of St. Thomas
In the course of reviewing the most significant scholarly literature
that treats St. Thomas’s understanding of self-love and love of others,
Thomas Osborne notes that many scholars have neglected the Common Doctor’s understanding of God as the common good.7 For a
number of French thinkers, this is largely a result of their rejection of
the arguments of Pierre Rousselot.8 Contrastingly, Osborne shows that
Aquinas’s understanding of God as the common good is central to his
explanation of the natural love of God above self. Osborne provides a
thorough and systematic treatment of Thomas’s position, a position
that employs a part/whole argument to show that man loves God as
the common good more than himself. In emphasizing the importance
of this argument, Osborne is in good company with Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange and Charles De Koninck. All three authors note the
importance of three texts for establishing Thomas’s position in his
Summa theologiae (ST): I, q. 60, a. 5; I-II, q. 109, a. 3; and II-II, q. 26, a.
3.9 We can establish Thomas’s basic position by discussing these texts.
Angelic love, because it stems from the freedom of rationality and
volition, teaches us about human love. In the Prima Pars of his Summa
theologiae, Thomas Aquinas asks, “Whether an angel by natural love
loves God more than itself?”10 He begins by noting that some thinkers
have maintained that, “absolutely speaking, out of the natural love he
[i.e., an angel] loves himself more than he does God, because he naturally loves himself before God, and with greater intensity.”11 Though
this was the opinion of his teacher, St. Albert the Great, Aquinas
7

Osborne, Love of Self and Love of God, 98.
See note 1 above. Osborne summarizes the debate in Love of Self and Love of God,
94–98. See Rousselot, Pour l’histoire, ch. II.1, “la théorie du tout et de la partie,” 23–
32. For a historical addendum to Rosselot’s position, see L.-B. Gillon, “L’argument
du tout et de la partie après Saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Angelicum 28 (1951): 205–23,
346–62.
9
For their primary usages of these texts, see Osborne, Love of Self and Love of God,
77–81; Garrigou-Lagrange, Love of God and the Cross of Jesus, 98; De Koninck, Writings, vol. 2, “Principle of the New Order,” 132–39, and “In Defense of St. Thomas,”
259–62.
10
Thomas Aquinas, ST I, q. 60, a. 5. My translation. All English quotations of the Summa theologiae (ST) are from Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of
the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger, 1947), unless otherwise noted.
11
ST I, q. 60, a. 5, c.
8

Self-Transcending Love According to Thomas

917

frankly says, “The falsity of such an opinion is manifestly apparent if
one but consider whither natural movement tends in the natural order
of things.”12 Aquinas’s argument can be summarized in the following
syllogism:
1. A part is more principally and strongly inclined to a whole to
which it belongs than to itself.
2. God is to the created will as a whole is to a part.
3. Therefore a creature with a rational will inclines to God more
than to itself.
To prove the major premise (1), Thomas offers three examples: the
hand will sacrifice itself for the sake of the body, the citizen will sacrifice himself for the city, and the individual will sacrifice himself for the
preservation of the species.13 An implicit assumption holds that whatever will sacrifice itself for the sake of another has a stronger and more
principle inclination toward the other than toward itself. St. Thomas
More’s willingness to die at the hands of Henry VIII’s headsman shows
that More had a stronger inclination to defend the truth than to save
his neck.
To prove the minor premise (2), Aquinas states that God is the most
universal good. He explains that every created good “is contained” (continetur) under the universal or common good, because every creature,
including the rational creature with a will, that is, an angel or man, is
“of God” (Dei est).14 Regarding this principle, Osborne explains, “Here
Thomas is showing that the individual not only belongs to a natural
whole like a species, but that its good belongs to the universal good,
which is God.”15 Because God is the source of being, he thereby pre12

Ibid., translation modified. See Albertus Magnus, In Libros sententiarum, lib. II, d.
III, a. 18.
13
See ST I, q. 60, a. 5, ad 1, 3: “each part naturally loves the whole more than itself: and
each individual naturally loves the good of the species more than its own individual
good”; “everything is inclined to preserve not merely its individuality, but likewise
its species.”
14
Aquinas’s reply to objection 3 shows that he equates the universal good with the
most common good. See ST I, q. 60, a. 5, ad 3: “Nature’s operation is self-centered
not merely as to certain particular details, but much more as to what is common;
for everything is inclined to preserve not merely its individuality, but likewise its
species. And much more has everything a natural inclination towards what is the
absolutely universal good.”
15
Osborne, Love of Self and Love of God, 80.

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Ezra Sullivan, O.P.

serves and holds all creatures together in himself. According to John Capreolus, chief among Thomas’s defenders, this means that “the cause of
natural love is not merely union or unity of what is loved with the one
loving, but rather the lover’s being contained in being and goodness by
the thing loved. In this way God contains every creature in being and
goodness more than the creature is contained by itself or by its intrinsic
principles.”16 Capreolus goes on to note that God is the cause of unity for
all creatures, and of their union with each other. A creature is not the
primary cause of the union it has with itself. Hence, as source of union,
God is closer to the creature than it is to itself.17 It follows that a creature’s
union with itself does not result in a lesser love for God. Consequently,
the will is related to God as a particular being is related to something
that somehow contains it. The relation is one of a part to a whole.
Moving to a consideration of human love in the Prima Secundae,
Thomas asks, “Whether, by his own natural powers and without grace,
man can love God above all things?”18 In response, he distinguishes between the state of “perfect nature” and that of “corrupt nature.” When
humans were in a state of perfect, or integral, nature, they were able to
love God above all things with God’s moving help. But in the current
state of corrupt nature, they need “the help of grace to heal his nature”
and enable them to perform their natural operation of self-transcending
love: “In the state of corrupt nature, man falls short of this in the appetite
of his rational will, which, unless it is cured by God’s grace, follows its
private good, on account of the corruption of nature.”19 Similar to his exposition in the Prima Pars, Aquinas’s argument here relies on an understanding of the common good. We can formulate it in the following way:
1. Everything naturally loves its own proper good on account of
the common good of the whole universe.
2. God is the common good of the whole universe of which man
is a part.
16

Capreolus, Defensiones Theologiae Divi Thomae Aquinatis, vol. 5, lib. III, d. 27, ed.
Paban-Pègues (Turonibus: Stumptibus Alfred Cattier, 1905); translated by Romanus
Cessario and Kevin White as On the Virtues (Washington, DC: Catholic University
Press, 2001), 196. All quotations of this work are from this translation.
17
As Augustine said, “interior intimo meo et superior summon meo.” Confessions III, 6.
18
ST I-II, q. 109, a. 3.
19
ST I­-II, q. 109, a. 3, c.

Self-Transcending Love According to Thomas

919

3. Therefore man, in a state of uncorrupted nature, naturally loves
himself on account of God. This is the same as naturally to love
God more than himself.
To prove the major premise (1), Thomas discusses the relation of
the whole to the part. He states, “it is manifest that the good of the part
is for the good of the whole.” He demonstrated this premise in ST I, q.
60, a. 5, as we saw above. The implicit assumption here is that to exist for
the good of the other is to love the other in some way. Because loving
something means willing or tending toward the good of that thing, existing for the good of something is a love-like tendency. A mother loves
her family when she wills the good of her family; analogously, a forest of
trees have a love-like relation to the rest of the world insofar as the forest
tends to assist the good of an ecosystem, even the entire world. In this
line of reasoning, Thomas argues that the part naturally loves itself for
the sake of the common good of the whole.
Thomas does not explicitly prove the minor premise (2), but we can
uncover his implicit reasoning. He states, “everything, by its natural appetite and love, loves its own proper good on account of the common
good of the whole universe, which is God. Hence, Dionysius says (Div.
Nom. iv) that ‘God converts all things to love of himself.’”20 Here we can
note that the Dionysian principle is ambiguous. It could be pantheistic
if it means that God “converts” and transmutes or dissolves all things
into his very Being. In that case, God would be the common good of the
universe because he and the universe would be of the same substance.21
But Thomas’s theology as a whole makes this an impossible interpretation. The statement in fact means that God “converts” or turns and
leads all things to love him. As he said to Israel, “I led them with cords
of compassion, with the bands of love” (Hos 11:4). Just as a farmer can
draw an ox to himself with a rope, so God can use our love of creatures
as a cord to draw us to himself. As Dante recognized through his love
for Beatrice, God can use all lower loves to bring us to the highest love,
namely, friendship with God himself.
Finally, the conclusion (3) supposes that to love one thing on ac20
21

Ibid., translation modified.
Ludwig Feuerbach supposed that this is what Thomas meant. See Ludwig Feuerbach,
Das Wesen des Christenthums (The Essence of Christianity) (Leipzig: Wigand, 1849).
Charles De Koninck raises this objection and refutes it in Writings, vol. 2, 133 ff.

Ezra Sullivan, O.P.

920

count of another, or for the sake of another, is to love the other thing
more than the first. If a person loves to read because it brings wisdom,
then the love has an order: reading is subordinate to wisdom. A person
loves wisdom more than reading because reading exists for the sake of
wisdom, as a means to an end. In a different case, a person may love the
face of his beloved primarily because it is her face; he loves the face on
account of the person: the face is not a means to an end, but it is incorporated within the whole as a part of the person. In a similar way, when
a person loves himself for the sake of God, he loves the fact that his life
may be a means for giving God glory; when he loves himself on account
of God, he loves himself with the same love with which God loves him.
In both cases, the person is loving himself less than he loves God.
In the course of discussing the order of charity in the Secunda Secundae, St. Thomas continues his inquiry on self-love by asking, “Whether
out of charity, man is bound to love God more than himself?”22 Whereas
in the Prima Secundae he distinguished between integral and corrupt
nature, here the Angelic Doctor distinguishes between “the good of nature” and “the good of grace.” He makes the astonishing claim that everything loves God more than itself— “every single creature, each in its
own way, i.e. either by an intellectual, or by a rational, or by an animal,
or at least by a natural love.” Here Thomas is speaking of love analogously understood: clearly rocks do not have affections or volition. All
things nevertheless have movement toward an end that is connatural to
them: for rocks, this is the center of the earth, toward which they move
when they fall; for man, the end is to know and love the absolute true
and good.23
Once again Aquinas’s principal argument employs his understanding of the common good. Here Thomas explains further how God is the
common good of the universe. First he says that natural love is founded
on “the fellowship of natural goods bestowed on us by God.” As Creator,
God is in some way the common good in the natural sphere, for he is
the cause of natural goods that man shares with others. Second, Thomas
says that “happiness is in God as in the universal and fountain-principle of all who are able to have a share of that happiness.” Consequently,
22
23

ST II-II, q. 26, a. 3.
See ST I-II, q. 26, a. 1.

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God is the common good in the sphere of grace, the source and goal
by which humans have supernatural fellowship with him. God contains
the fullness of happiness of which man shares a part through his union
with God.
Upon analyzing three texts from different parts of the Summa theologiae, we have found that Aquinas retains a consistent vision throughout his work. He argues that humans are able to love God above all
things, including themselves, because all individuals have a natural inclination to love the common good more than themselves. In the current order of things, humans can love God above all things only by the
healing effects of grace, by which man shares in God’s own happiness as
a part shares in a greater whole. In sum, we can agree with Osborne that
“throughout his writings, Thomas argues for the possibility of a natural
love of God over self which is based on a natural inclination of the part
for the whole.”24
A Thomistic Account of Self-Transcending Love
and the Common Good
Having followed Thomas’s arguments that man can love God with a
self-transcending love, there are two tasks one could perform to develop
his thought. The first would be a defensive maneuver: to show the intelligibility, or at least the coherency, of Thomas’s position. This would largely
be an answer to the objections of Duns Scotus, a work I will not undertake
here. The second would be a constructive endeavor: to explain what Thomas means and to show its import. I will try to do that in summary fashion.
As we have seen, Thomas emphasizes that humans love God as part
loves a whole. This love is not pantheistic, but entails an ordered relationship between the lover and the beloved such that the good of the greater is
identified with the good of the lesser by way of participation: it is a common good that both enjoy in an ordered manner. It is possible to explain
self-transcending love without reference to the common good, pace Scotus and others, but Thomas emphasizes the part-whole analogy to show
24

Osborne, Love of Self and Love of God, 86. Thomas employs in other writings the
part-whole argument to explain self-transcending love. See In III Sent. d. 29, a. 3; In
Librum Beati Dionysii de Divinis nominibus expositio, 4, lects. 9–10; De Spe, a. 1, ad
9; De Perfectione Vitae Spiritualis, 13; De Caritate, a. 9; Summa contra gentiles (SCG)
III, ch. 17.6.

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that creatures exist in relationship with one and other and with their Creator. To see what this means, I will attempt to uncover the roots of Thomas’s thought. First, I will consider Thomas’s understanding of how a part
naturally loves a whole with respect to creatures. After this, I will consider
human love with respect to the universe, other humans, and God himself.
Love for the Common Good: Terminology
The most basic meaning of “whole,” according to Aristotle, is “that
from which nothing is wanting.”25 Thomas explains that wholeness indicates completeness, “as we speak of a whole man, or a whole box, if
they lack nothing which they ought to have.”26 The correlative of “whole”
is “part.” While “whole” fundamentally connotes completeness or perfection, “part” connotes incompletion and imperfection with respect to
the whole. Thomas not only says that a part is related to a whole as incomplete is to complete (and as imperfect is to perfect), he specifies the
relation: the part is “ordered” (ordinetur) to the whole.27 This indicates
a “unity of order, whereby some things are ordered to one another,” and
through that order they share “one end.”28 There are three levels of order
at work: the order of the individual part to its own intrinsic end; the
order of one part to another; and the order of all the parts to the whole.
Thomas explains:
Now if we wish to assign an end to any whole, and to the parts of
that whole, we shall find, first, that each and every part exists for
the sake of its proper act, as the eye for the act of seeing; secondly, that less honorable parts exist for the more honorable, as the
senses for the intellect, the lungs for the heart; and, thirdly, that
all parts are for the perfection of the whole, as the matter for the
form, since the parts are, as it were, the matter of the whole.29

25

Physics III, ch. 6 (207a 9–10).
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, trans. Pierre Conway (Columbus, OH: College of St. Mary of the Springs, 1958), III, lec. 11, n. 385.
27
ST I-II, q. 90, a. 2.
28
ST I, q. 47, a. 3, c, and ad 1.
29
ST I, q. 65, a. 2, c.
26

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Aristotle points out that the last end, the end of the whole, ensures the
proper ordering of the parts: “That for the sake of which other things are,
is naturally the best and the end of the other things.”30 Commenting on
this passage, Thomas relates his famous insight: “Moreover, it must be
noted that, even though the end is the last thing to come into being in
some cases, it is always prior in causality. Hence it is called the cause of
causes, because it is the cause of the causality of all causes.”31 It follows that
the end of whole is the highest end of the parts, and this is supremely good
for the part. The end of the eye and its component parts is seeing. When
I open my eyelids and look around, I engage muscles surrounding my
eyes to perform that task. The engagement of these muscles is not tyranny
over them; it lets them participate in the dignified act of seeing, and it can
even save the eyes if I move to avoid a projectile flying toward my face.
Similarly, the end of the human body is the furtherance of relationships
of knowing, loving, and service. If a father sacrifices certain bodily pleasures to provide for his children, or if a mother willingly accepts particular
sufferings to protect her children, the man and woman are not lessened
by ordering their needs, feelings, and desires to the good of the family. In
fact, they are dignified in their persons precisely because they are more
greatly promoting their family of which they are integral members and
for which they act. “As a being enters into greater communication with
the whole,” Oliva Blanchette explains, “it does not become less itself, but
more so. This is made possible by the total transcendence of the final end
in which they communicate.”32
Another way to describe how a part is ordered to a whole is to say
that a part loves the whole more than itself. Building upon Aristotle’s de-

30

Metaphysics V, ch. 2 (1013b 25).
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, trans. John P. Rowan (Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1995) V, lec. 3, no. 782. Hereafter On Aristotle’s
Metaphysics.
32
Oliva Blanchette, “The Perfection of the Universe in the Philosophy of Saint Thomas
Aquinas” (PhD diss., Laval University, 1965), 402. Blanchette later revised his dissertation, written under the direction of Charles De Koninck, and published it as The
Perfection of the Universe According to Aquinas (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1992). Though compatible in their major conclusions, the works
are distinct. Henceforth, I will refer to the first as “Blanchette, Diss.” and the second
as “Blanchette, Perfection of the Universe.”
31

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scription of the good as “that at which all things aim,”33 Thomas identifies “end” with “good” insofar as the good is a final cause.34 Because
the end of the whole is the end of the part, the good of the whole is
the good of each part. Following its inherent drive toward the good, a
part seeks the good of the whole so that, one can truly say that the part
loves the whole. Thomas Gilby defines love in its broadest sense as “the
inborn appetite of every power for its act and perfection, a gravitation
to completion and rest. It is the foundation of all activity, the underlying
principle of every movement, the striving of something imperfect for
completion from without.”35 Each part, in a manner befitting its nature,
has this inborn appetite for the good of the whole. Rocks have natural
love for the good order of the universe, to which they contribute by their
existence and in following the motions of gravity; animals have a sensitive love for their species, manifested in their procreation and care for
their young; and humans have rational love, seen especially in their care
for the family and city.36 The love that a part extends toward a whole is
not self-centered, as if the part loves the whole solely because it derives
good from the whole, or as if the whole existed for the sake of the part.
Rather, the part seeks its own good for the sake of the good of the whole.
Thus “the part does indeed love the good of the whole, as becomes a
part, not however so as to refer the good of the whole to itself, but rather
itself to the good of the whole.”37 The chorister perfects her craft for the
sake of a better choir; the mother reads and rests so that she can be a better caretaker; the soldier improves his agility and intelligence in order to
help the military and his country.
For Thomas, to say that the part naturally prefers the good of the
whole to its own good is to say that the part naturally is ordered to the
common good more than to its own good. “The common good is the
end of each individual member of a community,” he says, “just as the
good of the whole is the end of each part.”38 The import of this claim
33

Nicomachean Ethics I, ch. 1 (1904a1).
ST I, q. 5, a. 4, c: “Since goodness is that which all things desire, and since this has
the aspect of an end, it is clear that goodness implies the aspect of an end.”
35
Thomas Gilby, Poetic Experience (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1934), 31.
36
See ST I-II, q. 26, a. 1.
37
ST II-II, q. 26, a. 3, ad 2.
38
ST II-II, q. 58, a. 9, ad 3.
34

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925

may be better grasped when one distinguishes between the proper good,
the private good, and the common good. A proper good is one befitting
nature in some respect. Since man is rational by nature, his proper good
is the good of reason.39 Proper goods can be private or common. A private good is, in Smith’s words, “the good of the individual only,” that is,
what is mine and, as such, cannot be shared with anyone else.40 On the
animal level, food is a private good insofar as, once eaten, it preserves
only the individual’s being and not another’s. Finally, there is a common
good, namely, a good that is shared naturally; it is mine and yours simultaneously. De Koninck maintains that a good is common insofar as it is
communicable: “communicability is the very reason of its perfection.”
Consequently, a common good is communicable to individuals as individuals. The good of an orchestra is something shared by each member
in the orchestra and by the orchestra as a whole. Because it is naturally
shareable, a good considered as “common” cannot be private at the same
time and in the same respect. The good of the choir could never be identified with the good solely of the chief mezzo-soprano, which could not
be shared with anyone else.
Not all common goods are shared in the same way. Hence, from
within the general notion of the common good, Thomas distinguishes
between two ways a thing can be said to be common: in predication (in
praedicando) and in causation (in causando). “First,” he says, “it is said
to be common through effect or predication; that is, it is found in many
things according to one intelligible character. . . . Second, a thing is said
to be common after the manner of a cause; that is, it resembles a cause
which, while remaining numerically one, extends to many effects.”41
Each meaning of “common” calls for an analysis.
Regarding the first distinction, the common good in predication, it
is fairly easy to see how something can be held in common only nominally. Three things (e.g., a man, a toy, and a fishing tool) can share the
39

See Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de virtutibus, q. 2, a. 2, c.
Michael A. Smith, Human Dignity and the Common Good in the AristotelianThomistic Tradition (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1995), 87. Thomas says that “the
singular, from the fact that it is singular, is divided off from all others. Hence every
name imposed to signify any singular thing is incommunicable both in reality and
idea” (ST I, q. 13, a. 9, c.). Sometimes a private good is also called a “particular good.”
41
Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth, trans. Robert W. Mulligan (Chicago:
Henry Regnery, 1952), q. 7, a. 6, ad 7. Hereafter Aquinas, On Truth.
40

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name “Bob” without essentially sharing anything else. Likewise, Thomas
notes that genus and species are common by predication.42 For instance,
the species of humanity can be predicated of individual humans because
all have the same human nature. Nevertheless, the essence of man, “humanity,” does not exist apart from distinct individuals; each individual
is a separately existing instance of humanity. “We do not share the same
human nature as we share a room or a friend,” Froelich explains. “It
is not something numerically one of which each of us has a part. Any
universality attributed to human nature comes solely from our ability
to predicate ‘having a human nature’ or ‘man’ of all men, and not from
anything intrinsic to it.”43
Goods common only by predication are, in the strictest sense, private goods. As such, they cannot be shared with another: “if the good
aimed at by one person is a private good, it is impossible for it to be the
private good of another, for the good in these two cases differs by a numerical distinction.” De Koninck notes: “a private good may indeed be
spoken of as common to many persons, but we are then using the term
‘common’ in the sense of ‘common according to predication.’”44 Thus,
when a mound of food is called the common good of an army, each
portion of food is numerically distinct. Two people cannot eat precisely
the same portion: if one person eats a potato, another cannot eat the
same potato (which is why some hungry people fight during a famine).
Similarly, no one else can have my particular instance of human nature.
My particular instance of human nature is mine and mine alone, for to
“have” my human nature is to be me, and someone else cannot be me. In
this way, goods common only in predication are not sharable.
42

See St. Thomas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics VII, lec. 13, no. 6: “Animal
as common or man as common is not some substance among natural things. But
this commonality has the form of animal or of man according as it is in the intellect,
which accepts one form as common of many, insofar as it abstracts it from all individuals.” Also, ST I, q. 39, a. 4, ad 3: “But unity or commonality of human nature is
not according to the thing, but solely according to consideration.”
43
Gregory Froelich, “The Equivocal Status of Bonum Commune” New Scholasticism 63
(Winter 1989): 45.
44
In De Koninck, Writings, vol. 2, 255. In this quotation and in my own exposition I
substitute Smith’s term “private” for De Koninck’s term “proper.” Smith distinguishes
between “private” and “proper”—“private” refers to what is mine alone and cannot
be shared; “proper” refers to what befits one’s nature. De Koninck does not employ
this helpful distinction.

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927

Goods common by predication “take on a universal character in
the intellect”: they are common only insofar as the intellect grasps that
many individuals have the same kind of good.45 Precisely because the
common good in predication is common only in name, its goodness is
limited: “it is not more noble but more imperfect, as ‘animal’ is, which
is more common than ‘man,’” for it does not convey goodness, but only
gives a label to it.46 Therefore, when Thomas says that the part is directed toward the common good of the whole, he cannot mean that the
individual loves the common good in predication more than his own:
the individual should not love “humanity” more than the individual human, he should not prefer “society” to his family—this would be to love
the lesser above the greater.
There is no analogy between goods common in predication and
goods common in causation, De Koninck insists.47 In contrast to a good
common in predication, a good common in causation is necessarily
sharable with others. Different common goods can include ideas: the
professor and the student can simultaneously ponder the idea of justice
without removing that good from the other. In fact, pondering “justice”
together could more deeply root the idea in both souls. Political order
is also a good common in causation, as are peace and charity: they all
depend on the existence of more than one person to share them.48 Similarly, the good of a community, such as a choir, is a common good that
one can have only if it is shared by many. No matter how good a singer
may be, he cannot sing the entire score of Mozart’s Requiem by himself.
It is a good that can only be enjoyed by the individual when it is shared
with other choir members. The sharable good is called a common good
“in causation” because it is the formal cause of the good of all who share
45

Ibid., 46.
Aquinas, On Truth, q. 7, a. 6, ad 7.
47
In De Koninck, Writings, vol. 2, 355n124: “The analogical notion of common good
could not possibly comprise both bonum commune in causando and bonum commune
in praedicando, since the latter is not formally a good. When used for the one and for
the other, the expression ‘common good’ is equivocal, not analogical.”
48
Thomas points out that a person cannot have justice only for himself: “justice by
its name implies equality, it denotes essentially a relation to another, for a thing is
equal, not to itself, but to another. . . . Hence justice properly speaking demands
adistinction of supposits, and consequently is only in one man towards another”
(ST II-II, q. 58, a. 2).
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in it: the Requiem causes joy to each singer insofar as he sings well along
with the rest of the choir. In this context we can note that another common good is love itself: “True happiness is found in unselfish love,”
Thomas Merton observed, “a love which increases in proportion as it is
shared. . . . Selfless love consents to be loved selflessly for the sake of the
beloved. In doing so, it perfects itself.”49 Insofar as the common good in
causation is the cause of goodness for more than an individual, it can
be shared with others and therefore is “more noble” and more loveable
than the individual good and the common good in predication.50
Love for the Common Good and Self-Love
Having established the distinctions among the private good, the proper good, the common good in predication, and the common good in
causation, we are equipped to understand how self-love may transcend
itself and incline more toward another good than to its own. In the
course of discussing the gift of fear, Thomas notes that “self-love may
stand in a threefold relationship with charity.”51 David Gallagher helpfully observes that, though Thomas focuses on the relation between fear
and an infused virtue, “it seems that what he says there can be applied
more broadly to a person’s self-love within any community of which
he is a part,” so that one can speak of three kinds of natural self-love
with respect to the common good.52 Thus a discussion of these loves will
prove quite helpful.
With the first kind of love, “a man places his end in the love of his
own good”; this is a wicked sort of love.53 Adam sinned because he unduly
loved his personal excellence, which he willed to be his final end; this was
pride.54 The effect of this sin is that every man without grace pursues his
own good to the exclusion of the good of others.55 For example, a person
49

Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island in A Thomas Merton Reader, ed. Thomas P.
McDonnell (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1962), 282.
50
Aquinas, On Truth, q. 7, a. 6, ad 7.
51
ST II-II, q. 19, a. 7, c.
52
Gallagher, “Self-Love as the Basis of Love for Others,” 40. Here I am omitting Gallagher’s discussion of the love of God, saving it for the next section of this study.
53
ST II-II, q. 19, a. 7, c.
54
See ST II-II, q. 163, a. 1, ad 1.
55
See ST I-II, 109, a. 3, c.

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singing with a choir may sing a solo piece so elaborately and with such
flamboyant emotion that he ruins the mood of his fellow choristers and
makes it impossible for them to sing as a whole. Such an inverted self-love,
Gallagher notes, is “opposed to and corruptive of friendship and community. It is a selfish or egotistical self-love, one that seeks for oneself precisely those goods which cannot be shared.”56 Gallagher’s assessment confirms
our observation above, that those who seek private goods, or goods common only in predication, often enter into competition with each other, for
those things that cannot be shared by many at the same time (e.g., food,
money) are finite quantities.57 This self-seeking love in no way transcends
the self: it is clearly contrary to the love of friendship, which wills another’s
good for his own sake, and to the love of the common good, which seeks
the good in which many can share.
The second kind of self-love is inclined to the good of the individual—but only insofar as it is compatible with the common good. The person seeks his private good with a mind to the good of others, so that it
constitutes “the proper self-love of one who is dedicated to a common
good.” 58 With this love, the individual subordinates his good to that of
the common good. He does so because, as we have seen, the individual is
not in competition with the common good, rather he finds perfection by
seeking the good that transcends that of his particular self. In this case, the
soloist would love to sing very well, but in such a way as to promote the
good singing of the entire choir. “To affirm the primacy of the common
good,” Smith points out, “is to say my good which I share with others is
more important than my good which I cannot share.”59 As Thomas says,
“No part separated from the whole has the perfection of nature.”60
But subordination is not obliteration. One’s concern for the common
56

Gallagher, “Self-Love as the Basis of Love for Others,” 40.
See ST I-II, q. 28, a. 4, ad 2: “Through defect of goodness, it happens that certain
small goods cannot, in their entirety, be possessed by many at the same time: and
from the love of such things arises the zeal of envy. But it does not arise, properly
speaking, in the case of those things which, in their entirety, can be possessed by
many: for no one envies another the knowledge of truth, which can be known entirely by many; except perhaps one may envy another his superiority in the knowledge of it.”
58
Gallagher, “Self-Love as the Basis of Love for Others,” 41.
59
Smith, Human Dignity and the Common Good, 87.
60
Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Spiritual Creatures, trans. Mary C. Fitzpatrick and John J. Wellmuth (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1949), a. 2, ad 5.
57

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good does not dissolve or damn one’s concern for his private good. Rather, one’s love for the private good gains a new character through its incorporation into a movement toward higher goods. Because the individual’s good is contained within the common good of causation, “one of the
things he will want for himself is precisely his ordination to the common
good. . . . What the person wants for himself is to be a good part of the
whole.”61 He considers himself to be more perfect when properly related
to the common good than when ordered to himself alone.
The third kind of self-love can be called “total dedication” to the common good.62 In this case, a person identifies his good with that of the common good: “His love of himself is an extension of his love for the whole;
because he loves the whole he loves all that belongs to the whole including
himself.”63 This love is distinct from the second kind, for the object of the
second is the good of the self as related to the common good, whereas the
object of the third kind is the common good as such. The distinct loves
are compatible, however, for the love of self is subordinated to love of the
common good: “To love oneself as ordered to the common good presupposes a prior act by which one determined oneself to be ordered to the
common good.”64 Taking up the singing example again, with this love, the
soloist would be practically without an ego: she sings well solely for the
good of the whole group. Proper self-love, then, is ordered to love of the
common good. If it were not, and one refused the primacy of the common
good, one would fall back into the wicked sort of self-love, “a disordered
love of singularity [by which] one rejects the common good practically as
an alien good and one judges it incompatible with the excellence of our
singular condition.”65 It follows that one loves the common good as such
above all other goods but without excluding a love of one’s own good.
Love of Created Persons
Given that the common good naturally has primacy in the order of
love, some goods are more common than others. Additionally, the more
61

Gallagher, “Self-Love as the Basis of Love for Others,” 41.
Ibid., 42.
63
Ibid.
64
Ibid.
65
De Koninck, Writings, vol. 2, 86.
62

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931

common and the more universal a good is, the more it calls for our
love. Aristotle laid bare the foundations of this truth in his Nicomachean Ethics, where he states, “Even though the good be the same for one
man and for the whole state, it seems much better and more perfect to
procure and preserve the good of the whole state. It is admirable, indeed, to preserve the good of an individual but it is better still and more
divine to do this for a nation and for cities.”66 Developing this insight,
Thomas continually insists that the good of the individual is directed
to the good of the universe: “the greatest good in created things is the
perfection of the universe, consisting in the order of distinct things; for
always the perfection of the whole has precedence of the perfection of
the individual parts.”67 And again: “the good of the order of the universe
is more noble than any part of the universe, since the individual parts
are ordered, as to an end, to the good of the order that is in the whole.”68
This theme winds it way through much of Thomas’s works, but it is no
easier to grasp for being so abundantly present.69
On the surface, it may seem that, when Thomas asserts that the part
is subordinated to the whole, he is claiming that humans are subordinated to a faceless universe, that persons ought to love an abstract, impersonal good more than themselves or other persons. This would seem to
pave the way for a pagan exultation of the cosmos above the person, or a
totalitarian promotion of the state with little thought for human dignity.
De Koninck voices the objection against the primacy of the common
good in this way: Does not Thomas say that “intellectual creatures are
so controlled by God, as objects of care for their own sakes; while other
creatures are subordinated, as it were, to the rational creatures”?70 That
is, “man is naturally free and exists for his own sake,” while the entire
universe was made on account of him? How, then, can the individual be
subordinated to the common good?71
In response, Thomas distinguishes: in one way, the universe as a
66

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I, ch. 2 (1094b 8–14).
SCG II, ch. 44.2.
68
SCG I, ch. 70.4.
69
See, among many instances, ST I, q. 15, a. 2; q. 22, a. 4; q. 47, a. 1; SCG III, ch.
64.9–10; Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Spiritual Creatures, q. 1, a. 8.
70
SCG III, ch. 112.1.
71
ST II-II, q. 64, a. 2, ad 3.
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whole has primacy over persons; in another way, persons have primacy
over impersonal things: “The universe is more perfect in goodness than
the intellectual creature as regards extension and diffusion; but intensively and collectively the likeness to the Divine goodness is found rather in
the intellectual creature, which has a capacity for the highest good.”72
The part is not in competition with the whole; the proper good is not
divided against the common good; only the private good and the common good in predication alone is not sharable as such. Blanchette draws
out the implications of this passage: “The universe is more perfect [than
the individual human] in that it extends and embraces more than just
intellectual creatures, for, besides the intellectual creatures themselves,
it also includes the various species of material nature.” Furthermore,
“each individual intellectual creature itself constitutes only a part of the
universe.”73 This is the meaning of extensive and diffusive: extensively
and diffusively, the universe is higher than man for it contains more
goods than man. But intensively and collectively: “intellectual creatures
are themselves more perfect in that they sum up the perfection of the
universe intensively in themselves through their knowing, and draw
its multiplicity and diversity into a greater unity,” and in that way they
transcend “the differences that could otherwise keep the parts of the
universe from communication within the whole, and bringing them together into what can most properly be called a universe.”74
The ability to unite all things together as in an ordered whole comes
from the rational creature’s capability of reaching God, the highest good,
who holds all things together within himself. “The human soul is in some
ways all things”: reason makes man a “principle part” of the universe, for
he is more noble and, as rational animal, contains the principles of the
other parts within him.75 “Intellectual natures have a closer relationship
to a whole than do other natures,” Thomas elucidates, “indeed, each intellectual substance is, in a way, all things. For it may comprehend the
entirety of being through its intellect; on the other hand, ever other substance has only a particular share in being.”76 With these ideas in mind,
72

ST I, q. 93, a. 2, ad 3. Italics added.
Blanchette, Perfection of the Universe, 298.
74
Ibid., 299.
75
ST I, q. 65, a. 2; SCG III, ch. 112.4.
76
SCG III, ch. 112.5.
73

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933

he argues: “we can say that the universe is in the image of God according
to a part of it, that is, its principal or intellectual part, while some parts
of it are not in the image of God,” namely, subrational material things.77
Therefore the good of the human is in a certain respect the natural common good in causation, and thus to be loved above other goods.
All things naturally love the common good more than themselves,
as we have seen, according to their capacities. Subrational creatures
cannot directly turn themselves toward God, the most common good.
They do not know and love him as such; their “love” extends only to his
perfections existing in creatures toward which they are directed. Thus,
without the rational activity of man, without acts by which man perfects
his own human nature, the universe itself would be imperfect. In light
of Thomas’s principle that the part is ordered to the whole as material
is ordered to form and imperfect to the perfect, Blanchette says, “If we
admit a distinction between corruptible and incorruptible parts of the
universe, we shall have to say that they are ordered to one another, not
per accidens, but per se.”78 Hence man’s body is ordered to his soul, and
the material universe is also ordered to man’s soul by being ordered to
the good of his body. This order highlights how the parts exist for the
sake of the whole in the universe: the soul is in some ways all things,
and thus the material things in the universe are parts of it insofar as
they are contained in it by knowledge and love. “Among the perfections
of things, the greatest is that something is intellectual, because through
this it is somehow everything, having within itself the perfection of all
things.”79 The human soul is, in principle, superior to all material creatures, even the entire material universe.80 Blanchette explains: “This
superiority is based on something that is particular to intelligence, the
ability to encompass, to contain, be in a certain fashion all things. . . .
There is nothing above the intelligence, because intelligence can have

77

ST I, q. 93, a. 2, ad 3.
Blanchette, Diss., 405.
79
SCG I, ch. 44.6.
80
See SCG II, ch. 68.6, 8–12; III, ch. 22.7: “Elements exist for the sake of mixed bodies;
these latter exist for the sake of living bodies, among which plants exist for animals,
and animals for men. Therefore, man is the end of the whole order of generation.”
78

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in itself the perfection of all things.”81 Thus the rational creature has a
special role to play in the perfection of the universe.
A created thing can be perfect in two ways, according to Thomas.
In one way, something is perfect according to its species, its particular
nature, its proper being. This is true perfection with respect to the individual, but it is imperfect with respect to the universe that contains
an aggregate of many species, whose perfections are distinct from each
other. In a second way, a thing is perfect “according to which the perfection proper to one thing is found in another thing. And this is the
perfection of one who knows inasmuch as he knows, because something
is known inasmuch as the known itself is somehow in the knower.”82
Among material creatures, only humans have this sort of perfection.
Only human nature constitutes the horizon of being: only humans are
simultaneously corporeal and spiritual. This natural, hylomorphic unity
entails that humans retain, in their very ontological structure, communion with all things: “there is contained, as a principle, in the good of the
universe, the rational nature which is capable of beatitude, and to which
all other creatures are ordered.”83 This is a “sort of remedy or compensation for the imperfection of the first mode,” Blanchette notes, for the
created universe would not have a proper cohesion of its parts without
a created knower grasping their natures and holding them together in
his mind.84 Because of this special place in the order of the cosmos, the
human being “has an irreplaceable part to play toward the perfection of
the universe; if all lower, infrarational beings are ordered to it, it is also
through it, as well as in it, that they attain their perfection as parts of the
universe.”85 Nature, therefore, calls for man to exercise his rationality.
By perfecting himself as human, the human person thereby perfects not only the highest part of the universe, but also the entire orBlanchette, Perfection of the Universe, 269.
Aquinas, On Truth, q. 2, a. 2, c.
83
Thomas Aquinas, On Charity, trans. Lottie H. Kendzierski (Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 1960), q. un., a. 7, ad 5. This partly explains why it was more fitting
for God, in saving creatures, to take the nature of a man than of an angel. See SCG
IV, ch. 55.4: “Man, since he is the term of creatures, presupposing, so to say, all other
creatures in the order of generation, is suitably united to the first principle of things
to finish a kind of cycle in the perfection of things.”
84
Blanchette, Perfection of the Universe, 271.
85
Ibid., 282.
81
82

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der of creation insofar as the human soul is in some way all things.
It follows that the perfection of the love of the common good of the
universe is the love of persons, for, “In loving the good of the universe,
we shall be loving the persons with whom this good has become identified.”86 The perfection of the universe toward which man is directed is
not some external utopia, some perfect arrangement of natural things,
like well-ordered gardens in nineteenth-century France. Nor is it some
external arrangement of peoples, such as a political order per se—the
“perfect society.” Rather, it is the perfect order of his soul, in his acts of
knowing and loving persons. In other words, the perfection of the universe, the active love the common good, consists in human friendship
and the contemplation of truth.
Higher than natural and sensitive love (amor), humans have a love
proper to their rationality: Thomas calls it “chosen love” (dilectio electiva), which is a movement of the will. He argues that “since nature is
first in everything, what belongs to nature must be a principle in everything,” so that “natural love is the principle of their love of choice.”87
David Gallagher explains: “Whether or not a person takes complaisance
in an object, can result from a free choice”; that is, through habitually
chosen action a person chooses to shape himself to be pleased by an
object and to experience it as good. At the same time, “one chooses to
take the object as one’s good to be pursued, or one chooses to pursue the
good of one person and not another.”88 Precisely because he is rational,
man can choose a spiritual object as the focus of his love. Hence naturally elicited love, which arises from the senses, does not comprise the
whole of human love.
In Thomas’s view, there are two kinds of rationally elicited or chosen
love: the “love of concupiscence” and the “love of friendship.”89 Love of
concupiscence is ordered to the love of friendship: “Now the members
of this division are related as primary and secondary: since that which is
loved with the love of friendship is loved simply and for itself; whereas
that which is loved with the love of concupiscence, is loved, not sim-

86

Blanchette, Diss., 409.
ST I, q. 60, a. 2, c.
88
Gallagher, “Person and Ethics in Thomas Aquinas,” 56.
89
ST I-II, q. 26, a. 4, c.
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ply and for itself, but for something else.”90 Love of friendship is only
for other persons, for “we have no friendship with wine and suchlike
things,” even though we desire wine as good.91 In the love of friendship,
the object is the person who is the seat of the goodness. There may be
lesser reasons that moved us to love a person in himself, certain qualities
that attracted us and moved us to love him with friendship: he is courteous, a good conversationalist, humble; he loves us; he has done good for
us, etc. Clearly, when we love a person, our love is primarily directed to
him, even if our love arose because of his looks or personality. We love
the substance primarily, the accidents and what relates to the substance
secondarily. Consequently, our love of impersonal things is naturally
ordered to our love of persons. Gallagher is firm on this point: “when a
person loves what is not a person with a love of concupiscence, he must
have a corresponding love of friendship, either for himself or for another person; if I love wine, I love it for someone.”92 The miser loves gold not
for itself, but for himself, as George Eliot poignantly illustrated in Silas
Marner. Even if a miser sits on piles of gold, when he no longer loves
himself, he is tempted to commit suicide: there is nothing else to live for.
Thomas’s conception of love, therefore, is personal in two senses: only
persons can have this nobler love, and it is directed only toward persons.
The primacy of the person-centered love of friendship, the only sort
of love that loves another for his own sake, clarifies man’s love of the
common good. When a person loves the common good of the universe
considered as an abstract, impersonal order, he loves with the love of
concupiscence. He loves it for the sake of one or more persons. The love
of concupiscence is ordered to the love of persons, and so the love of the
common good in this case would be “based on a love of friendship for
the persons who make up the community.”93 The common good would
not be loved for its own sake, but for the sake of those who share in it.
But when the universe is considered as residing in its principal part, in
a rational soul, one’s love for the common good terminates in persons
toward whom one is inclined with the love of friendship.
Given that the created universe contains all created persons, this
90

Ibid.
Ibid., sed contra.
92
Gallagher, “Person and Ethics in Thomas Aquinas,” 57.
93
Gallagher, “Desire for Beatitude,” 35n94.
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937

means that, naturally speaking, one’s love is perfected when one loves all
peoples with the love of friendship. That is not to say that one is friends
with everyone. Gallagher explicates this important distinction: “for
Thomas, amor amicitiae and amicitia are related but not identical. The
love of friendship, as the love of the person for himself, is found wherever a person is loved for his own sake,” and consequently one wills goods
toward him with benevolence, “while amicitia or friendship requires reciprocal and mutually recognized loves of friendship on the part of the
two persons for one another.”94 The love of friendship toward another
means, fundamentally, to know another’s intrinsic goodness and to will
him good for his own sake. Such an act of knowing and loving perfects
not only other persons but even the one who wills it, the lover.
The cosmological import of the love of friendship provides the key
to grasping Thomas’s explanation of self-transcending love. Taking a
cosmological perspective, Blanchette rightly observes: “Without the
human being’s knowing activity, nature remains essentially incomplete.
But the intellectual creature’s own perfection is not actualized merely in
the use and exploitation of nature, but rather in the love shown to other
intellectual creatures.”95 It follows that to love another person with the
love of friendship, to love another for the other’s sake, is a perfective
natural human act. This is the case for many reasons.
First, the love of friendship engages the lover’s highest faculties,
his intellect and his will, in performing the greatest operation the will
can perform: loving another person. Second, it is directed toward the
greatest created object, that is, the common good insofar as it exists
in the souls of persons, which are in principle able to encompass all
beings. Because his love is directed toward the common good of which
the lover is a part, he is simultaneously willing good toward himself
94

Gallagher,“Person and Ethics in Thomas Aquinas,” 61. See ST II-II, q. 23, a. 1, c:
“Not every love has the character of friendship, but that love which is together with
benevolence, when, to wit, we love someone so as to wish good to him. If, however,
we do not wish good to what we love, but wish its good for ourselves (thus we are
said to love wine, or a horse, or the like), it is love not of friendship, but of a kind of
concupiscence. For it would be absurd to speak of having friendship for wine or for
a horse. Yet neither does well-wishing suffice for friendship, for a certain mutual love
is requisite, since friendship is between friend and friend: and this well-wishing is
founded on some kind of communication.”
95
Blanchette, Perfection of the Universe, 300.

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along with the entire community of persons within the universe. Additionally, because the act of friendship-love is perfective of the principal part of the universe, we can rightly say that the good of friendship
is a common good—not only for the lover and the one for whom he
wills good, but also for the created universe as a whole. When one’s
love extends to others who themselves are friends with each other and
when one wills that they have friendship for each other, one thereby
proffers the love of friendship toward them: one wills a good for their
sakes. And because the highest friendship is concerned, not only with
the good for individuals, but for the common good, this friendship
turns outward and extends itself to others for whom they will good.
Authentic friendship inclines friends to extend the love of friendship
toward others. Hence the friendship of two can be the source of the
love of friendship for all, and thus a perfection of the universe both
formally and extensively. A community of friends, then, would be the
common good of the created universe.96
Love of God as the Supreme Common Good
Lofty as the created common good of the universe is, it does not constitute the greatest good that exists. Thomas, commenting on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, says that bonum, understood as “the end or the goal
of a thing,” is twofold, either as intrinsic good or extrinsic good: “For
an end is extrinsic to the thing ordained to it, as when we say that a
place is the end of something that is moved locally. Or it is intrinsic, as
a form is the end of the process of generation or alteration; and a form
already acquired is a kind of intrinsic good of the thing whose form
it is.”97 To explain the difference between these two goods, Thomas
discusses Aristotle’s classic example of the good of an army as a good
common in causation.98
96

Blanchette hints at the centrality of common friendship for the perfection of the universe when he says, “For him [Thomas], the universe is ultimately a community of
intellectual beings, each intelligent and free, all capable of the highest good, moving
toward completion through an activity in which this community expresses and perfects itself. . . . Thus, for Saint Thomas, the universe opens up to ethical community”
(Perfection of the Universe, 300).
97
Thomas Aquinas, On Aristotle’s Metaphysics XII, lec. 12, no. 2627.
98
See Aristotle, Metaphysics XII, ch. 10 (1075a 11-1076a 4).

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The good of an army is a good for each warrior in it, but it is a good
greater than the individual particular good, for it involves a coordination
of goods that contribute to a larger whole: the good of the archers indirectly aids the good of the foot soldiers, which aids the good of the horsemen, and so on. Aristotle and Thomas distinguish between the intrinsic
and the extrinsic good of the whole and its parts.99 The intrinsic good of an
army is its formal character, the internal order and arrangement among
the various parts: the way a foot soldier relates to a sergeant and a sergeant
to a captain, and a captain to a general, for example. The extrinsic good
of an army is its end—that to which it is directed. Thomas says, “Now
the order of an army exists for the purpose of achieving the good of its
commander, namely, his will to attain victory.”100 Additionally, the good
of the army depends on the commander’s intellect, which is the source of
the plan of victory and which arranges the army suitably to his plan, and
on his will, which causes the plan to be put into action.
Though a warrior may not grasp how his particular victory is related
to the overall victory, his fighting would be ultimately senseless if it were
not directed by the higher end that is known to the commander. Without the commander’s wisdom, which sees and directs particular ends to
a single higher end, individuals would fight battles, but they would not
contribute to an overarching strategic war. The commander is the primary
cause of the overall good and the formal cause of that good, namely, the
strategy. Because the strategy exists in the commander’s mind, the extrinsic good of victory is truly his good, but it is good for the army as a whole
as well as for each member of the army.101 Victory won by strategy is not
a private good, nor it is a proper good; it is a good common by causation.
In contrast, the immediate victory, the proximate final end of a warrior
or detachment, is directed toward the overall victory of the army. Indeed,
the overall victory could not come about except by the particular, but the
99

See Aquinas, On Aristotle’s Metaphysics XII, lec. 12, nos. 2627 ff.
Ibid., no. 2630.
101
It is his because, as the scholastic principle says, omne agens agit sibi simile: every
agent makes its effect like itself. According to Thomas, “The agent is said to be the
end of the effect inasmuch as the effect tends toward a similitude of the agent: hence
the form of the thing generating is the end of the process of generation” (SCG III, ch.
19). The commander, who had the form of victory in his mind, extend that form to
the concrete reality of his army and thus makes it like himself.
100

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overall victory is something greater than the sum of the particular victories precisely because it can be shared in by all, whereas the particulars
cannot. The overall victory is good for each and all.102 This good is commonly shared: it is caused by the general primarily and caused secondarily
by the soldiers who fight with him and under his guidance; therefore it is
called the common good in causation.
The example of intrinsic and extrinsic goods of an army leads to a
more precise consideration of the First Mover. Thomas draws together the
notions of the good in causation and the good in being, demonstrating
that the first mover is God, the only good in being (in essendo). Thomas
compares the order of the army with the order of the universe. Just as
the intrinsic good of the army exists for the sake of the commander, to
whom belongs victory as the army’s final cause and as the army’s good in
causation, so too the universe exists for God, the First Mover: “the whole
order of the universe exists for the sake of the first mover inasmuch as the
things contained in the mind and will of the first mover are realized in the
ordered universe. Hence the whole order of the universe must depend on
the first mover.”103 With the biblical narrative of creation in mind, Thomas
explains that, in this analogy, the intrinsic good of the army corresponds
to the common good of the created universe, whereas the extrinsic good
of the army corresponds to the supreme common good, God himself:
For it is clear that good has the nature of an end; wherefore,
a particular end of anything consists in some particular good;
while the universal end of all things is the Universal Good,
Which is good of Itself by virtue of Its very Essence, Which is
the very essence of goodness; whereas a particular good is good
by participation. Now it is manifest that in the whole created
universe there is not a good which is not such by participation.
Wherefore that good which is the end of the whole universe
must be a good outside of the universe.104
Smith summarizes the argument: “God, as our highest good, is our
102

See the discussion in Froelich, “Equivocal Status of Bonum Commune,” 48–49.
Aquinas, On Aristotle’s Metaphysics XII, lec. 12, no. 2631.
104
ST I, q. 103, a. 2, c.
103

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uncreated common good, but our highest created common good is the
order of the universe.”105 This distinction is founded on distinction between Goodness itself and participated goodness.
A consideration of God’s substantial goodness, his absolute perfection, leads us back to the part-whole analogy. While the notion of
wholeness applies to individual created substances, Thomas says, even
more does this notion hold “in regard to what is truly and perfectly
whole, namely, that outside of which there is absolutely nothing.”106 The
supreme analogue of wholeness is God himself, the supreme substance,
whose unity and completeness are perfect. As a result, God can analogously be called a “whole.” Strictly speaking, God is not an organic
or natural whole, for he is completely simple and without composition
or parts.107 Nevertheless, he is truly a virtual whole, a whole in which
“a form is the principle of [the] operation” of its parts.108 The primary
meaning of “form” is “that which is in act,” so God, as complete actuality
and Being itself, is “therefore of His essence a form.”109 In his very Being,
God is the principle of the operation of the parts of the universe, which
stand in relation to him as imperfect to perfect. Stevens explains: “God
himself is the ‘whole’—the plenitude of goodness, the ‘universal good.’
God thus ‘contains’ the limited good of each creature . . . and ‘part’ refers
to participated being.”110 Consequently, both the creature as a whole and
the creature’s good, whether private or proper, “is then a participation
of the Supreme Good. . . . The creature is not identified with God, nor
wholly separate and disparate, but is rather a participation in God.”111 As
we saw Capreolus argue, the part-whole and the hand-body analogies
105

Smith, Human Dignity and the Common Good, 93.
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics III, lec. 11, n. 385. In this vein,
Thomas develops Aristotle’s observation, “Whole and complete are either quite
identical or closely akin,” saying, “‘whole’ is not found in simple things which have
no parts; in which things, nevertheless, we use the word ‘perfect.’ This shows that the
perfect is ‘that which has nothing outside of it.’”
107
See ST I, q. 3, aa. 1–8. Also, ST I, q. 10, a. 1, ad 3: “Eternity is called ‘whole,’ not because
it has parts, but because it is wanting in nothing”; that is, it is complete and perfect.
108
ST I, q. 76, a. 8, c. Above we discussed virtual wholes, such as communities andarmies, but God also is a virtual whole, although in an infinitely more eminent way.
109
ST I, q. 3, a. 2, c.
110
Stevens, “Disinterested Love of God,” 527. Footnotes omitted.
111
Ibid.
106

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are meant to illustrate the fact that creatures, including humans, exist in
a natural, ordered relationship with their Creator. God is the supreme
common good because he is the Good in itself, which is eminently participatable. Hence God is not just a common good in predication; he
is the common good in causation, as the exemplary and final cause of
good in the subjects that incline toward him. This is what prompted Cajetan to assert that, while a creature loves the universe more than itself,
it loves God even more, as “the universal good, the good of all.”112
In continuity with Stevens, De Koninck explains the part-whole
relationship with respect to human beings and shows its implications
for love:
Because the human person is in his very being of [or from] another, he is radically dependent, he is radically, primo et per se,
a part. Consequently, he is principally and more inclined toward that from which he participates his very being. It is this
principle, observed first of all in nature and in political virtues
imitating nature, which serves as a basis for the conclusion that
we love God according to natural love more than ourselves.113
Accordingly, Thomas asserts with Augustinian overtones: “nothing is
able to satisfy the will of man except the universal good, which is not
found in anything created, but solely in God, because all creatures have
goodness by participation.”114 In other words, man naturally loves God as
the common good more than himself. This can only be the case because,
as we have seen Capreolus point out, “the good of a creature is more
powerfully preserved in God than in the creature itself. . . . Nor can one
be opposed to the other, any more than the good of a species can be
opposed to the good of one of its individuals, or vice-versa.”115 To love
God more than oneself is to love the One in whom all good is contained,
including our own.
Just as the part loves the whole more than itself, so man naturally
112

See note 67.
De Koninck, Writings, vol. 2, 99.
114
ST I-II, q. 2, a. 8.
115
Capreolus, On the Virtues, 194.
113

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loves the created common good above himself—and even more does
he naturally love God, the uncreated common good, above himself.
Furthermore, just as the love of common good above the self entails
friendship with others, so love of the supreme common good entails
friendship with God. In an early text, Thomas writes: “The good of the
lover himself, however, is more to be found where it exists more perfectly. . . . Since, then, our good is perfect in God as in the first, universal,
and perfect cause of goods, so it is naturally more pleasing that the good
exist in him than it exist in us. Consequently, God is naturally loved by
men more than self even with the love of friendship.”116 Later on, Thomas confirms this doctrine in his commentary on St. Paul’s First Letter to
the Corinthians. Noting that “love is a unitive force and all love consists
in some union,” Thomas argues that “we have a twofold union with God:
one refers to the goods of nature, which we partake of here from Him;
the other refers to beatitude.”117 With regard to the first union, based on
nature, Thomas says: “According to the first communication with God
there is a natural friendship, according to which each one, inasmuch
as he is, seeks and desires as his end God as first cause and supreme
being.”118 Here we find Thomas’s doctrine of self-transcending love in its
full flowering: man is naturally a friend of God.
When a man recognizes his place in the universe, his intrinsic being
as a rational animal and a principle part of the universe, coming from
God and going to God, his love is able both to transcend the self and to
include the self. The love of God unifies within the lover an ordered series of desires contained in a single act: (1) to love God for his own sake
with the love of friendship; (2) to perform the act of loving God with the
love of friendship, which man knows will perfect himself; (3) to perfect
a principle part of the universe in perfecting oneself by loving God more
than oneself. God is good for the individual, but not in the way that one
person’s good health is good for the self alone. Rather, God is good for
each precisely because he is good for all others. Only supreme goodness
can be the complete good of distinct creatures. His intrinsic goodness,
116

In III Sent. d. 29, a. 3, c. Quoted and translated in Gallagher, “Self-Love as the Basis
of Love for Others,” 37.
117
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. Fabian
Larcher (unpublished), ch. 13, lect 4, no. 806.
118
Ibid.

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because it is essential goodness, is desirable by all, and thus the end of
all, and thus the good shareable by all: the common good.
Because man is made in the image of God, he is able to be ordered
by knowledge and love to the highest Good in himself. Because man
is not passive with respect to his highest faculties, he is therefore “the
principle of order in nature, inasmuch as all inferior bodies are ordered
to him; and he can, by his own initiative, introduce a new dimension
of order.”119 By virtue of his will, man, aside from the ravaging effects of
sin, naturally is able to order himself to God by love. Stevens describes
the structure of this act of love: “in the integral state of nature [it] would
be a free moral act produced without grace or any supernatural aid, and
directed to God the author of nature. The act would be natural both
from the point of view of efficient causality and from that of formal
causality. Furthermore, it would be natural as being based on a natural
likeness or similitude of God, and not in the participation of the life of
the Trinity granted in sanctifying grace.”120 With such a capacity, man
should love God, not only with the love of concupiscence, so that he
may receive goods from the Creator, but with a love of friendship, so
that he desires that all things turn to God as their final end and ultimate, common good.
God is, absolutely speaking, the principle of order, but God orders
nature from outside of nature, insofar as God is not a part of nature,
whereas man orders nature from within nature as a part of it. At the
same time, God orders nature from within insofar as God conserves all
things within his own being and insofar as he moves nature to its end,
which is himself. God does no violence when he creates things such
that they are moved to love him, for he is the greatest good and the
perfection of all. In his love, God moves humans to follow their natural
inclinations and become friends with him. Thus a fully aware, loving
man knows that when he loves God for God’s sake, his love paradoxically transcends himself without leaving himself behind. Self-love perfects
itself in giving itself away to the one most worthy of love. By loving God
more than himself, man perfects himself and the whole universe—his
friendship with God is a common good that he wills for God and for
119
120

Blanchette, Diss., 396.
Stevens, “The Disinterested Love of God,” 534.

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God’s creatures, including himself, each and all of whom God loves with
an infinite love.
Summary and Conclusion
When Aristotle discusses self-love, his perspective is not limited to the
love of individuals for each other. Instead, he sees that self-love is directly related to the love of a society of persons and the common good. Love
of self and love of the common good are not intrinsically competitive,
the Greek philosopher insists: “if all were to strive towards what is noble . . . everything would be as it should be for the common good, and
every one would secure for himself the goods that are greatest.”121 In discussing whether an individual naturally loves himself above all things,
Thomas takes the same perspective, seeing self-love in light of the common good. He frequently argues that, just as a part loves a whole more
than itself, so man naturally loves the common good more than himself,
and, in the state of uncorrupted nature, he loves God more than himself.
For Thomas, this shows that the human being’s love naturally extends
above and beyond itself: natural, created love is self-transcending.
To grasp the significance of Thomas’s part-whole analogy, to see
why he employed that argument when he could have argued on other grounds, one must see how, for him, the individual is related to the
cosmological and the transcendental. The part is related to the whole
as imperfect is to perfect, and the imperfect loves the more perfect to
which it is related. Rocks, trees, animals, and human beings all love a
good greater than themselves, a good in which they share: the common good. This is the good common in causation, that is, the good that
formally perfects those who share in it. When the individual loves the
common good, he orders his self-love to it; he does not forsake his own
good, though it does not have primacy of place as his final end. For the
human, as a rational creature, his love of the common good is a free
choice. As rational, he is the principal part of the created universe. The
perfection of a human soul, and the perfection of other rational souls,
constitutes the common good in a special way. Because the perfection
of the rational soul consists especially in acts of knowledge and love of
persons for persons, friendship is the principal common good of the
121

Nicomachean Ethics IX, ch. 8 (1169a 8–11). Emphasis added.

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Ezra Sullivan, O.P.

created universe and thus the goal of self-transcending love. As substantial goodness, and as the exemplar of all rationality, God in himself is
the supreme common good of all things. Hence human love especially
transcends itself and finds its ultimate perfection when man loves God
with the love of friendship. By loving God with the love of friendship,
man fulfills himself as the image of God, not least because God first extended such a love toward him.
Given Thomas Aquinas’s well-known emphasis on nature and his
love for unity of thought and exposition, it should be no surprise that
his part-whole analogy was not chosen at random from among Aristotle’s metaphysical works. Although Thomas could have demonstrated on
other grounds that the human person naturally loves God more than
himself, he consistently employed the part-whole analogy in a variety
of contexts. By doing so, by showing that the object of self-transcending
love is God as the common good, the Common Doctor accomplished
many tasks at the same time. He showed that humans and all creatures
love God more than themselves, that this self-transcending love is natural, that it is a “cosmological” love insofar as it has a direct impact on
the perfection of the universe, that human love perfects the individual and the whole, and that our love consists especially in friendship
between persons. With the part-whole analogy, Thomas manifests his
concern to show the metaphysical and moral possibility of man to fulfill the commandment to love God more than oneself. Furthermore, he
demonstrates the deep truth of the principle that grace perfects nature,
and that nature is in no way in competition with itself or with God: he
defines charity as man’s supernatural friendship for God. Therefore, in
showing what integral nature is capable of aside from the effects of sin,
Thomas gives us a glimpse into the greatness of human love once nature
is purified and elevated by divine grace. St. Francis de Sales ably sums up
the Thomistic doctrine: “Man is the perfection of the universe; the spirit
is the perfection of man; love, that of the spirit; and charity, that of love.
Wherefore the love of God is the end, the perfection, and the excellence
N&V
of the universe.”122

122

Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, trans. Henry Benedict Mackey
(Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1949), X, ch. 1, 410.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 947-969

947

The Doctrine of God and the Liturgical Res
in John’s Gospel:
Reading John 8:12–20
with the Theology of Disclosure
William M. Wright IV
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, PA

THE FOURTH GOSPEL presents Jesus in relation to a number of
Jewish liturgies. The first action of Jesus’s public ministry in John’s Gospel, the Temple incident, takes place near Passover (2:13) and the last
action of his mortal life, the crucifixion, takes place on the eve of Passover (19:14, 31). Passover also provides the setting for Jesus’s feeding
miracle and the accompanying Bread of Life discourse (6:4). Jesus goes
up to Jerusalem for the festivals of Sukkot (7:2, 10), Dedication (10:22),
as well as another unspecified feast (5:1). On several occasions, Jesus’s
actions on the Sabbath generate controversy (5:16, 18; 7:23; 9:14, 16). It
has also been argued that the Wedding at Cana (2:1–12) reflects traditions associated with Pentecost and its commemoration of the giving of
the Torah at Mt. Sinai.1 Johannine scholars have studied the relationship between Jesus and the Jewish liturgies from different methodological vantage points (e.g., historical inquiry as to what role John’s use of

1

So Joseph A. Grassi, “The Wedding at Cana (John II 1–11): A Pentecostal Meditation?,” Novum Testamentum 14 (1972): 131–36; Francis Martin, “Mary in Sacred
Scripture: An Ecumenical Reflection,” The Thomist 72 (2008): 530–42; Francis J.
Moloney, Belief in the Word: Reading John 1–4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993),
77–92.

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William M. Wright IV

Jewish liturgies might have played in intercommunity polemic with
non-Christ-confessing Jews; literary study of how this relationship appears in the Gospel considered as a narrative whole) and have reached
different conclusions as to how best interpret it.2
This essay will consider a specific instance of the relationship between
Jesus and the Jewish liturgies in John—Jesus’s claim to be “the Light of the
World” (Jn 8:12) and its relationship with the Jewish festival of Sukkot—
from a viewpoint under which it has not previously been considered: the
theology of disclosure set forth by Robert Sokolowski.3 A resource very
much underexplored by biblical interpreters, the theology of disclosure
2

An illustrative example of these differences in scholarly approaches and interpretations appears in Raymond Brown’s An Introduction to the Gospel of John, ed. Francis
J. Moloney, S.D.B., Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 2003).
As in his previous works, Brown classifies the relationship between Jesus and Jewish liturgical institutions in John as “replacement: Jesus takes the place of many of
the institutions of Judaism” (76). Brown’s characterization of this relationship as replacement is deeply informed by his reconstruction of the Johannine community’s
history in which the expulsion of some Johannine Christians from their synagogue
in connection with their faith in Jesus plays a critical role. Francis Moloney, the
editor of Brown’s posthumous Introduction and more of a literary-critical scholar
than Brown, critiques Brown’s preference for “replacement” language, arguing that
“fulfillment” is a more appropriate classification. Moloney writes the following:
“There is a real sense of the Johannine Christology bringing to perfection what took
place in the great festive ‘memories’ of God’s saving actions. However, the memory of the God of Israel, and the Jewish symbols used . . . retain their place in the
Johannine theology” (76n73). Moloney elsewhere acknowledges some kind of separation of Johannine Christians from a synagogue community, but it has less hermeneutical influence on him than it does on Brown. See Francis J. Moloney, S.D.B.,
The Gospel of John, Sacra Pagina 4 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998), 2–3, 294;
Signs and Shadows: Reading John 5–12 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 1–2.
3
See Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982); Eucharistic Presence:
A Study in the Theology of Disclosure (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1993); Christian Faith and Human Understanding: Studies on the Eucharist, Trinity, and the Human Person (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2006); “God the Father: The Human Expression of the Holy Trinity,”
The Thomist 74 (2010): 33–56. For secondary treatments of Sokolowski’s theological
works, see Peter Casarella, “Questioning the Primacy of Method: On Sokolowski’s
Eucharistic Presence,” Communio 22 (1995): 668–701; Guy Mansini, O.S.B. and James
G. Hart, eds., Ethical and Theological Disclosures: The Thought of Robert Sokolowski
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003); Brian J. Shanley, O.P., “Sacra Doctrina and the Theology of Disclosure,” The Thomist 61 (1997):
163–87; William M. Wright IV, “The Theology of Disclosure and Biblical Exegesis,”
The Thomist 70 (2006): 395–419.

God and the Liturgical Res in John’s Gospel

949

is a mode of theological thinking that attends to the ways in which sacred things, especially divine realities, appear to the faithful. Informed by
Husserlian phenomenology, the theology of disclosure takes the appearances of realities not as purely subjective or psychological apprehensions,
but as objective means of disclosure by which things give themselves to
a conscious subject. Sokolowski offers the theology of disclosure as both
distinct from and complementary to systematic theology and historical
theology.4 Whereas systematic theology treats theological things in themselves and in relation to other realities, the theology of disclosure focuses on the ways in which theological things appear, how they are distinguished from worldly things, what appearances reveal about identities,
and the contexts in which those appearances are given. Whereas historical disciplines, like biblical exegesis, treat theological things in specific
historical times and settings, the theology of disclosure discerns those
things’ essential structures of manifestation, which transcend particular
historical circumstances. In this way, the theology of disclosure offers the
positive theological disciplines some assistance for resisting historicist reduction and relativism.5
With regard to John 8:12–20, I will argue that the theology of disclosure highlights the need to register the relationship between Jesus and the
Sukkot liturgy in light of the new understanding of who the God of Israel
is, which the Incarnation provides.6 The theology of disclosure calls for
careful attention to the theological context, especially the understanding
of God, within which sacred things appear. It invites readers of the Fourth
Gospel to attend to the new theological context—the new understanding
of the God of Israel—which the Incarnation establishes and which Jesus’s
interlocutors (the Pharisees, in the case of 8:12–20) do not entirely share.
The new understanding of the God of Israel furnished by the Incarna4

Sokolowski discusses these distinctions between the theology of disclosure, systematic (or “ontological”) and historical (or “positive”) theology in a number of places;
e.g., God of Faith and Reason, 92–100; Eucharistic Presence, 5–12, 174–79; “The Revelation of the Holy Trinity: A Study in Personal Pronouns,” in Christian Faith and
Human Understanding, 131–33.
5
Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason, 99; Eucharistic Presence, 7–8, 177–78.
6
This framing of the matter in terms of “who the God of Israel is” is indebted to
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on
the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2008).

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William M. Wright IV

tion necessitates certain modifications in how the liturgies offered to this
God are understood. Moreover, through his phenomenological analysis
of words, things, and identity in manifolds, Sokolowski provides a way
for parsing the relationship between Jesus and a biblical reality (res), such
as the festival liturgy, in a manner consistent with the continuity and discontinuity in the understanding of God across the two biblical testaments.
As the Incarnation provides a new understanding of the God of Israel, it
also causes new aspects of the festival liturgy to appear; that is, the festival
liturgy comes to light as anticipating Jesus’s revelation of the Father to the
world and thereby participating in that revelation. But since the Incarnation is a more profound revelation of the same God of Israel, these newly
revealed aspects of the festival liturgy do not displace those that have already come to light in the history, Scriptures, and religious practices of
Israel. The theology of disclosure thus helps shed light on the importance
of John’s doctrine of God for understanding how a reality like the Sukkot
liturgy can appear in the Gospel as an “anticipated participation” in the
mission of the incarnate Word.7
Important Contributions of the Theology of Disclosure
There are two ways in which the theology of disclosure is especially helpful for this study of Jesus and the Sukkot liturgy in John 8:12–20: first, its
attention to the importance of the uniquely Christian understanding of
God and how that understanding comes to light in salvation history; second, its articulation of how biblical realities appear within this emergent
theological horizon.
First, the theology of disclosure attends very carefully to the theological context in which divine realities appear. Of tremendous importance
for Christian theological thinking is what Sokolowski calls “the Christian distinction between God and the world.”8 The Christian distinction
is crucially important because it provides the indispensable context in

7

The phrase “anticipated participation” is that of Francis Martin as found in his “Election, Covenant, and Law,” Nova et Vetera (English) 4 (2006): 888.
8
Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 11. Sokolowski discusses the Christian distinction
throughout his theological writings, and I summarize his major points here—see
God of Faith and Reason, 1–30; Eucharistic Presence, 34–54; “Creation and Christian
Understanding,” in Christian Faith and Human Understanding, 38–50.

God and the Liturgical Res in John’s Gospel

951

which all Christian theological thinking must necessarily take place. As
the free Creator of all things, God exists independently of the world (i.e.,
the whole of creation). Being thus distinct from the world, God cannot
be reckoned as a thing among other things in the world. God exists in
absolute perfection and goodness apart from the world, and the existence
of creation does not add anything to God’s complete perfection and goodness. Accordingly, God is not defined by his relationship to the world. The
Christian distinction reveals the whole of creation to be radically contingent and as possibly not having been at all. Since God does not create out
of any necessity and creation need not be, creation exists only by virtue
of God’s selfless generosity. As Sokolowski summarizes it, “In Christian
belief, we understand the world as that which might not have been, and
correlatively we understand God as capable of existing, in undiminished
goodness and greatness, even if the world had not been.”9 The Christian
distinction, therefore, imparts particular understandings of both God and
the whole of creation.
The distinction between God and the world is a divinely revealed truth
and not a conclusion that human beings can discover by means of natural reasoning. Sokolowski articulates the Christian distinction through a
series of contrasts as to how the divine is understood in biblical and nonbiblical religions.10 In philosophy or religions that develop out of the natural human religious impulse, the gods or the divine are reckoned among
things in the world or are defined in relation to the world. Whether in a
religious register (e.g., Zeus, Hera, and Apollo) or a philosophical register
(e.g., Plato’s the One or Aristotle’s Prime Mover), the divine is considered
the best or highest parts of the whole of things, or they are defined by their
relation to the world. In non-biblical religion, Sokolowski writes, “the divine, even in its most ultimate form, is never conceived as capable of being
without the world. It is divine by being differentiated from what is not
divine and by having an influence on what is not divine.”11
The biblical understanding of God as the free Creator, who exists in
complete goodness and perfection apart from the world, emerges over
the course of biblical revelation and in contrast to pagan understandings
9

Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason, 19.
Ibid., 12–19.
11
Ibid., 18.
10

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William M. Wright IV

of the divine. Over the course of Israel’s history, the identity of the God
of Israel comes to light against the background of various pagan religions. Theologically, Sokolowski writes, “If God can do the things he is
said to do in the Old Testament, he is divine in a way different from the
way the god of Aristotle, Plato, or the Stoics is divine, and his relationship to the world is different.”12 God freely enters into a covenant with
the people Israel and reveals to them how they are to live in relation with
this God who is radically transcendent and other. Israel is to be the people of God and unlike the nations because YHWH is other to the world
and unlike the gods of the nations (cf. Lv 20:26; Dt 7:6–7).13
According to Sokolowski, the biblical understanding of God undergoes a shift with the Incarnation. Jesus appears within the context of Old
Testament revelation and its understanding of God, but the reality of
the Incarnation also modifies this theological context. Whereas the Old
Testament understanding of the one God would seem to preclude any
possibility of the Creator being identified with a creature, in the Incarnation, Sokolowski writes, “God is revealed to be so transcendent that he
can enter into his creation without suffering limitation in his divinity. His
divinity is such that he can become man without ceasing to be God.”14 The
reality of the Incarnation and the revelation of the God of Israel as Trinity
“deepens” or is an “intensification” of the understanding of God revealed
in the Old Testament.15
The second major way in which the theology of disclosure is helpful
to this study is its articulation of how biblical realities appear within this
theological horizon. Drawing upon the phenomenological doctrine of
intentionality, Sokolowski observes that when we read any written text,
including Scripture, we must be very attentive to the referential nature
of language and the kinds of “intending” that occur in reading.16 When a
person reads written words, he or she is conscious not only of the written
markings on a page, but also whatever the words present to one’s con12

Ibid., 125.
Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 145.
14
Ibid., 54.
15
Ibid.
16
I use the verb “intend” here in the phenomenological sense as “the conscious relationship we have to an object”; cited from Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 8.
13

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953

sciousness. Sokolowski writes the following: “when the words stand out,
we no longer intend just what is before us. A new kind of intending comes
into play, one that makes these perceived marks into words and at the
same time makes us intend not just the marks that are present, but the
[thing], which is absent.”17 Words are a means by which things, even absent things, are presented to an individual as a dative of manifestation.
Words are a kind of appearance, a means of disclosure. As Sokolowski
puts it, “Words, whether spoken or written, presents things. We never
have ‘just’ words: words are vehicles to articulate and disclose things.”18
Recognition that language is a means of presenting things is crucial
because it makes the reality or state of affairs presented by the words the
project object of consciousness—not the words, texts, or the authors’ ideas
per se. These are all means by which a reality is presented to a subject. To
use the classic Augustinian and Thomistic terminology, it is the res presented by the verba or signa of the biblical text that one properly intends
when reading Scripture.19 To regard the biblical text as an end, rather than
a means by which things are presented, would be to commit the fallacy
of misplaced concreteness. Treating the written text as an end resembles,
according to Sokolowski, “rationalism, historicism, and psychologism .
. . In each case a form of manifestation—a text, a thought, a situated appearance, a perception—is taken to replace the thing manifested.”20 Such a
detachment of appearances from things and the reduction of appearances
to purely subjective matters, which are in turn regarded as the objects of
human knowing, characterize what Sokolowski calls the “egocentric predicament” of modern epistemology.21
17

Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 78.
Ibid., 141–42.
19
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (ST) I, q. 1, a. 10, resp.
20
Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 143.
21
Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 9–11. Ibid., 9, thus describes the egocentric predicament: “Consciousness is taken to be like a bubble or an enclosed cabinet;
the mind comes in a box. Impressions and concepts occur in this enclosed space . . .
and our awareness is directed toward them, not directly toward the things ‘outside.’
We can try to get outside by making inferences . . . but we are not in any direct contact
with [really existing things].” The end result of this egocentric predicament is epistemological and moral relativism: “If we are bereft of intentionality . . . then we do not
enter into a life of reason, evidence, and truth. Each of us turns to his own private
world, and in the practical order we do our own thing: the truth does not make any
demands on us” (ibid., 10). See also Casarella, “Questioning the Primacy of Method,”
18

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William M. Wright IV

Coupling this theological attention to the res presented by the biblical
texts with the shift in the understanding of God between the testaments,
Sokolowski argues that the realities given in Old Testament Scripture
have abiding value for Christian readers in two basic ways. First, the Old
Testament, its realities, and prescribed ways of life are received as having
abiding value in their own right. Through the realities given in the Old
Testament, the one God, who is distinct from the world, reveals himself
and the ways in which his covenant people are to live in response to him.22
Receiving Old Testament realities on their own terms and in relation
to the revelation of God in the history of Israel (i.e., their plain sense),
Sokolowski writes, is “an exercise by which our spontaneous reverence for
the divine is trained and adjusted into patterns appropriate to reverence
for the biblical God.”23 Natural human religious instincts are thus formed
into human responses appropriate to God, who is not part of the world.
In addition to this way of reading the Old Testament, the Christian reader
“must also read it as an anticipation of the New Covenant.”24 The Incarnation brings about a shift in how the God of Israel is understood, and
consequently all other biblical realities come to appear somewhat differently in this new theological horizon. Namely, they now come to appear
as anticipating the fullness of God’s self-revelation in Christ, who accomplishes the work of salvation (i.e., their spiritual sense). Sokolowski thus
summarizes the manifestation of different aspects of biblical realities in
concert with the progressive revelation of the God of Israel: “the God who
is acting in the Old Covenant is not as fully disclosed as he will be in the
Incarnation, and the saving action he performs has dimensions that will
be more fully brought out later on.”25
Sokolowski contrasts the disclosure of different aspects of the biblical
res with the (now largely disregarded) theory of a sensus plenior, “a deeper
meaning of the text, intended by God but not clearly expressed by the
human author.”26 The sensus plenior frames the more-than-literal senses of
669–75.
Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason, 152.
23
Ibid., 154.
24
Ibid., 154.
25
Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 150.
26
Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (Boston: St. Paul, 1993), 87. On this point, see Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 149–50.
22

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955

Scripture in terms of authorial ideas, one of which was intended by only
God and not by the human author (or, at least, not fully intended by the
human author). Noting that this theory has been criticized for its inadequate account of the divine and human authorship of the biblical books,
Sokolowski proposes that instead of making texts and authors’ psychology into the interpretive ends, the theological attention should be focused
on the biblical res, presented in a manifold of appearances across the canon. As Sokolowski puts it, “It is not the case that there was one meaning
in the mind of the human author and another meaning intended by God,
but that the one thing intended by the human author had dimensions that
had not yet come into view, dimensions that could not appear until more
had happened.”27 When the focus shifts to the biblical res as presented in
a manifold of textual appearances, rather than immanent textual meaning or the authors’ ideas proper, biblical exegesis in the strict sense opens
up into theological interpretation, for the objects of theological thinking
become the realities presented in the biblical books, their identities, and
the real relationships existing between them. So understood, biblical interpretation concerns both what the texts are saying (i.e., verba) and what
the texts are about (i.e., res).28
With these considerations in place, I will now turn to John 8:12–20
and bring these insights of the theology of disclosure to bear on the relationship between Jesus’s declaration “I am the Light of the World” and
the Jewish liturgy of Sukkot.

Jesus, the Liturgy, and the Doctrine of God in John 8:12–20
The Light of the World and the Lights of Sukkot
The connections between Jesus’s pronouncement “I am the Light of the
27
28

Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 149.
Such an account of biblical interpretation strikes me as cohering with the challenge
issued by Benedict XVI: “If scholarly exegesis is not to exhaust itself in constantly
new hypotheses, becoming theologically irrelevant, it must take a methodological
step forward and see itself once again as a theological discipline, without abandoning its historical character.” Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), “Foreword,” in
Jesus of Nazareth Part Two: Holy Week—From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection trans. provided by the Vatican Secretariat of State (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 2011), xiv.

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William M. Wright IV

World” and the liturgy of Sukkot are subtle and suggestive. Jesus makes
this pronouncement on two occasions in John’s Gospel (8:12; 9:5), both
of which occur during his visit to Jerusalem for this liturgical festival
(7:1–10:21).29 Jesus’s pronouncement to be “the Light” resonates with
certain, postbiblical components of the eight-day Sukkot liturgy as described in the Mishnah.30
In its description of the festival of Sukkot, Mishnah Sukkah (henceforth m. Sukkah) discusses prominent rites involving both water (which
provide context for Jesus’s teaching about “rivers of living water” in Jn
7:38) and light. Indeed, m. Sukkah describes a nightly liturgical event on
the temple grounds at the “Beth ha-She’ubah [‘The place … of the Water-drawing’].”31 According to m. Sukkah 5:1–3, starting on the evening
after the first day of the festival, temple priests would process down the
stairs from the Court of the Israelites into the Court of Women, where
several very large lampstands had been set up. Atop of each lampstand
were four gold bowls for oil. Young priests would ascend ladders, fill the
bowls with oil, and proceed to light the wicks in them. After the lampstands were lit, there would be music, singing, and dancing with torches
in front of the lampstands, and the priests and Levites would perform
the Ascent Psalms (Ps 120–134) while stationed on the stairs between
29

I take John 7:1–10:21 as a narrative unit because there is no indication of any
change in setting prior to 10:22, where Jesus appears in Jerusalem for the Feast
of Dedication and thus several months after Sukkot. Cf. Luc Devillers, O.P., La
Fête de L’Envoyé: La Section Johannique de la Fête des Tentes (Jean 7,1–10, 21) et
la Christologie, Études Bibliques 49 (Paris: J. Gabalda, 2002), 16–18. For secondary treatments of Sukkot in Jewish antiquity, see Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, The History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods, Brown Judaic Studies
302 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995); Håkan Ulfgard, The Story of Sukkot: The Setting, Shaping, and Sequel of the Biblical Feast of Tabernacles (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1998); Devillers, La Fête de L’Envoyé, 29–76; E. P. Sanders, Judaism:
Practice and Belief 63 B.C.E.–66 C.E. (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1992), 139–41; Gale A. Yee, Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John (Wilmington,
DE: Michael Glazier, 1989), 13–16, 21–27 (reprint, Wipf & Stock, 2007, 70–77).
30
Using the Mishnah as a historical source for liturgical practices before the destruction
of the Second Temple requires discernment, not only because the Mishnah’s redaction dates to about 200 but also because of the rabbis’ tendency to give an idealized
version temple worship. Rubenstein, History of Sukkot, 103–6, discusses these caveats
in using m. Sukkah as a historical source for first-century Jewish liturgical practice.
31
See m. Sukkah 5.1, cited from Herbert Danby, The Mishnah (London: Oxford University Press, 1954 [1933]), 179; the bracketed translation is Danby’s as found at
179n12.

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the two temple courts. So (unbelievably) great was the light provided by
these lampstands, “there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that did not
reflect the light of the [place of the water drawing].”32 After the all-night
celebration, priests processed out of the Court of Women toward the east
and the rising sun. Upon reaching the exit, the priests would turn around
toward the west, face the sanctuary, and declare, quoting Ezekiel 8:16:
“Our fathers when they were in this place turned with their backs toward
the Temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they worshipped
the sun toward the east [Ezek 8:16]; but as for us, our eyes are turned
toward the Lord.”33 Citing their ancestors, who had turned away from
YHWH by worshipping other gods, the priests would reaffirm Israel’s
dedication to YHWH while facing west toward the sanctuary.34
It has been argued that the theological symbolism of Jesus’s pronouncement to be the Light of the World owes more to Isaianic texts,
which speak of the Servant of YHWH as a “light to the nations” (e.g., Is
42:6; 49:6; cf. 42:18–19; 51:4–5) and which provide background for Jesus’s use of “I AM” statements, rather than the Sukkot liturgy.35 Without
denying the Isaianic resonances, I maintain that the liturgical context
and background of Sukkot suggest several other theological dimensions
of the light symbolism. Celebrations during Sukkot involved the recitation of the Hallel Psalms (Ps 113–118), and Psalm 118:27 associates
light with YHWH’s presence and providential care: “YHWH is God,
and he has given us light” (Ps 118:27).36 Given that Sukkot commemorated YHWH’s care for the Israelites in the wilderness, the lampstands
also recall the pillar of fire by which YHWH led the Israelites at night

32

See m. Sukkah 5:3 (Danby, 179–80). Rubenstein, History of Sukkot, 135, regards this
remark about the extent of the illumination as a case of rabbinic embellishment.
33
See m. Sukkah 5:4 (Danby, 180); italics Danby’s.
34
Ibid.
35
See Edwyn Clement Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel, ed. Francis Noel Davey (London: Faber and Faber, 1947), 220; David Mark Ball, “I Am” in John’s Gospel: Literary Function, Background and Theological Implications, Journal for the Study of
the New Testament Supplement Series 124 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1996), 215–24; Catrin H. Williams, I Am He: The Interpretation of ’Anî Hû’ in
Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 266–75.
36
Devillers, La Fête de l’Envoyé, 358. He also cites Psalm 27:1 as making the same association of light and God’s protective presence.

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(Ex 13:21–22; Nm 14:14; Neh 9:12).37 Another aspect of the light symbolism comes from Zechariah 14, which describes the Day of the Lord,
when YHWH would come with eschatological salvation for Jerusalem,
which has been besieged and overrun by Gentile enemies. YHWH will
fight Israel’s enemies, defeat them, and manifest his universal Lordship
(14:9). On the Day of YHWH, the prophet also remarks, “there will be
a single day (this is known to YHWH), not day and not night, and at
evening time, there will be light” (Zec 14:7). In addition to the unending
light of day, there would also be a constant flow of life-giving waters,
released from the eschatological Zion to water the whole world all year
round (Zec 14:8).38 All the surviving Gentile nations, who had formerly
opposed Israel, “will go up, year after year, to worship the King, YHWH
of Hosts, and to celebrate the festival of Sukkot” (Zec 14:16). These eschatological expectations of life-giving waters and unending daylight
likely inform the development of the postbiblical water and light rituals
described in the Mishnah.39 Indeed, Tosefta Sukkah 3:18 references Rabbi ‘Aqiba, who associates Zechariah 14:17–18 with the water drawing
rituals described in m. Sukkah, and this association indicating that (at
the very least) Zechariah 14 informed subsequent Jewish reflection on
the Sukkot liturgy.40
The Fourth Gospel shows a subtle awareness of the light ceremonies at Sukkot described in the Mishnah. John locates Jesus’s pro-

37

Jewish exegetical traditions identified the pillar of fire with the Torah (e.g., Wis
18:3–4), and an association between the pillar of fire and Jesus, who is elsewhere
in John identified in terms of God’s Word and Wisdom, would fit with such interpretive trends. See Raymond E. Brown, S.S., The Gospel According to John, 2
vols., Anchor Bible 29–29A (New York: Doubleday, 1966–70), 1.344; Devillers,
La Fête de l’Envoyé, 358–59; Alan R. Kerr, The Temple of Jesus’ Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 339;
Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 141; Moloney, Signs and Shadows, 69, 94.
38
The association of Zion with life-giving, paradisal waters was a component in biblical temple theology. See Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (New York: HarperCollins, 1985), 129–31, 159–61.
39
On the connection of Zechariah 14 with the liturgical lights of Sukkot, see Dorit
Felsch, Die Feste im Johannesevangelium: Jüdische Tradition und christologische Deutung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 211–14.
40
Tosefta Sukkah 3:18 in Jacob Neusner, The Tosefta: Second Divisions—Moed (The Order of Appointed Times) (New York: Ktav, 1981), 222–23.

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nouncement to be the Light within the general context of the Sukkot
liturgy. The association between Jesus’s words about “rivers of living
water” (7:38) and the daily water-drawing rituals in the Sukkot liturgy
increases the probability that John also invites his audience to see a relationship between Jesus as the Light and the liturgical lights of Sukkot.
Moreover, the narrator reports that Jesus’s declaration to be the Light
of the World and the ensuing exchange with the Pharisees (8:12–19)
took place near “the temple treasury” (gazophulakion) (8:20). Josephus
reports the presence of gazophulakia in the Court of Women—probably in the sense of containers into which offerings of money were put.41
This assessment finds some support from Mishnah Shekalim 6:5, which
mentions the presence of “thirteen Shofar-chests in the Temple” into
which people deposited money for different purposes.42 Moreover,
Mark 12:41–42 has Jesus sitting in view of the temple treasury and
watching the crowds, including the poor widow, put money “into the
treasury” (gazophulakion) (12:21). The woman’s presence in the temple
area, coupled with her donation of money into the gazophulakion, may
point to a location in the Court of Women. If the mention of “the temple treasury” in John 8:20 is understood to mean such offering boxes in
the Court of Women, then Jesus would be declaring himself to be the
Light of the World in the same area where, according to the Mishnah,
the lampstands for the Sukkot liturgy stood.43
Jesus and the Sukkot Liturgy in Light of the Theology of Disclosure
The theology of disclosure helps draw out several aspects of this relationship between Jesus and the Sukkot liturgy. It directs our theological
attention to the reality or state of affairs, which is given in a particular
appearance—the appearance in this case is the Gospel text. When John
41

Josephus, The Jewish War, 5.200. So too “[gazophulakeion]” in Walter Bauer, W. F.
Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, and F. W. Danker, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1979), 149.
42
See m. Shekalim 6:5 (Danby, 159).
43
So C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary
and Notes on the Greek Text, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 340; Brown,
Gospel According to John, 1.342; Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St.
John, vol. 2, trans. Cecily Hastings et al. (New York: Crossroad, 1980 [1971]), 195–96.

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situates Jesus in relation to the Sukkot liturgy, he is articulating a relationship between two realities, two res—the man Jesus and the liturgical
practices of Sukkot—which he then presents through the Gospel text.
The peculiarity of this relationship between Jesus and the Sukkot liturgy
should not be overlooked. For instance, it can be distinguished from an
explicit fulfillment citation of Scripture (e.g., Jn 19:24, 36–37), for in the
case of the liturgy, it is not Scripture per se bearing witness to Jesus (cf.
5:39). Moreover, the relationship also differs from Jesus’s appropriation
of biblical images (e.g., the manna and the vine) to present himself as the
Bread of Life (6:48) and the True Vine (15:1), for the liturgies are practices contemporary to Jesus, not suggestive textual allusions (although
both involve the appropriation of established theological symbolism).44
The theology of disclosure clarifies that the relationship between
Jesus and the Sukkot liturgy is a relationship between two res, each
of which is profiled against the other. On the one hand, Jesus appears
against the background of the Sukkot liturgy. Different aspects of this liturgical res have been given in a manifold of appearances across the history, practices, and Scriptures of Israel. Given that Jesus appears in light
of these many aspects in John 8:12, a brief review of them is in order.
Like other Jewish liturgies in Scripture, Sukkot originated as an
agricultural feast and later came to be associated with a specific episode in salvation history. This feast, originally known as “ingathering
(’asiph)” (Ex 23:16–17; 34:22–23), took place at the fall harvest and came
to involve a religious pilgrimage to YHWH’s sanctuary.45 Deuteronomy
16:13–15 specifies that the festival was marked by great joy and took
place over seven days, during which Israel praised YHWH for the blessings of the fall harvest. Legislation from the Holiness school defined this
harvest festival as an eight-day commemoration of God’s providential
care for the Israelites during their time in the wilderness (Lv 23:33–43).
During the festival, worshippers would dwell in huts (sukkot), which
they would construct out of different kinds of branches (Lv 23:39–43).
44

Carl Holladay observes that Jesus’s use of biblical images like the manna and the vine
are a different kind of Scriptural fulfillment than that introduced by a fulfillment
citation. See Carl R. Holladay, A Critical Introduction to the New Testament: Interpreting the Message and Meaning of Jesus Christ, 2 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005),
1.296.
45
Rubenstein, History of Sukkot, 13.

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Sukkot also had prominent connections with the Jerusalem temple. 1
Kings 8 locates Solomon’s dedication of the temple during this festival
in the seventh month (1 Kgs 8:2, 65). After the return from Babylon,
the high priest Joshua and Zerubbabel dedicated the altar of the Second
Temple in conjunction with this festival (Ezr 3:1–6). Sukkot also provided a model for the celebration of the rededication of the Second Temple
by the Maccabees (1 Mc 4:56–58; 2 Mc 10:5–7). As a pilgrimage festival,
the Sukkot liturgies were centered in the Second Jerusalem Temple, and
the festival was particularly joyous and popular.46 And as mentioned
above, Zechariah presented the Sukkot liturgy as having an eschatological dimension as the festival during which all the nations would make
pilgrimage to worship YHWH.
These different dimensions of the liturgical res—a celebration of
God’s blessings of the harvest; a commemoration of God’s providential
care for the Israelites in the wilderness; occasion of future hope for the
eschatological state to be brought about by YHWH—have all come to
light within the theological horizon provided by the basic understanding of God revealed across the Old Testament. John invites his audience
to see Jesus (to an extent) in relation to the Sukkot liturgy as given within this theological horizon. As a Jewish male, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem
to participate in the festival liturgy (Jn 7:10). By going up to the festival,
Jesus places himself within the covenantal history of YHWH’s dealings
with Israel and Israel’s worship of YHWH to commemorate his love and
providential care.
The Sukkot liturgy thus provides Jesus with the context and the
terms for his self-disclosure as the Light of the World. It enables Jesus
to disclose himself in a particular manner. Accordingly, the already-revealed aspects of Sukkot as a liturgical festival are something of a “presentational necessity” (as Sokolowski puts it): Christian realities can
only become manifest in light of the Old Testament; the Old Testament
provides an indispensible context for the appearance of Christian realities, such that Christian realities cannot be understood adequately apart

46

Rubenstein, History of Sukkot, 100, concludes that during the Second Temple period,
“Sukkot [was] . . . the main pilgrimage and primary temple festival.” Ulfgard, Story
of Sukkot, 241, 251, argues that the active role that Jewish laity had in its festivities
contributed to the popularity of Sukkot near the end of the Second Temple period.

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from it.47 To have a robust understanding of Jesus as the Light, one must
understand his declaration to be the Light in relation to these different
aspects of the Sukkot liturgy as a liturgical res.
And yet Jesus’s pronouncement “I am the Light of the World” also
causes the Sukkot liturgy to appear in a new way. Like the other “I am
+ predicate” statements found throughout the Fourth Gospel, Jesus’s
self-identification as the Light of the World is revelatory. With such
statements, Jesus reveals aspects of himself and saving work to those
to whom he has been sent, and in doing so, Jesus reveals the Father.
When Jesus says “I am the Light of the World. The one who follows me
will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (Jn 8:12), he
is disclosing a particular state of affairs. Grammatically, the phrase tou
kosmou is an objective genitive, and Jesus’s declaration can appropriately
be translated as “the Light for the World.” Jesus causes things to appear
in such a way that he is the focal point in relation to which everything
else—that is, the whole world—is situated. It is a revelatory claim on a
cosmic scale.
Jesus presents a state of affairs in which he is the spiritual Light for
a world, which is implied to be in spiritual darkness. As the Gospel sets
forth elsewhere, this spiritual darkness threatens to “overcome” people
(12:35). It leaves them lost, aimless, and ignorant of their proper ends
(12:36; cf. 11:9–10). The darkness also has a moral dimension for, as
John states, “people loved the darkness rather than the light, for their
works were evil” (3:19). By contrast, Jesus says that “the one who follows”
him as the Light will be delivered from the spiritual darkness, much as
he will later say, “I have come into the world as light, so that everyone
who believes in me may not remain in the darkness” (12:46). Jesus also
promises his disciples possession of “the light of life.” Throughout the
Gospel, Jesus promises eternal life to those who receive him and his
revelation in faith (3:15–16, 36; 5:24; 6:47). This eternal life consists in
a participatory share in his own divine relationship with the Father as
the Son. Hence those who “believe in the light . . . become sons of the
light” (12:36), much like those who believe in the Son become “children
of God” (1:12).
Along with revealing a particular state of affairs, Jesus manifests his
47

Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 145.

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own person through the revelatory formula in 8:12. By inviting people to “follow” him as disciples (8:12) and later to “believe in the light”
(12:36), Jesus manifests his identity as the Light in terms of his being
revealer and teacher.48 The invitation to follow Jesus and believe is not
only an invitation to believe what Jesus says (i.e., the state of affairs that
he presents) but also to believe in him as the one who makes these revelatory claims.49 Jesus manifests himself as having an authority and status
by which all things appear in relation to him and he can make definitive
pronouncements on a cosmic scale. This combination of Jesus as revealer, life-giver, and spiritual light for the entire world on a cosmic scale
recalls the most proximate context for Jesus’s self-manifestation as the
Light of the World: the Gospel’s Prologue.
A number of lexical similarities invite the Gospel’s audience to take
passages in which Jesus is presented as the Light in terms of the Prologue. The Prologue associates the divine Word, through whom “everything came to be” (1:2) with “life” and “light” (1:4). Jesus has come into
the world as the Light (12:46), and the Prologue speaks of the Word as
“the true Light who comes into the world” (1:9; cf. 1:14). As Jesus declares himself to be the Light of the World (8:12), the Prologue speaks
of the Word as “the true light, which illumines all people” (1:9). Jesus
promises his disciples “the light of life” (8:12), and the Prologue sets
forth the Word’s life as “the light of human beings” (1:4). Whereas the
darkness does not “overcome” (katelaben) the Light that is the Word
(1:5), Jesus warns people to follow him as the Light lest the darkness
“overcome” (katalabē) them (12:35).
When viewed from the perspective of the Prologue, Jesus’s declaration to be the Light of the World is a manifestation of his own identity
as the incarnate Word. Jesus speaks as man, but his declarative human
speech reveals his divine identity.50 The state of affairs that Jesus reveals
has authority and calls for faith because of his identity as the one “who
has come down from heaven” (3:13) and reveals “what [he] has seen in
the Father’s presence” (8:38). Jesus thus presents himself as the incarnate

48

Brown, Gospel According to John, 1.344.
On this structure of the act of faith, see Robert Sokolowski, “Philosophy and the
Christian Act of Faith,” in Christian Faith and Human Understanding, 28–29.
50
See Sokolowski, “Revelation of the Holy Trinity,” 140–41.
49

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William M. Wright IV

Word, whose life is “the light of all people” (1:4), and on the basis of his
divine authority, this revealed state of affairs has a normativity, which,
like his own person, calls for a response of faith.
The Incarnation of the divine Word introduces a new understanding of who the God of Israel is.51 As the incarnate Word and Son, who
was with the Father “before the world existed” (17:5), the only one who
has seen the Father and made him known (1:18), Jesus reveals the identity of God in the most profound and intimate terms and thus introduces a new understanding of who God is. Jesus speaks within the horizon
of this new understanding of God, which his interlocutors in the Gospel
do not share.52 Indeed, the different understandings of who the God of
Israel is account for much of the misunderstanding between Jesus and
his interlocutors and opponents in the Fourth Gospel.
For instance, these differences in the understanding of God appear
vividly in the exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees, which immediately follows his declaration to be the Light of the World (8:13–19).53
After Jesus declares himself to be the Light, some Pharisees object that
Jesus’s claim is illegitimate because he makes this claim by himself and
without corroborating witnesses (8:13). The Pharisees’ objection rests
on the basis of biblical texts such as Numbers 35:30 and Deuteronomy
17:6, which forbid self-testimony and call for the testimony of multiple witnesses.54 Jesus accepts this legal standard, thus placing himself
in continuity with Torah (Jn 8:17). But he meets its requirements on
the terms provided by his revelation of the Father and himself as the
Son. He offers himself and the Father as the two witnesses who testify
51

Discussing the presentation of the Logos in John’s Prologue, much of which he reads
as quite congruent with contemporary Jewish speculation about God’s Word, Daniel
Boyarin remarks, “what marks the Fourth Gospel as a new departure in the history
of Judaism is not to be found in its Logos theology at all but in its incarnational
Christology.” “The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to
John,” Harvard Theological Review 94 (2001): 261.
52
Similarly, Marianne Meye Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 208–9.
53
Williams, I Am He, 266–75, tracks out the debate over who God is in the remainder
of John 8 in light of Jesus’s use of egō eimi, derived from its application to YHWH in
Isaiah 40–55.
54
Brown, Gospel According to John, 1.223, notes that Mishnah Ketuboth 2:9 provides
similar halakah (in the context of marriage laws): “none may be believed when he
testifies of himself ” (Danby, 247).

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965

on his behalf: “I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me
testifies about me” (8:18).55 The Pharisees’ rejoinder “Where is your
father?” (8:19) suggests that they expect Jesus to produce another human being (i.e., Joseph) as a witness. They do not realize that Jesus is
speaking about God the Father because they do not share with Jesus
the exact same understanding of who God is. There is theological continuity and overlap between Jesus and the Pharisees as evidenced in
the fact that Jesus accepts the legal requirements of Torah. But there
is also discontinuity and newness because the Torah, as used by Jesus
in 8:12–20, is received in light of the new understanding of the God of
Israel as revealed in the Incarnation.
Just as Jesus’s self-disclosure as the Light of the World causes himself, his disciples, and the world to appear in a particular way and
within a particular theological horizon, it also causes Sukkot to appear in a new way. While Jesus does not refer directly to Sukkot in his
declaration, the liturgy is not wholly absent because it provides the
context and terms for Jesus’s disclosure. The state of affairs disclosed
in 8:12 has in the foreground Jesus as the Light, his disciples, and the
world in spiritual darkness, and Sukkot shows up in this disclosure as
part of the background.
Jesus’s self-presentation as the Light of the World makes him the
focal point in relation to which all things (including the Sukkot liturgy) are situated. By making this declaration in the very location
where the lampstands for Sukkot stood, Jesus causes the res that are
the light rituals of Sukkot now to appear as setting up his revelation to
the world. In setting up Jesus’s revelation, the Sukkot liturgy appears
as participating in it. When Jesus “sublates” these liturgical rites by
incorporating them into his deeper revelation of the God of Israel,
then new, previously unseen aspects of the liturgy become visible, that
is, the ways in which the liturgy participates in Jesus’s mission.56 These
55

As Barrett, Gospel According to St. John, 333, succinctly puts it, Jesus “is inseparable
from the Father, and their combined witness ought to be acknowledged as valid by
those who accept the Jewish law.”
56
My use of “sublation” here is owed to Francis Martin, who employs this term
according to the definition given by Bernard Lonergan: “What sublates goes
beyond what is sublated, introduces something new and distinct, yet so far
from interfering with the sublated or destroying it, on the contrary needs it, in-

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Christological dimensions of a biblical reality like Sukkot remain hidden until they are revealed in light of Christ and the explanatory activity of the Holy Spirit in the disciples.57 The newly revealed Christological dimensions do not negate the already visible ones, but the liturgy
does appear differently when put into this new theological setting.
While John does not use “testimony” or “witness” language for the
Jewish liturgies, it is helpful to consider their relationship with Jesus
in the Fourth Gospel along these lines. Jesus’s revelatory declaration in
8:12 causes the light rituals of Sukkot to appear as setting up his revelatory and saving work and thus participating in it.58 Seen in this way,
the liturgy can be regarded as bearing witness to Jesus in a manner
similar to Jesus’s own works, John the Baptist, the Scripture (5:32–39),
and the evangelist’s own testimony in the Gospel (19:35; 21:24). They
all relate to Jesus by pointing to him and serving his mission of revelation and salvation. Framed in this way, Jesus incorporates the light
rituals of Sukkot into his revelation and thus showing them to having
dimensions, which are anticipatory of himself. If the res that is the
Sukkot liturgy bears a kind of witness to Jesus, it can be regarded as
having a signitive function whereby it points to Jesus. To use the traditional terminology again, Jesus reveals himself as the res in relation to
which the Sukkot liturgy constitutes a res significans, and this liturgical
res significans participates in Jesus mission by anticipating it.59 Without negating its already revealed aspects, the Sukkot liturgy appears in
this new theological context as “an anticipated participation” in Jesus’s
revelatory and saving work.60
The key point provided by the theology of disclosure in this regard
cludes it, preserves all its proper features and properties, and carries them
forward to a fuller realization within a richer context.” From Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972), 241, as cited in
Francis Martin, “The Contribution and Challenge of Dei Verbum,” in Sacred
Scripture: The Disclosure of the Word (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2006) 234.
57
See Ignace de la Potterie, “The Truth in Saint John,” Rivista biblica italiana 11 (1963):
3–24; reprint, John Ashton, ed., The Interpretation of John, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1997), 67–82.
58
Cf. Thompson, God of the Gospel of John, 219.
59
Cf. Augustine, De doctrina christiana 1.2.2; 3.8.12; 3.9.13; Michael Cameron, “Sign,”
in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A.
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 793–98.
60
Martin, “Election, Covenant, and Law,” 888.

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967

is that the new appearances of biblical realities—that is, that they now
appear as having dimensions anticipatory of Christ—needs to be registered in terms of a more fundamental modification in the understanding of who God is. Just as the Incarnation modifies the understanding
of the God of Israel, so too does it modify the understanding of the biblical realities in relation to this God. As Richard Bauckham has argued,
monolatry was the practical expression of monotheism in Second Temple Judaism: “the exclusive worship of the God of Israel is precisely a
recognition of and response to his unique identity.”61 Since God is understood to be the transcendent Creator and Lord of all creation, he alone
is to be given worship. But when the understanding of the identity of the
God of Israel is modified by the Incarnation, the liturgical worship of
that God must likewise be understood anew. The Jewish liturgies must
be understood in a new way because the God, to whom the liturgies are
directed, is understood in a new way. The continuity and newness in
the relationship articulated between Jesus and the Sukkot liturgy need
to be registered in light of the continuity and newness between the understanding of God revealed in the Old Testament and that revealed in
the Incarnation.
This correlation between shifts in the understanding of God and
liturgy similarly appear in Jesus’s words to the Samaritan woman about
the worship of the Father in the messianic age. The Father seeks those
who will worship him “in spirit and truth” (4:24), that is, in light of the
revelation of the Son, who is “the truth” (14:6), and animated by the
Holy Spirit, who imparts new spiritual life (3:5).62 The Fourth Gospel
thus prescribes a new form of worship, which is proper to this new understanding of the God of Israel: it is founded upon the revelation of the
Father, which is given by the Son and vivified by the Spirit.63

61

Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 12.
See Ignace de la Potterie, S.J., La Vérité dans Saint Jean, 2 vols., Analecta biblica
73–74 (Roma: Editrice Pontifico Istituto Biblico, 1999 [1977]), 2.673–706.
63
Thus Thompson, God of the Gospel of John, 217, writes that the Fourth Gospel “is not
a ‘radical critic of traditional Jewish worship’ so much as it is a critic of the failure
to recognize the eschatological hour and the way in which worship is appropriately
offered in that hour.”
62

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William M. Wright IV

Conclusion
This analysis of the relationship of Jesus as the Light of the World and
the liturgy of Sukkot in light of Sokolowski’s theology of disclosure suggests several things. First, the theology of disclosure helps clarify the
relationship between Jesus and the Sukkot liturgy as existing between
two res. The logic of this relationship suggests that the liturgies do not
function simply as a foil or are devoid of meaning of their own. Rather,
the liturgical res retains its integrity and meaning in relation to the revelation of God in the Old Testament, when Jesus appropriates them into
his more profound revelation of the same God. The liturgies provide
Jesus with the context and terms for his disclosure, and Jesus in turn
reveals previously unseen dimensions by which they anticipate and participate in his revelatory and saving work.
Second, the theology of disclosure highlights the importance of
John’s doctrine of God for the relationship between Jesus and the Jewish liturgies. Through his revelatory speech as the incarnate Word, Jesus
sets forth a new way of understanding the world, liturgy, and most profoundly the God of Israel. Jesus’s revelation of the Father and himself as
the Son provides the fundamental context in which biblical res, such as
Sukkot, come to appear in the Fourth Gospel. The Incarnation reveals a
new understanding of who the God of Israel is, and following from this
shift in the understanding of the identity of God is a shift in how the
Jewish liturgies are understood. The continuity and newness between
Jesus and Sukkot in the Fourth Gospel should be appreciated in light of
the more fundamental continuity and newness in the understanding of
the identity of the God of Israel as revealed in the Old Testament and in
the Incarnation.
Third, as suggested by the use of the Augustinian and Thomistic
vocabulary (e.g., res, signa, and res significans), this analysis points to
some correspondence between the relationship of Jesus and the liturgies
(as two res) in the Fourth Gospel and classic accounts of the spiritual
sense of Scripture. Thomas Aquinas programmatically defines the spiritual sense in the first question of the Summa theologiae along similar
lines: “That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on

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969

the literal, and presupposes it.”64 The spiritual senses do not pertain to
the words of Scripture as such but to the things, signified by the words,
which themselves signify the mystery of Christ and the Church. Or, as
Henri de Lubac plainly puts it, “to discover this allegory [i.e., spiritual
sense], one will not find it properly speaking in the text, but in the realities of which the text speaks; not in history as recitation, but in history
as event.”65 Such points of convergence suggest further examination of
the correspondence between a New Testament theology of history, such
as John’s, and premodern accounts of Scripture’s spiritual senses whereby historical realities are seen to participate in the economy of the divine
Word. Sokolowski’s directing of our theological attention to the biblical
res as presented by the verba also provides a contemporary register in
which contemporary exegesis can reconnect with this premodern tradition. For, as Francis Martin has rightly observed, “The theory of the
spiritual sense of Scripture is based, not on a theory of text, but on a
N&V
theology of history.”66

64

ST I, q. 1, a. 10, resp.; cited from St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans.
Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 3 vols. (New York: Benziger Brothers,
1947–48). The Latin text reads, “Illa vero significatio qua res significatae per voces,
iterum res alias significant, dicitur sensus spiritualis; qui super litteralem fundatur,
et eum supponit.” Cited from http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth1001.html.
65
Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, vol. 2, The Four Senses of Scripture, trans. E. M.
Macierowski (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2000 [1958]), 86.
66
Martin, “Election, Covenant, and Law,” 867.

Nova et Vetera, E
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The Importance of Steven A. Long’s Analogia Entis
within Contemporary Catholic Thought*
Romanus Cessario, O.P.
Saint John’s Seminary
Brighton, MA

The publications of Steven A. Long elicit deep admiration. Beyond
the hosts of articles that have emerged from his study and teaching, his
three books have particularly enriched contemporary Catholic philosophy and theology. First, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act
(published in 2007).1 Second, Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature
in the Doctrine of Grace with its leading chapter (the heart of the book),
titled “On the Loss, and the Recovery, of Nature as a Theonomic Principle” (published in 2010).2 Finally, and most recently, Analogia Entis:
On the Analogy of Being, Metaphysics, and the Act of Faith (published
in 2011). An impressive list of publications adorns Professor Long’s
curriculum vitae. Nonetheless, as is the case with the writings of Saint
Paul, “there are some things in them hard to understand” (2 Pt 3:16).
Indeed, if one had to propose words that best capture the essences of
his books, no doubt they would include “teleology,” “theonomy,” and
* These remarks were originally delivered on October 11, 2012, at the American Mar-

itain Association Conference book panel dedicated to Steven A. Long’s Analogia
Entis: On the Analogy of Being, Metaphysics, and the Act of Faith (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2011).
1
Steven A. Long, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act (Naples, FL: Sapientia
Press, 2007).
2
Steven A. Long, Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2010).

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Romanus Cessario, O.P.

“analogy.” Three demanding words that, as we all realize, elude facile
explanation.
To honor the considerable service of Professor Long to Catholic
intellectual life, I propose that his writings share a common, sapiential aspect. They do not constitute a disparate collection of technical
inquiries. Professor Long’s three books form an integral unity such as
one finds in the twenty-four theses of Thomist philosophy issued on
July 27, 1914, by the Sacred Congregation of Studies under the heading
“Decree of Approval of some theses contained in the Doctrine of St.
Thomas Aquinas and proposed to the Teachers of Philosophy.” Moreover, I further suggest that his most recent book, Analogia Entis, offers
us insight into the fundamental principle—indeed, one might say, the
sapiential key—to an adequate appreciation of Long’s work vis-à-vis
contemporary Catholic thought.
First, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act. During a 2008
symposium on Long’s first book, I made the following remarks:
Why does this book matter[?]: Let Veritatis splendor serve as a
starting point: “The object of the act of willing is in fact a freely
chosen kind of behaviour” [Veritatis splendor, §78]. Personal
worth and dignity depends on our rightly discerning kinds of
behavior. As Veritatis splendor §63 sets it forth, choosing a kind
of behavior that conforms to the truth about the good of the
human person affects an individual’s moral growth, the perfection of that human person, and the right disposition in a person for receiving the reward of eternal life. In short, happiness,
now and forever.3
In other words, how one articulates the nature of the human act matters on both speculative and existential levels. No wonder Professor
Long “argues eloquently that for Aquinas there is a basic ‘unit of act,’
and [that] this ‘unit’ is the case wherein the object is per se ordained to
3

Romanus Cessario, O.P., “Why This Book [The Teleological Grammar of the Moral
Act] Matters,” remarks presented at the 43rd International Congress on Medieval
Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 9, 2008. See also Romanus Cessario, O.P., “Human Action and the Foundations of the Natural Law,” Nova et Vetera 8 ( English), no.
1 (2010): 185–89.

The Importance of Long’s Analogia Entis

973

the end.”4 The teleology of act matters for the human person. It matters
for us.
Second, Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., one of my Dominican confreres, offered the following observation during the 2011 American Maritain Association Conference panel devoted to the book Natura Pura: “Professor Long—like a skilled physician—has been able to locate the ‘pulse’ of
theology, diagnose the cause of certain noticeable irregularities in the
‘heart beat’ of the history of Catholic thought, and offer principles and
suggestions to aid in a full and integral appropriation of the depositum
fidei.”5 What sorts of irregularities might these be and what are their
causes? Cuddy summarizes Long’s diagnosis: contemporary Catholic
theologians have neglected “the Thomistic understanding of obediential potency which is a passive and specified potentiality—grounded in
the impressed sapientia of the theonomic order in human rational nature.”6 In other words, the theonomic character of human nature and
its obediential potency (like the teleology of moral act) matters greatly.
And one recognizes this importance not just in speculative but also in
existential—and, indeed, beatitudinal—considerations. If one errs on
the level of obediential potency, one will err on the level of the theologal act. Not a small (or insignificant!) error for the Catholic thinker
who keeps the Highest Truth before his gaze.
Finally, Long’s most recent book on the analogy of being draws out
the universal implications of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s teaching that “potentia et actus dividunt ens et quodlibet genus entis”—“potency and
act divide being and every kind of being” (Summa theologiae I, q. 77,
a. 1). Attentiveness to potency and act is not optional within realist
speculation. Indeed, Long argues assiduously—and, I might add, compellingly—that “the intrinsic analogicity of being as divided by act and
potency” affords the philosopher and theologian a much surer foundation for their engaging life and contemplation than does “free-floating
relation.”7 As the twentieth-century Dominican commentator Reginald
Cessario, “Why this Book.”
Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., “Natura Pura, Obediential Potency, and Sacra Doctrina,” paper
presented at the 35th Annual International Meeting of the American Maritain Association, Notre Dame, Indiana, October 14, 2011.
6
Ibid.; emphasis original.
7
Long, Analogia Entis, 1.
4
5

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Romanus Cessario, O.P.

Garrigou-Lagrange was wont to remark, “the definition of potency
[and act] determines the Thomistic synthesis.”8 If one fails to formulate
this vital distinction correctly, one abandons the sapiential key to the
truth of reality.
Steven A. Long is a Thomist, pure and simple. His work manifests a
mastery of the fundamental importance (and universal implications) of
the real distinction between potency and act. Because of this mastery,
Professor Long has been able to articulate the subtleties and nuances
requisite to any adequate consideration of being—both natural and supernatural. Only if one understands potency and act’s real and proper
division of being will one be able to apprehend the reality behind words
like “teleology,” “theonomy,” and “analogy.” Moreover, without much
exaggeration, I suggest that unless one understands Long’s Analogia
Entis, one will not really appreciate the importance of his The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act, nor that of his Natura Pura, which I and
N&V
others have explored in more detail elsewhere.

8

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought (St.
Louis, MO: Herder, 1950), 37.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 975-988

975

The Doctrine of Analogy among the Thomists:
A Debate Renewed
Christopher M. Cullen, S.J.
Fordham University
New York, NY

KARL BARTHfamously says in his Church Dogmatics that the analogy of being is an invention of the Antichrist.1 Anyone who has tried
to sort through the complex debates on this topic among Thomists in
the second half of the twentieth century might well agree. Participants
to the debates are generally agreed that analogy involves identifying
similarity among difference and the predication of terms, somewhere
between sheer equivocation and metaphor, on the one hand, and univocity, on the other. As to how exactly analogy functions beyond this
though, there is little agreement even among many Thomists—not
about (1) whether analogy is merely a logical and semantic doctrine,
nor about (2) the different types of analogy, nor about (3) the type of
analogy operative in metaphysics and natural theology, nor even about
(4) the ontological foundation for analogy itself. Until the mid-twentieth century, the interpretation of Aquinas’s famous commentator,
Thomas de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan (1469–1534), held sway. But beginning with the work of various scholars in the mid-twentieth century,
Cajetan’s interpretation fell under attack. Since then, there has been no
1

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. G. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1936–77), 1/1: x. For discussion of Barth and his followers on analogy, see Thomas Joseph White, O.P., ed., The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Anti-Christ or Wisdom of God? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010).

976

Christopher Cullen, S.J.

shortage of critics of Cajetan.2 Cajetan came to be seen as an unreliable
interpreter of Aquinas on the issue of analogy. In this revised assessment, Cajetan “misread” certain texts of Aquinas in his famous De nominum analogia. De conceptu entis (1498).3 In his latest book, Steven
A. Long has bravely advanced into this Thomistic battlefield, and in
doing so, is clearly, to no small extent, attempting to issue a rallying
call back to various crucial elements of the Cajetanian interpretation of
Aquinas on analogy, in particular, (1) the unity of the historical doctrine of Aquinas on the matter and (2) the priority given to the analogy of proper proportionality.4 The very title of Long’s book recalls Cajetan’s own view that the analogy of proportionality is the “analogy of
being.”5 Long argues that what is ultimately at stake in this debate is the
very possibility of a philosophical theology that avoids the extremes of
2

H. Lyttkens, The Analogy between God and the World: An Investigation of Its Background and Interpretation of Its Use by Thomas Aquinas (Uppsala: Almqust & Wiksells, 1952); George P. Klubertanz, S.J., St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy: A Textual
Analysis and Systematic Synthesis (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1960); Cornelio Fabro, Participation et causalité selon s. Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Louvain, 1961);
Ralph McInerny, The Logic of Analogy: An Interpretation of St. Thomas (The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1961); McInerny, Aquinas and Analogy (Washington, DC: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1996); Bernard Montagnes, The Doctrine of Analogy
of Being According to Thomas Aquinas, trans. E. C. Macierowski (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2004; orig. publ. Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1963);
John Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2000), chaps. 3 and 13; Gregory P. Rocca,
O.P., Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive
and Negative Theology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press,
2004).
3
Thomas de Vio Cajetan, O.P., The Analogy of Names and the Concept of Being, trans.
Edward A. Bushinski (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1953).
4
Long is not alone in defending certain positions of Cajetan. Rocca lists a number
of midcentury adherents and their publications: Antonin Sertillanges, O.P., Maurilio Penido, Gerald Phelan, Charles Journet, Eric Mascall, James Anderson, Jacques
Maritain (Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God, 115n58). A more recent study
of Cajetan is: Joshua P. Hochshild, The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s
De nominum analogia (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010).
Hochschild interprets Cajetan’s theory as focused on trying to respond to questions
raised by John Duns Scotus, rather than on trying to provide an historical account
of Aquinas’s theory.
5
Long’s title also evokes the work of the same title by the twentieth-century Jesuit theologian Erich Przywara: Erich Przywara, S.J., Analogia Entis: Metaphysik
(München: Josef Kösel & Friedrich Pustet) 1932.

The Doctrine of Analogy among the Thomists

977

either agnosticism (concerning the nature of God) or a sort of rationalism that would hold that our concepts apply univocally to God (apart
from whether this univocity is overt or covert). In Long’s view, only
an analogy of proper proportionality avoids these extremes while also
securing the important goal of justifying the ways that believers speak
about God. And so, the many contemporary scholars who have cast
aside this delicate tool, whether among various contemporary theological schools, or even among Thomists, have managed to “mislay many
central doctrinal tenets of the Angelic Doctor.”6
Perhaps the first question in the debate has been, what is the teaching of Aquinas on this issue? The answer to this question is complicated
by the facts that Aquinas never wrote a systematic treatise on analogy
and that he may have changed his mind on analogy in fundamental
ways, as many scholars now think, from his early teaching in the Commentary on the Sentences and in De veritate.7 Long does not. He argues
that Aquinas’s position remained substantially unchanged throughout
his career and that the way to perceive this unity of doctrine is through
a systematic study of the issue in the light of the principles of the entire
Thomistic synthesis. Long’s method attempts to avoid getting lost in
the details of a chronological consideration of individual texts, which
are often addressing very specific and different issues. Long insists that
Aquinas never abandons the doctrine of De veritate 2.11, and so argues
that the analogy of proper proportionality is the analogy grounding
metaphysics, as De veritate implies, and is thus “the analogy of being.”
Long’s book is divided into four chapters and an appendix: chapter
one sets the metaphysical context for the consideration of analogy by
discussing the challenge of Parmenidean monism and the first principle
of being and thought; chapter two concerns the specific, important texts
of Aquinas on the issue of analogy; chapter three takes up some of the
more famous recent objections to the view that the analogy of proper
proportionality is the analogy of metaphysics; chapter four discusses the
importance of analogy for the act of faith; and finally, an appendix dis6
7

Long, 1.
See Wippel, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, chaps. 3 and 11, for a detailed
discussion of the relevant primary texts across the range of Aquinas’s career on both
the predicamental and transcendental levels.

978

Christopher Cullen, S.J.

cusses important issues concerning the epistemological starting point of
Thomistic metaphysics.
According to Long, the two important primary texts for understanding the foundational role of the analogy of proper proportionality
in Aquinas are Scriptum super Sententiis I, d. 19, q. 5, art. 2, ad 1, and
De veritate, q. 2, a.11. In the former, Aquinas says that something is said
according to analogy in three ways: according to the notion (intentio)
only and not according to being; according to being and not according
to the notion; and according to the notion and according to being. In
the first way one notion is referred to several things but has being only
in one, such as when we speak of “healthy” animals and “healthy” food.
In Long’s (and Cajetan’s) view, this is the analogy of extrinsic attribution. In the second type (according to being but not according to the
notion), Aquinas uses the example of “body” as predicated of heavenly
and earthly bodies. This meaning would be univocal for the logician but
merely analogical for the physicist or metaphysician, in that “body” refers to radically unequal substances, in one case to incorruptible bodies
and in another to corruptible bodies. The third type is analogy according to the notion and according to being; the example given is when “being” is said of substance and accident, or when “truth” and “goodness”
are said analogically of God and creatures. The notion and being are the
same “proportionally.”
Aquinas’s presentation of analogy in the Sentences becomes the basis for Cajetan’s division. Cajetan calls the first type an analogy of attribution (and he regards it as strictly extrinsic);8 the second type he calls
an analogy of inequality, and is according to being only, “because the
analogates are considered equal in the formality signified by the common name but are not held equal with respect to the ‘to be’ of this common formality”;9 the third type he calls an analogy of proportionality.
He distinguishes proportion from proportionality, the former being “a
definite relation of one quantity to another,” the latter being a similitude
of two proportions.10 “This analogy excels above the others mentioned
8

Cajetan, Analogy of Names, 16: “This analogy is according to extrinsic denomination
only, so that only the primary analogate realizes the perfection formally, whereas the
others have it only by extrinsic denomination.”
9
Ibid., 12–13.
10
Ibid., 25.

The Doctrine of Analogy among the Thomists

979

above both by dignity and name. By dignity, because it arises from the
genus of inherent formal causality, for it predicates perfections that are
inherent to each analogate whereas the other analogy arises from extrinsic denomination.”11
The second definitive text for analogy, according to Long, is from
Aquinas’s Disputed Questions on Truth (De veritate), q. 2, a. 11. This text,
dated to the school year 1256–57, unambiguously rules out the univocal or equivocal predication of names for God and creatures: univocal
because there is no common nature; equivocal, “for, unless there were
at least some real agreement between creatures and God, His essence
would not be the likeness of creatures, and so He could not know them
by knowing His essence.”12 In this text, Aquinas proceeds to distinguish
two types of analogy: an analogy of proportion: “a certain agreement
between things having a proportion to each other from the fact that
they have determinate distance from each other or some other relation
to each other;” and an analogy of proportionality: “the agreement is occasionally noted . . . between two related proportions—for example six
has something in common with four because six is two times three, just
as four is two times two.”13
Even though the analogy of proportion implicitly includes the likeness of effect to cause, Long argues that this analogy is not applicable to
God and creatures because “the divine cause does not of itself contain
any determinate order to the effect.” The reason there is no determinate
order in the case of God is that “nothing about the divine cause is of
itself determinately ordered or has real relation to the creature.”14
If we now turn to what is arguably the most important text of Aquinas that seems to run counter to Long’s interpretation, we find this one
from the prima pars of the Summa theologiae (ST):
Now names are thus used in two ways: either according as many
things are proportionate to one, thus for example “healthy”
11

Ibid., 27.
Thomas Aquinas, Truth (De veritate), trans. Robert W. Mulligan, S.J. (Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett, 1954), q. 2, a. 11.
13
Ibid.
14
Long, 58. See also, Mark G. Henninger, S.J., Relations: Medieval Theories 1250-1325
(New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1989).
12

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Christopher Cullen, S.J.

predicated of medicine and urine in relation and in proportion to health of a body, of which the former is the sign and the
latter the cause: or according as one thing is proportionate to
another, thus “healthy” is said of medicine and animal, since
medicine is the cause of health in the animal body. And in this
way some things are said of God and creatures analogically, and
not in a purely equivocal nor in a purely univocal sense. For
we can name God only from creatures. Thus whatever is said
of God and creatures, is said according to the relation of a creature to God as its principle and cause, wherein all perfections of
things pre-exist excellently.15
This text distinguishes two types of analogy—many-to-one and
one-to-another—and then seems to identify the latter as the analogy of
natural theology. Furthermore, this one-to-another analogy is grounded
in causal relation. Long wants still to interpret this text in light of Aquinas’s earlier texts and to understand the proportion of one to another
and of effect to cause as “analogies of transferred proportion that are
always as it were convertible into analogy of proper proportionality.”16
It is when we turn from individual texts to a consideration of the
larger context of certain crucial insights of Aquinas’s synthesis that we
can achieve considerable clarity about his doctrine of analogy. Long
argues that in order to understand Aquinas on analogy, we ought to
begin with the first principle of all thought and being, the principle of
noncontradiction (PNC). In Long’s account, this principle is the key
that unlocks the door of metaphysics and that eventually culminates in
a natural theology that establishes the intelligibility of the act of faith. As
Long puts it very clearly: that “act is not self-limiting is another form of
the judgment that being is not nonbeing.”17 Act is limited only by virtue
of its relation to potency and not by virtue of anything absolutely necessary to act as such.18 Thus implicit within the PNC there is a distinction
between act and potency. The PNC prompts us to the insight that act
15

Thomas Aquinas, ST I, q. 5, resp.
Long, 59.
17
Ibid., 28.
18
Ibid., 27.
16

The Doctrine of Analogy among the Thomists

981

itself is unlimited and that there is a principle that is not nonbeing, nor
mere possibility, nor act. This principle is potency.19 Potency is not act,
because it is a real, subjective capacity founded on act but distinct from
it; potency is not nonbeing, because it is a capacity; and it is not mere
possibility, because it is always dependent on a prior act to which it is
related. It is these insights that flow from a firm grasp of the principle of
noncontradiction. Of course, the height of development for the act-potency distinction is then in the further insight that existence and essence
are really distinct, that existence (esse) is the act of essence, and thus that
existence is superformal and not self-limiting.20 If I have understood
Long correctly, the classic problem of “the one and the many” must be
addressed before any analogy can be posited, for the simple reason that
analogy involves identification of similarities among the many, which is
a vain exercise if it is not clear how one can even first admit the existence
of the many in any way at all. The fuller answer to the problem of the
one and the many is found in the dual distinctions of act-potency and
esse-essence. “The answer is the fundamental truth that created essence
is to esse as potency to act. That is, when we ask formally for the cause
of limit, manyness, and change, the answer is ‘potency,’ for to have a
created essence is to have a potential principle vis-à-vis esse.”21 This same
principle then has crucial significance for natural theology, for “esse is
truly act in both creature and God but in creature as proportional to the
limit of potency and in God as proportional to the full perfection of act
unlimited by potency.”22
Long is not disregarding Aquinas’s teaching on participation, nor
is he denying that “potency limits the participation in being and establishes the degree of remotion from the first cause.”23 But he is arguing
that prior to the notion of participation are the notions that act is itself
unlimited, that act is distinct from potency, and that potency is a cor19

Ibid., 16–17.
Ibid., 25.
21
Ibid., 67.
22
Ibid., 59.
23
Ibid., 26. Cf. W. Norris Clarke, S.J., “The Limitation of Act by Potency in St. Thomas:
Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism?,” in Explorations in Metaphysics: Being–God–Person (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 65–88. (Long cites this
text but wishes not to enter fully into its argument; see Long, 26n13).
20

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Christopher Cullen, S.J.

relative, limiting principle that determines the degree of being. Long
argues that both the proofs for the existence of God and the doctrine of
participation are preceded by the division of being by act and potency.
“Hence the Aristotelian answer to Parmenides is the necessary condition for any ontologically pluralist doctrine of participation.”24
Long is rejecting the thesis that analogy is properly speaking merely
a logical and semantic theory concerning the functioning of words or
terms.25 As such a theory, analogy involves a use of terms to speak about
related realities, even though the realities and their relations themselves
are not analogical—they simply are, or in other words, they are what
they are. As Benedict Ashley, who follows Ralph McInerny on this issue
in his recent textbook on Thomistic metaphysics, states, “It is only the
processes of human thought and the inadequacy of human language in
which we express thought that leads us to understand something we do
not understand through what we know better, and consequently to express it by analogical terms.”26 The crucial point, Ashley argues (making
use of McInerny’s work), is to keep distinct the linguistic and logical
question of how words are used univocally, equivocally, metaphorically, or analogically, from the ontological question of “how the realities
named by such texts are related to each other.”27 Analogy is a logical
theory about the significance of terms, not an ontological theory about
things and their properties.
In Ashley’s account of “one-to-one analogy,” a word is transferred
“from its proper use for A to name something else B similar enough to
A so that the knowledge of A helps to understand B in a way useful for
critical thought, yet not similar enough to B for A and B to be reduced
24

Long, 28.
See Ralph McInerny, Aquinas and Analogy: Studies in Analogy (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968); “The Analogy of Names Is a Logical Doctrine,” in Being and
Predication (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986); also
John Deely, “The Absence of Analogy,” Review of Metaphysics 55, no. 3 (2002): 521–
50. Cf. Lawrence Dewan, O.P., “St Thomas and Analogy: Logician and the Metaphysician,” in Laudemus viros gloriosos: Essays in Honor of Armand Maurer, C.S.B., ed.
R. E. Houser (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 132–45.
26
Benedict Ashley, O.P., The Way toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
2006), 135.
27
Ibid., 284.
25

The Doctrine of Analogy among the Thomists

983

as species to a single univocal genus.”28 In Ashley’s account, “many-toone” analogy differs in that it transfers a word from its proper use for
A to several other kinds of things with different relations to A but with
the same name. Ashley says that Cajetan tried to distinguish analogies
based on a single relation—that is, proportion—from those based on a
comparison of the relations between two pairs of terms—that is, proportionality, or a similarity of one relation to another.29 “But,” says Ashley,
“this is not an essential difference, since any analogy can be displayed
as a proportionality.”30 Thus analogy is merely about determining how
transferred uses are related to the one proper use. The proper sense of
the word is the res significata and the differences are found in the modus
significandi, which involve a relation of similarity.31
One of the other important issues that Long discusses concerns the
foundational type of analogy for metaphysics and natural theology. A
major alternative to the position Long takes on this issue is the view
that would maintain that the analogy of one-to-another (unius ad alterum) (or what has been called “intrinsic attribution, based on the causal
relation”) is the foundation for metaphysics and for our knowledge of
God.32 The defenders of this latter position appeal especially to the text
already cited from ST I, q. 13, a. 5, where Aquinas says that “whatever is
said of God and creatures is said according to the relation of creature to
God as its principle and cause.”33 According to this view, it is this type of
analogy that is of value in natural theology because this is grounded in
the similarity of effect to cause found in the causal relation.
These defenders of analogy of one-to-another (or intrinsic attribu28

Ibid., 286.
Ibid., 187.
30
Ibid., 287.
31
Ibid., 287. Herbert McCabe also regards “analogy” as a way of using words: “Too
much has been made of St. Thomas’s alleged teaching on analogy. For him analogy is
not a way of getting to know about God, nor is it a theory of the structure of the universe, it is a comment on our use of certain words” (McCabe quoted in Brian Davies,
O.P., “The Limits of Language and the Notion of Analogy,” in The Oxford Handbook
of Aquinas, ed. Brian Davies and Eleanore Stump (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 397n8).
32
Charles D. Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics: An Enquiry into the Act of Existing (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1959).
33
ST I, q. 5, resp.
29

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Christopher Cullen, S.J.

tion) claim that the analogy of proper proportionality is inadequate for
the purposes of natural theology because there is no clear similarity between a conceivable being whose essence is to exist and the beings of
our experience where the real relations pertain. Trying to build a natural
theology on this analogy ends in agnosticism, especially since the notion of being in metaphysics, as a transcendental, must always include
all conceivable, as well as all actually existing, beings. Thus some form
of analogy not based merely on a four-term “proportionality”—that is,
the similar proportion of relations—is needed if we are to escape this
agnosticism. Montagnes, for example, complains of Cajetan that he has
separated the conceptual order and the real order. In Cajetan’s theory,
the property of the concept’s encompassing its inferiors pertains only
to our representation. “The all-encompassing supreme instance within
which all beings are unified and under which they all are like each other is none other than the idea of being. The unity of being is that of a
concept.”34 Or, as Montagnes puts it, the difference between the two theories is the difference between “a metaphysics of the idea of being” and
“a metaphysics of the degrees of being.”35 The debate among Thomists
over analogy will no doubt hinge, in no small part, on whether Long has
defended the analogy of proper proportionality from this concern that
Montagnes raises.
Montagnes argues that only the analogy of one-to-another can supply what is needed, namely, a grounding in causal relation, “in virtue
of the relations of efficient and formal causality, and the sum of those
relations constitutes participation.”36 Essences are to be considered from
two points of view—the predicamental and the transcendental. Here
Montagnes is building on the distinction Fabro draws between analogy
at the predicamental level—that is, how being can be applied analogically to substance and the other accidents, or predicaments—and analogy
at the transcendental level, or vertically—that is, how being and other
names can be applied to different kinds of substances, especially God
and creatures.37 From the transcendental point of view, essences are to
34

Montagnes, Doctrine of Analogy of Being, 132.
Ibid., 162.
36
Ibid., 161.
37
In Long’s view, the analogy of proportionality is equipped to handle both horizontal
and vertical similarities while respecting differences. See also John Wippel’s discus35

The Doctrine of Analogy among the Thomists

985

be considered as degrees and modes of the perfection of being—that
is, as participations of being—essence being inseparable from esse. “Essence is no longer primarily defined as the potency and limitation of the
act of being. It is from the start its formal measure and this is so right up
to and including the situation in God.”38
Of course, those who defend the analogy of one-to-another try to
defend themselves from the accusation of rationalism by appealing to
the fundamental distinction between the reality signified by a name (res
signficata) and the name’s manner of signification (modus signficandi).
In this way, “while the absolute and analogical predicates of positive theology are affirmed of God as regards the reality they signify, they must
be denied as regards their manner of signification.”39
To a large extent, Long seems to be arguing over the foundation of
metaphysics and, more specifically, of natural theology. He is arguing
that the defenders of one-to-another analogy as the analogy of being are
making a fatal move by thinking that we can discover a direct proportion between God and creatures, as in 1:2, rather than a proportionality,
as is involved in 6:3:4:2, “God cannot be put into any determinate relation to the creature (although the creature is determined in relation to
God).”40 Long writes, “While the emphasis on analogy of proportion,
of one to another, and of effect to cause are all to be found in Thomas’s later writings, there are no apparent grounds for holding that any
strict analogy of proportion in the sense in which Thomas earlier denies
it, or in any sense that does not presuppose analogy of proper proportionality, is countenanced by him.”41 There can be no direct proportion
between God and creature because there is no relation of God to effect.
He writes: “The analogy of effect to cause, of one to another, can be only
an analogy of transferred proportion, for the divine cause has no determined relation or proportion to the effect, although the effect is wholly
determined in relation to the cause.”42 Long argues that his opponents
claim too much in establishing a proportion between effect and cause
sion of Fabro, Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 73n30, 74.
Montagnes, Doctrine of Analogy of Being, 161.
39
Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God, 334.
40
Long, 58.
41
Ibid., 58.
42
Ibid., 59.
38

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Christopher Cullen, S.J.

as the foundation. As Long concludes, “The distance from the nickel to
the dime is the same as that from the dime to the nickel, but there is not
such determinate proportion between creature and God.”43
It is the analogy of proper proportionality that safeguards the transcendence of the act of faith while not losing the intelligibility of that act
of faith.44 Transcendence is safeguarded because all that is said of God is
proportioned to God as his own, without limit of potency and standing
in no determined relation or direct proportion to the creature. Intelligibility is safeguarded because the middle term is the proportionate
identity of perfection—a perfection limited by potency in creatures, and
unlimited in God.
It is important to keep in mind that Long is not denying the importance of the analogy grounded in participation and the causal relation of
effect to cause. His point is that, while this type of analogy is important,
it is reducible to proportionality and, what is more, if I understand him
correctly, that before there can be relation of one to another, there must
be anything at all. “Analogy of relation is simply another term for what
Thomas calls an improper analogy of proportion (for owing to the divine simplicity, God has no determinate relation to the creature.”45 And
the existence of anything other than unlimited, pure act is only possible
if there is a correlative principle of limitation that limits act, that is, potency, since neither absolute nonbeing nor mere possibility could serve
such a function. The existence of anything other than being itself can
only be admitted if Parmenides is answered in his contention that being
is self-identical and thus the many and change cannot be. The Aristotelian division of being in the act-potency distinction is the answer, for
only this distinction makes possible the claim that any substance other
than pure act exists, and implicit in this distinction is the notion that act
is of itself unlimited.
This foundation provides Long with the firm footing to meet objections coming from two opposing ends of the spectrum. On the one
hand, Long must meet the Scotistic objection to nonunivocity theories,
namely, that analogous reasoning must be grounded in a simple, univo43

Ibid., 60.
Ibid., 101–2.
45
Ibid., 68.
44

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987

cal concept of being, which can apply to everything, at least insofar as it
is, rather than is not, if one is going to avoid a whole range of claims in
natural theology that involve one in sheer equivocation. In Scotus’s view,
at least some theological claims must be univocal for any subsequent
analogous reasoning to avoid equivocation.46 In a way, much of Long’s
book constitutes his implicit answer (as did Cajetan’s book) and his attempt to safeguard the intelligibility of speech about God without positing a third thing for the middle term under which God and creatures
fall.47 By recalling Scotus’s theory, however, we see how crucial is Long’s
extended argument that the concept of being is intrinsically analogous
and possesses a “proportionate identity which is sufficient for reasoning” when applied to God and creatures.48
On the other hand, Long’s account of analogy also attempts to address more recent accusations made against St. Thomas’s entire theological enterprise coming from the opposite direction, namely, the accusation that he has fallen into a sort of rationalism, or even ontotheology,
in which God is understood as falling under the concept of being, as one
being among many. Here, of course, one thinks of the Barth’s famous
accusation of analogy as the work of the Antichrist or the more recent
accusation of Jean-Luc Marion in his Dieu sans l’être of Aquinas being
a sort of “onto-theologian.”49 And although Marion later largely retracts
this accusation, Long carefully shows the reader why any sort of rationalistic or ontotheological interpretation of Aquinas ought to be rejected.50 He also clearly seems to intend to rescue the Cajetanian approach
from the accusation that it involves a veiled univocal concept that ends
in ontotheology.51
On this point Long defends the view that God is infinitely more
46

See Richard Cross’s discussion of Scotus’s univocity theory: Duns Scotus, Great Medieval Thinkers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 33–39.
47
Long, 102.
48
Ibid.
49
Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being, trans. Thomas H. Carlson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
50
Jean-Luc Marion, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et l’onto-théologie,” Revue thomiste 95
(1995): 31–66; see also Brian Shanley, O.P., “St. Thomas Aquinas, Onto-Theology,
and Marion,” The Thomist 60 (1996): 617–25; Shanley, The Thomist Tradition (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2002), 63–66.
51
See Shanley, The Thomist Tradition, 54.

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Christopher Cullen, S.J.

perfect and nobler than that of all limited being (i.e., proportionate and
participated substances), and in such a way as to exceed all proportion.52
“In God there is no potency to limit the perfection of act, and act is not
self-limiting.”53 We are without direct proportion when it comes to God;
we have only a likeness of proportions, that is, proportionality. “We
know God as unknown, and the divine perfections are always cognized
by us only as incomprehending God.”54 Sertillanges, in his eloquent defense of the analogy of proper proportionality, makes a similar point
quoting Albert the Great, “God is at once unnamable and all-namable,
and ‘Unnamable’ is the most beautiful of all His names, for it raises Him
N&V
at the outset above every endeavor to speak of Him.”55

52

Long, 31.
Ibid.
54
Ibid., 103.
55
A. G. Sertillanges, O.P., Foundations of Thomistic Philosophy, trans. Godfrey Anstruther, O.P. (St. Louis, MO: Herder, 1931), 83.
53

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): 989-1004

989

On Analogy, the Incarnation,
and the Sacraments of the Church:
Considerations from the
Tertia pars of the Summa theologiae
Roger W. Nutt
Ave Maria University
Ave Maria, FL
Introduction

IN THE THICK FORESTof the literature, the density of which is sig-

nificantly clouded by the contributions of Thomists, it can be forgotten
that, at its root, analogy is simply a means of comparing logical, mathematical, and metaphysical realities. From these comparisons, whose validity is founded upon the existence of similitudes, attributes, relations,
and proportions in diverse realities, real, scientific conclusions can be
made. Philosophers and theologians, of course, have had—and still do
have—a great deal to say about how far these conclusions can be extended and which forms of analogical comparison lead to authentic knowledge about reality.1
Theological disquiet over analogy tends to settle into two primary
collection areas. On the one hand, there is a substantial body of literature resulting from Karl Barth’s famous charge that the analogy of being
1

In Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America,
2004), Gregory Rocca traces the “commencement” of analogy. Rocca begins with the
pre-Socratic understanding of analogy as “mathematical or geometric proportionality,” moves to its extension to “the properly philosophical plane” (77) by Plato and
Aristotle, and continues all the way to Aquinas and his interpreters by way of brief
considerations of, inter alia, Augustine and Dionysius. See especially, 77–134.

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was the “invention of the Antichrist.”2 On the other hand, there is the
so-called ontotheological critique of Aquinas and his commentators,
especially Cardinal Cajetan on account of his reading of Aquinas on
analogy.3 In each of these cases the analogy of being is held in suspicion
because of its apparent failure to respect revelation by reducing God visà-vis analogical comparison to the order of creaturely existence.4
In his most recent book, Analogia Entis, Steven Long defends Aquinas’s doctrine of the analogy of being by correcting a misreading of
Aquinas on analogy that has become quasi-normative and hence unchallenged for more than a generation. Long identifies the fact “that a
generation and more of historically nuanced and profound contemplation of the metaphysics and theology of Thomas Aquinas nonetheless
has managed . . . to mislay the central tenets of the Angelic Doctor”5
as his primary motivation for composing the book. These mislaid tenets are, Long argues, “precisely those that prove most essential to the
metaphysician and the theologian: in particular, those that concern the
intrinsic analogicity of being as divided by act and potency, an analogical division that is the foundation both for the doctrine of participation
and for the causal demonstrations proving the truth of the proposition
that God exists.”6
This essay is divided into two sections. In the first section I broadly
sketch the key movements of Long’s argument in Analogia Entis. In the
second section I consider a few points from St. Thomas’s theology of
the Incarnation in the tertia pars of the Summa theologiae in light of my
2

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), xiii [I/1]. For a presentation of Barth’s position on the analogia entis, his engagement with Catholic interlocutors, and interpretations of his position, see Keith L. Johnson, “Reconsidering
Barth’s Rejection of Przywara’s Analogia Entis,” Modern Theology 26 (2010): 632–50.
3
For an example of the ontotheological critique of Cajetan’s reading of Aquinas on
the analogy of being from a theological perspective, see Laurence Paul Hemming,
“Analogia non Entis sed Entitatis: The Ontological Consequences of the Doctrine of
Analogy,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 6 (2004): 118–29.
4
Thomas Joseph White, O.P., offers a helpful Thomistic response to these criticisms.
He draws particular attention to the shortcomings of the ontotheological critique of
Aquinas in its post-Kantian, Heideggerian forms. See White, Wisdom in the Face of
Modernity (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2009), esp. 3–28.
5
Steven A. Long, Analogia Entis: On the Analogy of Being, Metaphysics, and the Act of
Faith (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011), 1.
6
Ibid.

On Analogy, the Incarnation, and the Sacraments

991

preliminary sketch, as a means of testing Long’s thesis. My purpose is to
highlight the underappreciated significance that Aquinas’s doctrine of
analogy has within his articulation of the relation of the world to God
in Christ and in the Church through the sacraments. Aquinas does not
explicitly invoke the phrase “analogy of being” in the tertia pars when
expounding the Incarnation and the sacraments, but his reasoning certainly presupposes a doctrine of analogy, without which the Incarnation
and presence of God in the sacraments would reduce God to the order
of created being.7
Analogia Entis: Interpretive Keys
Proper Proportionality in Aquinas
During the final period of his life, especially when composing the Summa theologiae, Aquinas, according to Long, seems to emphasize “analo7

In “Analogia non Entis sed Entitatis,” Hemming appeals to the tertia pars to make the
case, inspired by the ontotheological critique of Aquinas and his followers, that there
is de facto no analogy of being in Aquinas. “I am going to take for my authority in
this,” Hemming writes,
the supposed author of the analogia entis (although he never himself uses
the term), St Thomas Aquinas. The great fountainhead for study of the term
analogia in St Thomas is Question 13 of the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae. This alone should alert us that something is up with St Thomas’ use of
the terms analogia and analogice. Question 13 assumes such an importance
in neo-Thomism and the crypto-Thomism that succeeded it because the two
terms hardly appear anywhere else in the whole of the Summa. So it was not
very important for Thomas. Moreover, and to the chagrin of the new breed of
analogists, it does not turn up once just exactly where it should if all the contemporary theorizing on analogy really did have its home in Aquinas—in the
Tertia Pars, the treatise on Christ and on the Sacraments (119–20).
What I hope to demonstrate in the second part of this essay is that while Aquinas does not specifically invoke the analogy of being when making metaphysicalcomparisons in the tertia pars, his causal and participatory analogies—which are
frequent—about the Incarnation and sacraments presuppose, as Long implies, the
prior foundation of the analogy of proper proportionality as the analogy of being.
Hemming fails to recognize that were this not the case, God’s presence and causal
activity in Christ and the sacraments, would be founded upon a univocal notion
being. It is precisely the analogy of being, properly understood, that enables Aquinas
to avoid this mistake.

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Roger W. Nutt

gy of attribution and proportion,” while in the earlier work, De veritate,
proper proportionality was put forward by the Angelic Doctor “as the
analogy of being and as alone capable of avoiding the error of affirming
God to have a determined relation to creatures.”8
If the position of De veritate on the analogy of proper proportionality as the analogy of being is abandoned, Long highlights the emergence
of problems that vitiate the internal consistency of metaphysical and
theological doctrine. Because there is no “strict analogy of proportion
between the creature and God,” analogy of simple proportion when set
forth absolutely creates obvious difficulties for the philosopher and the
theologian alike. Likewise, with analogy of attribution a similar issue
arises. Created effects enable arguments to be made for God’s existence
and nature, but the existence of creatures is not, de facto, the existence of
God. Long argues that the analogy of being qua proper proportionality,
while not substituting for “causal analysis” is, nevertheless, “the foundation and precondition for causal resolution in God.”9
Analogy and the Problem of the One and the Many
Aristotle’s response to the monism of Parmenides and Thomas’s appropriation and development of this response hold a pivotal place in
Long’s presentation.10 The division of being into act and potency makes
it possible to forge a coherent solution to the problem of the one and the
many: “As the potency to laugh,” Long explains, “is to actually laughing,
so is the potency to thought to actually thinking . . . yet laughing is not
thinking . . . There is a likeness of diverse rationes of act and potency.”11
This point is of crucial importance because “analogy of proper propor8

Ibid., 2.
Ibid., 4.
10
In The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated
Being (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), John F.
Wippel summarizes Thomas’s understanding of Parmenidean monism as follows:
“On the ontological level or the level of being itself, it seems that being cannot be divided from being. It cannot be divided from itself by being, since it already is being.
Viewed from this perspective, it is simply one. Nor can it be divided from itself by
nonbeing, since this is nothingness. Therefore it cannot be divided at all, and all is
one” (69).
11
Long, Analogia Entis, 18.
9

On Analogy, the Incarnation, and the Sacraments

993

tionality does not place creature and God indifferently under being, but
rather affirms that the actuality of God is infinitely more perfect and
nobler than that of the creature.” God and creatures are thus not placed
(or tied together) in proportionate degrees of being because the being of
God “is wholly free of potentia, the proportion to which alone accounts
for limitation in the perfection of being.”12
This point goes to the very heart of both the Barthian concern and
the ontotheological critique. Long establishes that God is not compared
to creaturely being according to the creaturely mode of being, but as free
from all potency, and hence in no way reducible to or participatory in
the creaturely realm of potentia.
A key text of Aquinas that Long develops in defense of his thesis
is De veritate, q. 2, a. 11, which asks, “Is knowledge predicated of God
and men purely equivocally?” In this text Thomas states various ways
in which knowledge is “predicated” analogously, or according to proportion, of both God and creatures. According to the one form, Thomas articulates the proportion of the analogates to each other in terms
of numeric standing (such as double) or attribution (such as health).
“Nothing can be predicated analogously of God and creature according
to this type of proportion,” Aquinas declares, “for no creature has such a
relation to God that it could determine a divine perfection.”
Another type of analogy, however, that Thomas recognizes in De
veritate, q. 2, is when a similitude such as “sight is predicated of bodily sight and of the intellect because understanding is in the mind as
sight is in the eye.”13 In this type of analogy, Aquinas explains that “no
definite relation is involved between the things which have something
in common analogously, so there is no reason why some name cannot
be predicated analogously of God and creature in this manner.”14 Aquinas here makes the very clarification—by way of analogy—that critics of
the analogy of being mistakenly accuse him of transgressing.15 As Long
12

Ibid., 31.
Ibid., 45.
14
Ibid., 45.
15
“No matter how dressed up . . . the analogia entis will simply not do the work in
contemporary theology that all too many theologians want it to do,” Laurence Hemming argues. Why? Failing to appreciate that proper proportionality does not entail a “definite relation” between the common analogates, Hemming thus views the
13

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Roger W. Nutt

demonstrates, proper proportionality is, by its nature, the very avoidance of any direct dependence of the nature of God on the world.
Revelation and the Analogy of Being
In the final chapter of Analogia Entis, Long extends his meditation on
analogy to the realm of faith and theological discourse. On the analogical nature of revealed concepts, Long cites Maritain from the Degrees of
Knowledge, who argues that
in the knowledge of faith it is . . . from the very heart of the
deity that the whole process of knowledge starts out . . . That
is to say, from the source, through the free generosity of God,
derives the choice of objects and of concepts . . . which God
alone knows to be analogical signs of what is hidden in Him,
and of which he makes use in order to speak of Himself to us
in our own language.
Maritain continues: “Once designated by revelation as likeness of what
is hidden in God, the mind perceives that such things as paternity and
filiation . . . have the value of the analogy of proper proportionality.”16
The importance of this insight by Maritain cannot be stressed enough:
the knowledge communicated in revelation, issuing from divine wisdom, indicates certain likenesses or analogies between creatures and
God. Revelation also communicates the otherness of God, thus revelation presupposes the analogy of proper proportionality. As a result,
Long observes that “the analogy of being is necessarily presupposed by
divine revelation, just as the existence of creatures is presupposed by
their real relation to God.”17
Revealed likenesses like paternity and filiation cannot be understood according to any analogy of proportion because the divine paternity and filiation are infinite and hence in no way bear any proportion to
analogia entis as an “attempt to ‘tie the being of God, man and the world’ together.”
Hemming, “Analogia non Entis sed Entitatis,” 119.
16
Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerald Phelan (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 257.
17
Long, Analogia Entis, 104.

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995

created paternity and filiation. Likewise, paternity and filiation cannot
be attributive analogies because God does not stand in any determined
relation to created, participated paternity and filiation. As a result, the
analogies offered in revelation are four-term analogies of proper proportionality: as the human father is to his offspring, God is eternally
to the eternal Son. In both cases the paternity and filiation are real, but
God’s paternity and filiation in no way participates in creaturely paternity and filiation.
Summary
Three central movements in Long’s work have been highlighted in this
all too brief summary: namely, the foundational importance of the analogy of proper proportionality in Aquinas, the role that proper proportionality has in Aquinas’s development of Aristotle’s response to Parmendean monism, and finally the use of likenesses by revelation under
the presupposition of the analogy of being to communicate knowledge
of God.
Analogy and the Tertia pars
In the second part of this essay, I attempt to test Long’s thesis in light of a
few texts from the tertia pars of the Summa theologiae in which Aquinas
sets forth various analogies to explain the Incarnation and the sacraments. These texts are not considered by Long in Analogia Entis, nor are
they generally discussed, for obvious reasons, in philosophical literature
in which analogy is taken up.18 In these texts Aquinas does not explicitly
put forth the analogy of proper proportionality as the analogy of being,
but the analogous reasoning that he engages in is highly consistent with
Long’s contention that causative and participatory conclusions presuppose the foundation of proper proportionality as the analogy of being.
Aquinas’s doctrinal theology can and should be used as an important
measure of the claims of Thomist philosophers about his thinking on
18

In the first of his formidable three-volume work on analogy, Santiago Ramirez, O.P.
has a detailed section on the use of analogy in sacred theology, which includes references and application to Aquinas’s theology of the hypostatic union and the sacraments in the tertia pars. See Ramirez, Opera Omnia, vol. II, De Analogia (Madrid:
Instituto de Filosia “Luis Vives,” 1972), 1736ff [esp. 792 and 793].

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analogy; it is indeed hard to imagine that St. Thomas would abandon or
contradict his deepest philosophical sensitivities when seeking to render intelligible the articles of faith.19
Analogy and the Hypostatic Union
In the very first article of the first question of the tertia pars, Thomas
considers the fittingness of the Incarnation. Each of the objections opposes the fittingness of the Incarnation on account of some aspect of
the perfection of the Divine esse such that it would seem unfitting that
the Being who is eternal, infinite, uncreated spirit, and incomprehensible unite to itself some being of a lower order. These considerations are
not far from the problem of the one and many, which, as we saw above,
Thomas solves with the analogy of proper proportionality.
Aquinas roots the fittingness of the Incarnation in the very essence
of the divine being itself, offering an analogy to establish his argument.
Fittingness, Aquinas explains, is what belongs to each thing by reason of
its nature: as reason is fitting to man “because he is of a rational nature,”
God by his very nature is goodness.20 “Hence,” Aquinas argues, “what
belongs to the essence of goodness befits God. But it belongs to the essence of goodness to communicate itself to others” and “it belongs to the
essence of the highest good to communicate itself in the highest manner
to the creature” and therefore it was fitting for the Word to personally

19

The examples below from the tertia pars are not meant to be exhaustive; many more
could be provided. They are offered simply as a sampling of Aquinas’s analogical
reasoning in relation to Long’s thesis.
20
Seemingly unawares of the careful qualifications and many analogies that Thomas
uses to explain the fittingness—not arbitrariness or absolute nature—of the Incarnation according to the divine goodness, Hemming writes: “Thomas does not resolve
his theology of the incarnation or of the sacraments through a doctrine of analogy,
and neither should we. He does not do this for a very good reason—he believes that
the incarnation is effected by divine fiat—that is to say, because God just chooses it
to be that way, rather than because they thereby indicate an already analogical tie
between the being of things and the being of God.” See Hemming, “Analogia non
Entis sed Entitatis,” 120. Yet as early as the Scriptum on Lombard’s Sentences Aquinas
explicitly invokes analogy to explain these very theological realities. “Sacramentum
non dividitur per sacramenta veteris et novae legis sicut genus per species,” Aquinas
clarifies, “sed sicut analogum in suas partes, ut sanum in habens sanitatem, et significans eam” (emphasis added). In IV Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 1., s. 3, ad 5.

On Analogy, the Incarnation, and the Sacraments

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unite himself to a human nature.21 The analogy used here is based on
what is fitting in relation to what follows most distinctively from diverse
natures: as reason is fitting to rational nature, so too the highest form
of self-communication, hypostatic or personal union, is fitting to the
divine goodness.
Thomas’s teaching on the fittingness of the union between God and
man in Christ fits well with Long’s thesis insofar as the very ratio for the
fittingness is rooted in the perfect goodness of the divine esse.
The Nature of Christ’s Perfections
Aquinas moves logically from the fittingness of the Incarnation to the
metaphysical implications of the hypostatic union. In a brief article in
the second question, which treats the mode of the union, Thomas establishes a point that is central to Long’s argument, namely, that the union
of God and man in Christ does not place God in a determined relation
to the creature. The ratio of this position seems to rely on the division
of being into act and potency: the substantial union terminating in an
infinite person constitutes the highest possible union without effecting
change in God because the term of the union, the Eternal Word, exists
in full act. The union, in short, does not activate any potency in the
Word because there is no potency in the Word. Speaking of the relation
between God and creatures in light of the Incarnation, Aquinas succinctly states that the relation “is not really in God, but only in our way
of thinking, since it does not arise from any change in God.”22 Because
God is actus purus the change in the Incarnation is on the part of the
created nature because the participation in God on the part of Christ’s
human nature is a union with a being who is pure act prior to the union.
Aquinas tests this conclusion by the consideration of the special fittingness of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity. The spe21

Summa theologiae III, q. 1, a. 1. “Unde quidquid pertinet ad rationem boni, conveniens est Deo. Pertinet autem ad rationem boni ut se aliis communicet, ut patet
per Dionysium, IV cap. de Div. Nom. Unde ad rationem summi boni pertinet quod
summo modo se creaturae communicet.” Translations from the tertia pars are taken
from volume 4 of St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica, 5 vols,, trans. Fathers of
the English Dominican Province, cited hereafter as ST.
22
ST III, q. 2, a. 7: “non autem est realiter in Deo, sed secundum rationem tantum, quia
non nascitur secundum mutationem Dei.”

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cial fittingness of the Incarnation of the Second Person is defended by
Aquinas on the analogy of the likeness that exists between a concept in the
mind of a craftsman and the work that he produces. “The Person of the
Son,” Aquinas reasons, “Who is the Word of God, has a certain common
agreement with all creatures, because the word of the craftsman . . . is an
exemplar likeness of whatever is made by him.” This likeness, however,
is not participated by the Word, even in the hypostatic union. Aquinas
explains this important point as follows:
By the non-participated and personal union of the Word with
a creature, it was fitting that the creature should be restored in
order to its eternal and unchangeable perfection; for the craftsman by the intelligible form of his art, whereby he fashioned his
handiwork, restores it when it has fallen into ruin.23
This passage is significant because Aquinas posits diverse rationes of participatory likenesses of creatures to God, yet the diversity of these likenesses is intelligible only by analogy insofar as the restoration of creaturely
friendship with God in Christ is predicated on that fact that Christ enjoys
these perfections in a prior, manner according to their full actuality.
Thomas further identifies the Incarnate Word’s nonparticipatory primacy by arguing that the comparison of the grace of the union and the
grace enjoyed by Christ’s members is not reducible to a common genus.
Thomas ponders an objection that asserts that since habitual grace is common “to Christ and others” while the grace of union is exclusive to Christ,
habitual grace must therefore be prior in thought to Christ’s unique grace
of union. Yet, in comparing Christ’s grace of union to habitual grace, and
hence Christ’s uniqueness to that which can be commonly predicated,
Thomas declares that “the grace of union is not in the same genus as ha-

23

ST III, q. 3, a. 8. “Ipsius autem personae filii, qui est verbum Dei, attenditur, uno
quidem modo, communis convenientia ad totam creaturam. Quia verbum artificis,
idest conceptus eius, est similitudo exemplaris eorum quae ab artifice fiunt. Unde
verbum Dei, quod est aeternus conceptus eius, est similitudo exemplaris totius creaturae . . . ita per unionem verbi ad creaturam non participativam sed personalem,
conveniens fuit reparari creaturam in ordine ad aeternam et immobilem perfectionem, nam et artifex per formam artis conceptam qua artificiatum condidit, ipsum,
si collapsum fuerit, restaurat.”

On Analogy, the Incarnation, and the Sacraments

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bitual grace; but is above all genera even as the Divine Person Himself.” 24
Thomas contends, therefore, that the hypostatic union of the Son with his
human nature is “prior in the order of nature to habitual grace” and that
“the habitual grace of Christ is understood to follow this union, as light
follows the sun.”25 In this instance, again, Thomas posits grace in a sense
that is intrinsically analogical and realized in diverse rationes.
Analogy and Christological Naming
Aquinas’s method of Christological naming when appropriating terms or
offices that apply to both Christ and others presents a further case that
is worthy of exploration in light of Long’s thesis.26 Thomas explores the
theological validity of applying biblical offices such as head, priest, and
mediator to Christ. An article is devoted to each of these that is framed by
an Utrum sit proprium Christo question.27 Proprium, as Thomas uses it in
these cases, is meant to identify whether or not there is something unique,
particular, or exclusive to Christ’s standing as head, priest, or mediator.
In other words: are Christ’s headship, priesthood, and mediation merely
one privileged realization of these offices among many other subordinate
realizations, or rather is there something unique and exclusive to Christ’s
exercise of these offices?
In each case, Thomas affirms that bishops as heads of churches, Levites, New Testament priests, and so on, share these offices in a fashion
that is extrinsic, participatory, and subordinate to Christ’s intrinsic, singular standing as head, priest, and mediator. These offices seem to be attributive, with Christ, as man, standing as the primary analogate. Yet, I
wonder in relation to Long’s argument, in what sense attributive analogies
like these necessarily presuppose the prior recognition that Christ’s divine perfection and grace of union are fully actual and nonparticipatory
such that his standing as the primary analogate in these cases is read or
24

ST III, q. 7, a. 13, ad. 3. “Gratia autem unionis non est in genere gratiae habitualis,
sed est super omne genus, sicut et ipsa divina persona.”
25
ST III, q. 7, a. 13. “Unde gratia habitualis Christi intelligitur ut consequens hanc
unionem, sicut splendor solem.”
26
For a full treatment of the content and method of Aquinas’s treatment of Christ’s
names, see Henk Schoot, Christ, the ‘Name’ of God: Thomas Aquinas on Naming
Christ (Louvain: Peeters, 1993).
27
See, e.g., the representative articles in ST III, qq. 8, 22, and 26.

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Roger W. Nutt

translated through his ontological and nonparticipatory uniqueness as
the Incarnate Word? Christ’s priesthood can be participated in by others,
but Christ’s own exercise of the office is unique and nonparticipatory. In
addition, Thomas treats each of these offices only after treating the mode
of the union and Christ’s perfections. Christ as man, of course, has a determined relation to creatures, but his standing as unique head, mediator,
and priest is derivative of the grace of union, which itself is rooted in the
communicability of the divine esse as the highest good.
The Instrumentality of Christ’s Human Nature and the Sacraments
One of the most frequent and common analogies that Aquinas deploys in
the tertia pars is the likeness that exists between the integral unity of a (matter-form) composite entity and the unity of motion in a composite action
performed by an agent who uses an instrument.28 Thomas first introduces
this analogy in the prima secundae of the Summa theologiae when treating composite human acts. He then extends the analogy to the relation of
Christ’s human nature and the sacraments to the Word. “A whole is composed of matter and form (e.g. man, who is one natural being, though he
has many parts, is composed of soul and body),” Thomas explains,
so, in human acts, the act of a lower power is in the position of
matter in regard to the act of a higher power, in so far as the lower
power acts in virtue of the higher power moving it: for thus also the
act of the first mover is as the form in regard to the act of its instrument. Hence it is evident that command and the commanded act
are one human act, just as a whole is one, yet in its parts, many.29
28

On St. Thomas’s use of analogy in his sacramental theology, see Ruggero Biagi, La
Causalità dell’umanità di Cristo e dei Sacramenti nella “Summa Theologiae” di S.
Tommaso d’Aquino (Bologna: Edizioni Studio Domenicano 1985), esp. 25–27. For a
general treatment of analogy in sacramental theology, see Antonio Miralles, I Sacramenti Cristiani: Trattato Generale (Rome: EDUSC, 2008), 117ff.
29
ST I-II, q. 17, a. 4: “aliquod totum componitur ex materia et forma, ut homo ex
anima et corpore, qui est unum ens naturale, licet habeat multitudinem partium; ita
etiam in actibus humanis, actus inferioris potentiae materialiter se habet ad actum
superioris, inquantum inferior potentia agit in virtute superioris moventis ipsam, sic
enim et actus moventis primi formaliter se habet ad actum instrumenti. Unde patet
quod imperium et actus imperatus sunt unus actus humanus, sicut quoddam totum
est unum, sed est secundum partes multa.”

On Analogy, the Incarnation, and the Sacraments

1001

This analogy of the unity of matter and form in composite substances
and composite human acts serves as a foundation to which Thomas refers many times in the tertia pars, each time specifying the unique way
in which Christ and the sacraments realize in diverse ways the reality
of instrumental efficient causality. For example, in the seventh question of the tertia pars, Thomas puts forward an objection arguing that
Christ’s human nature did not enjoy habitual grace because instruments do not act by way of their own habitual operations, but by the
habitual operations of the principal agent.30 To this objection, Thomas
affirms the instrumentality of Christ’s human nature but qualifies the
nature of its instrumentality:
The humanity of Christ is the instrument of the Godhead—
not, indeed, an inanimate instrument, which nowise acts, but
is merely acted upon; but an instrument animated by a rational
soul, which is so acted upon as to act. And hence the nature of
the action demanded that he should have habitual grace.31
Christ’s human nature is a true instrument insofar as it works to produce effects in a unified motion with a higher agent, but it is a unique
type of instrument. Aquinas takes up this point several other times in
the tertia pars to explain how Christ’s human nature contributes in the
order of efficient causality to his miracles,32 salvation through the passion,33 and the causal efficiency of the sacraments.34 Thomas explains the
inner workings of instrumental efficient causality as follows:
what is moved by another has a twofold action—one which it
has from its own form—the other, which it has inasmuch as it
is moved by another; thus the operation of an axe of itself is to
30

ST III, q. 7, a. 1, ob. 3.
ST III, q. 7, a. 1, ad 3: “humanitas Christi est instrumentum divinitatis, non quidem
sicut instrumentum inanimatum, quod nullo modo agit sed solum agitur, sed tanquam instrumentum animatum anima rationali, quod ita agit quod etiam agitur. Et
ideo, ad convenientiam actionis, oportuit eum habere gratiam habitualem.”
32
See ST III, q. 43, a. 2.
33
See ST III, q. 48, a. 6.
34
See ST III, q. 62, a. 1.
31

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Roger W. Nutt

cleave; but inasmuch as it is moved by the craftsman, its operation is to make benches.35
He concludes from this that “in Christ the human nature has its proper
form and power whereby it acts”36 as does the divine nature. In the divine plan Christ’s human nature causes salvation by its knowledge and
love as the instrument of Word.
Finally, in addition to making an analogy between the unity of a
matter-form composite and the motion of a principal agent and instrument, Thomas clarifies that the instrumentality of the sacraments is
analogous in relation to the instrumentality of Christ’s human nature.
“The instrumental cause works not by the power of its form,” Thomas
explains, “but only by the motion whereby it is moved by the principal
agent: so that the effect is not likened to the instrument but to the principal agent . . . And it is thus that the sacraments of the New Law cause
grace: for they are instituted by God to be employed for the purpose of
[causing] grace.”37 This analogy allows Thomas to trace the causal dependency of the sacraments as causes of grace from the sacramental
celebration itself back to Christ’s passion and ultimately to the fullness
that he enjoys as a result of the hypostatic union. “An instrument is twofold,” Thomas argues,
the one, separate, as a stick, for instance; the other, united, as a
hand. Moreover, the separate instrument is moved by means of
the united instrument, as a stick by the hand. Now the principal efficient cause of grace is God Himself, in comparison with
Whom Christ’s humanity is as a united instrument, whereas the
35

ST III, q. 19, a. 1: “actio eius quod movetur ab altero, est duplex, una quidem quam
habet secundum propriam formam; alia autem quam habet secundum quod movetur ab alio. Sicut securis operatio secundum propriam formam est incisio, secundum autem quod movetur ab artifice, operatio eius est facere scamnum.”
36
Ibid. “Sic igitur in Christo humana natura habet propriam formam et virtutem per
quam operatur et similiter divina.”
37
ST III, q. 62, a. 1. “Causa vero instrumentalis non agit per virtutem suae formae, sed
solum per motum quo movetur a principali agente. Unde effectus non assimilatur
instrumento, sed principali agenti, sicut lectus non assimilatur securi, sed arti quae
est in mente artificis. Et hoc modo sacramenta novae legis gratiam causant, adhibentur enim ex divina ordinatione ad gratiam in eis causandam.”

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Roger W. Nutt

sacrament is as a separate instrument. Consequently, the saving
power must needs be derived by the sacraments from Christ’s
Godhead through His humanity.38
This demonstrates that the participation of the sacraments in the efficient causation of grace is rooted by St. Thomas in the analogical realization of diverse and subordinate forms of instrumentality, each of
which presupposes the unique, fullness of grace enjoyed by the Incarnate Word.
Summary
These examples should not be taken as demonstrations of the analogy of
being as such. However, such consistent and developed use of analogical
reasoning by St. Thomas in the tertia pars evidences his commitment to
explain the participation in the life of God through the Incarnation and
sacraments in a way that presupposes Long’s central claim about Thomas’s ongoing commitment to proper proportionality, namely, that proper
proportionality safeguards causal and participatory doctrines from the
error of placing God in a determined relation to the world.
General Conclusion
To the extent that revealed doctrines such as the Incarnation and the
sacraments possess an intelligibility that renders them capable of meaningful speech and thought, such doctrines must avoid internal metaphysical contradiction. In Analogia Entis, Steven Long gives the philosopher and the theologian a tool suitably forged for just that task. It is my
contention that the metaphysically exacting doctrines the Incarnation
and sacramental causality are articulated by St. Thomas in the tertia pars
in a fashion that presupposes Long’s claim about Aquinas’s doctrine of
38

ST III, q. 62, a. 5. “Est autem duplex instrumentum, unum quidem separatum, ut
baculus; aliud autem coniunctum, ut manus. Per instrumentum autem coniunctum
movetur instrumentum separatum, sicut baculus per manum. Principalis autem
causa efficiens gratiae est ipse Deus, ad quem comparatur humanitas Christi sicut
instrumentum coniunctum, sacramentum autem sicut instrumentum separatum. Et
ideo oportet quod virtus salutifera derivetur a divinitate Christi per eius humanitatem in ipsa sacramenta.”

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Roger W. Nutt

the analogy of being. Those of us who work in the various branches
of theology owe Long a special debt of gratitude for demonstrating the
way in which Thomas’s metaphysical doctrine of analogy safeguards the
N&V
intelligibility of faith and the meaning of revelation.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 2 (2014): 1005-1026

1005

Book Reviews
The Betrayal of Charity: The Sins That Sabotage Divine Love by
Matthew Levering (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011), x + 219 pp.

IN CHRISTIAN CULTURE I daresay one would be hard pressed to
find a word that simultaneously is invoked with more frequency and
yet is more vacuous than the word “love.” Everyone knows that “God is
love” and that the Christian life can be summed up in dual injunction
“love God and neighbor.” Yet, for a generation at least, since the “triumph of the therapeutic” first noted by Philip Reiff and the unfortunate
popularity of Joseph Fletcher’s situation ethic, the prominence of love in
the moral life has been evacuated of substantive content and replaced by
emotive feeling and sentiment.
Matthew Levering, a professor of theology at Mundelein Seminary,
sets out in this work to recover the substance of love for moral theology.
Yet the path he travels is not, as the title might suggest, a genealogy of
the contemporary world’s betrayal of love. Rather, he takes as his guide
St. Thomas Aquinas, for whom charity was central to the Christian life.
Specifically and intriguingly, Levering considers Aquinas’s treatment of
charity by way of that which Aquinas posits as the opposite of charity:
hatred, sloth, envy, discord, and so forth. Indeed, the eight chapters of
this book each focus on one such practice opposed to love.
Organizing the work thus has a certain appeal, insofar as to both
undergraduate readers and seminarians Aquinas can appear somewhat
daunting. Approaching his ethic in this manner is sure to diminish the
trepidation of many a novice reader, and so this work may serve as a
salutary entry into the splendors of Aquinas. Moreover, insofar as we
are in the midst of a minor renaissance in the interest in sin—here I am
thinking of a number of recent publications on the seven deadly sins as

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Book Reviews

well as notable marketing campaigns (that have appealed to those sins
as selling points!)—there is little question that approaching love by way
of its opposite has a certain cultural appeal.
This work is not simply a treatment of Aquinas, however, for into
the conversation on love and its opposite, Levering invites a host of contemporary voices. For example, Levering takes up the much-regarded
arguments of Regina Schwartz and Laurel Schneider concerning the violent and imperial character of monotheism in a chapter on charity and
violence. In a chapter on hatred he engages Harold Bloom’s argument
that the biblical God is a sadist, and in a chapter on sloth he treats the
postmodern claim that true love must not expect or intend reciprocity as that argument is articulated by Timothy Jackson, who suggests
Christian love should be severed from faith in the resurrection and life
after death. His treatment of scandal, a much-neglected area of contemporary moral theology and ethical life in general, brings Thomas into
conversation the work of René Girard.
It should be noted that the book is not a monograph carefully and
sequentially developing a sustained argument. Rather, it is a collection
of independent essays that hold together particularly well. For some,
this will be a weakness of the book. The topic of any given chapter is
not carried over and developed further in later chapters. As such, each
chapter serves as an introduction and pathway to deeper research for
scholars so interested. Several of the chapters in particular call out for
further exploration and development. Consider, for example, the chapter on love and war. Levering chooses to approach this much-belabored
topic in a novel and quite helpful manner. He engages it by taking up
Aquinas’s interpretation of Scripture around the subject of Christian
participation in war and comparing that with the well-known pacifist
John Howard Yoder’s interpretation of Scripture. The result is a fascinating study that, while not pretending to resolve the issue or even fully
treat Yoder’s position, helpfully identifies important exegetical moves
that underlie this most contentious and important debate within the
Church. A second example of the novelty and helpfulness of Levering’s
approach is provided by his treatment of envy. Here again, Levering focuses on the reading of Scripture. This time, he takes up contemporary
rabbinic interpretations of various instances of envy in the Hebrew Bible
and compares that with Aquinas’s reading of the Bible on envy. The re-

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1007

sult is a wonderful example of how contemporary Christian exegesis can
benefit from engaging contemporary Jewish thinkers.
If this book’s appeal may be lessened for some because it is not a
monograph-length argument, as I read it I was increasingly convinced
that it is precisely the collected character of the work that is one of its
strengths. It is the kind of book that I could (and will) use in a seminar-type classroom setting. Because each chapter can stand on its
own merit, it can easily be used in an undergraduate or even seminary
context where workload considerations can sometimes preclude using
monograph length treatments. The clever decision to engage Aquinas
and the seemingly overexposed to the point of triteness topic of love by
means of sins opposed to love, and to use it as a foil for such engagement
with contemporary “hot” issues and authors, results in a text that is quite
engaging. Furthermore, the space each chapter leaves for further development is exactly what I need to initiate discussion, stimulate intellectual engagement, and prompt further research.
In a world dominated by utilitarian and deontological modes of
moral reflection, where sin is thought more interesting that holiness and
the tradition downright dull, it is works such as this that just might nurture a new generation of persons interested in character and virtue and
who find the tradition, and thinkers like Aquinas, relevant, interesting,
N&V
and even insightful.
Daniel M. Bell Jr.
Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary
Columbia, SC

The World as It Could Be: Catholic Social Thought for a New
Generation by Thomas D. Williams (New York: Crossroad, 2011), xxiii
+ 230 pp.
THOMAS WILLIAMS has written a readable book to explain many aspects of Catholic social thought and Catholic social doctrine (CSD). The
latter term, Williams explains, is used to characterize teachings put forth
by the Magisterium of the Church. The former “refers to the broader
discussion among Catholic scholars that takes this doctrine as its inspiration and permanent reference point” (5). Williams is at his best in ex-

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Book Reviews

plaining the significant contribution that Pope Benedict XVI’s first and
third encyclicals, Deus Caritas Est and Caritas in Veritate, have made to
the development of CSD. Williams is also good at arguing for several
changes long overdue in the presentation of CSD. It is time for Catholic
scholars and the lay faithful to recognize that CSD is found not only
in the papal writings known as the social encyclicals, but also in other
documents of the Magisterium such as Pope John Paul II’s encyclical,
Evangelium vitae, and his apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio. It
is also time for all Catholics to recognize that abortion is an issue pertaining to social justice and should be a part of any discussion of CSD.
Williams has insightful chapters on the common good, the use of
force, capital punishment, economic development, distributive justice,
global governance as opposed to global government, the great good of
religious liberty, and the case for state limitation of religious liberty. These
chapters are written in such a way that both scholars and non-scholars
could benefit from reading them. Surprisingly, Williams’s chapter on the
dignity of the human person is deficient because of what it fails to say
about the lifelong task of living in accordance with one’s dignity. I would
also argue that Williams does not sufficiently bring out the connection.
between the practice of virtue and the attainment of the common good.
In other words, he does not adequately explain what Pope John Paul II
meant by saying that “we shall reach justice through evangelization.”1
In addition, Williams does not integrate his fine comments on integral
human development, as understood by Pope Paul VI and Pope Benedict
XVI, into his chapter on the common good.
Williams begins his reflection on Deus Caritas Est (DCE) by noting
that it will never be included in the list of social encyclicals, even though
Pope Benedict’s “careful consideration of the social question in light of
the theological virtue of charity, offered an original contribution to Catholic social doctrine and merits serious study” (161). Williams, of course,
is well aware that the Church from its very beginnings has encouraged
individuals and the entire ecclesial community to place themselves at the
service of their neighbors. This service (diakonia) or charity is the necessary complement to the Church’s mission to proclaim God’s word (keryg1

Pope John Paul II, “Address to the Third General Conference of the Latin American
Bishops,” Puebla, Mexico, January 28, 1979, III, 4.

Book Reviews

1009

ma-martyria) and to administer the sacraments (leitourgia). What is new
is grounding the Church’s modern social teaching in the virtue of charity.
I would note that this is not a new thought for Pope Benedict XVI.
In 1986, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger discussed the origin of the Church’s
social doctrine in the Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation,
issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of which he
was the head. Ratzinger wrote, “the Church’s social teaching is born of
the encounter of the Gospel message and of its demands (summarized in
the supreme commandment of love of God and neighbor in justice) with
the problems emanating from the life of society” (§72). CSD then gives
valuable guidance by helping people come to know what love and justice
require in the various circumstances of life, knowledge that would escape
many people without instruction. St. Augustine also underscores the difficulty of carrying out the commandment to love one’s neighbor: “From
this commandment arise the duties pertaining to human society, about
which it is difficult not to err.”2 Because of the difficulty in recognizing
what love requires in the various circumstances of life, Pope Benedict has
put great emphasis on the role of truth, attained by faith and reason, in
guiding the exercise of charity.
Williams does a good job of explaining other aspects of the Church’s
social teaching contained in DCE. Through careful selections of quotations from the encyclical, Williams demonstrates Benedict’s view that
CSD is a gift to every society. For example, he quotes Benedict’s statement
that the Church “‘wishes 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’” (166, §28). Williams also notes
Pope Benedict’s view that CSD “argues on the basis of reason and natural
law, namely, on the basis of what is in accord with the nature of every human being” (166, §28). What Williams does not explain is how CSD can
ultimately be rooted in the theological virtue of charity, as it is, and still
appeal to all people of good will on the basis of reason and natural law, as
it does.
The last chapter of the book is a substantial reflection on Pope Bene-

2

St. Augustine, The Catholic and Manichean Ways of Life (De Moribus Ecclesiae
Catholicae) (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1966),
§49, 40.

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Book Reviews

dict’s Caritas in Veritate. Williams begins by highlighting Benedict’s view
“that Populorum progressio (PP) deserves to be considered the Rerum novarum of the present age” (171, CV, §8). Pope Benedict especially admires
Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical because it conveys two truths that are important for the future of CSD. “The first is that the whole Church, in all her
being and acting—when she proclaims, when she celebrates, when she
performs works of charity—‘is engaged in promoting integral human development’” (174, CV, §11). This means that the Church’s fidelity to its
threefold mission is crucial for implementing its social doctrine, the heart
and soul of which is integral human development. The second truth in PP
is that integral development “concerns the whole of the person in every
single dimension” (174, CV, §11). This term “integral” means that development is not limited to the provision of economic goods, but includes
the realm of spiritual goods for each and every individual throughout the
world. In fact, Pope Paul VI teaches that “life in Christ is the first and
principal factor in development” (cf. PP, §16), meaning that integral development should aim at the greatest possible perfection for every single
person, in addition to overcoming poverty, disease, unemployment, and
ignorance. Williams quotes Benedict, saying, “This is the central message
of Populorum Progressio valid for today and for all time” (174, CV, §18).
Integral development, of course, needs the contributions of people motivated by love in truth. Otherwise, they would never think that
working for development means bringing Christ into people’s lives.
Caritas in Veritate “is the principle around which the Church’s social
doctrine turns” (§6). Both faith and reason discern the truth by which
love takes its bearings.
Pope Benedict’s linking of truth to love is right on the mark, argues
Williams. “Those who would sacrifice truth in favor of love find that they
have forfeited both. When love loses its moorings to truth, it takes on a
radical subjectivism where good intentions have no objective reference in
action” (177).
Given what Williams says about “integral development as the kernel of Catholic social thought” (175), one would expect to see it integrated into his chapter on the common good. Williams does direct
his readers’ attention to the definition of the common good found in
Gaudium et spes: “the sum total of social conditions which allow people,
either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment [better trans-

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1011

lated as perfection] more fully and more easily” (§26). Williams could
have said that one important way of explaining the fulfilment or perfection of individuals is with the concept of integral human development.
Williams does make a statement that could induce his readers to think
about the dependence of integral development upon the attainment of
the common good. “Attention to the common good, far from destroying the particular good of persons, is essential to it. Just as the common good comprises the particular good of persons, so the particular
good necessarily is achieved through attention to the common good”
(15). This implies that establishing certain social conditions—such as
an economy that produces enough jobs, good family life and authentic
education—is crucial for promoting integral development.
Williams’s great appreciation for the concept of integral human development could have suggested to him a more inclusive understanding
of the dignity of the human person. He grasps the permanent or ontological character of human dignity, but does not see that dignity is also
something to be achieved over a lifetime. According to Catholic teaching,
people have dignity because they are created in the image and likeness of
God, redeemed by Jesus Christ and destined for eternal life in communion
with God. The threefold foundation for human dignity is both unshakable
and instructive. No act of the human person can remove this foundation.
Even when people commit the worst sins and crimes and suffer diminished physical and spiritual capacities, they retain human dignity. While
this Christian teaching about the permanent character of human dignity
is often mentioned and acknowledged by informed Christians, rarely do
Catholics hear that human dignity is also a goal or an achievement, or
otherwise stated, is in need of perfection. Nevertheless, this is the clear
implication of the threefold foundation of human dignity and the explicit
teaching of Gaudium et Spes. Human beings have to achieve communion
with God by struggling against evil and striving for holiness. Gaudium et
Spes says that the dignity of the person “is rooted and perfected in God”
(in ipso Deo fundetur et perficiatur, §21).
The council makes the same point when discussing the obligation
of all to obey their conscience. “Man has a law in his heart inscribed by
God, to obey which is his very dignity, and according to which he will be

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Book Reviews

judged.”3 The text implies that people diminish their dignity by not obeying their conscience. Everyday speech captures this human possibility in
the expression, “to act beneath one’s dignity.” In sum, all people continually achieve or realize their dignity by seeking the truth, obeying their conscience, resisting sin, practicing virtue and repenting when they succumb
to temptation. In other words, dignity is not only a permanent possession,
unaffected by the way people live. All have to obey their informed conscience both to avoid acting beneath their dignity and to achieve it.
So the dignity of an individual may continually be diminished by a
life of sin or, alternatively, it may progressively unfold and flourish over a
lifetime of seeking perfection. In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII made
the same point using language characteristic of Thomas Aquinas: “true
dignity and excellence in men resides in moral living, that is, in virtue.”4
Saint Leo the Great’s famous Christmas sermon states this point in a memorable way: “Christian, recognize your dignity, and now that you share in
God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition.”5 It
is significant that this quotation stands as the first sentence in the section
on morality in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). It immediately directs attention to the necessity of achieving human dignity by
living without sin. Finally, Pope John Paul II goes so far as to say that martyrdom is “the supreme glorification of human dignity.”6 This statement
makes eminent sense because martyrs achieve the summit of human dignity by laying down their lives for God and neighbor.
Every element of society should promote respect for basic human dignity and its perfection. As Vatican Council II specifically says, “it devolves
on humanity to establish a political, social, and economic order which will
to an even better extent serve man and help individuals as well as groups
to affirm and perfect the dignity proper to them” (ad dignitatem sibi propriam affirmandam et excolendam).7 This means that the family, mediating institutions, the law and the Church all have a role to play in helping
individuals to perfect their dignity. For example, the education a mother
3

Gaudium et spes, §16.
Pope Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, §37.
5
CCC, §1691.
6
Pope John Paul II, Dominum et vivificantem [On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the
Church and the World], §60.
7
Gaudium et spes, §9 (modified translation and my emphasis).
4

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1013

and father give to their children in the family will help them recognize
and achieve their dignity. Schools, a primary mediating institution, to a
greater or lesser extent, form the character of students so that they might
be inclined to act in accordance with their dignity. The law encourages
people not to act beneath their dignity by driving while drunk or acting in
a discriminatory manner toward racial minorities. In Centesimus Annus,
Pope John Paul II says that the Church contributes to the enrichment of
human dignity when she “proclaims God’s salvation to man, when she
offers and communicates the life of God through the sacraments, when
she gives direction to human life through the commandments of love of
God and neighbor.”8 These examples show that a correct conception of the
human person provides guidance to all educators and to legislators, and
also enables all people to recognize that they must strive to perfect their
dignity in order to be good persons and, even, good democratic citizens.
These examples just scratch the surface. Those working for social justice
would have to discern what else needs to be done in the political, economic, and social order that would help people perfect their dignity and that
shows respect for their permanent or basic dignity, such as insuring access
to food, housing, work, health care and education.
It should be clear that the concepts of integral human development
and the perfection or flourishing of human dignity are two ways of talking
about the same realities, the complete temporal well-being and virtuous
perfection or holiness of each and every individual. Unless the good of
persons is properly understood, the common good will not be accurately
understood. In the words of Williams, “A sound notion of the common
good rests on the foundation of a sound Christian anthropology” (18).
Otherwise stated, once we know what the perfection of the human person means, then we are in a position to recognize the political and social
conditions that will realize the common good and thus help individuals
achieve their perfection.
Throughout his book, Williams makes reference to various virtues
that must be practiced in order to implement CSD. We have already discussed the role played by the theological virtue of charity. In his chapter on the common good, Williams also places emphasis on the virtue of
solidarity, which John Paul II defines in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis as “a firm
8

Centesimus annus, no. 55.

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Book Reviews

and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good”
(§38). He also brings up solidarity in the chapter on global governance arguing that the practice of solidarity by individuals and the establishment
of the right structures guide globalization to a good end. Given Williams’s
appreciation of virtue, I am surprised that he did not find a place to stress
that the practice of the virtues by many individuals is necessary to establish justice, as Benedict has noted in not a few contexts, particularly his
Latin America speeches. Anticipating a likely objection to his emphasis
Benedict asks how one can justify “the priority of faith in Christ and of
‘life’ in him” when there are so many pressing political, economic, and
social problems in Latin America. He answers that both Marxism and
capitalism promised that just structures, an indispensable condition for
promoting justice in society, could be established and maintained without
“individual morality”—without individuals formed by the virtues. Benedict XVI implies that people now see that both political and economic
systems failed to live up to their promises. In fact, just structures depend
on a moral consensus in the body politic and lives lived by citizens in
accord with the virtues. This point must be emphasized in any book on
CSD because so many believe that the structures recommended by social
justice are alone sufficient to bring about a just social order.
I would like to conclude my review by briefly discussing Williams’s
two chapters on religion. In his chapter “‘Tolerance’ and Religious Liberty,”
he astutely points out the that Vatican II’s declaration on religious liberty, Dignitais Humanae, never mentions tolerance or toleration. Williams’s
point is that “religion is a human good to be promoted, not an evil to be
tolerated. . . . Religious practice forms part of the common good of society
and should be encouraged [by the state] rather than marginalized” (131).
Williams also observes that in the contemporary era, tolerance implies
“a general attitude of permissiveness and openness to diversity” (132). In
other words, tolerance encourages the acceptance of relativism. Williams
wants to see a genuine respect for religion because of what it can do for
the salvation of individuals and the preservation of modern democracies.
“The respect for religious freedom stands head and shoulders above a
supposed tolerance for religious belief, with the relativism, indifference
and subtle disdain for religion it so often comprises” (138).
In his second chapter on religion, Williams follows Pope Benedict in
pointing out that some religions can be harmful to a polity and need to be

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restrained by state action. There are now “pathological forms of religion,”
including some understandings of Christianity, that steer people away
from the good. Williams also mentions the harm that can come to modern democracies from Islam, some primitive religions, new age religions,
Hinduism, Animism, and atheistic fanaticism, which functions as a kind
of dangerous religion. Williams’s treatment of this potentially inflammatory subject is well done. It would have been even better had he reflected
on Pope Benedict’s point that reason can correct the aberrations of faith,
and faith can correct the aberrations of reason.
Thomas Williams has written a thoughtful book that merits a close
reading by anyone interested in Catholic social doctrine and Catholic
N&V
social thought.
J. Brian Benestad
Assumption College
Worcester, MA

On Liturgical Asceticism by David W. Fagerberg (Washington, DC:
The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), xix + 246 pp.

FOR SEVERAL DECADES now it has been relatively common to speak
of the ressourcement movement in Catholic theology and to note the
towering achievements of such figures as Congar, de Lubac, Daniélou,
and Chenu, inter alia, and the influence of them and others on the Second Vatican Council and its reforms. To that illustrious pantheon of
historians and theologians I think we can now add David Fagerberg’s
name, for his splendid new book, On Liturgical Asceticism, is completely
immersed in the major sources of monasticism, mysticism, and asceticism of the Christian East. This cogently written, deeply engaging book
very much merits a place in every seminary and graduate course in liturgy and spirituality.
Fagerberg, of course, is no stranger to liturgiology or the Christian
East, as his 1992 book What Is Liturgical Theology and his 2003 Theologia
Prima (which I always require my graduate students to read) both manifest a deep and abiding indebtedness to the greatest liturgical theologian
of the postwar period, the late Alexander Schmemann, whose works,
thirty years after his early death in December 1983, retain, as the Jesuit

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historian Robert Taft recently noted, an astonishing shelf life unrivaled
by anyone else in the field. But unlike those two earlier books, which
attempted something of a “straddle” between East and West, Fagerberg’s
present book shows a much fuller and more complete immersion in the
spirituality of the Greek and Syriac Fathers as well as modern Orthodox
sources (e.g., Pavel Florensky, Georges Florovsky, John Zizioulas). To
them Fagerberg has turned in quest of bridges between fields he rightly
regards as unhelpfully divided in the West for too long: theology, liturgy, and asceticism. By drawing extensively on Evagrius, Maximus the
Confessor, and the Cappadocians (inter alia), Fagerberg demonstrates
beyond all doubt that unless theology, liturgy, and asceticism are treated
as a whole, each of them remains incoherent. Theology treated purely
as an academic enterprise without ascetical and liturgical grounding is
highly dangerous and borderline demonic.
Though he does not name them here, I take Fagerberg to be following the counsel of the English Dominican Aidan Nichols and the Jesuit
Robert Taft, both of whom argued forcefully in the 1980s and 1990s that
when, following Vatican II, so much of ascetical practice in the West was
wrongly jettisoned by appeal to the fabled “spirit of Vatican II,” and so
much of Western liturgy turned into an anthropocentric quest for “creativity” and “variety,” the way one begins to recover liturgical-ascetical
stability and seriousness precisely in and for the West is by looking ad
Orientem: to the rich literature, both ancient and modern, of the Christian East. Fagerberg has brought that literature alive in such a vibrant and
accessible way, and written so compellingly and convincingly, that this
book could and should stand alone as an excellent volume for Roman
Catholics seeking an introduction to the Desert Fathers (the apophthegmata patrum are lavishly cited throughout), to monasticism, and to liturgical theology. This book, as I noted above, deserves a wide audience on
the part of Western Christians, both Catholic and Protestant.
In turning to the East, however, Fagerberg does so without any of the
triumphalism, romanticism, or fatuous preening one occasionally finds
in some contemporary Orthodox writers who, ignoring the problems
besetting all the Orthodox Churches today, luxuriate in long sneers at
the West. Fagerberg has no truck with any of that gnat straining, instead
turning to the East simply because—as the writings of Vatican II, and
Pope John Paul (cf. especially Orientale Lumen and Ut Unum Sint) have

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long made clear—“the East” is not an exotic land far off, but is already
part and parcel of the Catholic patrimony. Fagerberg, thus a “scribe who
has been trained for the kingdom of heaven, is like a householder who
brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Mt 13:52).
The hallmark of a great scribe and householder is that he makes the
question of what is “old or new” or “East or West” largely irrelevant. The
provenance of the treasures is not important; their purpose is. And the
purpose of all these treasures is to fit us for the Kingdom of Heaven and
to make us like the king Himself. The goal of asceticism, then, is nothing
less than theosis.
It may be astonishing for some today to hear that theology and
theosis should go hand in hand. But by drawing on the fourth-century
highly influential monastic Evagrius of Pontus and by bringing him to
the forefront of the Catholic household today, Fagerberg reminds its residents that theology, if it is properly understood, is not merely or even
primarily intellectual or academic: its goal is not plaudits and prizes
from the Catholic Theological Society of America or other self-selecting and often self-congratulatory guilds. Theology is quite simply the
quest for communion with and contemplation of God, and may thus be
practiced by, and open to, anyone and everyone who prays. Theology
must be the product of deep, lifelong liturgical formation in the Church’s
cycle of feasting and fasting, and that cycle itself, especially in the fasting periods, is only intelligible through an asceticism shot through with
eschatological anamnesis.
To make these connections clear in six chapters, Fagerberg first
begins by defining what he means by “liturgical asceticism.” Then, in
his second through fourth chapters, he reviews our present plight without robust asceticism (“the malady”), the cure for it (“askesis”), and the
fruits of that cure, namely, joy. The final two chapters look at how to live
an ascetical-liturgical life not only among monastics but also among the
laic, a neologism Fagerberg borrows from the Orthodox theologian and
canonist Nicholas Afanasiev (whose ecclesiology, as is well known, had
a profound impact on Lumen Gentium) to designate those living in the
world while nonetheless striving to practice what Paul Evdokimov famously called “interiorized monasticism” to which all people, regardless
of their station in life, are called by God (the “universal call to holiness”
of Vatican II).

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Those familiar with reforms to the liturgy following Vatican II,
the section on liturgy in the 1992 universal Catechism of the Catholic
Church, and the writings of Pope John Paul II will recognize in all these
a deep indebtedness to the Christian East and a desire for the Catholic
Church to rediscover Greek and Syriac sources so that ultimately the
Church learns once more not so much about self-consciously breathing with “two lungs” (an overworked and inadequate metaphor) as
about unconsciously living from the fullness of her one heart, which is
Christ’s. To the extent that Fagerberg’s book enables the whole Church
N&V
to do precisely that, we are all in his debt.
Adam DeVille
University of Saint Francis
Fort Wayne, IN

The Word Made Love: The Dialogical Theology of Joseph Ratzinger/
Pope Benedict XVI by Christopher Collins, S.J. (Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 2013), xiv + 181 pp.

CHRISTOPHER COLLINS, S.J., has written a book that will be received with deep gratitude. Possessing a writing style that is crisp and
clear, Collins leads his readers into a fresh understanding of both the
sources of Joseph Ratzinger’s theology and his theology itself. The
author takes us through the fundamental themes of Ratzinger’s life’s
work: revelation, Christology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. Collins
leaves us with a true appreciation of the coherence of Ratzinger’s theology, a theology that was made greater still by the future pope’s own
vulnerability to the Living Word, as influenced by the faith of his own
family and teachers who refused to reduce Christ to an “idea” or a philosophy but who risked being drawn into communion with the Trinity as mystery. As a result of this vulnerability on Joseph Ratzinger’s
part, we have been gifted with a theology that is also a way into God
and not one that simply presents theories about him. The structure
of Ratzinger’s theology is communion, dialogue. Collins is expert at
taking the reader through all of Ratzinger’s dialogue partners as well.
Here we meet the Evangelists and St. Paul, of course, but also Plato, St.

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1019

Bonaventure, as well as modern philosophical and theological movements such as personalism, liberation theology, relativism, neo-scholasticism, and Ratzinger’s own theological contemporaries. Through
this theological and philosophical dialogue the believer is invited to
allow an encounter with God to occur, which begins in the eternal
sharing of the Father’s Word through covenants and culminates in
this Word taking on flesh in human history. God is not interested in a
monologue wherein he simply reveals truth; he desires to engage humanity in a loving dialogue where “I and Thou” meet within creation
and within a unique intimate love (chaburah) known as the Church.
Collins takes us into Ratzinger’s deep and dense writings on
Bonaventure. In doing so, Collins delivers one of the most accessible
treatments of Ratzinger’s understanding of Bonaventure that I have
ever read, paying particular attention to how history is part of revelation. As such, revelation progresses from the seeds of the Logos within
a narrative, rather than being simply revealed as data in linear fashion.
From Bonaventure, Ratzinger contemplates Christ as the center of all
history, the center from which all flows out into time and all history
returns to an eternal communion with the Father through the Son and
in the Spirit. In this way, it is love that defines history and brings it to
its fulfillment. And, because it is divine love that initiates and sustains
the existence of all reality, Ratzinger (unlike Karl Rahner, for example)
begins his theology upon the action divina, rather than upon an anthropological foundation.
Collins also draws the reader’s attention to the fascinating theme
of Christ himself being the dialogue God has with Man. Here, within Christ, we see that humanity can only be fulfilled when it responds
faithfully to God acting and speaking Truth. To respond to Christ himself is to respond to God’s searching love. God did not simply reveal his
mind but his Word, a Person. And this Person is living still; he is not
to be sequestered within the past. Ratzinger’s focus upon the truth that
Christ lives now, in and through the Spirit, uniquely marks his theology
as respectful both of faith and the scientific methods that probe history.
If one were to separate faith (dogma) from history, one would make
Scripture irrelevant to each succeeding epoch by confining scripture
further and further into the past. Summarizing Ratzinger, Collins notes

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that theologians do not say things about God as one who acts in the
past, but should treat God as the one who speaks (51).
For Ratzinger, Jesus Christ sheds light upon the deepest meaning
of human life, underscoring that it is God who speaks to Man in Christ
and Man understands himself only when he responds to Christ. God’s
Son is the measure of humanity and not the other way around. Even
more fundamentally, one cannot understand who Jesus is and the dignity of who Man is in relation to God apart from the Church. To abstract
Jesus or Man from the Church is to only dimly perceive truth. In Christ
is the revelation of what a human being is: persons who long for union
with the fount of love itself. Christ both reveals God and reveals who
the human person is within his singular particularity, a particularity
that is scandalous to a relativistic and religiously pluralistic age. Despite
such scandalous thinking, Ratzinger is clear: God has spoken his Word
uniquely and definitively in Jesus Christ. It is the Church’s vocation to
gather to hear this unique Word and respond to it by way of personal
conversion and, in turn, to proclaim this Word to the world. When its
members truly enter a faithful dialogue with Christ in the Spirit, they
become the saints who make up the real majority of its population. The
Church is historically conditioned, and hence it sins, but it is capable
of receiving God, and hence it is called to give witness to what Christ
means for history: God is among us—respond to him in loving trust.
Fundamentally, this response is the Church’s worship and such worship
marks out the Church’s deepest identity and ministry: to be reconciled
to God and enter communion with Christ as he offers thanksgiving to
the Father. Here, in the worship of the Father by Christ, death dies and
becomes an act of love. In opening the human heart to the love of Christ,
the believer then receives salvation in Christ, in the one who met death
with love and gave birth to hope. This hope affects the entire person,
and is given as a result of encountering the Savior. In such an encounter,
the sinner hears from him that “it is good that you exist” (157). To know
Christ is to step into the dialogical relationship between God and Man
and thus be redeemed.
Father Collins begins each of his five chapters with a helpful summary of what is contained therein and then concludes each chapter
with a synopsis that both deepens the reader’s understanding of what
was just meditated upon and prepares the reader for the next chapter.

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1021

As we read these pages, we discover that not only is Christopher Collins an excellent writer but also an insightful teacher. I recommend this
work for any theologian who wishes to possess the thought of Ratzinger in one accessible volume and to any teacher looking for a text that
not only introduces Ratzinger’s thought but, thanks to Collins’ gifts,
carries with it the seed to make one a true devotee of Joseph Ratzinger’s
N&V
beautiful theology.
James Keating
Institute for Priestly Formation, Creighton University
Omaha, NE

Eusebius of Emesa: Church and Theology in the Mid-Fourth
Century by Robert E. Winn (Washington, DC: The Catholic University
of America Press, 2011), xiv + 277 pp.
Eusebius of Emesa is not one of the better-known Christian figures of
the fourth century. This volume, a revised version of Winn’s dissertation, makes the case that this is not as it should be, and it makes that case
persuasively. Eusebius rubbed shoulders with the most powerful bishops of the eastern Roman Empire, but he disliked ecclesiastical politics,
preferring what he saw as straightforward and nonpartisan evangelical
exhortation. Noted by Jerome for his reputation for oratory (De viris
inlustribus 91), Eusebius has left us a corpus of thirty-six extant sermons. With the exception of an extended quotation preserved in Theodoret of Cyrrhus’s Eranistes and some scattered fragments in catenae,
none of these survive in Greek. E. M. Buytaert published an edition of
twenty-nine Latin sermons in 1953. These were followed shortly by a
series of Armenian sermons edited by N. Akinian, eight of which Winn
follows H. Lehmann in deeming authentically Eusebian. One of these
sermons survives in both Latin and Armenian; hence the total of thirty-six. Until now, despite widespread admiration for Eusebius’s preaching in the ancient and medieval Christian world, no theological analysis of the sermons including both the Latin and the Armenian material
has been attempted. This book steps into that lacuna. Winn discerns
in these sermons a carefully executed theological program designed by
Eusebius to carve out and solidify a particular “ecclesiastical identity”
for his congregants in the cosmopolitan environment of fourth-century

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Roman Syria.
Chapter 1 is devoted to filling out Eusebius’s context by focusing on
the localities that played a prominent role in his life: Eusebius’s hometown of Edessa; Antioch, where he lived off and on in the 330s as an episcopal protégé, and where he would eventually die; and Emesa, his own
see from 341. Winn also includes a section dedicated to George of Laodicea, whose association with Eusebius he deems the key to unlocking
certain events of the last part of Eusebius’s life. The chapter’s geographical arrangement offers the advantage of a fairly rich sense of Eusebius’s
social context. It bears the slight drawback of requiring a bit of patient
sleuthing on the part of the reader to piece together a full chronology
of Eusebius’s life. There are also a few puzzling omissions. For instance,
we know, and Winn does mention, that Eusebius was favored by Constantius II and accompanied him on a military campaign. Given Winn’s
insistence on the centrality for Eusebius of delineating “the place of the
church in fourth-century Roman society” (13) and Constantius’s reputation as an eager but uninformed and fickle participant in imperial-ecclesiastical politics, some consideration of the possible meaning of his
association with the emperor might have been helpful.
In chapter 2, Winn takes up Eusebius’s rhetorical and exegetical
strategies. Winn’s burden is to show that Eusebius’s use of rhetoric is exclusively aimed at inculcating his “ecclesiastical agenda.” He seeks to do
so in particular by examining Eusebius’s use of the encomium rhetorical
form, which he took up in praise of the apostles in four of the extant
sermons. Winn shows how Eusebius consistently drifts from discussing the apostles themselves to discussing Jesus and Jesus’s superiority to
other religious figures. This, of course, technically violates the canons
of the rhetorical form, but it does not seem particularly surprising in
a Christian sermon. Nonetheless, Winn reads this as evidence of Eusebius’s “agenda,” concluding that the apostles “had to suffer less than
normal honors in orations ostensibly delivered in their honor for the
greater good of the church they founded” (68).
Winn’s analysis of Eusebius’s exegesis brings out interesting tensions.
He argues, on the one hand, that Eusebius may well be the “missing link”
(H. Lehmann’s phrase) between early Antiochene exegetes like Lucian
and Eustathius and later ones like Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and John Chrysostom, whom we know to have read Eusebius

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1023

admiringly. On the other hand, Eusebius had studied under Eusebius
of Caesarea, and Winn’s characterization of Eusebius’s view of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments smacks rather strongly at the very least of Origen, or even of the Pseudo-Barnabas. Winn
even suggests that Eusebius denies the Old Testament its own integrity:
apart from its New Testament fulfillment, it is essentially meaningless, a
stance hardly typical of “Antiochene” exegesis.
The next four chapters (3 to 6) are devoted to what Winn regards
as the most central and recurring topics of Eusebius’s preaching. The
synthesis involves a cumulative progression. One moves with Eusebius
from a correct understanding of the natural world and of human nature,
wherein the superiority of incorporeality to corporeality is established
(chap. 3), to an affirmation of God’s incorporeality, which Eusebius valued so highly that he warned against using natural analogies to describe
the relationship between the Father and the Son (chap. 4). It is worth
noting here that, in light of Eusebius’s emphasis on incorporeality, his
proclamation of the miraculous powers of the martyrs’ relics is quite
striking, but Winn does not comment on the apparent tension (230–31).
As with his exegesis, Eusebius’s Trinitarian theology and Christology defy easy classification. Like Cyril of Jerusalem, Eusebius abhorred
the ecclesiastical partisanship that swirled around extrabiblical terms
like homoousios, urging Christians not to fall prey to factionalism over
language that was not explicitly endorsed by scripture. Nonetheless,
Winn demonstrates a shift over the course of Eusebius’s preaching career from a marked subordinationism to passages in the sermons delivered at Jerusalem in the 350s that would not seem out of place several
decades later in Augustine’s De Trinitate; for example, “Everything that
the Father is, the Son is the same, except that he is not Father. Everything that the Son is, the Father is the same, except that he is not Son and
did not take flesh. And everything which the Father and the Son are, the
Holy Spirit is the same except that he is not Father or Son, and did not
become flesh as the Son” (quoted on 171).
The binary now established between passible corporeality and impassible incorporeality sets the terms for Eusebius’s Christology (chap.
5). Winn brings out apparent vacillations in Eusebius’s Christological
articulations. The concern to guard against any suggestion of divine
passibility often leads him to imply a two-subject Christology. At other

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times, Eusebius seems to have held a more nearly one-subject Christology. In fact, if fragments preserved by Philoxenus of Mabboug are
to be trusted, as Winn thinks they are, Eusebius was even able to make
statements such as “God died for us” (206). Be that as it may, for Winn
as for R. Gregg and D. Groh (Early Arianism: A View of Salvation [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981]), fourth-century Christology is only secondarily about metaphysical analysis of one particular Person; what is
really at stake is soteriology. While Eusebius expressed the purpose of
the Incarnation in more than one way, the most central is a version of
the “formula of exchange,” perhaps best known from Irenaeus (Adversus
haereses 3.19.1) and Athanasius (De incarnatione verbi 54.3). As Eusebius puts it in one sermon, “God, the Son of God, came in a body in
order to conform men to divinity” (quoted on 216). But, on Winn’s telling, since this transformation of human nature is “not an eschatological
transformation” (218), what Eusebius intends thereby is exhaustively realized as ascetic renunciation of a very particular kind: “faith in Christ
assumes an asexual angelic existence” (223).
This emphatically ascetical vision of the Church’s identity is the
subject of chapter 6 and the culmination of the theological movement
begun in chapter 3. Virginity and martyrdom are seen as the very content of an “incorporeal,” “angelic” mode of life. Accordingly, consecrated virginity should be the norm of the Christian life, and martyrdom
its desired term. Celibacy could even be equated with salvation, tout
court: “living a transformed life as an asexual angel was how Eusebius
understood salvation in general” (240). Nevertheless, Winn points out
that Eusebius “was not advocating an encratic church” (241). To the
contrary, Eusebius took care to specify the legitimate place of marriage and active life in the Church. While consecrated virginity undoubtedly held pride of place, and eventual renunciation of the use of
marriage came in second, Eusebius does seem to have begun exploring how faithful and fruitful married life could be understood as a
mode of participation in the kingdom of God. Similarly, the meaning
of martyrdom could be expanded from execution in odium fidei to its
etymological sense of “witness,” comprising an entire life spent pursuing holiness, waging war against vice, and thus bearing witness to the
Gospel to non-Christian observers.
As they stand in the book, these two poles of Eusebius’s thought—

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the virtual equation of sexual renunciation with salvation and, at the
other end, the possibility of noncelibate ways of being faithful to the
Gospel—stand in unresolved tension. While that lack of resolution
may be an accurate reflection of Eusebius’s own thought, one wonders whether a more fulsome picture of Christian salvation might have
emerged from viewing the this-worldly ascetical ideal, not as evacuating soteriology of its eschatological horizon, but as a sign of and
proleptic participation in the future life of the resurrection. Such an
interpretation seems entirely compatible with the ample quotations
from the sermons that Winn provides.
So how does Winn’s overarching thesis that “ecclesiastical identity”
is the constant “underlying agenda” for Eusebius’s preaching ultimately
fare? There seem, in fact, to be two versions of it that run side by side
throughout the book. The stronger one, that the tail of identity politics
wags the doctrinal dog, appears to overreach. Certainly, Eusebius, like
many late antique Christian preachers, wished his congregants to be
well informed and observant of the differences between themselves as
Christians and their Jewish, “heretical” (mainly Manichaean and Marcionite), and pagan neighbors. Winn has no trouble producing evidence
of this, and it often strikes the modern reader as distasteful. But while it
is patently one dimension of Eusebius’s preaching, it is far from clear that
this contrastive identity construction is its beating heart, something that
is further undermined by Winn’s awareness that Eusebius understood
himself to be transmitting the authentic apostolic faith, not a series of
spin-doctored adversarial talking points. The more modest form of the
thesis simply claims that Eusebius’s preaching sought to instill a distinctively Christian identity, defined as “a set of beliefs and a way of life characterized by asceticism that Eusebius considered essential to members
of the church” (15). This is eminently defensible, but it is also circular:
Eusebius promotes certain beliefs and practices in service of an ecclesiastical identity that comprises precisely those beliefs and practices. Like all
tautologies, this is true but leads nowhere. In the end, then, the repeated
emphasis on “ecclesiastical identity” is a confusing and distracting scaffolding, artificially rigged up over the book’s real argument. Fortunately,
the edifice of Winn’s work stands perfectly upright without it, and it can
safely be jettisoned. The real virtue of the book is its logically synthesized
presentation of the key themes in Eusebius’s sermons. Winn’s progres-

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sive analysis of Eusebius’s preached doctrine, from right perception of
the natural world and the human person to a right notion of God, and
thence to an account of Christ, the salvation He wrought, and how it
looks in concrete practice, is both coherent and cogent.
Lastly, it should be mentioned that the book is unfortunately marred
by a significant number of typographical errors and inconsistencies in
conventions, and by the occasional malapropism (“perspicuity” for “perspicacity” [34], “laying” for “lying” [108]). Most problematically from a
historical-theological point of view, on eight occasions Winn uses the
expression “the divine economy” to refer to the theology of the immanent Trinity (126, 128, 129, 132, 144, 154, 173, 179). Thankfully, these
do not detract substantively from a suggestive volume that deserves the
attention of every historian of fourth-century Christian theology. N&V
John Sehorn
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN