Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1029-1043

1029

St. Thomas Aquinas and the Wisdom of the Cross
Thomas Joseph White, O.P.
Thomistic Institute
Washington, DC

I

THE HUMAN BEINGis an enigma difficult to understand, and the

principal reason for this is the complexity of our nature. We are animals
but rational animals: material, sensate creatures that are capable of seeking the truth, subject to our own free decisions, stricken with profound
longings for happiness, subject to death. Our human existence can be
experienced in ways that are more or less unified, or disintegrated. This
is true on many levels, one of them having to do with the inner life of the
human spirit itself. For this life emerges from within the core of our being as two distinct spiritual powers or capacities: those of the intellect and
the will. It is possible to be primarily a person of the heart, moved above
all by desire and love, who is very little interested in the exacting truth,
or the stirring heights of contemplation. And it is also very possible to be
a creature of the mind, bent on the clarity or rigor of the truth, very little
given to love, compassion, or heroic virtue. So this duality of mind and
heart can be problematic, oppositional, and can unfold in a way that is
even fatal to the integrity of a human life.
Wisdom, however, is the attribute of the spirit that integrates the intense desire for truth with the ardor and aspirations of love. Wisdom is,
in a certain sense, the truth placed at the service of love. The prudent person seeks to know how to live well, in view of the flourishing of the heart:
happiness, friendship, love, moral stability. We can seek these things in

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truth. But wisdom is also love placed at the service of the greater knowledge of truth for its own sake. The wise person is a seeker of the highest
truths, one who wishes to make an inward ascent toward vision, toward
the encounter with the highest good. Love for the truth ennobles the
human heart and quickens the mind.
All of this—the search for wisdom in man—is but a shadow of the
life of God, who is himself subsistent wisdom. For in God there exists no
real distinction of knowledge and will, as is found in us. Nor is there in
God a distinction between truth or love, on the one hand, and God’s very
being or essence, on the other. God just is his ineffable act of contemplation. God is he who knows himself eternally, and who knows all things in
himself, comprehending all that is created without ever departing from
his own self-knowledge. And God just is the ineffable act of love of his
own essential goodness, a love without any taint or shadow of egoism, an
ecstatic love for the good (for the good that is God himself), and which
is at the source of every participated good that God creates. For it is from
the sheer freedom of his perfect goodness, and ecstatic self-love, that
God gratuitously gives being to all that exists, and not from any need of
creation. God is, then, a knowledge and a love that are one in being and
that are identical with God’s own essence and being. That is to say, God
just is subsistent wisdom.
All of this is true even if we have no immediate, direct perception of
God in himself. For God is known to us only in and through his effects
of creation and grace. We can conclude rightly from the consideration of
all that God has made and done that God is wisdom, but how or what his
wisdom is remains for us a mystery veiled in darkness. This apophatic
truth (the veiled character of the divine essence) is displayed paradigmatically in Exodus 20:21 where Moses enters the darkness of God on
Mount Sinai. Dionysius says that this symbol represents the human intellect in the face of the incomprehensible perfection of God. “The divine
darkness is that ‘unapproachable light’ where God is said to live. And if it
is invisible because of a superabundant clarity, if it cannot be approached
because of the outpouring of its transcendent gift of light, yet it is here
that is found everyone worthy to know God and to look upon him.”1
1

Dionysius, Letter 5, 1073 A, trans. P. Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works
(New York: Paulist Press, 1988).

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If we consider the human being again, then, in light of these considerations concerning God, we can say that human life consists of a spiritual itinerary. The human being is moved inwardly by knowledge and
by love, and is made for wisdom. He or she has the vocation to rejoin
the wisdom of God, seeking to know God’s truth and goodness in a way
that integrates mind and heart. The human being is not the subsistent
wisdom of the Creator, but is made from and for that wisdom, an Image
of God, a pilgrim of the spirit who is meant to be turned forever toward
the aboriginal light of the Father. “For with thee is the fountain of life; in
thy light do we see light” (Ps 36:9, RSV).
II
Thomas Aquinas speaks not of one, but of three forms of human wisdom cultivated in the pursuit of God. One of them is natural in form:
the wisdom of philosophical contemplation of God. One results from
both principles of nature and grace: the wisdom of theology or sacra
doctrina, in which man reflects scientifically on divine revelation. One
is given by grace alone: the gift of infused, contemplative wisdom, which
comes from the Holy Spirit. We can consider each of these in turn. But
first let us begin with a question. How should we understand this topic
of Christian wisdom in light of a Biblical theme of fundamental importance, the wisdom of the Cross?
At the start of his First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul the Apostle contrasts a wisdom of the world with the wisdom of the Cross. “For
since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those
who believe” (1 Cor 1:21). The Cross is perceived as “foolish” by our
contemporaries, and yet it contains the true wisdom of God, hidden
from before all ages (1 Cor 2:7).
What, then, is the wisdom of the Cross? Why is it so precious? How
does it relate to the Gentile wisdom sought by the ancient philosophical schools? “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we
preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of
God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:22–24). St. Paul seems to draw
a contrast between the philosophical quest for understanding, and the

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embrace of the Christian faith. Is the contrast real or apparent? Fathers
of the Church, from Justin Martyr to Augustine, claimed that the disciple of the Cross is the true inheritor of the Greek search for wisdom, and
not those who practice the Greco-Roman pagan religions. If this is the
case, then how are we to understand St. Paul?
When he comments on this passage of 1 Corinthians, Aquinas notes
that God does not destroy anything authentically good in the human
person, including the powers of wisdom and prudence that are meant
to guide our human life toward God. The human being is naturally capable of knowledge of God. “For what can be known about God is plain
to them, because God has shown it to them” (Rom 1:19). The grace of
God does not act in such a way as to negate this natural dimension of
the human person. What God does bring to an end by the power of
the Cross are the false pretentions of disordered reason by which human beings strive blindly to live for this world only, and in view of the
happiness procured by human self-interest. “Consequently, he does not
say absolutely, ‘I will destroy the wisdom,’ because ‘all wisdom is from
the Lord God’ (Sir 1:1), but I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, i.e.,
which the wise of this world have invented for themselves against the
true wisdom of God, because as it says in Jas 3:15: ‘This is not wisdom,
descending from above; but earthly, sensual, devilish.’ Similarly, he does
not say, ‘I will reject prudence,’ for God’s wisdom teaches true prudence,
but the prudence of the prudent, i.e., which is regarded as prudent by
those who esteem themselves prudent in worldly affairs, so that they
cling to the goods of this world, or because ‘the prudence of the flesh is
death’ (Rom 8:6).”2
In addition, Aquinas notes that our human loves can turn us away
from any developed natural knowledge of God. We do not seek to understand what we have no interest in, or what we positively wish not to
discover. Though the human being is naturally capable of philosophical contemplation of God, this capacity is often deeply compromised
by the (ill-informed but tenacious) human desire to explain the world
without reference to God. “Consequently, God brought believers to a
saving knowledge of himself by other things, which are not found in the
2

Aquinas, Super I Cor. I, lec. 3, 50, trans. Fabian Larcher; see http://dhspriory.org/
thomas/SS1Cor.htm#13.

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natures of creatures; on which account worldly men, who derive their
notions solely from human things, considered them foolish: things such
as the articles of faith.”3 The Incarnation and atonement can appear as
“foolishness [to Gentiles], because it seemed against the nature of human reason that God should die and that a just and wise man should
voluntarily expose himself to a very shameful death.”4
This exegesis leaves us perched upon a precipice, in which we could
fall one of two directions, either toward a profound partition of the wisdom of the Cross from the wisdom of the philosophers, or toward a
theory of purification, in which the Cross exerts a mystery of healing
upon the wounds and miseries of the human mind and heart. In this
latter view, the Cross enacts a kind of ontological retrieval in the human
soul, elevating our intellectual powers into a new life of cooperation
with God.
It is in terms of this second understanding that St. John Paul II characterized the relation in his exegesis of this passage of St. Paul in his
1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio. Fallen reason is often given over to the
stifling sclerosis of rationalism: the attempt to explain reality by purely
natural causes, without any possible recourse to transcendent reality, or
to the possible influences of divine revelation.5 The Cross, meanwhile,
confronts, converts and heals this fallen human reason, opening it up to
an authentic horizon of intellectual universality. This process of elevation is both natural and supernatural in kind, because the Cross opens
human reason to the full expanse of the requirements of love. That love
of Christ crucified, which is “catholic” in its scope, redeems the human
mind by introducing it at once to the heights and depths of the mystery
of the Trinity, and into the expansive, missionary reaches of the heart,
open to the whole of the human race, open to every creature God has
made.6 The soul under this new “weight” of charity is impelled from
3

Super I Cor. I, lec. 3, 55.
Super I Cor. I, lec. 3, 58.
5
John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, §23: “The crucified Son of God is the historic event upon
which every attempt of the mind to construct an adequate explanation of the meaning of existence upon merely human argumentation comes to grief.”
6
Ibid.: “Reason cannot eliminate the mystery of love which the Cross represents;
while the Cross can give to reason the ultimate answer which it seeks . . . The wisdom of the Cross . . . breaks free of all cultural limitations which seek to contain it
and insists upon an openness to the universality of the truth which it bears. What
4

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

within toward the whole expanse of being and beyond, from the most
modest of creatures to the ineffable, uncreated mystery of God who has
given us the gift of being. Here reason is not only invited to engage with
the mystery of God, but it is also obliged to accept the burden of its own
native capacity for universal knowledge and even for natural knowledge
of the Creator.
Thematically, it is within this context of the consideration of reason redeemed by love that St. John Paul II speaks of the three wisdoms
of Thomas Aquinas.7 The Cross redeems human wisdom so that philosophical knowledge of God can be placed at the service of faith. The
grace of Christ makes possible an authentic theological wisdom centered on the mystery of the Holy Trinity that seeks to understand all other mysteries in the light of the mystery of God. The mystery of the Cross
makes possible an infused wisdom: a friendship with Christ crucified
a challenge this is to our reason, and how great the gain for reason if it yields to
this wisdom! Of itself, philosophy is able to recognize the human being’s ceaselessly
self-transcendent orientation towards the truth; and, with the assistance of faith, it is
capable of accepting the ‘foolishness’ of the Cross as the authentic critique of those
who delude themselves that they possess the truth, when in fact they run it aground
on the shoals of a system of their own devising. The preaching of Christ crucified
and risen is the reef upon which the link between faith and philosophy can break up,
but it is also the reef beyond which the two can set forth upon the boundless ocean
of truth. Here we see not only the border between reason and faith, but also the
space where the two may meet.”
7
Fides et Ratio, §44: “Another of the great insights of Saint Thomas was his perception of the role of the Holy Spirit in the process by which knowledge matures into
wisdom. From the first pages of his Summa theologiae (ST I, q. 1, a. 6) Aquinas was
keen to show the primacy of the wisdom which is the gift of the Holy Spirit and
which opens the way to a knowledge of divine realities. His theology allows us to
understand what is distinctive of wisdom in its close link with faith and knowledge
of the divine. This wisdom comes to know by way of connaturality; it presupposes
faith and eventually formulates its right judgment on the basis of the truth of faith
itself: ‘The wisdom named among the gifts of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the wisdom found among the intellectual virtues. This second wisdom is acquired through
study, but the first ‘comes from on high,’ as Saint James puts it. This also distinguishes
it from faith, since faith accepts divine truth as it is. But the gift of wisdom enables
judgment according to divine truth’ (ST II-II, q. 45, a.1, ad 2; cf. also II-II, q. 45, a. 2).
Yet the priority accorded this wisdom does not lead the Angelic Doctor to overlook
the presence of two other complementary forms of wisdom—philosophical wisdom,
which is based upon the capacity of the intellect, for all its natural limitations, to
explore reality, and theological wisdom, which is based upon Revelation and which
explores the contents of faith, entering the very mystery of God.”

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effectuated by the Holy Spirit, a bond of charity that unites the mind
to God by connatural knowledge. Each of these forms of wisdom is respectful of the others, each inferior wisdom being open to the superior
and each superior respecting and integrating the inferior. The Christian
philosopher, if genuinely reasonable, is open to the mystery of divine
revelation, just as the theologian is open to truths that are articulated by
the mystic. However, the theologian also has need of a sound practice of
sapiential philosophy, just as any person with a genuine, elevated interior life is aware of his or her need for the sound insights and prudential
guidance of theologians. It is this threefold integration of wisdom that
remains perennially at the heart of the Church’s intellectual life, a wisdom that is the fruit of the Cross.
III
When he considers the intellectual habitus of philosophical wisdom,
Aquinas notes that it has two properties. Unlike every other scientia, or
discipline of natural learning, this knowledge—sapientia—considers the
ultimate principle and cause of all things, God.8 Philosophical science
develops organically as it seeks to analyze the cause of things. This seeking blossoms, however, only when we arrive at knowledge of the truly
primal source of being.9 Not that philosophical reasoning might grasp
what God is directly, for it cannot. God, as Aquinas notes, is in some real
sense beyond both being and “not being,” just insofar as he is the unknown giver of all that exists.10 God is veiled and concealed by the same
8

Aquinas, In Meta. I, lec. 2; ST II-II, q. 45, a. 1. When John Paul II speaks about the
prerequisites for a genuinely “sapiential philosophy” in Fides et Ratio (§§81–83), he
notes three characteristics that must be present: (1) a fundamental realism that understands philosophy as a search for the truth about the nature of things, (2) an openness to the ultimate questions regarding the nature of existence and the meaning of
human life, and (3) a genuine metaphysical range of reflection that passes beyond
the sensible as such to the question of essence, causes, and the ultimate transcendent
origins of existence. Evidently, these features of perennial philosophy are to be found
in Thomism but are present in other venerable philosophical traditions as well.
9
Aquinas, In Meta. I, lec. 3, 64; Summa contra Gentiles II, ch. 4.
10
Aquinas, In Meta., Prologue: being is ascribed more properly to creatures than to
God. Consider in this respect Aquinas’s commentary on Proposition 4 in the Book of
Causes: “The first of created things is being, and there is nothing else created before
it.” St. Thomas interprets it by recourse to Proposition 138: “Of all the principles
which participate in the divine character, the first and highest is being,” and by the

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

creation that also partially and indirectly manifests his hidden presence.
Second, however, philosophical wisdom offers an ultimate perspective that is practical. It is not only about knowledge of the first cause,
God, who remains known philosophically only indirectly and apophatically. It is also about the knowledge of all creatures understood in light of
God.11 For if God is, and is an ineffable mystery of contemplation and
love, hidden from the eyes of men, then we are obliged to reconsider
all that exists in the light of God, as caused by God, and in some mysterious way governed by him. Philosophically, one can even speak of
providence—of the Logos and love of God governing the world—if only
in a limited way.12 Most certainly one must say that the human being
who is capable of reasoning about God and thinking about reality in
light of him, is naturally called upon to seek perspective, to see all things
sapientially in the light of the first cause.13 Human reason acquires a
religious depth naturally and philosophically once the human person is
considered in relation to his or her transcendent origin.
Likewise, this knowledge is directive of practical action. For if we
know God obliquely but really to be the transcendent, uniquely perfect
goodness who has given being to all other goods, then we also know that
use of Dionysius’s analogical theory of divine naming: “Now what is common to all
the distinct intelligences [i.e., created angelic substances] is first created being. Regarding this [Proclus] presents the following proposition: The first of created things
is being, and there is nothing else created before it. Proclus also asserts this in Proposition 138 of his book, in these words: ‘Being is the first and supreme of all that
participate what is properly divine’ and of the deified . . . Dionysius did away with
the order of [platonic Ideas], maintaining the same order as the Platonists in the
perfections that other things participate from one principle, which is God. Hence
in Chapter 4 of On the Divine Names he ranks the name of good in God as the first
of all the divine names and shows that its participation extends even to nonbeing,
understanding by nonbeing prime matter . . . But among the other perfections from
God that things participate, he puts being first. For he says this in Chapter 5 of On
the Divine Names: ‘Being is placed before the other participations’ of God ‘and being
in itself is more ancient than the being of per se life, than the being of per se wisdom,
and than the being of per se divine similitude.’” (Aquinas, In de Causis, Proposition
4.) Translation by Vincent A. Guagliardo, O.P., Charles R. Hess, O.P., and Richard C.
Taylor, Commentary on the Book of Causes (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 1996) 30-31.
11
ST I, q. 1, a. 6; SCG II, ch. 4.
12
SCG III, chs. 64.
13
SCG I, chs. 1–9.

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for which we exist, or that ultimate good that alone can satisfy human reason and human desire.14 The goodness of God is not a rival to the creation
that issues from him, and that participates in him, but the knowledge of
God is architechtonic with respect to practical reason.15 The person with a
religious mind orders his life differently from others, practically speaking,
because he understands all other goods, real and necessary as they may
be, to be good and enjoyable only in view of and as subordinate to the
transcendent ineffable goodness of God. In thinking this way, sapiential
thinking gives rise to a religious rationality of gratitude.
Because God is approachable for the human mind and heart only
indirectly, opaquely, and behind the veil of creatures, this philosophical
wisdom is itself deeply imperfect. It cannot obtain directly to the divine
essence, even as it awakens a desire for what is absolute. This desire and
its imperfect accomplishment leave the heart only imperfectly fulfilled.
As St. Thomas notes, there is within the human being an innate desire
to know the truth about the first cause as perfectly as possible, even
immediately were this possible.16 This is not a natural desire for the supernatural (the formally revealed mystery of the Trinity as such), but a
natural desire to see the First Cause of all that exists.17
It is within this internal structure of human reasoning, as at once
open to the transcendent, and as incapable of attaining to the truth
about God adequately, that the grace of divine revelation is addressed.
This activity or address of grace need not presuppose that any particular
person who receives the revelation of Christ has an already-awakened
philosophical appetite, let alone a developed metaphysical understand14

ST I-II, q. 2, a. 8.
ST I-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3, and q. 13, a. 3, ad 2.
16
Aquinas, De Virtutibus, q. 1, a. 10, corp.
17
ST I, q. 12, a. 1; ST I-II, q. 62, aa. 1–3; q. 114, a. 2. Here we may rightly object that
such “religious” philosophical speculation might never have come into being except
on Christian soil, and even within the high cloistered walls of specialized medieval
theological disputes about the nature of the human being. Let us concede this for the
sake of argument. As important as this point is, it is not determinative, for we began
our inquiry by asking how the Cross has redeemed our broken human nature and
reoriented the deepest recesses of human reason back toward their perennial source.
If this rejuvenation of philosophical wisdom has taken place only in and through a
prolonged history of cruciform grace (and the religious life that goes with it), then
we should not be surprised at the theological and religious setting in which genuine
natural knowledge of God should arise in the human mind and heart.
15

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

ing of God. We might even be surprised if the latter were the case.18 But
the address of grace does affect—or even confront and convict—the human person precisely within this deepest “sphere” of his or her spiritual
powers of intellect and will, within this ineffaceable locus of capacity
for God, which remains always present in potency even when covered
over by secularization, sin, ignorance or indifference. And so it is in the
depths of the self open to what is so uniquely interesting to the human
person (the Deus absconditus) that grace calls out to our deepest self,
even as it calls us up to the higher wisdoms, of theological revelation
and the mystical life of the Holy Spirit. “You called and cried out loud
and shattered my deafness.”19
IV
At the center of all theological wisdom is the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God has revealed himself truly to the Church in the mystery of Jesus
Christ. That is the central premise of all Christian theology, and its genuine starting point. At the beginning of the Summa theologiae, Aquinas
treats the question of sacra doctrina, the nature of theology. And here
he asks, “whether theology is the same as wisdom?”20 His answer is affirmative, because wisdom is that science that pertains to knowledge of
what is ultimate in reality, and divine revelation communicates to the
human race supernatural understanding of the primary truth. That is
to say, in Christ, we have received genuine knowledge of who God is in
his eternal life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we have received the
understanding that God wishes to share this Trinitarian life with us by
a participation in his grace. Here, as St. Thomas points out, we find our
two criteria of philosophical wisdom transposed into a higher, supernatural key. For the revelation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity grants
knowledge of the First Cause now unveiled to us by grace, higher than
that procured by philosophers. And it is also an invitation to a way of
life oriented toward our ultimate final end: the mystery of eternal life, an
incomparably higher end than anything man might aspire to effectively
18

ST I, q. 1, a. 1, corp.
Augustine, Confessions, trans. H. Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1991), X:27.
20
ST I, q. 1, a. 6.
19

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by his natural powers. The wisdom of Christ grants us the most ultimate
knowledge about where we come from, and what we may finally hope
for. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning
and the end” (Rev 22:13).
The unity of theology as a science derives from this starting point.
Whether the Church seeks to understand the calling of Abraham, the
ethics of stock-market trading, the sacrament of marriage, or the mystery of the Resurrection . . . she does so always in relation to this primal
mystery of the Triune God. This is the case even with regard to the Incarnation of the Lord. It is true that Catholic theology is “Christocentric” in a fundamental sense. The person of Christ, the God-man, is at
the heart of all Catholic thinking about God. As Aquinas notes, however, the mystery of the Trinity and the mystery of the Incarnation are
the two most basic truths of Christianity.21 One because it concerns the
essence of God himself, and the other because it concerns the principal
means by which we are given to know God and to approach him. The
Son has become human so that we might know the Father, and so that
he might send us the Spirit. The “Christocentric” character of revelation
is possible only because of the more fundamental mystery of the Trinity.
Theological wisdom is Trinitarian before all else.
What should we say, then, of the relationship between this contemplation of the theologians and the wisdom of the philosophers,
mentioned above? Just as grace does not destroy nature but heals and
elevates it, so too sacra doctrina does not abolish the philosophical inclination toward wisdom, or natural knowledge of God, but integrates
these into the contemplative work of theology. This integration is not
dissolutive. Even in an entirely Christian environment, philosophy retains a relative integrity of its own. It has its own natural starting points,
subject matter, means of argument, characteristic aporia and proper
discoveries. The integration of philosophical wisdom into theological
contemplation can be likened (by proportional analogy only) to the assumption of human nature by the eternal Logos. The human nature of
Christ is perfected by the hypostatic union, not harmed or diminished.
So, likewise, philosophical wisdom is challenged by theological revelation to soar toward its utterly highest possibilities. And even more to
21

Aquinas, Compendium theologiae I, ch. 2.

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the point, theological contemplation is itself deeply dependent upon
philosophical realism for its own internal health. Even if theological
wisdom is concerned with revealed truth, it is still a form of knowledge
developed in a natural rhythm, through human habits of reflection,
language, and understanding. A deformed philosophical intelligence
cannot rightly cooperate with the demands of revelation, nor can an
anticontemplative philosophy be the fitting instrument for the sound
pursuit of theological understanding.
V
Theology is not only open to wisdom “from below,” that of the philosophers, but also that which comes “from above”: the gift of wisdom
that comes from the Holy Spirit. When he discusses this highest form
of wisdom, Aquinas draws on an analogy from Aristotle’s ethics, the
notion of “connatural knowledge” or affective understanding.22 In the
natural sphere, this is the kind of intuitive knowledge we can acquire
over time regarding a close friend or loved one. The human being can
sense intuitively in friendship how a person is likely to react to a given
idea or proposal, what he or she likes or hates, is capable of or resolutely
opposed to. One friend develops knowledge of the heart of another.
Analogous things can be said of our understanding of God effectuated
by grace. Charity, Aquinas says, is like a friendship.23 It creates a supernatural life in common with God, and fills the human person with an
inward instinct of charity, conforming us inwardly to the promptings
of the Holy Spirit, and to the heart of Christ.24 The gift of wisdom, then,
is that special activity of the Holy Spirit by which he attunes the saints
to the desires of the Father, to the wisdom of the Son, and to the love
of the Spirit himself. Here is the wisdom of the Cross: the life of Christ
prolonged into the human heart by the irradiating effects of grace, expanding the Christian heart from within to give it the “catholic” universality of love that St. John Paul II speaks of. This wisdom invites the
human mind to perceive in faith the new heights and depths to which
the love of Christ aspires, he who animates his Church from within by
22

Aristotle, Ethics I, ch. 3; ST II-II, q. 45, aa. 1–2.
ST II-II, q. 23, a. 1.
24
ST II-II, q. 45, a. 6.
23

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the mystery of his charity, pressing his friends and servants forward
into the service of his Kingdom.
True theology cannot do without this most elevated wisdom of
charity, that which comes from the heart of Christ. This must be the
case because theology is practical as well as speculative: it seeks knowledge of the Holy Trinity, but as we noted above, it also seeks union. The
wisdom of the theologians is about our final purpose in life, and this is
nothing other than the beatific vision, the immediate knowledge of God
possessed by the saints. Why do we study theology? Because one day we
wish to see God, face to face. In this life, all knowledge of God rightly
pursued in faith is ultimately ordained toward this end. This means that
theology aspires by its very nature, in charity, to go out beyond itself
into a more immediate contact with God. In the darkness of faith, this
occurs primarily through the mystery of charity. The highest elevations
of charity that characterize Christian contemplation in this life elevate
the intellect into a mysterious affective proximity to God. They permit a
dark vision made possible only by love, both clear and obscure. In doing
so, they anticipate—in however hidden and imperfect a way—the final
beatitude of Christian life.
At the same time, we must resist the pseudospiritual temptation to
seek a realm of mystical life somehow “above” or “beyond” the truths
of dogmatic theology. There is no such transcendence, or rather, any
such claim only serves to promote some kind of obscurantist and false
transcendence. The person who seeks to know God intimately, in the
light, can come to him only by the way that is Christ crucified. “No one
comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). “For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved”
(Acts 4:12). The truths of theological wisdom regarding the mystery of
the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Church, the sacraments, and all
else that God has revealed: they permit us to know directly the ontological mystery of God in himself, and his authentic activity in the world.
It is a great error to oppose the determination of dogma and the infinity
of the mystery of God. The mystery of God the Holy Trinity is infinite,
and it is also known only through determined means. The light of faith
draws us into an increasingly profound knowledge of the mystery of

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

God.25 The truths of the faith point us toward this essential “content” of
the mystery, and are anticipatory of the even more determinate experience of the life to come. There is nothing indefinite about our personal
judgment, and the reality of the beatific vision. John the seer on Patmos
in the Apocalypse does not encounter God in any vague experience, but
in the clamoring of trumpets, and in the luminous intensity of the resurrected Christ, the Lamb who was slain.
VI
The opposite of wisdom is folly, the disorientation of the human mind
that lacks true perspective, and that fails to understand all things in light
of God. “The fool has said in his heart there is no God” (Ps 14:1). To be
sure, this fool is in us, the human being weighed down by the wounds
of ignorance and sin, incapable without grace of desiring rightly to find
knowledge of God. But this fool is also the subject of grace, the recipient
of mercy poured forth in abundance upon the world from the Cross.
“God can raise up children of Abraham from these stones” (Mt 3:9).
“Wisdom is vindicated by her children” (Lk 7:35). The wisdom of the
Cross is sufficiently powerful to redeem the world in every age. Its definitive victory has already been declared. It redeems the natural sphere
of human understanding, capable of the philosophical contemplation of
God. It opens the human mind to knowledge of the Trinity, and invites
the theologian to contemplate the inner life of God. It conforms the human person to the Cross, initiating his or her heart into the ever expansive charity of Christ crucified. Such wisdom cannot be extinguished
25

St. Catherine of Siena, that paradigmatic ecclesial mystic, gives us to understand in
her Dialogue that this determined character of truth about God is not a limitation to
be suffered by the mind, but a liberation to the soul offered life under grace. Speaking
to her about the illumination of the soul, the Father states: “Sometimes she seeks Me
in prayer, wishing to know My power, and I satisfy her by causing her to taste and see
My virtue. Sometimes she seeks Me in the wisdom of My Son, and I satisfy her by
placing His wisdom before the eye of her intellect, sometimes in the clemency of the
Holy Spirit and then My Goodness causes her to taste the fire of Divine charity, and to
conceive the true and royal virtues, which are founded on the pure love of her neighbor.” Trans. A. Thorold, The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena: A Treatise on Divine
Providence (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 91. Available at
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/catherine/dialog/dialog.html. The mystery that “specifies”
the created intellect also calls it out into the horizon of God’s eternal life.

The Wisdom of the Cross

1043

by any created power. It is effulgent from before the foundations of the
world and it is perseverant until the end of ages. In each generation it
raises up saints, causing human hearts to turn anew toward God, and to
heed inwardly the promptings of the Holy Spirit. The Church possesses
this wisdom from God as an inextinguishable patrimony, to be preached
and communicated to every creature. The sermo sapientiae, the word of
wisdom that redeems the world: this is our heritage, our challenge and
our privilege. We need not be afraid. “Do not be anxious, for the Holy
Spirit will teach you what you are to say” (Lk 12:11–12). “In the world
you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the
N&V
world” (Jn 16:33).

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1045-1061

1045

Thomism after Vatican II
Thomas Joseph White, O.P.
Thomistic Institute
Washington, DC

I

BY THE ENDof the Second Vatican Council, it had become custom-

ary for many attending the event to speak of the “minority” party and
the “majority” party. This terminology is employed unselfconsciously,
for example, in the journal of Yves Congar as he writes in 1964 and
1965.1 Both “parties” if there really were such, were no doubt each numeric minorities within the larger whole, but they represented ideological tendencies vying for influence. In retrospect, we can say that they
were divided by a common question: How should the Church understand herself and her mission in the modern world, in the wake of the
decline of ancient monarchical regimes and the rise of modern secular
democracies? Both sides were, in a certain sense, seeking to preserve the
fullness of Catholic teaching and to promote that teaching in the modern world. Both longed for the reunion of the Church with the predominant culture, but with differing points of emphasis. One tendency was
to see this aim in primarily defensive terms, the minority emphasizing
the preservation of authentic intellectual and spiritual traditions, over
against an errant, modern secularism. The other tendency, the seeming
1

Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, trans. M. J. Ronayne and M. C. Boulding,
ed. D. Minns (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012). The terms are commonlyemployed throughout these years of notes.

1046

Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

majority, was to see this aim in dialogical or primarily optimistic terms,
seeking opportunities in the signs of the times for a way to bring the
Church’s message to modern man.
Neither side in this engagement wanted to do away with the privileged study of Aquinas in the life of the Church, but they tended to envisage that study in fairly different terms. Here one might consider two
of the most balanced voices, one from either side. First, then, consider
Cornelio Fabro. The renowned Italian Thomistic scholar was asked to
compose a votum in the early 1960s as part of the commission on seminary education that would eventually produce Optatam Totius.2 Fabro
predicted that in the coming years there would continue to develop in
European civilization a postreligious subjectivism that he denoted by
the term “immanentism.”3 This cultural tendency would lead to a twofold error: on the one hand, an extreme form of skeptical rationalism
that takes any appeal to absolute revelation to be an imposition upon
the freedom of human consciousness to derive for itself the content of
personal truth claims. On the other hand, an extreme fideism: a theology that takes refuge in the integrity of traditional forms of thought
without due reference to metaphysical realism, the philosophical study
of nature, ethical objectivity or a healthy confidence in the positive relation between supernatural faith and natural reason. To remedy this
twofold tendency of subjectivism and fideism, which Fabro warns will
enter deeply into the life of future clergy as well as Catholic laity, he
councils the study of St. Thomas in both seminaries and Catholic universities: the consideration of the first principles of speculative and
practical reason, study of metaphysics and of the constitution of the
human person in Thomistic terms, knowledge of the arguments for the
existence of God, consideration of the relation of creation to the modern sciences, and so forth.
2

Cornelio Fabro, “De Doctrina S. Thomae in Scholis Catholicis Promovenda,” Acta et
Documenta IV/II/1 (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 196?), 177–89. See the commentary
by Joseph A. Komonchak, “Thomism and the Second Vatican Council,” in Continuity and Plurality in Catholic Theology: Essays in Honor of Gerald A. McCool, S.J., ed.
A. J. Cemera (Fairfield, CT: Sacred Heart University Press, 1998), 53–73.
3
“Immanentism” is a larger analytic theme in Fabro’s work that he treats with depth
and insight. See God in Exile: Modern Atheism. A Study of the Internal Dynamic of
Modern Atheism, from Its Roots in the Cartesian Cogito to the Present Day, trans. A.
Gibson (New York: Newman, 1968; Italian ed. 1964), esp. 1061–153.

Thomism after Vatican II

1047

Second, consider Yves Congar. Interestingly, Congar saw the Council as a kind of vindication of Thomism, at least in its spirit or method
of procedure. (Note that this is quite different from Joseph Ratzinger,
who thought the event signaled a return to older patristic models of
engagement with culture, rather than those represented by scholasticism.) In an essay published in 1967, Congar contrasts two visions of
Thomism at the Council, one particularly focused upon “a system of
abstractions and of prefabricated solutions” to intellectual problems.4
Congar associates this form of Thomism with Charles-René Billuart as a paradigmatic example. He claims that it developed out of the
longstanding rivalries between religious orders and their theological
schools, and is more interested in interecclesial quarrels than in real engagement in evangelization.5 Catholic intellectual life is most healthy,
by contrast, when it engages with the real problems of its age and helps
to make the Gospel most accessible to those both inside and outside
the Church. In other words, Catholic theology should be missionary in
nature. Congar claims that the Council follows the example of Aquinas
in this regard: “Saint Thomas was not a man who repeated categories
and conclusions supposedly formulated once and for all. He spent his
life seeking out new texts, in overseeing the production of new translations . . . in dialogue with all the ‘heretics’ of his time, those who did not
think like him, either within or outside of the Church.” “The Council is
right,” Congar adds, “we should not repeat his theses but rather place
ourselves in his school of thought.”6 In other words, we should do today
what Aquinas did in his own age, by engaging with the thought-world
and questions of our time. Congar then gives a succinct list of the main
theological issues of the day, as he sees them in 1967. What is his list,
incidentally? Key tasks include theological engagement with modern
exegesis, ecumenism with the Orthodox and the Reformed, and the
questions posed by Marxism, depth psychology, the birth control bill,
and the atomic bomb.7
Nothing transpired after the Council precisely as anyone had ex4

Yves Congar, “La Théologie au Concile. Le « théologiser » du Concile,” in Situation
et Taches Présentes de la Théologie (Paris: Cerf, 1967), 55.
5
Ibid., 54.
6
Ibid., 55.
7
Ibid., 56.

1048

Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

pected it to, and great changes occurred. To give but a partial list: 1968,
the sexual revolution, the decline of religious practice in Europe and
North America, the expansion of Catholicism in the Southern Hemisphere, the fall of Marxism, the victory of secular liberalism and capitalism, the postmodern critique of philosophical modernity, the effects of
computer technology on modern communication. But also: the pontificate of John Paul II, who offered an intellectually plausible and spiritually profound vision of Catholicism in the midst of the modern world.8
Without seeking to evaluate here the many facets of the Council
and its aftermath, I would simply like to say at this juncture that Fabro
and Congar are both right, but each under a different aspect. For one,
Thomism is above all an integral way of seeing the world, rightly. It is a
science and a form of wisdom. For the other, it represents an intellectual
stance of the Catholic intellectual life: a vitality of engagement with the
contemporary issues of one’s age, in the service of evangelization. So we
find two poles of emphasis: integrity of principles, vitality of engagement. Evidently, no opposition between these two is required, but there
is the need to understand them in a proper order. Toward that end, let
me reflect briefly on each point, with a view toward answering the question posed implicitly by the title of this essay: what should Thomism
aspire to do, after Vatican II?
II
Toward the first point, then, let us consider the integrity of Thomism.
What is it? First we must say that it is simply painfully minimalistic to
say that Thomism should represent to us merely the valid aspiration to
do in our own time what Aquinas did in his. To create out of the dialectical web of opinions that currently occupy our own cultural space
a unique Christian vision: That might be an aspiration inspired by the
example of Aquinas (or perhaps Hegel!), but it certainly is not a stable
or integral form of thought. It is nothing like the “perennial philosophy”
that is alluded to in recent ecclesial documents like Optatam Totius and
8

See in this respect the insightful analysis of George Weigel in “Rescuing Gaudium et
Spes: The New Humanism of John Paul II,” Nova et Vetera (English) 8 (2010): 251–67.
Weigel emphasizes the continuity between the pontificate of John Paul II and the
aspirations of Gaudium et Spes, but also shows how those aspirations had to be translated into a very different context than that anticipated by the Council Fathers.

Thomism after Vatican II

1049

Fides et Ratio that advocate explicitly for the study and transmission of
the philosophical and theological patrimony of Thomas Aquinas.9
On the other extreme, it seems like it is a danger to define Thomism
merely by reference to Aquinas’s most unique philosophical and theological theses, those teachings that set him apart even in the thirteenth
century from his scholastic contemporaries. I am alluding to theses like
those of the real distinction between esse and essentia in all created beings (dear to Étienne Gilson), his particular doctrine of participation
(emphasized by Cornelio Fabro), his affirmation of the soul as the subsistent form of the body such that the person is one composite substance
composed of body and soul (which Joseph Ratzinger underscored), or
his teaching on the agent intellect as the natural principle of human cognition (in differentiation, say, from Duns Scotus).10 Or in theology: his
treatment of the persons of the Trinity as subsistent relations, his doctrine of infused virtues, the theology of transubstantiation, his particular
theory of the character of priestly ordination, and so forth. Surely these
insights are part of the Thomistic heritage, but taken in themselves, they
would represent too narrow a definition, and a psychologically insecure
and negative one: how is Aquinas original and not like anyone else?”
Instead, perhaps we might say the following. First, philosophically
speaking, Thomism is, broadly conceived, a Christian Aristotelianism
based in the classical philosophical patrimony, expanded organically and developed insightfully in the light of Christian revelation. Now
surely it is controversial to say this. What could it mean, after all, to call
Aquinas “Aristotelian”? Is this not ahistorical? Aquinas’s philosophical
interpretation of Aristotle is itself deeply informed by a long tradition
of Stoic and Neoplatonic ideas, the philosophy of Boethius, the Arabic
interpreters of Aristotle such as Avicenna and Averroes, Aquinas’s deeply Augustinian and Dionysian theological principles, and his dialogue
9
10

Optatam Totius, §§15–16; Fides et Ratio, §§85 and 87.
Étienne Gilson, L’Être et l’Essence, 2nd ed. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1972); Cornelio Fabro,
Participation et causalité selon saint Thomas d’Aquin (Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1961); Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life,
trans. M. Waldstein and A. Nichols (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988), esp. 178–80. On the unique character of Aquinas’s doctrine of the
agent intellect, see Fernand Van Steenberghen, La Philosophie au XIIIe Siècle (Louvain: Éditions Peeters, 1991).

1050

Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

with his contemporaries such as Bonaventure and Albert the Great, to
say nothing of the influences of other Fathers of the Church and twelfthand thirteenth-century scholastics.
This is certainly all true. However, it is also the case that Aristotle
distinguished fields of philosophical study that Aquinas himself basically accepted: logic, philosophy of nature, philosophy of the living being and of the soul, metaphysics, ethics, and politics. Furthermore, and
more to the point, these fields are themselves defined in great part by the
discovery of the “proper principles” of the philosophical sciences. Thus
the Thomistic heritage typically transmits core principles of Aristotelian
derivation that are held not only by Aquinas but are common to the
broader scholastic community as well: the epistemological distinction
between the speculative and practical intellect, the study of the categorical modes of being and the four causes, the hylomorphic theory of
matter and form as the co-constitutive principles of nature, the understanding of the soul as the form of a living body, the distinction between
substance and accidents, actuality and potency, a teleological theory of
human agency, a virtue-based account of morality.
In stating things thus, one need not deny that significantly diverse
interpretations of Aristotle remain possible. Averroes is not Aquinas.
In fact, that is just the point. To call Aquinas an Aristotelian realist, one
need not affirm the so-called identity thesis: that Aquinas simply does
teach the same thing as Aristotle, or interpret him correctly. Rather, following Serge-Thomas Bonino, one might speak of the work of Aristotle’s
principles as being in “obediential potency” to a diversity of subsequent
historical interpretations, through the long course of the complex influences noted above.11 Aquinas’s philosophy has its original character,
then, precisely as a more comprehensive form of thinking that presupposes and develops from within certain key insights of Aristotelian derivation, in an original and ingenious way.12
11

See Serge-Thomas Bonino, “Thomistica,” Revue Thomiste 111 (2011): 204–308, esp.
308, in the conclusion of a review of Ralph McInerny, Praeambula Fidei: Thomism
and the God of the Philosophers (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America
Press, 2006).
12
To take one significant example, consider Aquinas’s commentary on Posterior Analytics II, 7, 92b10 (“…but what a man is and the fact that a man exists are different….”): “But what a man is and the fact that man exists are different. For essence

Thomism after Vatican II

1051

We may also say, then, that Thomism indisputably is marked radically to its very depths by the Christian tradition, and by Aquinas’s original
genius and insight in interpreting that tradition. However, it also develops organically out of a developmental reading of Aristotle’s own principles. We can consider in this light, then, the kinds of distinctly Thomistic
doctrines that were mentioned above: the metaphysics of the real distinction, Aquinas’s influential interpretation of the transcendentals, his
philosophical treatment of creation, the arguments for the incorruptibility and subsistence after death of the human rational soul (itself the subsistent form of the human body), Aquinas’s own very original account
of the human emotions, his theory of various moments of human free
action and the treatment of moral objects, ends, and circumstances.
Why have I dwelt upon this issue of the Aristotelian foundation of
Aquinas’s thought? The reason is the following. Aquinas’s philosophy
does have a complex historical genesis, but it also has an identifiable essence. Thomism does contain, philosophically speaking, a coherent body
of doctrine, an account of the structure of reality, even while it also has
historical roots in the larger tradition of European philosophy. If the
Aristotelian science of Aquinas remains normative for a proper understanding of his thought, the study of the disciplines of the philosophy
of nature, metaphysics, ethics, and so forth, remain essential to a real
grasp of the doctrine of Aquinas. His philosophy cannot be reduced to
a sociological motif or a merely formal intellectual aspiration. To understand what Aquinas is arguing about the nature of reality, one must
develop a habit of consideration of principles that characterize reality itand existence are one and the same only in the first cause of being, which is being
by its every essence; in all other things, essence and existence are different, since
things other than the first cause have existence by participation. Therefore, we cannot demonstrate both what a thing is and the fact that it exists by the same demonstration” (Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics II, 6, a 2, trans. R. Berquist
[Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 2007]) Aquinas’s appeal to participated esse and
the doctrine of the real distinction to interpret Aristotle is not based in historical
naiveté on his part. Consequently, one must take seriously the idea that Aquinas
thinks himself that these later doctrines are contained somehow implicitly in things
that Aristotle himself is saying. For historically nuanced discussions of this point,
see Cornelio Fabro, “Intorno al fondamento della metafisica tomistica,” Aquinas 1
(1960): 83–135; Lawrence Dewan, “St. Thomas and the Distinction between Form
and Esse in Caused Things,” in Form and Being: Studies in Thomistic Metaphysics
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 188–204.

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

self, seeking to understand if the analysis given by the Thomist tradition
makes sense, is defensible, is organically unified, or not. The truth is at
stake, not mere procedure.
At the same time, based on the reading I have been offering, Aquinas’s thinking is rooted in a larger tradition of conversation. It does not
emerge from nowhere, to be interpreted only in a hermeneutic of discontinuity with his forebears, or successors. In saying this, I am not seeking
to separate Aquinas out from all other thinkers by a kind of historical
nostalgia for the thirteenth century. On the contrary, I think that certain
readings of Aquinas in the twentieth century, especially those offered by
Étienne Gilson and Henri de Lubac (despite their potential merits), have
risked to portray Aquinas as so starkly original as to mark him off in
radical discontinuity with the Dominican commentators who came after
him, but also from the broader scholastic community of thinkers of his
own time. If we read Aquinas as I am suggesting above, we are not wed
to some kind of stark Heideggerian metanarrative wherein everyone forgets the essential, except Aquinas and some privileged modern interpreters.13 A more historically nuanced Aristotelian reading of Aquinas makes
room for a greater conversation with more interlocutors—ancient, scholastic and modern—and does not restrict points of contact. It does so,
however, without sacrificing definition and identity.
Second, theologically speaking, Aquinas’s theology takes its point of
departure from the teaching of Christ and the apostles, as transmitted
and understood by the Church. Aquinas as a theologian is a model in his
own right, as he is constantly seeking to understand the principles of divine revelation, and the order intrinsic to these principles. His thought
is, in this respect, both historical and analytic, Biblical and Patristic, but
13

I am referring here, for example, to Martin Heidegger’s treatment of the history
of metaphysics in his 1929 The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude (trans. W. McNeill and N. Walker [Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2001], 41–57), which lays the foundation for what he would subsequently say
concerning ontotheology. Authors who follow this line of thought typically seek to
“save” Aquinas from the accusation of ontotheology, against the background of a sea
of medieval error. Consider, for example, Jean-Luc Marion, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin
et l’onto-théo-logie,” Revue Thomiste 95 (1995): 31–66. See the recent criticisms of
Heidegger’s approach to medieval philosophy by Jan Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy
as Transcendental Thought: From Philip the Chancellor to Francesco Suárez (Leiden:
Brill, 2012); esp. 6–7, 631–34, 674–77.

Thomism after Vatican II

1053

also scholastic, rational, and demonstrative . . . and at times also very
intuitive and mystical. Reading Aquinas teaches one how to think theologically. To say that Aquinas is a great theologian is not to deny that he
is a great philosopher. As he himself points out, sacra doctrina ordinarily
makes use of a number of philosophical, historical, and scientific theories that are not derived immediately from revelation but enter into the
speculative habit of theology, just because theology can and must make
use of them.14 A clear example would pertain to the humanity of Jesus
Christ. God has become human, but then, what does it mean to be human? What should we believe about the body and soul of Christ, his human intellect and will, the nature of his human death, and resurrection?
Here, inevitably, philosophical views impact our particular exposition
of the theological mystery. (And, simultaneously, the consideration of
the mystery of God continually invites every person qua philosopher to
adjust or rethink his or her views.)
When we speak of a Thomistic theological tradition, then, we are
denoting something complex. Certainly it is a kind of robust scholastic
theology, historically well informed, at the service of the magisterium. It
is affected in distinct ways by Aquinas’s philosophical choices. But it is
also characterized by Aquinas’s distinctly theological insights and acumen. Fr. Norbert Del Prado made this argument many years ago in his
famous work on Thomism as a Christian philosophy.15 He argued there,
for example, that Aquinas’s metaphysics of the distinction in creatures
of esse and essentia, and of divine simplicity, contributed in important
ways to his articulation of the divine persons of the Trinity as subsistent
relations.16 God is simple, without composition of esse and essentia or
composition of any kind, and simultaneously, God the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit are each the one God, the Creator.17 Therefore there is nothing that distinguishes the persons of the Trinity with respect to essence
or existence, and each person must be considered in his subsistence to
possess the simple plenitude of the divine being.18 Consequently, the
14

Summa theologiae I, q. 1, a. 5, ad 2.
Norbert Del Prado, De veritate fundamentali philosophiae christianae (Fribourg:
Consociatio Sancti Pauli, 1911), esp. 493–640.
16
Ibid., 516–44.
17
ST I, q. 3, aa. 4 and 7; q. 39, aa. 1–2.
18
Del Prado, De veritate fundamentali philosophiae christianae, 530–37.
15

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

persons are distinguished only by their relations of origin, which are
interpreted in light of the processions of the Son from the Father, and of
the Spirit from the Father and the Son. The persons are then “subsistent
relations”: each one is from another in all that he is, and each one contains in himself the perfection of the divine essence, the Father giving
the Son to be, by way of generation, the Father and the Son giving the
Spirit to be, by way of spiration.19 In his notion of the persons as subsistent relations, Aquinas offered the Church, then, a particularly balanced
form of Trinitarian monotheism, because he managed to acknowledge
in a very profound way simultaneously both the absolute primacy of
the divine unity and the absolute primacy of the distinction of divine
persons. Arguably this articulation of the mystery of God has not been
surpassed by any other exponent of the doctrine.
My point in giving this example is not to claim that Aquinas’s theology is special because of his metaphysics. Nor is the point to claim that
all Catholic theologians need to be Thomists. To affirm that is to mistake
Thomism for the doctrine of the Church, which it clearly is not. Instead,
the point is simply to underscore by these limited examples that Thomism has an essence. It constitutes an identifiable intellectual patrimony
that deeply affects the long-term health and stability of the Catholic intellectual heritage in the dual domains of philosophy and theology. If
Thomism has a role to play in the age we live in since the Second Vatican
Council, this is clearly due to the integrity of the principles of Thomistic
thought, as a way of thinking about reality.
III
Meanwhile, Congar is concerned to categorize the contribution of
Thomism in terms of dialogue with the thought-world of one’s age, and
I have recast this categorization in terms of “vitality.” A living Thomism must not only transmit the integral knowledge of principles, but
also engage contemporary issues in the service of evangelization. Here
we should be careful: being in dialogue should not be confused with
authentic vitality. In fact, dialogue is not always the sign of vitality. It
19

ST I, q. 27, aa. 1–2. See the study of this idea by Emmanuel Perrier, O.P., La Fécundité
en Dieu. La puissance notionnelle dans la Trinité selon saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris:
Parole et Silence, 2009).

Thomism after Vatican II

1055

is sometimes the sign of decline and capitulation. But what Congar is
rightly denoting, it seems to me, is the following: you do not win over
the culture of your age unless you can solve its internal intellectual problems. This includes, of course, the culture of the Church. At the time of
the Second Vatican Council the Church was faced by a number of important modern theological difficulties. Whether or not one is satisfied
by the solutions that were offered by the likes of Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger or Karl Rahner and Marie-Dominique Chenu (whether
by Communio or Concilium), it is clearly these people who were offering
solutions. It is not enough to have all the right ideas, and to harbor them
defensively, unless you can also communicate a renewed sense of their
vitality and helpfulness in a context in which they are needed. In other
words, we need articulations of Thomism sufficiently concentrated and
integral so as to be real and useful, but also accessible and pertinent,
evangelical and hopeful, so as to be missionary.
We might argue that in the past fifty years it has become painfully apparent that many of the influential theologies of the postconciliar
period are not today in any position to attempt to replace Thomism as
a normative guide to modern Catholic intellectual life. The theological
anthropology of Karl Rahner, which greatly influenced the life of the
Church in the 1970s, presumed a kind of modern European intellectual
consensus, a post-Kantian intellectual culture with influences from G.
W. F. Hegel and Martin Heidegger.20 That consensus has since perished
in the flames of postmodernism, aided by the rise of analytic philosophy and the return of scientific positivism (influences that do not of
course always overlap). Students in the contemporary university do
not suffer from overcommitment to the categories of an intellectually
stifling metaphysics, but from the lack of any normative philosophical
orientation or basic formation.21 Typically they are offered no unifying
account of reality that spans across the diversity of their intellectual disciplines. And, indeed, where would they get one? University culture today is characteristically dominated by constructivistic postmodernism
20

See on this point R. R. Reno, “Rahner the Restorationist: Karl Rahner’s Time Has
Passed,” First Things (May 2013).
21
See the diagnosis of Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990).

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

and scientistic positivism (both of which offer very truncated visions of
reality and are in fact profoundly incompatible with one another). Students often long for some way to make sense of the unity of philosophical experience, so as to see how the world might have some analyzable,
overarching meaning. And if they are Catholic, they want to see how
the various disciplines of learning, whether scientific, philosophical or
literary, relate to the theological tenets of their faith. Strangely, in this
context, the Thomism that was viewed by many as a cultural impasse at
the time of the Council increasingly can be understood to be of a unique
relevance. Surprisingly, a book like Jacques Maritain’s The Degrees of
Knowledge is perhaps of the most critical import just in the juncture in
which we live today.22
I am not saying that Thomism should be presented under a triumphalistic banner as the solution to all life’s intellectual problems, or that
the twenty-four Thomistic theses are the readymade response to the
thought of Michel Foucault. (Though the latter is perhaps true.) I am
saying something more measured. In our own age, Thomism has become one of the only plausible contenders left that offers an authentic
vision of the sapiential unity of human knowledge amidst the diversity
of university disciplines. Politically, our situation is one of cultural disenfranchisement, to be sure. We are complete outsiders, an underground
movement frequently unwelcome in the university. But the rivals who
today are offering either the Church or the modern world a plausible
narrative of the intellectual life are diminishing and are not having such
an easy time themselves. As a Dominican friar of the Toulouse province
said in the 1970s during an episode of particular turmoil: “Brothers,
things are bad here, but by the grace of God, they are worse elsewhere.”
If your goal is to win over the larger culture, inside the Church or outside of it, it is not much easier today to be a Kantian, a Balthasarian, a
Marxist, a logical positivist or a Derriddian, than to be a Thomist. In this
heterogeneous landscape, there is an increasingly level playing field, and
in that case it is not bad to have Aquinas on your team.
So what central issues does the Catholic Church face within our
22

Jacques Maritain, Distinguer pour Unir ou Les Degrés du Savoir (Paris: Désclée de
Brouwer, 1932); The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. G. B. Phelan (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995).

Thomism after Vatican II

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larger culture today? I have mentioned one above: the problem of the
unity of the sciences in the modern university. We might briefly add a
selective list of three others. First, no Catholic theology in the twentieth
century seriously engaged with modern cosmology and evolutionary
biology. Today, these disciplines vie to stand at the center of academic culture, and those who would advocate for a militant secularism—a
“new atheism”—commonly claim to be the true advocates of science.
But at the same time, it is quite unclear within the greater university
culture at large what philosophy might be employed to rightly interpret
the discoveries of the modern scientific revolution. Twentieth-century
Thomists of the River Forest school claimed that Thomism could offer a needed philosophical grounding to the study of modern physics,
as well as an appreciation of the role of evolutionary biology and psychology for an understanding of the human being, and still underscore
the uniqueness of the spiritual principle in the human person, and the
importance of metaphysics and a philosophical understanding of the
doctrine of creation.23 Modern analytic philosophers typically want to
see themselves as the key philosophers of the scientific age, but they also
struggle incessantly to understand problems of causation, natural kinds,
cosmic order, the unity of living forms, animal sentience, intentionality,
and human rationality.24 In the spirit of River Forest Thomism, there is
a wonderful opportunity for a younger generation of Thomists to weigh
in on these topics philosophically and theologically, for the good of the
Church and the health of the greater culture at large.
Second is the issue of sexuality and gender. The teachings of the
Church that will remain most contested in modern western culture are
those that challenge directly the lifestyle changes that have emerged
from the sexual revolution. Increasingly they mark out Catholic Christians as unintelligible subjects in the modern secular state, and even as
23

See, most notably, Benedict Ashley, The Way toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary
and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2006), and William A. Wallace, The Modeling of Nature: Philosophy of
Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press, 1996).
24
See the contemporary discussions in the context of analytic philosophy by David S.
Oderberg, Real Essentialism (New York: Routledge, 2007), and Thomas Nagel, Mind
and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost
Certainly False (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

potential enemies. Here we have only to name fundamental teachings
that we know are frequently misunderstood or dismissed: the dignity
of human life from conception to natural death, marriage as the morally appropriate context of sexual love, the heterosexual and procreative
character of marriage, the intrinsically problematic character of contraception, the celibate priesthood, the all-male priesthood. In addition,
we might note the expanding set of bioethical issues where the culture
embraces practices that the Church cannot condone: in vitro fertilization, same-sex adoption, the morning-after pill, prenatal eugenics. Such
practices are becoming statistically normal.
These neuralgic issues are all related in some way to the theme of
sexuality and gender. They touch upon the very nature of the human
person as an animal who is capable of serving God in his or her body,
as an inherently political animal who is born into and cared for by a
family, and as a fallen human being, in many ways wounded and weak,
capable of sexual godlessness and selfishness, but also in need of mercy and compassion. We need to discuss them, but also resituate their
consideration within a deeper treatment of the human person, human
happiness, the virtues, God, and the spiritual character of human love.
Clearly we cannot simply ignore such topics, either individually or as an
Order, and hope that they disappear or that someone else who is braver
than us will deal with them. As Dominicans we often like to say in regard to such questions that we bring an air of nuance to them. However,
the Church is also in need of clarity on these issues today. We might
make it our goal to bring to bear on the discussion a nuanced clarity, in
the service of the Church. It used to be a question of how Catholic intellectuals could effectively change the dominant views of the mainstream
culture by appeal to our ethical tradition, but today it is increasingly
a question whether the dominant culture will even allow Catholics to
articulate and practice what they believe.
It may seem that on these difficult subjects we lack sufficient allies in
the larger culture. That is true to be sure. However, the permissive world
we live in also gradually gives rise to many profoundly disillusioned,
wounded people, who are looking for a deeper moral formation on all
the controversial issues. If we provide a framework that is at once coherent and demanding but also rationally accessible and compassionate,
we will be preparing a counteralternative to the predominant culture,

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a kind of potent intellectual remnant. We have at our disposal in this
regard the great resources of Aquinas’s account of the human person,
as body and soul, spirit and sense, and his accompanying teleological
conception of freedom, eudemonistic ethics, and virtue theory. If this is
articulated in a way that is accessible, rationally sensible, and authentically spiritual, it is powerful and compelling.
Last, theology today lacks unity in the way that it explains the central mysteries of the Christian faith. Marie-Dominique Chenu sought to
remedy this by referring to Aquinas’s exitus-reditus schema: all comes
from God and all returns to him.25 Chenu sought to read Aquinas so
as to procure a theology of the divine economy and of human history.
This is meant to provide a framework for the tasks of theology in the
historically minded, hermeneutical age in which we live. Theology is
a kind of metahistory. Now it should be said that historical studies in
Scripture, patristics, medieval and modern thought, and in the domain
of Thomism itself have greatly enriched the intellectual patrimony of
our time, and such studies I believe personally are essential to a healthy
theology. They offer us intellectual orientation so that we perceive better
the intellectual conditions of the historical time in which revelation was
composed, and in which the tradition developed, as well as the intellectual landscape of our own era. All this can readily lead to speculative
knowledge, since the recovery of the past opens us up to a principled,
profound analysis of reality as it has been rightly understood by our
forebears. Historical study is not at enmity with speculative theology,
when rightly understood. But we do live in a time when the study of the
structure of the mystery of the faith is itself neglected. Just what does it
mean to speak about creation? What is the meaning of the Old Law as
related to the New? What is justification and how does it relate to merit?
How ought we to understand the ontology of the Incarnation, or the
instrumental causality of the sacraments? We can study these questions
in a historical optic, to be sure, and we can do so in the service of a Catholic, Thomistic theology as such. But at some point we have to answer
the questions, and if I may say so, academic theology today is largely
in the habit not of answering the questions, but of merely rehearsing
25

See Marie-Dominique Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, trans. A.-M.
Landry and D. Hughes (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1964), 304–14.

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

the historical opinions. It is a mistake to try to overcorrect in the other
direction. What we need is a historically sound approach to the Bible,
the Fathers, the medievals, and the moderns, but one that also seeks to
find the speculative answers to the deepest theological questions, and to
present those to persons of our time. This is especially the case when it
comes to teaching seminarians, Dominicans, future priests, those who
need a grounding in authentic theology and in the contemplation of the
mystery of God. In saying all this, I am only repeating what one finds
in Optatam Totius §16: “Ultimately, in order to throw as full a light as
possible on the mysteries of salvation, students should learn to examine
more deeply, through speculative labor, and with St. Thomas as [master], all aspects of the [Christian] mysteries, and to perceive their interconnection.” One thing we can do as a service to the vitality of theology
in our own age, then, is to preserve the classical practice of theology as
a science that peers into the mysteries of the faith. This scientific and
contemplative or sapiential character of theology is most essential to the
intellectual life of the Church.
IV
Pope Paul VI is purported to have said that there may come a time in
the modern age when people will believe in the Gospel only when they
see people giving their lives for it. There can be little doubt that we live
in an age that gives more importance to the witness of one’s life than
to intellectual argument. (Let us note in this respect the initial popular reaction to Pope Francis.) This can seem in many ways like a fundamental problem for the revival of Thomism. Does not the study of
Thomism—due precisely to its involved and abstract character—act to
cut us off from a life of concrete witness to the Gospel? While this viewpoint is understandable, I think it is fundamentally mistaken. In fact,
historically speaking, it is the inverse that is the case. Scholasticism was
a form of thought that developed in large part in religious communities
and was employed not only to sustain the life of those communities,
but also their missionary activity across the span of the world. When
Franciscans were formed in the thought of Bonaventure or Scotus, and
Jesuits in the thought of Suárez or Vásquez, this formation was meant to
equip them to engage with all facets of reality in the religious life in Eu-

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rope and abroad. What was aimed at was an integrated life of religious
witness that also was accompanied by a profound speculative analysis of
reality understood in light of God the Most Holy Trinity. That integrity
of spiritual life and intellectual vision, then, is something precious, and,
it must be said, increasingly rare. You do not see today many Scotist
Franciscans or Suarezian Jesuits. And yet, amazingly, what I am referring to still subsists in the Church in a particular way in the life of the
Dominican Order, where the speculative study of Thomism can still be
found as something integrated within an evangelical witness of religious
life. This is something of tremendous existential vitality and import in
our world today.
The era of postconciliar opprobrium regarding Thomism is long
gone. It is time to engage anew, without trying to return to the now sterile debates about Thomism that took place in the immediate aftermath
of the Council. Our context is different. We are called upon to serve the
Church and to evangelize in a largely de-Christianized world. In this
task, we as Dominicans have a certain responsibility for the intellectual
life of the Catholic Church that we cannot delegate to others. But that
responsibility is also a blessing: it has the power to shape our Order in
wonderful ways. It can be a source of new life within our own communities, and for those to whom we preach. By moving forward into
renewal, we should hope in the providence of God and his intrinsically
effective grace that our own intellectual tradition so rightly underscores.
Remember the physical premotion! If we seek with God’s grace to promote the wisdom of the Angelic doctor, God will fructify our meager
efforts. It is up to us act with hope and to find inventive ways to do so
together, now and in the future. The revitalization of Thomism in the
Order today will succeed best where it is lived out within the context
of a dynamic Dominican fraternal life and evangelical preaching. First,
then: the integrity of the principles. Second: the vitality of contemporary
engagement with the thought-world of our age. Third: the aspiration to
live this out within the context of a dynamic community life. Those are
N&V
plausible aims for a Dominican Thomism after Vatican II.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1063-1090

1063

Communicatio imperfecta:
The Dominican Order and Thomism in the Service of
the Church’s Intellectual Life and Universal Mission
Richard Schenk, O.P.

Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
Eichstätt, Germany

“‘Tradition,’ taken in a broad sense, and ‘progress’ are not opposites, but necessary components of the life and vital function of the Church.”
–H. Jedin1
“The same men are not good rememberers and good recollectors.”
–Thomas Aquinas2

THE TOPICS SUGGESTEDfor this essay, the Dominican Order,

Thomism, the Church, her intellectual life and universal mission, will be
1

Hubert Jedin, Vaticanum II und Tridentinum. Tradition und Fortschritt in der Kirchengeschichte, Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Geisteswissenschaften 146, ed. Leo Brandt (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1968), 25.
2
Twice citing Aristotle’s text on mneme and anamnesis, 449b4-8; Thomas Aquinas, Sententia Libri De sensu et sensato, cuius secundus tractatus est De memoria et reminiscentia,
lectio 8, no. 1: “Postquam philosophus ostendit modum reminiscendi, nunc ostendit differentiam memoriae et reminiscentiae. Innuit autem tres differentias: quarum prima est
ex aptitudine ad utrumque. Dictum est enim supra quod non iidem homines sunt bene
memorativi et reminiscitivi.” The Latin follows the 1949 “editio Taurini” as represented
in the electronic online Corpus Thomisticum of Roberto Busa and Enrique Alarcón. The
final sentence cited here is from St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentaries on Aristotle’s “On
Sense and What Is Sensed” and “On Memory and Recollection,” trans. Kevin White and
Edward M. Macierowski (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005)
230. Cf. ibid., lectio 1, no. 4: “Non enim iidem homines inveniuntur ita bene memorativi
et bene reminiscitivi”; ibid., 185: “For we do not find that the same men have good memories and good powers of recollection.” Cf. the helpful introduction in ibid., 169–82.

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

reduced here to three questions, still broad in scope: what is the Church
sent to be and do for humankind, what is the Dominican Order sent to
be and do for the Church, and what is Thomism still called to be and
do with and for the Order today? Given the complexity of these three
issues, we begin with something simple, not quoad nos, but in se: “the
doctrine of God, one and triune,” or better, an idea that Thomas Aquinas
referenced without making it, as had William of Auxerre,3 the center of
his thought: the notion of the Trinity as communicatio perfecta. The two
times in his commentary on the first book of the Sentences, where the
young baccalaureus Thomas first makes explicit use of this figure, he explicates the contrast to us. There could be no complete sharing by God of
his goodness—the otherwise absolute good could never be fully and absolutely good, fully diffusivum sui—were this goodness shared only with
creatures, who can take part in the divine goodness in at best fragmentary ways.4 “The good cannot be perfectly shared with creatures,”5 even
though this imperfect sharing is better than all else that creatures could
hope for, an imperfect sharing that perfects the ultimate human hopes.
Thomas thus echoes William on the plausibility of the Trinity, while accentuating the consequent freedom of God’s creating that follows from
this insight into the diffusive character of goodness. The communication
of the good to creatures, while not perfect, is also not necessary, but a free
decision. God has always been and had relationality and perfect sharing
or communicatio boni in himself. The diffusion of goodness into its imperfect communication with creatures was a free choice and remains one
of the best reasons for us not to despair of it, given his foreknowledge
3

Cf. esp. Johannes Arnold, “Perfecta communicatio”: Die Trinitätstheologie Wilhelms von Auxerre, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des
Mittelalters, Neue Folge 42 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1995), 17–19; on the reception
of these ideas before Thomas, cf. Gilles Emery, Trinity in Aquinas (Ypsilanti, MI:
Sapientia, 2003), 18–21.
4
In I Sent. d. 2, q. 1 a. 4, s.c. 1: “Sed in creaturis non summe se communicat, quia non
recipiunt totam bonitatem suam. Ergo oportet quod sit communicatio perfecta, ut
scilicet totam suam bonitatem alii communicet. Hoc autem non potest esse in diversitate essentiae.” The Latin follows the 1856 Parma edition as represented in the
electronic online Corpus Thomisticum of Roberto Busa and Enrique Alarcón.
5
In I Sent. d. 10, q. 1, a. 5, arg. 3: “Sed propter summam bonitatem et liberalitatem
convenit patri quod naturam suam communicet alii, quia bonum est communicativum sui. Ergo eadem ratione spiritus sanctus communicabit naturam suam perfecta communicatione. Sed non perfecte communicat creaturae.”

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of the final outcome. Thomas thematizes at greater length and far more
programatically than the place of communicatio in the immanent Trinity
this subsequent point: that God’s desire to share his goodness also leaves
him with and leads him to the option of sharing his life with creatures,
in particular with created persons, who can receive and respond to it in
ways that, if imperfect, are graced, moving them beyond some of their
creaturely limitations and making a blessing of still other of the limitations that remain. It is this key and for Thomas characteristic insight into
caritas as friendship that will lead him to his most extensive theological
reflection on communicatio, located for the most part in the theology of
how the Trinity shares its beatitude even with less receptive persons. It
belongs to the original and programmatic insights of the young Thomas
into the potential significance of a theological reception of Aristotle—
sometimes, as here, an Aristotle read against the grain—that charity between God and humans—pace Aristotle—could indeed be understood
as friendship based on shared goods, a communicatio boni of unique
character. It is this sapiential view of divine-human friendship that will
lead Thomas to treat the theme of communication most extensively. It is
also this original and lasting insight of Thomas into charity as friendship
based on free if imperfect communicatio that can also generate answers
to the three questions posed here, the answers to which all have to do
with communicatio.
The Church’s Universal Mission, Her Intellectual Life, and the
Postconciliar Place of Thomistic Studies
The historical situation for understanding our three questions can be
located on the map of possibilities in good part by attention to the
co-ordinates of the Second Vatican Council. The twin difficulties in
accessing the Council or assessing its reception locate the difficulties
for the renewal of Thomism as well, namely the deceptive sense of
“Been there, done that,”6 and the understandable desire to avoid the
ideological wars associated with the Council, its prehistory and its re6

Despite the unnecessary narrowness of the term as it is used here, cf. the specific
and—in academic communities—all-too-familiar sense of Zweideutigkeit in Martin
Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 19th ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2006), §37, 173–75: the mere
suggestion that an idea is not altogether novel can provide a pretext to ignore it.

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

ception. Both sorts of difficulties regarding the impression of exhausted polemic are qualified by the cogency of a relatively new “hermeneutic of reform.” This reading of the Council and postconciliar developments, suggested by Benedict XVI in the first year of his pontificate7
and articulated and nuanced since then by many authors, notably by
Cardinal Kurt Koch,8 as an alternative to reading the Council through
a hermeneutics of rupture or a hermeneutics of mere continuity. The
third possibility, a hermeneutics of reform, can profit much from the
historical research of the last twenty years into the genesis of the conciliar documents and the identification of the de facto inclusion in all
sixteen documents of the opposed moments of innovation and reaffirmation. The hermeneutics of reform adds to the historical identification of the debates and differences at the Council the normative value
of acknowledging de iure both movements as necessary components
of noncontradictory complementarity, recalling elements from both
in a synthesis of mere contraries: for example, strengthening the episcopacy not through the weaknesses but through the strengths of papal
and priestly service; enlivening the laity by an extension but also by
the renewal of religious and priestly life; embracing inner Christian
ecumenism and the value of non-Christian religions by a renewed affirmation of Roman Catholic identity; a greater appreciative solidarity
with the gaudium et spes of today’s world by greater critical attention
to contemporary luctus et angor, knowing that the Church is nearer
to the world when she is also sensitive to its weaknesses; contributing
to the humanity-wide task of education by also developing Catholic
schools and universities; or enhancing the actual participation of the
laity in the liturgy by a greater awareness of Christ, not the communi7

The text of Benedict’s address to the Roman curia on December 22, 2005, can be
found at the website of the Holy See (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_
xvi/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_20051222_roman–curia_en.html) as well as in print, e.g., in the relevant excerpt by Matthew L. Lamb and
Matthew Levering, eds., Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008), ix–xv.
8
Benedict XVI with his Schülerkreis and Kurt Koch, Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil
(Augsburg: Sankt Ulrich, 2012), again including the relevant passages from the cited
address by Benedict XVI (9–19) and Koch’s clearer positioning of “the hermeneutic
of reform between the hermeneutic of a rupture-like discontinuity and the hermeneutic of a-historical continuity” (22–50).

Thomism, Intellectual Life, and Mission

1067

ty, as the principal subject of Eucharistic intercession. The significance
of national and regional rights to development articulated immediately after the Council by its reception in the Encyclical Populorum
Progressio (1967) will be nuanced, not diminished, by the increasing
awareness from the 1970s onward of the complexity of “sustainable
development” and the limits of technological progress. More than the
documentation of the debates still evident in the texts, the normative synthesis of majority and minority passages from the agreed upon
Vatican documents is at the center of a hermeneutics of reform.
Fifty years after the Council itself, the ongoing need for a more adequate
reception and development of the Council than what could be achieved by
the polemical prolongation of its all too real antitheses confirms the basic
lessons of hermeneutical philosophy on the necessity and the difficulties
of recollective narrative, on the potential use and misuse both of memory9
and of the forgetting necessary for it; indeed, “remembering is possible only
on the basis of forgetting.”10 As H. G. Gadamer elucidated:
In ways that are largely overlooked, forgetting belongs to the
relation between retaining and remembering. Forgetting means
not merely loss and privation, but, as F. Nietzsche stressed, it is a
necessary condition for the life of our mind. It is only by forgetting that our mind receives the possibility of a thorough-going
renewal, the ability to see things anew with a fresh look, so that
what was old and familiar now blends with what is newly seen
into a multidimensional unity.11

9

Paul Ricoeur, La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000). Here in Memory,
History, Forgetting, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), esp. Part I, 1–130, and Part III, chap. 3 with epilogue,
412–506.
10
Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §68 a, 339.
11
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 4th ed. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1975),
13, with reference to the same source that would be recalled by Ricoeur as well:
Friedrich Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen, Zweites Stück: Vom Nutzen und
Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben, here in: Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Geburt der
Tragödie. Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen I-IV. Nachgelassene Schriften 1870-1873,
Kritische Studienausgabe, eds. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (München,
Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag; Berlin & New York: de Gruyter, 1980), 243-334.

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

In the context of our overall topic,12 the question will be, what about
Thomas was forgotten fifty years ago, and what did that forgetting help us
meanwhile to recall? Because a certain kind of forgetting is necessary for
there to be genuine recollection,13 and because forgetting, therefore, like
remembering, needs direction and self-examination,14 it is not surprising that time had to pass before the all too real, often scarring, conflicts
12

One of the signature theological defenses of memory in recent years seems at first
to work from a simple contrast between the good of anamnetic reason and the evil
of cultural amnesia; cf. Johann Baptist Metz, Memoria passionis: Ein provozierendes
Gedächtnis in pluralistischer Gesellschaft (Freiburg: Herder, 2006), 41–43. A closer
examination of Metz’s recollection—say, of traditions of apocalyptic thought or religious life—shows him to be adept at genuinely anamnetic refigurement. Even without referring to Aristotle’s insistence that recollection—anamnesis, unlike mneme—
presupposes forgetting, Metz develops a phrase from Ernst Bloch to distinguish “productive noncontemporaneity” from two deficient forms of “unproductive noncontemporaneity.” The fixation on the past, to which Metz consigns “neoscholasticism”
without further distinction, and an Aufholmentalität, the habitually felt need to catch
up with and surpass the latest development, seem in both cases of unproductive noncontemporaneity to lack the imagination of how recollection refigures contexts to
read the remembered texts of the past with new promise; cf. J. B. Metz, “Produktive
Ungleichzeitigkeit,” in Stichworte zur ‘Geistigen Situation der Zeit’ 2. Band: Politik und
Kultur, ed. Jürgen Habermas (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1979/1980), 529–38 (J. B. Metz,
“Productive Noncontemporaneity,” in Observations on “The Spiritual Situation of the
Age,” ed. Jürgen Habermas, trans. Andrew Buchwalter [Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1984], 169–77). What Metz is proposing, resembles anamnetic more than mnemonic reason.
13
Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 42, 593ff, recalled this insight into forgetting
as the prerequisite of recollection and, while passing over Gadamer’s development
of this shared observation, expressed his surprise that the positive potentiality of
forgetting is not more programmatic in Heidegger’s own magnum opus. In a series
of essays published just prior to Memory, History, Forgetting, Ricoeur had identified
the weakness of Heidegger’s concept of history as looking only for the unrealized
potential of the past, leading to an indifference toward those elements of the past
that could not be considered easily for inclusion in a desirable future identity. The
strength of the self can be judged on its ability to face a difficult past. For this warning against the improper forgetting by revisionist forms of history (a warning of
note also for efforts at Thomistic renewal), cf. P. Ricoeur, “La marque du passé,” in
Mémoire, Histoire, Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale 1 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998), and P. Ricoeur, Das Rätsel der Vergangenheit: Erinnern—Vergessen—Verzeihen, trans. Burkhard Liebsch, Andris Breitling, and Henrik Richard
Lesaar (Göttingen: Wallstein, 1998).
14
For the importance to the self of relationships to that other that is not made or
remade but acknowledged by the self, cf. Paul Ricoeur, Soi-même comme un autre
(Paris: Le Seuil, 1990), here according to Kathleen Blamey, trans., Oneself as Another
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

Thomism, Intellectual Life, and Mission

1069

at the Council and in the years following it could be “forgotten” enough,
to allow the scribes who had become disciples to imitate “the head of a
household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old”
(Mt 13:52). Locating the question of the Church’s universal mission
within a hermeneutic of conciliar reform is made easier by the Council’s
own focus on the Church ad intra et ad extra. In both directions, the immediate conflictual reality of the Council needed to become historical
before the implicit, synthetic possibilities of the Church’s mission could
unfold, with a renewal ad intra as both the prerequisite and the fruit of
a new engagement ad extra. The reading of the Council and the renewal
of Thomism both require for the desired synthesis of nova et vetera the
twin arts of intentional forgetting and intentional recollection.15
The importance of the conciliar context for the study of St. Thomas is
not only and not principally to be sought “in recto” in the roughly twenty
express references to Thomas Aquinas to be found at the Council. That
holds true even for the most overt controversies, such as in the Decree
on Priestly Training, Optatam totius 16, with its reference, inter alia, to
the study of St. Thomas as a guide and aid to the kind of speculation that
can illumine and interconnect, “as completely as possible,” the mysteries
of salvation; likewise for the Declaration on Education, Gravissimum educationis 10, where universities, in particular Catholic universities and
faculties, are encouraged to pursue “questions that are new and current
. . . according to the example of the doctors of the Church and especially of St. Thomas Aquinas,” in pursuit of “a deeper realization of the
harmony of faith and science.” The harmonizing or compromise character of the explicit conciliar references to St. Thomas becomes clearer
when one considers, notably in the case of priestly training, the skeptical reception of the submissions by the Congregation for Seminaries
and Universities (signed only by its Secretary, Dino Staffa) and—as Fr.
Thomas Joseph White discusses in his contribution in this volume—
15

For examples of dysfunctional relationality in the Thomistic tradition that should
not be completely forgotten but provide little positive exemplarity for the future, cf.
Claudia Heimann, “Quis proprie hereticus est? Nicolaus Eymerichs Häresiebegriff und
dessen Anwendung auf die Juden,” in Praedicatores Inquisitores I, Dissertationes Historicae XXIX, ed. Arturo Bernal Palacios (Rome: Insituto Storico Domenicano, 2004),
595–624, and R. Schenk, “Johannes de Montesono Valentinus,” in Marienlexikon III,
ed. Remigius Bäumer and Leo Scheffczyk (St. Ottilien: Eos, 1991), 407–8.

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

by the Lateran University (Cornelio Fabro), calling for the return of St.
Thomas and his leadership in the course of studies.16 The moment of
discontinuity is to be found in the Council’s rejection of these strongly
pro-Thomistic suggestions and concomitantly in the forgetting or relativizing of Thomas as doctor communis, that is, in the search for far wider
resources both for ressourcement und aggiornamento. While this partial
but perceptible forgetting of the doctor communis can be documented
in the quantitative reduction of the presence of Thomism in postconciliar theological education and discourse, the recollection of Thomas as a
quite uncommon pioneer of theological and philosophical renewal has
been enhanced. The roughly one thousand titles that the bibliography of
the Corpus thomisticum records annually for Thomistic studies (without
claiming to be comprehensive) is still less impressive than the success in
the last fifty years of attempts to locate Thomas in the context of, including his differences from, many of his and our contemporaries. The previous norms on Thomistic studies had led many “Thomistic” ventriloquists
into the temptation to place the appealing ideas of a Fichte or a Hegel
into the mouth of Thomas himself rather than placing him in the giveand-take of open discourse with these later thinkers. Attention to the
developments within Tho-mas’s own thought, once the topic of Thomistic research in the middle ages and early modernity, documenting, for
example, “where Thomas spoke better in the Summa than in the Sentences,”17 has been retrieved and enhanced in the last fifty years. To begin
now to ignore the shifts and development of thought within Thomas’s
own corpus of writings would be regressive, a violation of what in J. H.
Newman’s terms could be called the “logical sequence” of the Thomistic
tradition. The scope of genera in Thomas’s theological and philosophical works, including homiletic and biblical work, has won new attention.
16

Cf. the reference to this programmatic volume of Aquinas (vol. III, 1960) by Ottmar Fuchs and Peter Hünermann, “Theologischer Kommentar zur Ausbildung der
Priester Optatam totius,” in Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, ed. Peter Hünermann and Bernd-Jochen Hilberath (Freiburg: Herder,
2005), III:349ff.
17
Cf. Martin Grabmann, “Hilfsmittel des Thomasstudiums aus alter Zeit (Abbreviationes, Concordantiae, Tabulae): Auf Grund handschriftlicher Forschungen
dargestellt,” in Divus Thomas, vol. 1 (Fribourg: Paulusverlag, 1923), according to
Martin Grabmann, Mittelalterliches Geistesleben (Munich: Hueber, 1936; reprint,
Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1984), II: 424–89.

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Appreciation has grown for the particular, theological programmatic of
Thomas, including but not reduced to the theological impetus behind the
properly philosophical work not just of his early, but, tellingly, precisely of his later years; Thomas’s work became increasingly philosophical
toward the end of his life. Attempts to locate the essence of “Thomism”
either chiefly in a philosophical system or, at the other extreme, without
any significant reference to Thomas’s philosophical work fail to preserve
the “type” of Thomas’s historical achievement and many of the possibilities of its systematic retrieval. The once stylish dismissal in globo of later
Thomists in contrast to Thomas himself shows signs of yielding to a more
historical, more Newman-like sense of the necessity and fragility of genuine organic development, confirming for the growth of Thomism the
applicability of Newman’s seven notes of genuine development and its
navigation between the Sylla of mere repetition or self-referentiality and
the Charybdis of the lost grasp of seminal truths. Thomistic scholarship
can be identified as a genuine development of Thomas’s thought only
when it evidences a “preservation of type” (e.g., regarding creator/creature, grace/nature, faith/reason, innovation/convention, self-reflection/
dialogue, theology/philosophy) in novel forms and instances of appearance, discourse and debate; the “continuity of (Thomistic) principles” in
their application to doctrines and issues not yet known in Thomas’s day
or in previous phases of his historical reception; the “power to assimilate”
non-Thomistic sources without being assimilated by them; identifying
in Thomas’s writings their “anticipation of the future,” including our future, and the “logical sequence” that precludes both the abstraction from
Thomas’s own internal development and the glib dismissal of Thomas
in favor of patristic simplicity or even the dismissal of later Thomism
in favor of an ahistorical, even anachronistic, return to the writings of
Thomas alone, testing Thomism’s “conservative action” upon its Thomasian sources precisely by its “chronic vigour” in addressing without stagnation or fad-driven abruptness ever new challenges to the believability
of the faith.
All this points to the significance for Thomistic studies of the controversial reception of Thomas’s legacy in its epochal development, from
the Defensiones and Commentatores to the post-Tridentine Disputationes, here of course with attention to God’s prevenient grace and much
more, followed by the Barock scholasticism and the various neo-Thom-

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

isms of the last century.18 Each epoch and method can be judged in comparison to the others by Newman’s seven notes; each will have forgotten
many aspects of Thomas, recalled and thematized others, and assimilated outside sources and issues. The postconciliar trend to a more historical and particular reading of the uncommon Thomas and his reception,
the shift in focus from the doctor communis to frater Thomas and his
later readers, continues to prepare and enable a systematic appropriation that can surprise and enrich us, no longer representing just the moment of continuity, but offering unfamiliar resources for the postconciliar synthetic project of a hermeneutics of reform and its refiguring the
unity-in-tension of the conciliar legacy. Where fifty years ago the doctor
communis was forgotten, frater Thomas and his uncommon tradition(s)
have increasingly been remembered as a concrete reality of the past and
as a distinct, often never yet realized possibility of our future.
The ability to step back from the letter of the commentatorial traditions (in themselves richly diverse and, like today, often adversarial
among themselves) has enriched even its understanding. To take just
two examples: Thomas Hibbs’s use of contemporary narrative and rhetorical studies, including Alasdair MacIntyre’s nontraditional retrievals
of pre-Thomistic, Aristotelian insights, has improved our ability to read
both the Summa contra gentiles and its commentators so as to renew
our sense of the possibilities of contemporary protrepsis.19 There would
be no serious advantage to construing an antithesis between Hibbs and,
say, Francesco Silvestri. A detailed relecture of the latter in light of the
former would be hard but welcome work. A second example: Michael
J. Dodds’s dissertation, prepared at Fribourg in large part under the direction of Coleman O’Neil, has helped provide an intelligible Thomistic
answer, drawing on Thomas’s own rich sense of divine motion, to closely
18

Cf. the remarks on the “Customary Divisions in the History of Thomism” and the
“New Reading” of Thomism as a “continuum” in Romanus Cessario, A Short History of Thomism (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005),
esp. 28–39. Contrast in the many works of Gerard McCool the surprisingly linear
narration of the evolution of diverse Thomisms toward post-Thomistic transcendentalism, e.g., From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism (New
York: Fordham University Press, 1989), The Neo-Thomists (Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 1994).
19
Cf. Thomas S. Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas: An Interpretation of the
Summa Contra Gentiles (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1995).

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read texts of Whitehead and Hartshorne and so liberate us and our contemporaries—even among sympathetic readers of Thomas—both from
process theology’s popular picture of a God who by necessity or choice
is dependent upon human suffering for his own flourishing20 and, more
recently, from the false, indeed fatal, alternative between atheistic evolutionism and fundamentalistic forms of creative design.21 The examples of postconciliar progress in Thomistic studies could be multiplied
at great length to show their abiding potential for the Church’s mission
and intellectual life. The classical commentators themselves, including
Melchior Cano on nine of his eleven loci theologici or John of St. Thomas
when assigning significance to the changed liturgical practice at Rome
in the celebration of the Immaculate Conception,22 point to the need
for and the power of Thomistic traditions to assimilate sources outside
themselves in order to develop in a genuine way. After 1854, the mere
repetition of texts from Thomas or, say, Johannes de Turrecremata could
easily forfeit the continuity of their principles. The venue of this Dominican conference at the Faculty of the Immaculate Conception with its
windows opening toward the Basilica and National Shrine of the same
20

While the great majority of premodern authors defended the impassibility of God for
God’s sake, before an increasing number of writers in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries placed it in question for the supposed good of humankind, recent decades
have tended to defend the impassibility of God for the good of humankind: cf. James
F. Keating and Thomas Joseph White, O.P., eds., Divine Impassibility and the Mystery
of Human Suffering (Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2009); R. Schenk, “Daedalus medii aevi? Die Labyrinthe der Theodizee im Mittelalter,” in R. Schenk and P. Koslowski,
eds., Jahrbuch für Philosophie des Forschungsinstituts für Philosophie Hannover, vol. 9,
1998 (Vienna: Passagen, 1997), 15–35; R. Schenk, “Ist die Rede vom leidenden Gott
theologisch zu vermeiden? Reflexionen über den Streit von K. Rahner und H.U. von
Balthasar,” in Der leidende Gott: Eine philosophische und theologische Kritik, ed. Friedrich Hermanni and Peter Koslowski (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2001), 225–39.
21
Cf. Michael J. Dodds, O.P., The Unchanging God of Love: Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology on Divine Immutability, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2008); Michael J. Dodds, O.P., Unlocking Divine Action:
Contemporary Science and Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press, 2012). For a parallel engagement of analytic thought, cf. Anselm
Tilman Ramelow, O.P., Beyond Modernism? George Lindbeck and the Linguistic Turn
in Theology (Neuried: Ars Una, 2005). For the comparison of the thought of B. Lonergan with the development and early reception of Thomas’s doctrine of prevenient
grace, cf. Joseph Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human Action: “Merit” in the Theology
of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995).
22
Cf. R. Schenk, O.P., “Johannes a Sancto Thoma,” in Marienlexikon III, 414–16.

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

name is a reminder of what needs to be partially forgotten about the
Thomistic tradition in order to recall its fuller vitality.23
In reference to the Church’s universal mission, the Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation provides us with a further example. Already Joseph Ratzinger’s commentary on Dei Verbum in the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche,24 distinguishing the still unsynthesized, conflicting
positions of the minority and the majority within the agreed text of Dei
Verbum, refers to the uneven character in the final texts and to “logical gaps that are covered over only with difficulty.”25 Still harsher is the
verdict of Thomas expert Otto-Hermann Pesch: “The Constitution is
arguably the most uneven text of the Council, including ‘logical gaps
that are covered over only with difficulty,’ or better said, contradictions,
a paradigm of that kind of compromise which is ‘contradictory pluralism.’”26 Even if Pesch goes too far here: in each chapter of the text the
tension is palpable between on the one hand a salvific historical sense
of the self-revelation of God and on the other references by the written
words of Scripture and tradition to the paths and precepts best serving
humanity. A hermeneutic of reform would seek to disprove the charge
of self-contradiction and to find meaning in an argued synthesis, affirming the foundational and teleological reality of God’s self-communication and our need for verbal expressions of it. Such a synthesis could
profit from the first two and twinned articles in the Secunda Secundae,
pointing first to the simple and ineffable first truth as the primary object
23

In a letter of September 12, 1869, J. H. Newman thanked E. B. Pusey for his new edition, dedicated to the coming work of the First Vatican Council, of the 1436 treatise
of Johannes of Turrecremata, O.P., against the Immaculate Conception, calling the
gift “a great addition to our library,” and yet the pages of the volume were subsequently cut open only to page 9; cf. R. Schenk, O.P., “Johannes de Turrecremata,” in
Marienlexikon III, 424–26.
24
Joseph Ratzinger, “Dei Verbum,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche: Das Zweite
Vatikanische Konzil, vol. 2, Dokumente und Kommentare, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler
et al. (Freiburg: Herder, 1967), 498–527.
25
Ibid., 504.
26
Otto Hermann Pesch, Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil: Vorgeschichte—Verlauf—
Ergebnisse—Nachgeschichte (Würzburg: Echter, 2001), 272–73; cf. 150–54, appropriating the judgment expressed in an essay of 1972 by another authority on Thomas
Aquinas: Max Seckler, “Über den Kompromiss in Sachen der Lehre,” in Im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft und Kirche: Theologie als schöpferische Auslegung der
Wirklichkeit (Freiburg: Herder, 1980), 99–103, 212–15.

Thomism, Intellectual Life, and Mission

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of faith and then adding immediately that we would be further from
this simple truth if we lacked any ability to speak about it with the complexities required by our imperfect forms of knowledge, language and
community. The reference in Dei Verbum (DV 2) to divine love with the
friendship and the fellowship in Christ, which it makes possible by the
Spirit, is certainly not in conflict with majority intentions. Although the
rejection of the schema De fontibus, a rejection argued effectively by a
very young Joseph Ratzinger,27 included the critique of its reliance on R.
Garrigou-Lagrange’s De revelatione, Eberhard Schockenhoff has pointed out the affinity between the DV’s notion of God’s self communication
and Thomas’s programmatic interpretation of charity as a friendship
based on a graced communicatio or the prevenient sharing in God’s life:
The expression communicatio, understood in its dynamically transitive aspect, could best be translated into a concept
familiar to today’s theological language as the self-revelation of God. Thomas’s accomplishment as a thinker is to be
found here. Against the background of the biblical view of
God, Thomas interpreted the concept of communicatio, which
stands for the Greek word koinonia, in such a way that it can
help us to conceive a kind of similarity, the lack of which had
led Aristotle to exclude the possibility of friendship between
gods and human beings.28
The parallel is of interest not so much as an anticipation of the contemporary theology of divine self-communication, but for its ability to
suggest a synthesis needed for a plausible hermeneutic of reform. As
the retrieval of the communicatio of caritas by authors such as Joseph
Bobik29 and Guy Mansini30 has shown, friendship according to this rath27

Cf. Jared Wicks, S.J., “Six Texts by Prof. Joseph Ratzinger as peritus before and during
Vatican Council II,” Gregorianum 89 (2008): 233–311.
28
Eberhard Schockenhoff, “Die Liebe als Freundschaft des Menschen mit Gott: Das
Proprium der Caritas-Lehre des Thomas von Aquin,” Internationale katholische
Zeitschrift “Communio” 36 (2007): 232–46, here at 238 (translation mine).
29
Joseph Bobik, “Aquinas on ‘Communicatio’: The Foundation of Friendship and ‘caritas,’” Modern Schoolman 64 (1986): 1–18; “Aquinas on Friendship with God,” New
Scholasticism 60, no. 3 (1986): 257–71.
30
Guy Mansini, O.S.B., “Similitudo, Communcatio and the Friendship of Charity in

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

er free but programmatic appropriation of Aristotle’s Ethics is based on
and articulated by the goods shared, here not as a cause but as a result
of God’s—prevenient—love and grace. The likeness that follows calls for
the mutuality of acknowledgement proper to persons. The communicatio of shared love cannot be fulfilled in mute or blind feeling (pace
Schleiermacher and his late Catholic reception). One might say that the
Christians of tomorrow must not only be mystics, but must be able to
confess and express their faith, or they will not be Christians at all. Far
from a return to “informational notions of revelation,” such a cry for
language, the search for the proper words, is a mark of the interpersonal nature of God’s self-revelatory love. Personal revelation includes the
understanding and response of the receiver, the person spoken to; revelation is fully given only when it is received and answered. The responsoriality that God intends is, as Thomas tells us, rooted in the communication of divine beatitude that expresses itself in faith. The Church’s
universal mission as a sacrament of divine revelation is to aid human
beings of every age in this quest for their response to God’s self-revelation of his love for humankind.
Communicatio as the Task of the Preacher
Although the opening words of the Decree on the Adaption and Renewal of Religious Life, Perfectae caritatis, recall St. Thomas’s theology of a
life consecrated by vows to God, the tension characteristic of the Council appears in the dialectical title: Renovatio accommodata, a retrieval of
beginnings into the now.31 The Constitution Lumen Gentium (LG) had
already indicated the hopes of the Council that the extension of spiritual and apostolic ideals previously associated with religious vows would
be extended beyond the classical orders. LG’s placement of the chapter
on the laity before its chapters on the universal call to holiness and on
Aquinas,” in Thomistica, Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale: Supplementa 1, ed. E. Manning (Leuven: Peeters, 1995), 1–26.
31
For an earlier and more extensive version of these reflections on the importance of
the dialectic of forgetting and recollection for the renewal of the Order of Preachers,
cf. R. Schenk, O.P., “Creative Fidelity: Remembrance and Forgetting, Renewal and
Accommodation. On the 800th Anniversary of the Foundation at Prouille,” Dominican Studies (2007): 4–16.

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1077

religious orders was a reflection of this at best partially fulfilled hope to
extend, not evacuate, the richness of consecrated life. The postconciliar
Renovatio accommodata also indicates the only partially realized method for renewal, looking back to the founder in order to refigure previous
paths for the near future.
In the case of the Order of Preachers, the task of renovatio first leads
two generations behind St. Thomas back to St. Dominic. An analysis of
the unusually frequent contemporary testimonies to the prayers of St.
Dominic would reveal the centrality in his life of mercy regarding the
pain of not being able to believe or to believe aright in the Gospel. Dominic’s prayers are with few exceptions either directly for those so suffering or for the means to aid them by a preaching prepared by forms of
contemplative study rooted in a kind of communicatio, notably the life
of voluntary poverty. In “Study as Misericordia veritatis,” the prologue
to the document on intellectual life drafted 2001 at the Elective General
Chapter held at Providence College, the link is identified between Dominic’s sense of mercy and his concern for academic study:
Thanks to St. Dominic’s innovative spirit, study ordered to the
salvation of souls was involved intimately in the purpose and
regular life of the Order.
St. Dominic himself led the brethren to places of learning in
the largest cities, so that they might prepare for their mission.
“Our study must aim principally, ardently, and with the greatest care at what can be useful for the souls of our neighbors”
(LCO 77,1).
From then on, study would be linked essentially to the apostolic mission of the Order and to preaching the Word of God.32
Preaching and the study necessary to prepare for it had for Dominic
“paracletic” character, aiding by human words the Spirit’s internal work of
communication, which is at the heart of the Church’s universal mission.
This work of spiritual advocation is enunciated in the text just cited:
32

Acts of the Elective General Chapter of the Friars of the Order of Preachers: Providence,
Rhode Island 2001 (Rome: Curia Generalitia ad S. Sabinam, 2001), 45–49, here at 45,
no. 104.

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

This questioning of human value is an intrinsic part of today’s
most pressing quaestiones disputatae. The self-doubt about
human dignity colors the three ancient questions which since
Kant have been said to constitute together the encompassing question, What is a human being? These three questions,
What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope for?
raising interrelated doubts about the capacity of human beings for truth, for freedom, and for eternal life, call for the
intellectual compassion acquired in good part by the labor of
study. Assiduous study of today’s quaestiones disputatae should
lead us to understand the pressures to doubt, without submitting to the despair about human dignity: “Credidi, etiam
cum locutus sum, ego humiliatus sum nimis; ego dixi in trepidatione mea: omnis homo mendax” (Psalm 116/115, 10–11).
Feeling the trepidation of our times, especially about our capacity for truth, and seeing the manifold humiliation of human life as our own, and yet bringing to the world the confidence of the Gospel together with its concomitant demand for
justice and peace, Dominican study is to be marked by both a
habit of humility and a confidence in the “paracletic” mission
of the church, defending the dignity proclaimed in creation
and redemption and helping to make faith believable in our
day. In this way Dominican study can and must serve the misericordia veritatis.33
St. Thomas conceived the communicatio that founds friendship as a
sharing of a common good; in the case of charity, that good, as was said,
is the perspective of shared beatitude. But, in his reflections on mercy,
Thomas notes a further kind of communicatio:
From the very fact that a person takes pity on anyone, it follows
that another’s distress grieves him. And since sorrow or grief is
about one’s own ills, one grieves or sorrows for another’s distress, in so far as one looks upon another’s distress as one’s own.
Now this happens in two ways: first, through union of the affec33

Ibid., 47–48, no. 111–12.

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1079

tions, which is the effect of love. For, since he who loves another
looks upon his friend as another self, he counts his friend’s hurt
as his own, so that he grieves for his friend’s hurt as though he
were hurt himself.34
This identification with the suffering other can come from a sheer
“union of the affections, which is the effect of love,” or from insight into
a commonality of the suffering involved. Thomas names here a second
way by which one comes to look upon another’s distress as one’s own.
Secondly, it happens through real union, for instance when
another’s evil comes near to us, so as to pass to us from him.
Hence the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 8) that men pity such as
are akin to them and the like, because it makes them realize
that the same may happen to themselves. This also explains why
the old and the wise who consider that they may fall upon evil
times, as also feeble and timorous persons, are more inclined
to pity: whereas those who deem themselves happy, and so far
powerful as to think themselves in no danger of suffering any
hurt, are not so inclined to pity.35
Thomas recognizes this kind of communication in the salvific-historical
conversatio Christi, in which he finds the mission and manner of Dominican life exemplified in Christ’s own manner of a life lived among
those whose burdens are to be borne by those who bring the Gospel to
them.36 And indeed: Dominic’s initial advocational task of preaching as
a defense of human hope against the twin dangers, in Church and society, of collective or individual presumption and collective or individual
despair, must—as a paracletic task—be “accommodated,” brought into
today, communicated and lived with others without losing the Order’s
own sense of urgent calling. It remains to be asked in a third section
34

Summa theologiae II-II, q. 30, a. 2, as translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947).
35
Ibid.
36
Cf. Ulrich Horst, “Christ, Exemplar Ordinis Fratrum Praedicantium according to Saint
Thomas Aquinas,” in Christ among the Medieval Dominicans, ed. Kent Emery and Joseph
Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1998), 256–70, esp. 263–66.

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

what it is about the thought of St. Thomas that makes it conducive to the
misericordia veritatis, to the shared paracletic task of intellectual compassion that led St. Dominic to found the Order of Preachers.
The Tasks of Thomistic Studies
Thomas’s aside, that mercy is impossible for those who think they have
no faults and for those who think they have no hope,37 reflects two key
advocational dimensions of his theological and philosophical program,
localized in his historical struggles with neo-Augustinianism and radical Aristotelianism. His remarks also reflect the differences between
mercy and selflessness. The earliest critiques of Thomas provide us
with one measure of what contemporaries of Thomas saw as his innovations. William de la Mare’s Correctorium fratris Thomae, arguably the
first articulation of “Thomism” as a broad presentation of Thomas’s chief
themes, charges Thomas with ignoring the censures of 1241 and 1244
to continue Dominican support for Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite
and his privileging created structure over graced event.38 William sees
the Parisian censures of 1270 and 1277 as concretizing this critique of
Thomas’s theological-philosophical anthropology; and it was William’s
critique that elicited varied Dominican responses in the correctories dispute. From these Dominican responses grew something like the early
Thomistic schools, e.g. with the insular realism of Thomas Sutton or the
continental attention to human spontaneity in Hervaeus Natalis. Each of
these Thomists had developed Thomas’s texts to answer the challenges
posed to his thought from Henry of Ghent onward. And yet among these
various Thomists there remained some common themes that justify the
common adjective, Thomist. The secondary and necessarily generalizing
character of knowledge vis-à-vis sensation, the secondary character of
choice vis-à-vis passions and the will of the good in general, the seeming
challenges to eternal hopes arising from the newly stressed unity of body
and soul are repeated targets of William de la Mare’s critique, matching
well the censure by Robert Kilwardby in the previous year of the theolog37
38

ST II-II, q. 30, a. 2, ad 2.
Cf. Bernhard Blankenhorn’s 2012 doctoral dissertation, completed at Fribourg under the direction of Gilles Emery and forthcoming in Catholic University Press:
Dionysian Mysticism in the Early Albertus Magnus and in Thomas Aquinas.

Thomism, Intellectual Life, and Mission

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ical implications of the unicity of the substantial form in humans.39 The
criticism by John Peckham and Bonaventure of Thomas’s assertion of an
antinomy of weak reason, even when coached by faith, in the question
of the eternity or beginning of the world is a further sign of the novelty
attached in his own day to Thomas’s attempts to integrate into a theological synthesis the new limits of graced human life, even of Christ’s life
and passion.40 Those attempts, however, underlined Thomas’s concern
about and for those who were tempted to deny the abiding limits of those
already blessed with the gift of Christian hope.
These attempts were paralleled and complemented by Thomas’s critique of philosophical arguments trying to cast doubt on even this more
nuanced expression of hope. The reassertion of personal human intelligence and freedom and the possibility of cogent God talk, albeit within undeniable limits, together with the new plausibility of resurrection
flowing from new insights into the corporality of human existence show
Thomas’s sympathy with those who struggled against too brutish and
nontranscendent a picture of human animality. It was Thomas’s share in
the tears and fears of “radical Aristotelianism” that allowed him to share
in unconventional ways in the joys and hopes of the “neo-Augustinians.”
Thomas acknowledged the weakness of human nature, while seeing in
those weaknesses an occasion for new friendship with God, preparing
the community and communication that first make possible for the
Mängelwesen Mensch otherwise impossible gifts. Asserting the need
39

Cf. Friedrick J. Roensch, O.P., Early Thomistic School (Dubuque, IA: Priory Press,
1964); Theodor Schneider, Die Einheit des Menschen: Die anthropologische Formel
“Anima Forma Corporis” im sogenannten Korrektorienstreit und bei Petrus Johannis
Olivi. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Konzils von Vienne, Beiträge zur Geschichte
der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Neue Folge 8 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1973); and José Filipe Silva, Robert Kilwardby on the Human Soul: Plurality of
Forms and Censorship in the Thirteenth Century (Leiden: Brill 2012), 281–305.
40
For the increasingly recognized significance of Thomas’s reading of Patristic literature for the development of his Christology, cf. Jean-Pierre Torrell’s commentary on
Thomas d’Aquin, Le Verbe incarné en ses mystères, Somme théologique IIIa, questions 27–59 (esp. vol. 2, La vie du Christ en ce monde, questions 40–45) (Paris: Cerf,
2005); Paul Gondreau, The Passions of Christ’s Soul in the Theology of St. Thomas
Aquinas, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters,
Neue Folge 61 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2002); and Corey Ladd Barnes, Christ’s Two
Wills in Scholastic Thought: The Christology of Aquinas and Its Historical Contexts
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2012).

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

and the capacity for grace, affirming the charitological and Christological perfections that make beatitude more than a distant dream, Thomas
provided a paradigm of paracletic thought that continues to fascinate
us today. Perhaps less keen on harmony than is often suggested (one
thinks already in his young years of his vocational choice against family
and emperor, his choice of topic for his inception, and his option for
the Dominican reading of Dionysius), Thomas provided an enduring
basis for the advocacy of a hope that can both understand and withstand
doubts. Because Thomas recognized in human weakness a prerequisite
of this community of grace, it would be a Pyrrhic victory and a performative self-contradiction for us to exclude in principle from Thomistic
studies the kind of critique that acknowledges the Grandeur et misère of
passages such as ST II-II, q. 10, a. 8 on the forbearance or compulsion of
nonbelievers and former believers.
I would like to conclude with reference to other kinds of communities in which a form of graced if necessarily imperfect communicatio
is needed for Thomistic studies. Given the complex role of the Order of
Preachers in the Church’s service of the Word, it is neither possible nor
desirable that every preacher be an accomplished and convinced Thomist. What is important is that the study of Thomas be encouraged and
enabled in the Order as a key part of its legacy and office and that even
brothers devoting their lives to other theological and academic projects
or to other aspects of the Order’s paracletic mission have a thorough
acquaintance with Thomas’s thought and heritage. At times there is academic cross-fertilization. To cite but three examples: Paul Syngave on
the justification of historical exegesis,41 the engagement of early modern
and contemporary science by William Wallace,42 or Antonio Moreno’s
reconsideration of pyschoanalytic and depth psychological theory and
practice.43 But whether or not such interdisciplinarity occurs, without a
41

Paul Synave and Pierre Benoit, Prophecy and Inspiration: A Commentary on the Summa theologica II-II, questions 171–178 (New York: Desclee, 1961).
42
William A. Wallace, O.P., From a Realist Point of View: Essays on the Philosophy of
Science (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983).
43
Cf. Antonio Moreno, Jung, Gods and Modern Man (Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame 1970); Victor White, God and the Unconscious (Chicago: Regnery
1953), as well as Anna A. A. Terruwe and Conrad W. Baars, Loving and Curing the
Neurotic: A New Look at Emotional Illness (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House,
1972).

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common familiarity with Thomas, much would be lost for the communicatio, the commonality, fellowship and friendship of the Dominican
family and thus for its life and mission. The cultivation of this fraternal
community of remembrance and forgetting will require more intentionality, increased personal and financial resources and a greater expansion
of institutional creativity and international cooperation than what has
become the norm over the last fifty years.
Given the complex character of the topic, it is not surprising that
there is a plurality of methodological approaches to the study of St.
Thomas. Recent attempts to map the topology of Thomistic methods
have distinguished inter alia Leonine, existential, transcendental, analytic, ressourcement and neo-Thomistic methods.44 Some divisions are
associated with places like Salamanca and the Saulchoir (Kain), Lublin
and Cracow, Toulouse, Laval or River Forest. Text editions, the analysis of Thomas’s own development as evidenced in his diverse texts and
genres, Thomas’s sources, contemporaries, followers and critics, his potential relevance in debates not yet begun in his day or even developed
in ours, the discourse of Thomism with natural science, political theory
or international law and human rights, with religions and atheisms, with
variant Catholic and Christian traditions: these methodologies and conversations are in themselves all legitimate undertakings, the complexity
of which has led to a certain understandable division of labor within the
study of St. Thomas and his legacy. The insight, cited at the beginning of
this essay, which Thomas takes directly from Aristotle’s treatise De memoria et reminiscentia, points out: “The same men are not good rememberers and good recollectors.”45 The now-classic text on the topic, Paul
Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting, begins by tracing the advances
made by Aristotle over Plato in distinguishing recollection from mem-

44

Among the many relevant titles, cf. (alongside note 15 above) Fergus Kerr, O.P., After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002); Contemplating
Aquinas: On the Varieties of Interpretation (SCM: London, 2003); Brian J. Shanley,
O.P., “Twentieth Century Thomisms,” in The Thomist Tradition (Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic, 2002), 1–20; and Nicholas S. Case, “Thomisms: Methodological Plurality
in the Study of Thomas Aquinas,” MA diss., Dominican School of Philosophy and
Theology, 2012.
45
Thomas Aquinas, as above, De memoria et reminiscentia, lectio 8, no. 1; translated in
Commentaries, 230.

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

ory.46 Individual friars with different methods developed in different
schools show a greater facility at remembering the texts of Thomas and
Thomism or, alternatively, more conscious of what has been forgotten,
at searching for the lost meaning of Thomas by recounting his sources,
his opponents, his first steps, his self-corrections, and in learning from
later thinkers by similarity or contrast what the importance of Thomism
can be:
Now, lest recollecting and remembering appear identical, he
[Aristotle] indicates their difference: they are each found in different sorts of men. For we do not find that the same men have
good memories and good powers of recollection. Rather, as frequently happens, those who are slow at discovering and learning have better memories, whereas those who are quick-witted
at discovering things on their own and in learning things from
others are better at recollecting.47
The greater the methodological diversity between Thomistic methods,
the more urgent becomes the sapiential task of ordering these methodologies to one another, neglecting neither the historical past nor the future
of Church, society, academy, and environment. A vibrant Thomism may
not take for granted or neglect either memory or recollection; though it
goes beyond what is possible in the context of these reflections, Thomism must study the uses and abuses of their recovery and their loss. To
carry out this sapiential task of complementarity and self-critique, a
community is needed, and in many ways such a community has already
formed over the last fifty years, ending at the chief centers of Dominican
Thomism many of its earlier antitheses between systematic and historical approaches to the study of St. Thomas. The heirs to the legacy of Labourdette, for example, have long made their own the historical skills of

46

Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 7–21. For a late ancient attempt to find
an original path between Plato and Aristotle, cf. the reference by Gerard O’Daly,
“Remembering and Forgetting in Augustine, Confessions X,” in Memoria—vergessen und erinnern, Poetik und Hermeneutik 15, ed. Anselm Haverkamp and Renate
Lachmann (Munich: Fink, 1993), 31–46.
47
Cf. Commentaries, 185, with direct reference to Aristotle’s text at 449b.

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1085

the Saulchoir.48 The notions mentioned above of the desired expanse of
the reality of revelation, of the uncommon doctor, of the unity-in-tension of a hermeneutic of reform, of the search for new voices in ressourcement and aggiornamento,49 and of many fruitful dialogues between
Thomas and “N.N.” are all indications of the wider communities with
which Thomism will seek conversation and will show many of its qualities; a “Thomism” restricted to itself and its own internal study, if not
intended to rejoin other forms of research and discourse, would forfeit
the “type,” goal, and several key principles of Thomas’s thinking. Richard Schäffler has shown that theological conceptions of sapientia differ
from one another by the space they allow or deny to scientia, intellectus
and prudentia.50 The Thomistic notion of sapientia has from the beginning looked forward to communication between sciences that are not
deduced from one another or from theological insights. To borrow a notion put forward by Francisco Mũniz in a special printing of The Thomist,51 theology itself, and more so historical and systematic branches of
theology, and finally, as we might add, Thomistically oriented work in
history and systematics can all be conceived as parts of potential wholes,
wholes made up of heterogeneous parts in need of one another but varying and vying with one another in what they contribute to that whole
in which they communicate.52 It would be logically and performatively
48

Cf. Aidan Nichols, O.P., “Thomism and the Nouvelle Théologie,” The Thomist 64
(2000): 1–19.
49
Note that the ideas of renovatio, ressourcement, and aggiornamento, in their recognition of what has been forgotten and by their stress of the activity of the search
necessary for renewal, are works more of recollection than of reproductive memory.
50
Richard Schaeffler, “Spiritus sapientiae et intellectus—spiritus scientiae et pietatis.
Religionsphilosophische Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Weisheit, Wissenschaft
und Frömmigkeit und ihrer Zuordnung zum Geiste,” in Weisheit Gottes—Weisheit
der Welt: Festschrift für Joseph Kardinal Ratzinger zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Walter
Baier, u. a. (St. Ottilien: Eos, 1987), II:15–35.
51
Francisco P. Mũniz, O.P., The Work of Theology (Washington, DC: Thomist Press,
1958); cf. also Ludger Oeing-Hanhoff, Ens et unum convertuntur, Beiträge zur
Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 37 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1953). For the mereology of nonindependent (heterogeneous) parts, cf. also
Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, vol. 2, rev. ed. trans. J. N. Findlay (London: Routledge, 1973).
52
For a learned and reflective example of the passionate defense of one position within
Dominican Thomism against another, cf. Michael D. Torre, God’s Permission of Sin:
Negative or Conditioned Decree? A Defense of the Doctrine of F. Marín-Sola, O.P.,

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

inconsistent to resist distinguishing epochs and methods of Thomism in
the interest of a postulated Thomistic continuum, only then to dismiss at
will other epochs and methodologies of Thomistic research. Along the
lines of Newman’s seven notes, there must be plausible criteria for arguable preferences among epochs, objects, methods and goals of Thomistic research and therefore, prior to them, the initial acknowledgement
of the contemporary and historical diversity they presuppose and of the
need for a sapiential ordering of the heterogeneous parts of the Thomistic whole. The common material object of studies centered on the works
of Thomas Aquinas knows many formal objects and the corresponding formal methods that make them possible. The undeniable variety of
Thomistic methods and subdisciplines, including pointedly mnemonic
and pointedly recollective approaches, corresponds to the complexity of
the objects and the goals of Thomistic studies: “Whoever may be tempted to conclude that Thomism imposes a monochromatic view of reality,
natural or supernatural, should read more of the mainline Thomists.”53
Despite or because of the legitimacy of specialization within the study
of Thomas, Thomism as a whole cannot live without a vibrant communication with what is outside it, nor will it flourish without a reflective
diversity of methods within it. Thomism is necessarily collaborative.54
Based on the Principles of Thomas Aquinas (Fribourg: Academic, 2009); Do Not Resist
the Spirit’s Call: Francisco Marín-Sola on Sufficient Grace (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2013). Despite the author’s warning against seeing the
opposed positions as two sides of the perennial theological antinomy of predestination and freedom, it is difficult for the reader to deny the cogency of either claim.
53
This statement by Romanus Cessario, O.P., “Hommage au Père Servais-Théodore
Pinckaers, O.P.: The Significance of His Work,” Nova et Vetera (English) 5, no. 1
(2007): 1–16, here at 11, was confirmed by the entire Festakt for Father Pinckaers
that it opened: Michael S. Sherwin and Craig Steven Titus, eds., Renouveler toutes
choses en Christ: Vers un renouveau thomiste de la théologie, Etudes d’éthique chrétienne, Nouvelle Série, 5 (Fribourg: Academic, 2009). By contrast, the loose inclusion
of A. MacIntyre and H. McCabe into a distinctively commentatorial tradition raised
more questions than it answered.
54
Already in his first set of formal disputations as a young professor, Thomas stressed
the importance of the individual intellectus agens for learning. In the context of our
problematic—and in contrast to reflections de magistro stemming from Augustine,
Anselm, and Avicenna—Thomas’s early programmatic stressed what we may call the
recollective moment of learning, in which the learner departs from the merely general
forms of “natural” memory and the memory of the precise specifications supplied by
the human teacher in order to make the newer associations in which knowledge is
first brought forth by and for the learner; cf. De veritate q. 11, a.1 co. Thomas’s shift

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In a later edition of his chief work on philosophical anthropology,
Arnold Gehlen acknowledged an observation by Josef Pieper, referring
to Gehlen’s central theme of the compensatory strengths of culture and
community stemming from the initially deficient instinctual system of
the individual as a Mängelwesen. Pieper pointed out to Gehlen, who
concurred and recorded his agreement, that these insights are close to
those presented by Thomas Aquinas in the Prima pars and famously at
the beginning of De regno, with references back to Avicenna and Aristotle. What the human lacks in refined instincts and physical prowess
is more than made up for by diachronic and synchronic communities
made possible by language.55 Such strengths of a linguistic community
with collective memory and progressive experience are similar to those
sought in graced community with God. Out of initial, individual weakness grows the strength of communicatio. To seek community with both
God and his creatures is to follow the grace to draw new strengths from
acknowledged weaknesses.
What Thomas says of human beings in general also holds true, mutatis mutandis, for those who pursue the study of St. Thomas. That implies
both a necessity and an opportunity for Thomists: First, the necessity,
rooted in the impossibility to excel in all fields of Thomistic research:
It is natural for man, more than for any other animal, to be a
social and political animal, to live in a group . . . Man has a natural knowledge of the things which are essential for his life only
in a general fashion, inasmuch as he is able to attain knowledge
during the brief two decades of his academic career from Avicenna to Averroes as the
key chosen opponent for his reflections on this question only increased his stress on
the individual and preeminently active role of the intellectus agens; cf. ST I, q. 117, and
Wolfgang Schmidl, Homo discens: Studien zur Pädagogischen Anthropologie bei Thomas von Aquin (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
1987). Thomas’s preference in the analysis of learning for Rezeptionsgeschichte over
Traditionsgeschichte (also in his reading of the neo-Platonic axiom quidquid recepitur)
corresponds to a preference for recollective over mnemonic reason.
55
Arnold Gehlen, Der Mensch, seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt, 13th ed. (Wiesbaden: AULA, 1986), 35, with reference to ST I, q. 76, a. 5, ad 4 and the beginning
of De regno. Thomas himself had woven this Avicennan development of Aristotle
into his defense of Dominican academic life in Liber contra impugnantes Dei cultum
et religionem (cap. V, ad 1 in contrarium, Omnia opera, Ed. Leonina XLI, Rome 1970,
A 90–91).

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Richard Schenk, O.P.

of the particular things necessary for human life by reasoning
from natural principles. But it is not possible for one man to
arrive at a knowledge of all these things by his own individual
reason. It is therefore necessary for man to live in a multitude so
that each one may assist his fellows, and different men may be
occupied in seeking, by their reason, to make different discoveries—one, for example, in medicine, one in this and another
in that.56
But out of an initial weakness and necessity can grow new kinds of
strength, taking the opportunity provided by the communication and
discourse among students of St. Thomas:
This point is further and most plainly evidenced by the fact that
the use of speech is a prerogative proper to man. By this means,
one man is able fully to express his conceptions to others. Other animals, it is true, express their feelings to one another in a
general way, as a dog may express anger by barking and other
animals give vent to other feelings in various fashions. But man
communicates with his kind more completely than any other
animal known to be gregarious, such as the crane, the ant or the
bee. (Magis igitur homo est communicativus alteri quam quodcumque aliud animal, quod gregale videtur, ut grus, formica et
apis.)—With this in mind, Solomon says: “It is better that there
be two than one; for they have the advantage of their company.”57
In referring to merely three of the four animals that Aristotle singles
out as examples of community and collaboration,58 Thomas also recalls non- and post-Aristotelian allegories59 suggestive of the sharing
56

Thomas Aquinas, De regno ad regem Cypri, in Opera omnia (Editio Leonina, XLII,
Rome 1979), 449–50 (cf. there the note to l. 28–64), here in Gerald B. Phelan, trans.,
On Kingship to the King of Cyprus (Toronto: PIMS, 1949), 3–5, n. 2–5.
57
Ibid.
58
Aristotle, History of Animals, I 1, 488 a 9.
59
The allegorical intention is suggested by the omission of Aristotle’s fourth example:
the wasp, which Thomas of Cantimpré by 1241 had described as inutilis and moribund in comparison to bees: Liber de natura rerum, 9, LI, ed. Helmut Boese (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1973), 311. His contrast to bees, which seek out flowers, was no less

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necessary and useful for the Dominican students of his thought: to be
more collaborative and communicative than ants, which even in summer prepare for the winter, bringing home without internal rivalry
and for common assimilation heavy grains they have not produced,
even while preferring wheat to barley;60 to be more collaborative and
communicative than bees, less earth-bound than ants in their origins
and movements, producing intramurally not only their own translucent food but with it that wax that bears paschal and Eucharistic light
to the world;61 and to be more collaborative and communicative than
cranes, thought to model Dominican governance and mission by taking shifts in leading the aereal formation of their flying “V,” to take
shifts in bearing exhausted colleagues on their backs during prolonged
flights and to take shifts in sleeping and guarding one another when
the flock is resting on the ground.62
That even Dominican Thomists are not born or reborn at religious
profession with an infused knowledge of Thomas’s thought should be
obvious; and even the most emphatic claims to connaturality have their
all too evident limits. A friar, too, “has only reason and his hands,”63 the
chance and need to think and to work with the legacy of this genuine
son of St. Dominic in the service of the Church and the world for which
the Gospel is meant. Especially for Dominicans, it is the chance and the
need to imitate friar Thomas in thinking, speaking and working with
allegorical in intent: Vita earum circa stercus est. Unlike the apparently leaderless cooperation of ants (politia), the alternating leadership of cranes (aristocratia), or the
steady, productive leadership of bees (regnum), the wasp symbolizes for Thomas of
Cantimpré no positive form of human governance. Its omission by Thomas Aquinas
underscores his reference to the three positive models of sociality and governance.
Thomas did not make of his omission an explicit admonition about what might best
be avoided in Dominican and Thomistic studies.
60
Cf. Pr 6:6–8 and inter alia Thomas Cantimpratensis, Liber de natura rerum, 9, XXI
(ed. cit. 303).
61
Cf. inter alia Thomas Cantimpratensis, Liber de natura rerum, 9, II (ed. cit. 293–98).
Thomas of Cantimpré will return to his fascination with the governmental symbolism of bees in Bonum universale de apibus.
62
Cf. inter alia Thomas Cantimpratensis, Liber de natura rerum, 5, LV (ed. cit. 203–4).
It is this flying formation that especially fascinated not just this medieval author:
“Grues aves sunt, que volant ordine litterato”; cf. the reference to Rusticus Monachus
in Decretum Gratiani, C. 7, q. 1, c. 41.
63
Cf. Thomas’s frequent references to De anima III, including one in the text Pieper
pointed out to Gehlen, ST I, q. 76, a. 5, ad 4.

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others. It is a chance that merits (pace formicis) the support and care of
Dominican leadership. As already for Thomas himself, that high calling
which was expressed in initial deficiency (the call from and to grace as
the sapiential reason for the finitude of natural gifts64) inserts the friar
dedicated to the study of Thomas and Thomism into larger communities of diachronic and synchronic communication. The observations
of De regno and its parallels lose here their merely metaphoric dimensions, calling and recalling the friar Thomist to communication with the
whole Church, with the whole of humanity and for their sake with the
N&V
communicatio perfecta of Trinitarian life.

64

Ibid.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1091-1123

1091

Scriptural Hermeneutics and the Thomistic
Making of a Doctrine of God *
Olivier-Thomas Venard, O.P.
École Biblique
Jerusalem, Israel

RATHER THAN SPEAK IN GENERALof the “scriptural hermeneutics,” let us focus on a paradigmatic theophany, that of the burning
bush and the revealed name in Exodus 3:14. We have three good reasons
to do so.
First, of course, we all remember that Étienne Gilson made it famous
in the chapter of Le thomisme, where he coined the phrase métaphysique de l’Exode. In the beginning of the Summa theologiae, Aquinas
uses twice the name revealed in Exodus 3:14: to trigger the proofs of
the existence of God;1 and to look for the best name for God—the least
connected to our mode of understanding.2
Second, the patristic tradition treats this episode as the prototype of
all theophanies, including Christophanies. Mary, or Christ, is the true
burning bush, where in different ways divinity dwells in human flesh
without consuming it. The Eucharist is the burning bush when the Word
of God turns bread into Christ himself without changing its appearance.
Holy Scripture is the burning bush, where the divine Word puts on human words as a cloth, transcending them without altering them. Note
that in the case of Christ, it is not only a typology: the historical Jesus
* Let Adrien Schenker, O.P., be thanked here for our conversation on the subject
		 matter of this piece in Jerusalem in November 2012.
1
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3, sc.
2
ST I, q. 13, a. 11.

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Olivier-Thomas Venard, O.P.

is reminded as having made known, or used or manipulated the divine
name, not only in the New Testament (NT), but also in the Jewish traditions.3 All Jesus’s deeds and words may be described as a journey within
the name.4
The third reason is that according to our Jewish friends, the episode
of the burning bush encloses a sophisticated conception of the use of
language in divinis. As we shall see, it promotes the primacy of deixis over predication, and of pragmatics over semantics; or, to put it in
speculative grammatical terms, of act over representation, of supposition over demonstration.
My plan here is quite simple. (1) I shall sketch a phenomenology
of the scriptural theophanies, especially in Exodus 3:14. (2) Then I will
suggest how Aquinas’s theology is faithful to the poetics, aesthetics, and
pedagogy of these theophanies.
Phenomenology of the Scriptural Theophanies,
Especially in Exodus 3:14
The Theophany Conjures a Special Aesthetics:
A Blending of Hearing and Seeing

3

All through the Gospel, Jesus is remembered as one communicating the One. John
presents several times Jesus as the name-bearer and the name-giver (Jn 17:6, 26)
who takes over Moses’s mission (Ex 3:14ff.). From the outset, in his prologue, John
reads: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,
he has made him known.” Literally, Jesus “exêgêsato God.” This verb could mean
both “made God known” and “led up to God.” On this syllepsis, see L. Devillers, “Le
sein du Père: La finale du prologue de Jean,” Revue Biblique (2005): 63–79, and the
references he gives to articles by M.-E. Boismard, R. Robert, I. de la Potterie, and
himself. Indeed, Christ’s action was not only a teaching but a real act of orienting
and leading, inducing, and displaying. Jesus uses the name. History recalls him as
the one who manipulated the name. Jesus seemed to identify the name with presence—with his presence. The most obvious historical trace is in the changes in the
immutable exorcism’s formula that happened in Christianity: the divine name was
replaced with the name of Jesus.
4
J.-M. Garrigues, L’unique Israël de Dieu, Approches chrétiennes du Mystère d’Israël
(Limoges: Critérion, 1987), 41–58. Cf. the use of “the Name” and of “Jesus” in the
NT studied by J. Dupont, “Le Nom de Jésus,” in Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplément,
vol. XXXII, Oracle-Palestine, ed. L. Pirot, A. Robert, and H. Cazelles (Paris: Letouzey, 1960), 514–41.

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“And he looked and behold […] God called unto him out of the midst of
the bush and said” (Ex 3:2.4). All Old Testament (OT) theophanies induce for their witnesses a special synesthesia of seeing and hearing, ever
since Exodus 3:14. It is epitomized in a famous verse from Exodus telling
God’s appearance on Mount Sinai, when all the people literally “saw the
voices” (kol-ha’âm ro’im et-haqqôlot).5 The “vision-through-the-voice” is
structural in the Bible and in Judaism. God’s revelation happens in a
saturation of hearing with seeing or of seeing with hearing.
It comes to no surprise, then, that Jesus assumes this synesthetic
disclosure. It is dramatically staged in the episode of the Transfiguration, where the apostles, fascinated by the spectacle of Jesus shining like
the sun, are summoned to listen to him by a heavenly voice (bat kol),
while the whole vision is being concealed by a cloud.6 Or in the shift
from seeing to hearing masterfully staged in the liturgical episode of
Jesus reading a haphtarah from Isaiah in Luke 4. There the visual beauty
of his reading the haphtarah captivates Jesus’s audience: “The eyes of all
in the synagogue were fixed on him . . . and wondered at the gracious
words which proceeded out of his mouth.”7 But he invites them at once
to shift from their eyes to their ears: “He began to say to them: Today
this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”8 It culminates in the institution of the Eucharist, which radicalizes the contrast between seeing
and hearing, as well as in the crucifixion, which prompts its witnesses to
shift from seeing/hearing to believing (John passim).
Exodus 3 Shows Also a Paradoxical Preference for Perception
over Understanding
The burning bush of Exodus 3:14 is an adunaton. It tells an impossible
action: “the bush was ablaze with fire, but it was not being consumed!”
(Ex 3:2ff.). The impossible vision provokes a paradoxical action that
consists in of making a detour to come closer, to “turn aside to see”
(sûr in the Masoretic text means “to lose one’s way, deviate, rebel” or
“go away”), while the Septuagint translates with prosagô, which means
5

Ex 20:18.
Mt 17:1–8.
7
Lk 4:20, 22.
8
Lk 4:21.
6

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Olivier-Thomas Venard, O.P.

“coming close to, leading to.” In brief the bush calls, but indirectly,
through the senses (and this is why it is a symbol of mediation).9
Jesus assumes this insistence on perception. The semantic saturation
of Jesus’s metaphorical claims about himself makes them sound tautological, and thus appeal to more than language. He is the grain,10 the sower,11
and the bread from heaven;12 the lamb,13 the door to the sheepfold and the
shepherd;14 the promise and the realization of resurrection.15
Eventually, he is “the way, the truth, and the life.”16 The sentence is
very tempting to understand as “the signifier, the signified and the referent”—and Jesus is so often asked to give a sign in the Gospels.17 The deixis
of the Gospel is entirely focused on Jesus as the very sign, not so much to
be deciphered or understood as to be perceived. At last, Jesus can only
make a show of himself while uttering “I am”: while disclosing the name
residing in flesh, he hands himself over as the sign par excellence. Because
truth is to thought what light is to sight, Jesus not only bears witness to
himself, but also claims to be a perceivable evidence: “You have seen him
and the one speaking with you is he.”18
Thus the pragmatic and deictic dimensions of the Gospels point toward Jesus’s body. A body puzzling and awe-inspiring to those who meet
him: walking on water, commanding to the wind and the sea, exhausted
and thirsting, transfigured, tortured, crucified, buried and risen,19 given
to be eaten or drunk, as the only possible phenomenal experience of God,
indeed as the temple.20
9

We follow here the commentary of M.-A. Ouaknin, in Bibliothérapie: lire c’est guérir
(Paris: Points, “Sagesse,” 1994), 98.
10
Jn 12:24.
11
Mt 13:3.
12
Jn 6:35.
13
Jn 1:29.
14
Jn 10:7, 11, 14.
15
Cf. Jn 6:54 and Jn 11:23ff.
16
Jn 14:4ff.
17
Mt 16:1: “And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to
show them a sign from heaven.”
18
Jn 9:35.
19
Jn 3:14: “So must the Son of man be lifted up.”
20
Jn 2:21ff: “But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised
from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the
scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” Jn 14:7: “If you had known me, you

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Eventually, there is nothing more to add: “the overcoming of
predication [by deixis marks] the impossibility of saying . . . anything
more about what” is at stake. Jesus’s word rigorously ends up in silence
during his Passion, a silence more eloquent than any word.21 Thus the
scriptural theologal reorientation of the use of language culminates in
the Cross of Jesus. It launches a pragmatic theology of absence according to which “weakness designates God at least as well as strength.”
The “pragmatic theology of absence . . . [is] not the non presence of
God but the fact that the name that God is given . . . serves to shield
God from presence—weakness designating God at least as well as
strength—and to give God precisely as making an exception to it”22
against Eunomius and other Arians, who “hold that the (metaphysical) ideal of the equality between a word and/or a name and the concept is accomplished . . . above all in the case of God.”23
The Divine Encounter Engages a Stimulating Pedagogy
Made Up of Irony and Privileging Praxis over Theory
A Pedagogic Irony
Moses said to God, ‘If […] they ask me, What is his name?– what should
I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM who I AM’” (Ex 3:13ff.) Basically, there are two types of interpretations of this passage: one is ironical
(the Jewish Hebraic one) and the other is emphatic (the Jewish Hellenic
“

would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.”
When searching for the Jewish preparation for the belief in the incarnation, Nicolas
Wright quite convincingly turns his attention to the temple. N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity,
1999), 62–63; “Jesus’ Self-Understanding,” in The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary
Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God, ed. S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G.
O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 47–61, esp. 57.
21
“But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge; so that the governor wondered greatly” (Mt 27:14). See more in O.-T. Venard, “La parole comme enjeu narratif et théologique dans la passion selon saint Matthieu: Un commentaire littéraire de
Mt 26–28,” Revue Biblique 115, no. 1 (2008): 56–96.
22
J.-L. Marion, In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena [De surcroît: Perspectives
critiques] (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001)], Perspectives in Continental Philosophy 28, trans. R. Horner and V. Berraud (New York: Fordham University
Press, 2002), 156.
23
Ibid., 153.

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and the Christian ones).24 They are not incompatible. Mercifully, God
discloses his name, a quite intensive name according to the Septuagint,
who turns it into the present participle of eimi. At the same time, quite
ironically, God withdraws any plain meaning. What is revealed is a plenitude of meaning ranging from indeterminacy to intensity.
I am who I am means also I am who I will be or I shall be what I
shall be: I am such as I will disclose myself, such as you will learn to
know me if you trust in me and agree to the mission I give you. The
stress is on an experience to be patiently made in time.
This Ironical Pedagogy Is Taken Over by Jesus25
In his preaching, Jesus assumes the first-person singular of the divine
voice, like earlier prophets. And all along his ministry, the ambiguity
as to who was speaking when he did so became ever greater. Was it
the prophet quoted by Jesus? God in whose name the prophet or Jesus spoke? Or Jesus himself? Those who saw Jesus as a prophet did
not hear egotism but the prophetic voice. However, most of the Jewish
community did not: they thought they had to deny his claims if they
wanted to be faithful to what they understood to be the will of God.26
Jesus makes a very ironic use of the divine I: “Before Abraham was,
I am” (egô eimi).27 Most of his interlocutors would not understand:
“Who are you? Jesus said to them: Even what I have told you from
the beginning” (Tên archên ho ti kai lalô humîn).28 His answer could
also be translated: Why do I even bother answering to you, or I am the
24

Cf. R. de Vaux, Histoire ancienne d’Israël, des origines à l’installation en Canaan,
Etudes bibliques 57/1 (Paris: Gabalda, 1971), 330–40. The interpretation grounded
in the Masoretic text is minimalist and ironical: God does not give his name. It is
dominant in traditional rabbinic Judaism. But the (Jewish) Greek translation in the
Septuagint reads: Egô eimi ho ôn and understands that Yhwh is the one God that
Israel must acknowledge as really existing.
25
See H. W. Frei, The Identity of Jesus Christ: The Hermeneutical Basis of Dogmatic
Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1975), built up on Jesus’s question “Who do
you say I am?”
26
For this passage we are indebted to J. Neusner, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus: An Intermillenial, Interfaith Exchange (New York: Doubleday, 1993), who poses the question
afresh: when did a prophet ever say “Follow me”?
27
Jn 8:58.
28
Jn 8:24ff.

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beginning [the rešit], I who am speaking to you.29
In the Gospels, Jesus speaks like God in the burning bush. He guides
us on a journey within the name, never trespassing the borders of the
tautology. As Gregory of Nyssa puts it: “The Word, in saying this name,
did not add to the tradition of faith what it is.”30
There is much understatement in the teaching of Jesus. He designates himself in oblique ways, for example, as the “son of man,” a phrase
with a scope of meaning that ranges from “anybody” to the quasi-divine
figure in Daniel 7. But he silences any predication about himself that
could reduce him to a known category such as messiah or king.
By refusing any plain denomination, Jesus hints at something unattainable in his identity. “Who do you say that I am?”31 He wants to be a
question silencing all answers rather than an answer silencing all questions so that his language in the Gospel could be described as a “riddle”
pointing at “a new and surprising reality which we could not previously
have thought possible”—namely, “the reality of Christ’s hypostasis”32—a
remarkable literary achievement in learned ignorance.33

29

See I. de La Potterie, “La notion de ‘commencement’ dans les écrits johanniques,” in
Die Kirche des Anfangs: Festschrift für Heinz Schürmann zum 65. Geburtstag, Erfurter
Theologische Studien 38, ed. R. Schnackenburg and J. Ernst (Leipzig: Benno, 1977),
379–403; É. Delebecque, “Autour du verbe eimi, ‘je suis,’ dans le quatrième évangile:
Note sur Jean VIII, 25,” Revue Thomiste 86 (1986): 83–89; R. René, “Le malentendu
sur le Nom divin au chapitre VIII du quatrième évangile,” Revue thomiste 88 (1988):
278–87; M. A. Pertini, “La genialidad gramatical de Jn 8,25,” Estudios Biblicos 56
(1998): 371–404; C. Rico, “Jn 8,25 au risque de la philologie: L’histoire d’une expression grecque,” Revue Biblique 112, no. 4 (2005): 596–627.
30
Gregory of Nyssa, quoted in Marion, In Excess, 156.
31
Mt 16:14ff. and parallels cf. also the “messianic secret” in the Book of Mark.
32
S. Coakley, “What Does Chalcedon Solve and What Does It Not? Some Reflections
on the Status and Meaning of the Chalcedonian ‘Definition,’” in The Incarnation:
An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God, ed. S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, G. O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 153–63, esp.
155. The same author rightly speaks about Chalcedon as “linguistic regulation” (145)
and proposes a list of eight questions deliberately left unanswered by that Council
(163–64).
33
Cf. O.-T. Venard, “The Belief in the Incarnation of God: Source of Religious Humility or Cause of Theological Pride,” in Learned Ignorance: Intellectual Humility
among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, ed. J. L. Heft, R. Firestone, and O. Safi (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011), chap. 7, 129–48.

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An Invitation to Act
God’s answer displays a nonpredicative and “strictly pragmatic use of
language.”34 The circle of the divine tautology uttered from the burning bush—“I am Who I am”—means, beyond all significations, that the
one who reveals himself wishes to be encountered, more than named or
thought. “The Name of God is not a name, which we could master through
magic, as in polytheism. It is a verb. It is that which has power. And it is a
promise. The unaccomplished unceasingly un-accomplishes itself.”35
Now this unceasing action triggers action on the part of man. The
tautological utterance in which God discloses himself short-circuits the
mental stream of thoughts following thoughts. By curving the words on
themselves, it creates a sort of verbal mirror, which forces its listener to
convert to himself and to go back to reality.
It highlights the fact that words do not refer to reality automatically.
Rather, they build a nest where the speaker or the listener has to act:36
they have to decide to look for, to experience and to check what they
witness to. Nothing can dispense with the moral decision to try to understand, and in order to succeed, first: to believe. “The Name [does not
inscribe] God within the theoretical horizon of [human] predication
but rather by inscribing [man], according to a radically new praxis, in
the very horizon of God.”37
Welcoming the divine name is certainly not seizing it as a prey, or
breaking into it: to the contrary, it is getting oneself exposed to it and
agreeing to see one’s own intentions displayed and reflected in it. Therefore it triggers the paradoxical soliloquy of prayer.
Similarly, Jesus overwhelms semantics with pragmatics. The acts by
which he conveys his message are forgiving, commanding cosmic elements,38 or expelling unclean spirits. Their agent in this culture can only
34

Marion, In Excess, 140.
H. Meschonnic, “Traduire le sacré,” in Corps écrit, vol. 3 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1982), 17. My translation.
36
See what Paul Ricoeur, La métaphore vive (Paris: Seuil, 1975), 377, says about the intertwining of acts in the metaphoric predication, which ought to be extended to any predication.
37
Marion, In Excess, 157.
38
Mt 8:27: “Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great
calm. And the men marveled, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even winds and
sea obey him?’ ”
35

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be God. And the responses he tries to elicit from his listeners are acts
that God only may require. For example, prophets always say, “Follow
God.”39 The Torah commands: “The Lord your God you shall follow.”40
How can anyone then come and say, “Follow me”?
More generally in a typically halakhic manner, Jesus’s teaching enhances command and obedience41 rather than statement and speculation: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will
[have] . . . built his house upon the rock.”42 His teaching about prayer
reduces the role of words in favor of acts: “do not heap up empty phrases.”43 Even his revelatory discourses about the end of times are pragmatically more than semantically loaded. Enumerating many apocalyptical
clichés of his time,44 he tries to maneuver the audiences toward faith in
God,45 not to amuse them with innovative revelations about the ‘olam
haba’ (the world to come).

39

Dt 13:5.
Ibid.
41
Cf. his admiring the centurion in Mt 8:8ff. Cf. the finale of Matthew, which summarizes the entire Gospel as: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”
(Mt 28:20).
42
Mt 7:24. Cf. “For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not a iota, not
a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one
of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in
the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:18ff). After having heard Jesus, even his enemies ask
themselves “What are we to do?”—not think (Jn 11:47).
43
Mt 6:6ff. Rather, “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who
is in secret.” Moreover, the few sentences of the Our Father, which he gives as a pattern, are first a matter “of referring to the One who is no longer touched by nomination . . . of pragmatically referring the speaker to the inaccessible Referent” (Marion,
In Excess, 142). See the Fathers’ commentaries stressing the fact that we do not so
much ask God to do things as we orient and adjust ourselves to him. “Prayer does
not consist in causing the invoked one to descend into the realm of our language
(he or she exceeds it but also is found always already among us) but in elevating
ourselves toward the one invoked by sustained attention” (Marion, In Excess, 144).
44
For example, the tension between mercy and wrath or the claim to communicate
only a partial knowledge: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the
angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Mt 24:36).
45
Cf. Paul’s strategy for example in Rom 11:20, 22.
40

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The Theophany at the Burning Bush Sets Up a Specular Pragmatics
in the Relationship between God and Mankind
Exodus 3 presents several locutions that echo one another. For instance,
Exodus 3:14, “God said unto Moses, I AM who I AM,” mirrors Exodus
3:11: “Moses said unto God, Who am I?” Or, in Exodus 3:4, both protagonists, the human and the divine, look at each other: “The LORD saw
that he turned aside to see.”
God’s paradoxical words intend to elicit from their listener acts
that will aim at God for the sake of God, such as faith, hope, and love.
They reflect the divine tautology in the human heart. This specularity
characterizes the relationships between God and mankind throughout
Scriptures.46 In the Hebrew Bible, it is nicely expressed in figures of derivations that play on the same word to describe human and divine actions.47 Isaiah provides a famous example in the warning inserted right
before in the Emmanuel oracle (Isa 7:9): “If you will not believe surely
you will not be established,” or “If your faith does not remain firm, then
you will not remain secure” (Is 7:9).
In Hebrew, the sentence is much simpler: Im lo ta’amînou kî lo
té’âménou. Phonetically, there is something tautological about it, because the same root amen is used in both propositions, in two forms that
entail only slight vocalic changes: ta’amînou and té’âménou. Semantically, it sounds a bit like the proverb Aide-toi, le Ciel t’aidera “God helps
only those who help themselves.” Poetically, the derivation of amen encapsulates the right conception of the divine and human action: one
single action (signified by a single root) is entirely divine (niphal tense),

46

Cf. Ps 17:26–27, or the curious rapprochement between Moses and God in Num
11:12–13: “Did I conceive this entire people? Did I give birth to them, that you
should say to me, ‘Carry them in your arms, as a foster father bears a nursing child,’
to the land which you swore to their fathers? From where shall I get meat to give to
this entire people, for they cry to me, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat!’” See also the
mirroring construction of Adam and Jesus (cf. Phil 2 and Gn 3) and the coherence
between Mt 25 (identification of Jesus with the least of the children of God) and Gn
1 (mankind created as an image and resemblance of God).
47
Listen to echoes of this passage in 2 Chr 20:20 (ha’aminou / té’haménou), in Jer
1:17 (play on words with the root ḥtt), in Is 25:1 (play on the root ‘mn), or in Hab
2:4 and Rom 11:20 (same rapprochement between holding together and believing).

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and entirely human (hiphil tense). The activity of man is both an answer
to God’s Word and a gift of God.48
The Psalmist sings: “With the merciful you will show yourself merciful. With an upright man you will show yourself upright. With the
pure you will show yourself pure. And with the forward you will show
yourself forward.”49 This specular structure is assumed by Jesus Christ.
For instance, “Are you the Christ, the son of God?”50 and “Are you the
king of the Jews?”51 “You have said” (su eipas), Jesus replies twice to his
unjust judges.
In this quite ambiguous statement, Jesus answers the questions at
the enunciative level, not at the semantic level. He simply states the fact
that his interlocutor has said something. “You have said” suggests a possible disconnection of the utterances just uttered from their utterers; it
frees the words from their speakers’ evil intentions and lets them resonate by themselves and possibly convey their true meaning. It is as if
Jesus was holding up their own words as a verbal mirror in which they
could reflect their own intentions. Does not this reticence to speak out
remind the divine answer of Exodus 3:14?
More generally, Jesus in the Book of Mark short-circuits immediate
understanding and makes the disciples (and the readers) undergo incomprehension as a revelatory experience. In John, along the tradition of
the “prophetic acts,” he fulfills his mission through a dialectics of striking
deeds and enigmatic words mirroring one another.52 And through this
dialectics, Jesus discloses a unique intimacy with God: “The words that I
say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells
in me does his works. Believe me . . . or else believe . . . for the sake of the
works themselves.”53
48

The Greek version interprets the tautology in terms of noetic gain (LXX/Is 7:9: kai
ean mê pisteusête oude mê sunête) as if the text was recording its own performativity.
49
Ps 18:26–27.
50
Mt 26:63.
51
Mt 27:11. In the Book of Mark, on the contrary, Jesus’s answer is not ambiguous.
52
Cf. Jn 10:25: “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s
name, they bear witness to me”; 10:37ff; 14:11. He says intriguing words, forcing
his audiences to look at his actions and acts in such a way as to raise their desire to
listen to his words. A synoptic example is the healing of the paralytic man: “Which
is easier: to say, ‘your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘rise and walk?’” (Mt 9:5–8).
53
Jn 14:10ff.

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Finally the NT develops the same mirroring structure between God
and the believers:54 “draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”55
The NT also explains these mirroring relations between God and man:
since he is the Creator, acting is being acted by him, and knowing being
known by him.56
The Divine Revelation Encompasses a Special Relation to Language
It is celebrated among postmodern rabbis such as Gilbert Trigano or
Marc-Alain Ouaknin in France. The name establishes a stable pole in the
temporal and spatial flux of reality. It unifies what sensitive experience
would describe as partes extra partes or undifferentiated whole. It allows
invocation and enables memorial. Therefore, inasmuch as they witness
to the encounter of God and human words, the Scriptures somehow
amplify the divine name.
The Encounter with the Name at the Burning Bush
May Be a Symbol of Reading
God’s commission resonates from the middle or center (tâwèkh) of the
burning bush, which becomes a visible figure of his Word. The transcendent and ineffable Word of God allows itself to be heard, not understood, without destroying the human words any more than the fire
consume the bush.
The episode becomes a symbol of the reading of the text. In Hebrew,
the bush is burning without being eaten. The metonymic overtone of the
mouth points to word and language. Indeed, upon hearing or reading,
the words are like eaten, or burnt by the meaning they convey. The series
of syllables, the melody, the tone of the voice, the combination of words,
the typographic signs on the pages, are as it were burnt by the fire of
intelligibility, without being consumed.
54

Cf. Lk 12:8–9: “And I say to you, everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of
Man shall confess him also before the angels of God; but he who denies Me before
men shall be denied before the angels of God.”
55
Jas 4:8, 10: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands,
you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded . . . Humble yourselves in
the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
56
Ps 36:10; Phil 2:12.

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The Name Provides a Pattern for the Reception
of All the Sacred Scriptures
Literally, Exodus 3:14 features a repetition of “I AM.” For Jewish sages
and prophets, the whole Scripture should function like the divine name,
as a piece of language to be repeated and experienced continually, much
more than just “caught.” Constantly meditating on the Torah is an ideal
ever since the šema’ Yisraël, which invites not only to repeat and memorize (to drill), but more radically to make Scriptures one’s own language—a possible literal translation of wedibbarta bam “you will speak
through/with them.”57 What God reveals and the meaning of what God
reveals are distinct. God discloses himself in command, symbol, and
rite, whose meaning must be progressively downloaded by human beings obeying or performing them.
Jesus’s rhetorical strategies aim at creating a similar delay between
hearing and understanding, to oblige his audience to live with the words
and be questioned by them: “afterwards, later on, you will understand.”58
Language is not only to be listened to and recorded, but to be dwelt in:
“abide in my word; keep my word.”59 Was it not already the way God
wanted his revelation in the Torah to be read?
And the evangelists continue what Jesus had started. Through stylistic devices such as the repetition or the correctio, they force the reader to
grapple with bizarre phrases, in sum to dwell in his Word.60 They favor
the coincidence of the quest of meaning with the hope for grace—thereby granting to language a sacramental dimension.
Conclusion
A “speaking God”:61 what matters for a Jew is the Word of God heard
57

Dt 6:7. With the same pedagogic intention, the long Psalm 119 displays in eight
verses a letter going through the entire alphabet, to produce no other meaning than
a praise of the Word of God.
58
Jn 13:7.
59
Jn 14:23ff.
60
Cf. the use of repetitions in Jn 7:33–36, 16:13–15, and 21:22–24.
61
Contrast with Aristotle’s God who is all-thinking (Métaphysics, L, 9, 1074 b 34);
see A.-J. Festugière and P. Fabre, Le monde gréco-romain au temps de Notre-Seigneur, vol. 2, Le milieu spirituel, Bibliothèque catholique des sciences religieuses

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in history. This culminates for the Christian in the incarnation of that
Word in Jesus and his Cross, who articulate the divine mystery in human word.
From the burning bush up to the Cross of Jesus, passing by so many
prophetic oracles,62 in disclosing himself as “I AM,” the living God introduces himself as the one speaking God who can invoke only himself
to offer himself to another free self63 and as the one willing to be the only
reason for believing, hoping, and loving the one.
The fitting welcoming of the divine name requires a high conception
of the Word, which contrasts with our modern utilitarian reductions of
language to an expressive tool. The Word of God in Scripture is not first a
set of ideas, but the intense presence of a living reality, an event, a personal
irruption.64 In more philosophical terms, we might say that when heard
or read in the “condition of felicity” of the living tradition, the biblical text
bears a real performativity that gives rise to a vision of the world in which
the Word dominates history and verbum commands esse.65 The literary
form of revelation leads to a refined understanding of the semantic triangle of “real-mind-language.”66 Relations between the three angles are not
only bijective but also reciprocal: the meaning of “signification” attached
to each angle is analogical. A subtle interplay of similarity, representation,
and causality unites thing, concept, and word.67
All too often, Aquinas is accused of wrongly substituting abstract
metaphysical concepts for this living encounter with the speaking God.
(Paris: Bloud and Gay, 1935), 167–84.
Is 43:8–13.
63
Heb 6:13.
64
L. Bouyer, Eucharistie, théologie et spiritualité de la prière eucharistique (Paris: Desclée, 1966), 37–38.
65
I.e., in which language precedes our reception of anything and the rise of any
intentions.
66
A. Ramlow, “Language without Reduction: Aquinas on the Linguistic Turn,” Angelicum 85 (2008): 497–517.
67
Cf. J. P. O’Callaghan, Thomist Realism and the Linguistic Turn: Toward a More Perfect
Form of Existence (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 22. The
art of rightly speaking or writing about God consists in combining “one’s vantage
point [that] is the created perfections” and “what can be called the principle of perfection” or maxime tale. J. M. Schoot, Christ the Name of God: Thomas Aquinas on
Naming Christ, Publications of the Thomas Instituut te Utrecht 1 (Leuven: Peeters,
1993), 189.
62

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On the contrary, let us suggest how Aquinas develops his discourse
on God entirely within the literary and linguistic default setting of the
Scriptures. No more than Christ himself does he trespass the crystalline
borders of the divine tautology.
Thomas’s Faithfulness to These Theophanies
Irreducibility of Language
In Aquinas’s praxis of sacra doctrina, language is not a transparent tool
expressing one’s thought. It is no immaterial lining of reality. From lectio
divina to lectura, from the elucidation of the pagina sacra to the distinctions of the quaestiones, Aquinas is aware of the works of his colleagues
of the faculty of arts prefiguring speculative grammar. For them (as for
postmodernity, in passing), the way leading to the meaning belongs
to the meaning: signification is not a mere static result but an ongoing
process. Therefore language brings its special contribution on the ways
leading up to God.
Aquinas’s Refusal of the So-Called Ontological Proof of St. Anselm
Is Well Known68 yet His Starting Point in Reasoning
about God Is Often Linguistic
Thomas like Aristotle investigates as much in culture as in nature, in
words as in things, in the testimony of Scripture as in that of the senses.
While teaching on the divine names, Aquinas is not merely dealing in
a posteriori causality (ascending from effects to cause) nor dealing in a
priori categories: he is also dealing in symbolism, deciphering things as
signs thanks to words.69
Indeed, “theology, inasmuch as it is the most principal of all sciences . . . discusses not only things, but the signification of names
as well.”70 For instance, “demonstrando Deum esse per effectum accipere possumus pro medio quid significant hoc nomen Deus.” The
68

Cf. ST I, q. 6, a. 1 ad 2 and 4; J. Milbank and C. Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas, Radical
Orthodoxy (London: Routledge, 2001), 29–30.
69
Milbank and Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas, 29–30.
70
Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi I, d.
22 expositio textus, cited by Schoot, Christ the Name of God, 197.

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fact that we speak about God, or that the word God exists,71 or that we
use some words rather than others to speak of him, become starting
points to “prove” that God exists72 and that some names may refer to
God substantialiter.73
To be sure, even though Aquinas asserts the primacy of being over
human knowledge (since the mind has to be triggered by being), the fact
is that knowledge is fulfilled only in the act of judging, which entails language!74 The process of abstracting and judging, the dialectic of species
and concepts,75 fructifies in the utterance of a concrete judgment, a word
that reaches the concrete being.
Even the first principle, the principle of noncontradiction (according to which non est simul affirmare et negare76), does entail language,
since if nothing is dicted (said), nothing can ever be contradicted. And
indeed, in mental activity, the first principle itself is rooted in the ratio
or habitus identitatis,77 but the elicitation of that habitus requires the distance provided by the verbum to enable the apprehension of nonbeing.
71

Cf. ST I, q. 29, a. 2, ad 1, where usus loquendi matters more than propria significatio; I,
q. 13, a. 8, c. “Omnes enim loquentes de Deo, hoc intendunt nominare Deum, quod
habet providentiam universalem de rebus”; I, q. 13, a. 8, ad 2, “Impositum est hoc nomen ad aliquid significandum supra omnia existens, quod est principium omnium et
remotum ab omnibus. Hoc enim intendunt significare nominantes Deum.”
72
ST I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2: the starting point of the demonstration may be the name(s) he
is given (as in any demonstration, quia vs. propter quid), because there is an order in
knowledge: first one must answer an est, then quid est (cf. ST I, q. 13, a. 10, ad 5).
73
Thomas privileges the common usage of speakers dealing with God (intentio loquentium de Deo; ST I, q. 13, a. 2, c.).
74
P.-C. Courtès, L’être et le non-être selon Thomas d’Aquin, Croire et savoir 27 (Paris:
Téqui, 1998), 135–36: “Saint Thomas affirme la primauté ‘en soi’ de l’être sur la connaissance humaine, qui s’actualise par rapport à lui. C’est lui qui tombe d’abord dans
l’appréhension humaine. Mais la connaissance s’achève dans le jugement. Or, pour
saint Thomas, le jugement est l’acte de l’intellect composant ou divisant. La seule appréhension de l’être ne saurait donc à elle seule constituer la métaphysique, ni aucun
savoir humain. Il faut tenir compte de ce fait quand on parle d’une ‘métaphysique de
l’être’ pour le thomisme.”
75
Cf. Y. Floucat, L’intime fécondité de l’intelligence: Le verbe mental selon saint Thomas
d’Aquin, Croire et savoir 35 (Paris: Téqui, 2001), 125.
76
ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2: “Nam illud quod primo cadit in apprehensione est ens, cujus
intellectus includitur in omnibus quaecumque quis apprehendit. Et ideo primum
principium indemonstrabile est quod non est simul affirmare et negare, quod fundatur supra rationem entis et non entis; et super hoc principio omnia alia fundantur.”
77
L.-M. Rineau, Jugement et concept dans la théologie des noms divins d’après saint

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Simply put, language is also a kind of “thing,” necessarily met on
the way to the truth of other things.78 It brings human thought back to
its humble (poetic) condition of being the fruit of an incarnated intelligence. Therefore the language of metaphysics and theology is principally
a poetical articulation of the real. Ever since the pre-Socratics, the effort
to think about being and God ends up composing a poiein of speech in
a true “metaphysical epic of the spirit for which our time, used only to
metaphors derived from the senses, has lost the poetic key.”79
Furthermore: In the Construction of the Theological Discourse,
Metaphysics and Scripture Mirror One Another
Metaphysics is the discipline dealing with esse inquantum esse. Now, it is
hard to say whether the discovery of this esse is the result of a progressive abstraction starting with the beings, or the revelation of the sublime
name of the Creator in Exodus 3:14 had the side effect of unveiling the
composition of existence and essence in created beings.
For clarity’s sake, in Le thomisme, Gilson distinguishes “Thomas the
philosopher” and “Thomas the theologian,” and, in a rather neo-Thomist fashion, only adduces the theologian by the end (133–36) of a chapter
dedicated to haec sublimis veritas (120–36). Gilson asserts that Aquinas’s
conclusions regarding the existence of God are “undoubtedly properly
philosophical,” as the historical result of centuries of effort to reach the
very root of being.80
According to Thomas’s worldview (which is an univers enchanté!—
Thomas d’Aquin: Mémoire de licence canonique de théologie sous la direction de T.D. Humbrecht (Toulouse: Institut catholique de Toulouse—Institut Saint-Thomas d’Aquin, 2000), 126, shows brilliantly how the noncontradiction principle rests
upon the habitus of identity, an unfathomable, quasi divine, light. Cf. P. Rousselot,
L’intellectualisme de saint Thomas, Bibliothèque des Archives de philosophie (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1936).
78
In O.-T. Venard, La langue de l’ineffable: Essai sur les fondements théologiques du
discours métaphysique (Genève: Ad Solem, 2004), I describe both faces of language
(murkiness and transparency) in studying closely Aquinas on the language of
prelapsarian Adam and of the angels.
79
Courtès, L’être et le non-être, 232n35 invites us to “relire littérairement In Met. X, lect.
4” (ed. Marietti 475–76, no. 1990–98).
80
É. Gilson, Le thomisme, Études de philosophie médiévale 1, 4th ed. (Paris: Vrin,
1942), 132.

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Gilson dixit81), only distinctive acts of being are real. Unumquodque est
per suum esse is a principle of reality that extends to God.82 But it is only
partly inherited from Aristotle, who could not go beyond ens, res habens
esse.83 In order to avoid any ontotheological reduction, one must rather
say that it is the existence of God, as the only necessary esse revealed in
the Bible, that enables this principle.84
Therefore Gilson himself finally insists that that for Aquinas Scripture and rational dialectics supplement one another in the disclosure
of the real distinction.85 The “revelation of the identity of essence and
existence in God amounted for Thomas to a revelation of the distinction
of essence and existence in creatures.”86
Eventually, in the last pages of his chapter, Gilson wittingly ponders the priority of metaphysics or of revelation, only to conclude that
Aquinas himself conceived of the real distinction in creatures and the
ineffable identity in God as “the front and back of the same metaphysical thesis, and that ever since he captured it, Aquinas never doubted he
could read it in the Bible.”87
In the Theological Discourse, Words and Beings Mirror One Another
As Paul Ricoeur or Pier-Cesare Bori has shown, the interplay of say81

Ibid., 144.
Ibid., 131.
83
Ibid., 61.
84
Ibid., 131: “On dirait d’ailleurs mieux que c’est l’existence même de Dieu qui fonde
ce principe. Car Dieu est l’être nécessaire . . . Dieu est un acte d’exister tel que son
existence est nécessaire.”
85
Ibid., 133: “il est impossible d’en douter, saint Thomas a pensé que Dieu avait révélé
aux hommes que son essence est d’exister. . . . voyant ces deux faisceaux de lumière
[i.e.,: l’Écriture et la dialectique rationnelle] converger au point de se confondre, il
n’a pu retenir un mot d’admiration pour l’éclatante vérité qui jaillit de leur point de
rencontre. Cette vérité, saint Thomas l’a saluée d’un titre qui l’exalte au-dessus de
toutes: ‘L’essence de Dieu c’est donc son exister. Or cette sublime vérité (hanc autem
sublimem veritatem), Dieu l’a enseignée à Moise [qui lui demandait son nom].’ C’est
Qui est qui m’a envoyé vers vous, montrant par là que son nom propre est Qui est. Or
tout nom est destiné à signifier la nature ou l’essence de quelque chose. Il reste donc
que l’exister divin lui-même soit l’essence ou la nature de Dieu” (cf. Thomas Aquinas,
Summa contra Gentiles I, ch. 22 ad Hanc autem).
86
Ibid., 133.
87
Ibid., my italics.
82

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ing and being shapes metaphysical discourse like a circle. Quite simply,
from the viewpoint of linguistic deconstruction, the realist metaphysician has to presuppose a word uttered by reality before he utters his
own word about it. Analogy is conceptual and its prerequisite is the very
gift of being, construed as participation. Analogical predication must be
sustained by an ontology of participation. Now, as Ricoeur asks, is not
participation a hidden recourse to metaphor and poetry?88
In theological analogy, language and concepts hold together thanks
to an order deemed inherent in reality. The efficient causality is supposed to conciliate unity and diversity, in order to speak truly of the
real.89 The “similitude” of the effects with their causes is believed to prevent speech from nonsense.90
Thus, when Saying is about to break out because of the distance between Being and the beings, Being himself provides Saying with underground continuities enabling the analogical extension of significations.
But how so, if not by giving his Word? And how so, if not in Scripture?
By the end of that process, analogy and participation are mirroring one
another.”91 Now, modern science and philosophy believe they have destroyed this reciprocal foundation. Was it not the belief in a creator God
in the biblical sense, which warranted such similitude in causality? Indeed, the believer identifies the creative Word of God who gives reality
its consistency, with the Word contained in Holy Scripture, and with the
Light radiating in his mind through the inner word.
In the modern immanentist frame that separates object from subject, sacra doctrina is a discourse actually founded, but on no foundation (like the faith, according to St. John of the Cross92), since there is
88

Ricoeur, La métaphore vive, 347–56.
Ibid., 352.
90
Ibid.
91
Ibid.: “Dans le jeu du Dire et de l’Être, quand le Dire est sur le point de succomber au
silence sous le poids de l’hétérogénéité de l’être et des êtres, l’Être lui-même relance
le Dire par la vertu des continuités souterraines qui confèrent au Dire une extension
analogique de ses significations. Mais du même coup, analogie et participation sont
placées dans une relation en miroir, l’unité conceptuelle et l’unité réelle se répondant
exactement.”
92
John of the Cross, “A lo Divino,” in The Poems of Saint John of the Cross, ed. and
trans. K. Jones (London: Continuum, 2001), 114: “mi alma se vee ya sin arrimo y
con arrimo.”
89

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no evidence of such things as a language of reality or a Word of the utterly other. In a worldview imbued with faith, sacra doctrina is candidly
founded in Scripture: God exists because he says so! This appraisal of
language in the praxis of theology determines an aesthetics that reminds
of the synaesthesia of the burning bush.
Aesthetics: The Overcoming of Sight by Word
Aquinas’s praxis of sacra doctrina displays a specific aesthetics: his laconic style is indebted both to the Greco-Roman rhetorical ideal of rational clarity overcoming senses with reason, as illustrated by Cicero,
Augustine, or Bernard,93 and to the OT94 and NT95 traditions for which
God is more audible than visible.
Thomas’s devotion to his patron saint (who teaches us to believe
without seeing), as well as his Eucharistic poetry, rests upon such aesthetics. As he puts it in his personal prayer Adoro devote:
Sicut Thomas non intueor . . . Deum tamen . . . te confiteor.
Visus . . . fallitur, auditu solo tuto creditur.
Dealing with God, Aquinas is convinced that the hearing of the
Word can transcend the vision of the words. We all know the famous
“Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw by
comparison with what I have seen!”96 Do not these last words suggest
that Thomas wrote in order to see? Once he had been given to see, writing
was no longer necessary. Words allow us to see, indeed: as Thomas notes,
93

D. Millet, “Paul Claudel et la dangereuse métaphysique de beau, recherche sur la
conception de la beauté à l’époque du mouvement symboliste et du renouveau thomiste,” presented at the 13th Congrès de l’Association Internationale de Littérature
Comparée, La Force de la Vision - Vision du Beau, Université Aoyama Gakuin, Tokyo, August 25, 1991, 4.
94
Cf. H. Meschonnic, La rime et la vie (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1989), 284; J.-L. Evrard,
“Préface,” in L’écriture, le verbe et autres essais, by Franz Rosenzweig (“Philosophie
d’aujourd’hui”, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998), 6–7.
95
Cf. ST III, q. 55, a. 2, ad 1 in fine: “Sed sicut ad visionem beatam pervenitur per
auditum fidei, ita ad visionem Christi resurgentis pervenerunt homines per ea quae
prius ab angelis audierunt.”
96
Cf. J.-P. Torrell, Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, sa personne et son œuvre, Vestigia
13 (Paris: Le Cerf-Éditions universitaires de Fribourg, 1993), 424.

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“you see?” often means “do you understand?”97 In the present world,
where we have no formal intuitive knowledge (intuition), we know only
through the detour of the senses and the discursus of reason and therefore through language.98 The detour through the word of reasoning is for
Thomas a “delayed regard” (regard différé).99 Moreover, in the prolongation of natural speech, the Scriptures received as the Word of God allow
the mind to get a glimpse of a reason that transcends rationality.
Aquinas is well aware that only God speaks of God100 or names
God101 adequately. We can only name God with names coined to signify
creatures or created perfections. In order to speak truly, albeit inadequately of him, we must achieve an impossible task: “to transcend the
very mode in which we speak.”102

97

ST I, q. 67, a.1, c.
Cf. SCG 1,57 in fine: “Quae enim ratiocinando scimus non sunt secundum se nobis
nuda et aperta, sed ratione aperiuntur et nudantur”; ST II-II, q. 49, a. 5 ad 2: “Certitudo rationis est ex intellectu, sed necessitas rationis est ex defectu intellectus: illa
enim in quibus vis intellectiva plenarie viget ratione non indigent, sed suo simplici
intuitu veritatem comprehendunt, sicut Deus et angeli” and the comments by J.-L.
Chrétien, “La connaissance angélique,” in Le regard de l’amour (Paris: Minuit, 2000),
125–39.
99
Chrétien, “La connaissance angélique,” 130: “Toute ratiocination provient d’un
manque de lumière. En l’affirmant la scolastique se manifeste tout autre qu’on ne
l’imagine souvent.”
100
Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 2, a. 1: “Similiter etiam intellectus noster secundum diversas conceptiones repraesentat divinam perfectionem,
quia unaquaeque imperfecta est; si enim perfecta esset, esset una tantum sicut est
unum tantum Verbum intellectus divini” (cf. Schoot, Christ the Name of God, 19).
101
ST I, q. 13, a. 11 ad 1: “Magis proprium nomen est Tetragrammaton, quod est impositum ad significandam ipsam Dei substantiam incommunicabilem, et, ut sic liceat
loqui, singularem.”
102
Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 7: “Modus
significandi in dictionibus quae a nobis rebus imponuntur sequitur modum intelligendi; dictiones enim significant intellectuum conceptiones, ut dicitur in principio
Periher. Intellectus autem noster hoc modo intelligit esse quo modo invenitur in
rebus inferioribus a quibus scientiam capit, in quibus esse non est subsistens, sed inhaerens. Ratio autem invenit quod aliquod esse subsistens sit: et ideo licet hoc quod
dicunt esse, significetur per modum concreationis, tamen intellectus attribuens
esse Deo transcendit modum significandi, attribuens Deo id quod significatur, non
autem modum significandi.”

98

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Transition: A Pedagogy That Favors the Practical Dimension
How is it possible? By engaging a special pedagogy, which is reminiscent
of the one displayed in biblical theophanies.
Even though he lays a stress on its speculative dimension, Aquinas
sees theology as an exercise in encountering God through his Word, in
the very act of speaking of him.103 A prejudicial objection to this paragraph could be that in the Summa, Aquinas describes theology as a
speculative rather than practical science. In fact it is both, and Aquinas’s
insistence on the theoretical dimension is partly circumstantial.104
There Is Some Irony in That Encountering,
As in the Episode of the Burning Bush
Thomism may be gauged the deepest or the emptiest of all philosophies,
depending on its construal as an abstract logic of the ens or a concrete
metaphysics of the esse. Everything depends on one’s discovering the
ultima Thule of metaphysics and remaining faithful to this discovery, a
difficult task indeed.105
Sacra Doctrina as an Exercise in Learned Ignorance
Something paradoxical pervades the whole theological undertaking: we
speak very much about something we utterly ignore. According to Gilson, speaking metaphorically is inevitable even in analogy. The names
signifying created perfections can be applied to God eminently, but only
103

ST I, q. 31, a. 2, c.: “Cum de Trinitate loquimur, cum cautela et modestia est agendum quia, ut Augustinus dicit in I De Trin., ‘nec periculosius alicubi erratur, nec
laborosius aliquid quaeritur, nec fructuosius aliquid invenitur.’ ”
104
According to Leonard Boyle, he wanted to correct the doctrinal and mystical shortsightedness of his younger brethren. See L. E. Boyle, The Setting of the Summa theologiae of Saint Thomas, Étienne Gilson Series 5 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1982).
105
Gilson, Le thomisme, 135–36. Generally speaking, “c’est un fait assez curieux que, selon
la manière dont on l’entend, la doctrine de saint Thomas apparaisse comme la plus
pleine ou comme la plus vide de toutes. L’ enthousiasme fervent de ses partisans n’a
d’égal que le mépris dont la couvrent ses adversaries” (ibid., 62), According to Gilson,
for those who embrace an essentialist worldview, Thomism becomes a chosisme reifying concepts and turning the living stuff of reality into a mosaics of closed entities.
True disciples must acquire a sense of the plenitude and continuity of the concrete.

Scriptural Hermeneutics and the Doctrine of God

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by a sort of “transfer” from creature to creator. “Such transfer turns these
names into true metaphors, in the proper sense of the word, and doubly deficient metaphors”: on the one hand they refer to the divine esse,
utterly different from any created esse for which the name was coined;
on the other hand, names designating an object depend on our way of
conceiving this object and we have no way to conceive of a mere esse.106
Nevertheless, it is possible to speak truly of a God we cannot conceive
at all.
As a matter of fact, the word being may be uttered with two meanings: either as referring to the act of being (actus essendi) or as composing a propositional statement by connecting a predicate with a subject.107 We cannot know the being of God in the first sense. But we can
know that a proposition about God being is true, based on his effects,
and notwithstanding the fact that we have no idea of what his being is.
The quid est of God is omnino ignotum during this life.108 But we
can go as far as knowing some of his essential attributes109 by looking
at his effects110 through the lenses of negation (what God is not) and
eminence (which relation God has with everything he creates).111 Our
concepts of his effects cannot be transferred to such a transcendental
cause as God, but when we assert that the creature resembles God, our
judgment is right.
In brief, analogy does not bring about any positive knowledge of
God, only a warrant not to be utterly equivocal when speaking of God.
While, semantically, the names we use about God are not synonyms
106

Gilson, Le thomisme, 148.
ST I, q. 3, a. 4, ad 2. On one hand, esse means actum essendi; on the other hand, it
is the copula in the “compositio propositionis . . . quam anima adinvenit conjugens
praedicatum subject.”
108
Thomas Aquinas, Super Rom 1, lec. 6, in Super Epistolas S. Pauli lectura, ed. R. Cai,
2 t. (Turin: Marietti, 1953).
109
T.-D. Humbrecht, “La théologie négative chez saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste 94, no. 1 (1994), 83, citing: J.- H. Nicolas, Dieu connu comme inconnu: Essai d’une
critique de la connaissance théologique, Bibliothèque Française de Philosophie (Paris:
Desclée de Brouwer, 1966), 186.
110
Aristotle was able to demonstrate many things about God; St. Paul affirms, in Rom
1:26, that “invisibilia Dei per ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur”: invisibilia
designates the unique and single reality, utterly unknown of us, which in God corresponds to the diverse perfections we experience in creatures (wise, good, right).
111
SCG I, ch. 30 in fine.
107

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because they signify various mental grasps of created perfections (diversity of concept), pragmatically, all our names suppose a single referent, God himself (unity of suppositum). We know that the proposition “God exists” is true, but we do not know what existing means for
God, because “God’s existence is the same as his essence, and as his
essence is unknown so also is his existence.”112
Sacra Doctrina Is an Exercise in Systematic “Understatement”
The propositions esse actus est113 and Deus est suum esse contain an extreme tension: they are as strongly asserted as their content remains
negatively known.114 However, whereas his predecessors strove to coin
an Eastern Baroque language of superessence and sursumptio à la Dionysius, Aquinas is satisfied with simple language. Piling up utterances
will never exhaust the semantic content of esse actus est. Truth is not
beyond discourse but within it.115 Aquinas states plainly this tautological
appearance of being in saying that primo in intellectu cadit ens. Such a
motto inspires his laconic style. As a true classic, he knows that a word
will always be a word, and that only acts can go beyond sentences.
This is already the case in the question on God at the beginning of
the Summa theologiae. There, the intertwining of discourse and metadiscourse ends up enhancing language as such. However, such a display
of signifiers and discourses referring to one another does not weaken
the argumentation, but invites to subsume it into action, especially the
act of faith—“actus credentis non terminatur ad enuntiabile sed ad rem.”
Indeed, the possibility to make affirmative propositions on God depends
on faith largely, as Aquinas makes clear by the end of the question on the
divine names.116

112

De potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 1; see Gilson, Le thomisme, 156.
Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In periermenias 1, 5, §18–21: est, simpliciter dictum, significat
in actu esse.
114
Like Gilson, one feels “l’impression que cette sorte de glorification de l’acte d’être est
comme un dédommagement désenchanté, que le métaphysicien s’accorde, de l’impossibilité d’en dire plus.” É. Gilson, Constantes philosophiques de l’être, Bibliothèque
des textes philosophiques (Paris: Vrin, 1983), 152.
115
Ibid., 98.
116
ST I, q. 13, a. 12, sc.
113

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The Emphatic Display of the Words and of Language in Theology Is
Correlative with a Semiotic Occasionalism
More generally, in his relation to language, Aquinas holds a sort “semiotic occasionalism.” For him, nobody can really teach anybody, unless
he is helped by God the interius magister,117 because human teachers
teach from outside, like physicians administrating medicines. What
they can do best is to organize signifiers in such a way that the magister
can ignite them with the fire of intelligibility.118
This is quite clear in the necessity to devise proofs or ways demonstrating the existence of God. Desire is not a basis firm enough to assert
the evidence of the existence of God—only the evidence of an innate
desire for perfection/happiness.119 Neither is logic, because there is a
difference between thinking aliquid quo maius cogitari non potest and
knowing that it does exist.120 Neither is truth because the passage from
the diversity and generality of many truths to the uniqueness and exclusivity of the one absolute truth is not obvious.121 Identifying with God
the entities deduced by the end of the examination of these experiences
requires another act.
Hence the wording of the conclusions of the ways to the existence of
God: they sound like “hermeneutic leaps”122 from words to an intended
reality: “aliquod primum movens”: “et hoc omnes intelligunt Deum”;
“aliquam causam efficientem primam”: “quam omnes Deum nominant”;
117

ST I, q. 117, a. 1, obj.1: “Dicit enim Dominus, Matth. XXIII, ‘nolite vocari rabbi’; ubi
dicit Glossa hieronymi, ‘ne divinum honorem hominibus tribuatis.’ Esse ergo magistrum pertinet proprie ad divinum honorem. Sed docere est proprium magistri.
Homo ergo non potest docere, sed hoc est proprium Dei.”
118
ST I, q. 117, a. 1, ad 1: “Homo docens solummodo exterius ministerium adhibet,
sicut medicus sanans, sed sicut natura interior est principalis causa sanationis, ita et
interius lumen intellectus est principalis causa scientiae. Utrumque autem horum
est a Deo. Et ideo sicut de Deo dicitur, ‘qui sanat omnes infirmitates tuas; ita de eo
dicitur, qui docet hominem scientiam, inquantum lumen vultus eius super nos signatur,’ per quod nobis omnia ostenduntur.”
119
ST I, q. 2, a.1, ad 1.
120
Hence pace his “Radical Orthodox” readers, Aquinas seems to admit some dualism
between noetics and ontology (ST I, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2: are noetic phenomena, thoughts
less real than material things?).
121
ST I, q. 2, a. 1, ad 3.
122
We borrow this expression from G. Dahan, L’exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident
médiéval, XIIe-XIVe siècle, Patrimoines: Christianisme (Paris: Cerf, 1999), 435.

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“aliquid quod est per se necessarium”; “aliquid quod est causa esse et
bonitatis et cuiuslibet perfectionis in rebus omnibus”: “et hoc dicimus
Deum.”123 As George Lindbeck puts it, the five ways function as probable or external arguments.124 Ego sum qui sum triggers the “ways” that
provide with a setting convenient to perform the act of identifying the
entities reached through them with the living “God.” Gilson must add
paragraphs to actually perform the identification, which is only asserted
by Aquinas (intelligunt, dicimus, etc.) Such act (like the act of choosing
the right metaphoric words in analogy) supposes a whole way of life.
And indeed Aquinas’s theology leans upon an overarching doxology in
the context of the Gothic university.
A Theological Poetics Triggered by the Intimate Presence
of God in the Act of Speaking
When he promotes a “metaphysics of the judgment” over against a
“metaphysics of being,” Gilson is not far from describing a poetic program. Indeed, in his construal of Thomist metaphysics, speech appears
as a required detour—in the footsteps of Moses—for whomever wishes
to approach God. It is a detour insofar as representing or signifying the
substance of the God in words designed to signify essences is impossible,
but it is also a nice access to God, because it is possible to designate him
through a word, namely, through a judgment.
Dealing with God:
Language Is a Detour Because It Is by Itself Essentialist
“Any name aims at signifying the nature or essence of something” different from the fact that it exists.125 But, dealing with God, we should con123

Conclusions of the five “proofs” in ST I, q. 2, a. 3, c.
ST I, q. 2, a. 3 read according to ST I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2. See G. Lindbeck, “Discovering
Thomas 1: The Classical Statement on Christian Theism,” Una Sancta (B) 24, no. 1
(1967): 45–52, esp. 47.
125
SCG I, ch.22 ad Hanc autem. Language is designed to speak of corporeal realities,
composed of form and matter: we can only name and know beings whose essence is
not to exist, so that we cannot conceive of a being without essence. “The conceptual
nature of our knowledge naturally leads us to conceive of existing as an indeterminate value which the essence would supplement and determine from the outside”
(Gilson, Le thomisme, 51).
124

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ceive of an essence that would be one and the same with its existence.
This is probably the reason why Aquinas refrains from saying bluntly
that God does not have an essence.
Now, it is hard to stay at the level of esse as act and not reduce it to
a state or a concept; it is nearly impossible to “teach it without betraying it.”126 Sometimes Aquinas himself attempts to integrate the silence of
consent to reality within the theoretical discourse. Quoting a convoluted
text from the quaestio De Potentia, where Aquinas tries to rectify his
readers’ all-too-natural (conceptual) take on esse, Gilson speaks of “such
an extreme effort [produced by Thomas] that the meaning makes the
phrases burst out.”127
Because “the Limits of Language Coincide with the Borders of Being,”128
It Is No Surprise That a Special Poetics Will Be Required to Think and
Speak about God: A Poetics of Judgment
Static definitions present essences to the intuition of the intellect, whereas only the act of judging can refer the mind to the dynamics of esse as
existence. The nature of judgment makes it fit to play this part: judging is
stating a unity by means of a complex (mental) act of composing terms.
Even though the composition does not follow the order of reality,129 the
126

Gilson, Le thomisme, 49.
Quoting Quaestiones disputatae de potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9 (“Hoc quod dico esse
est inter omnia perfectissimum .[…] est actualitas omnium actuum et propter hoc
est perfectio omnium perfectionum. Nec intelligendum est quod ei quod dico esse
aliquid addatur quod sit eo formalius, ipsum determinans sicut actus potentiam,
esse enim quod huiusmodi est, est aliud secundum essentiam ab eo cui additur
determinandum”;—cf. ST I, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3), Gilson, Le thomisme, 49, comments:
“Thomas fait ici comme un effort extrême et tel que le sens fait presque éclater les
formules, pour exprimer la spécificité de l’ipsum esse et sa transcendance.” “Parler de
la distinction d’essence et d’existence, c’est s’exprimer comme si l’existence était ellemême une essence, l’essence de l’acte d’exister. C’est donc s’engager à traiter comme
une chose ce qui est un acte, par où l’on se trouve presque infailliblement condamné
à se représenter la composition d’essence et d’exister comme s’il s’agissait d’une sorte
de préparation chimique” (ibid., 50).
128
Gilson, Le thomisme, 52, commenting on the “vigueur des formules dont use saint
Thomas et qui burinent en quelque sorte ces pensées.”
129
Floucat, L’intime fécondité de l’intelligence, 133, citing ST I, q. 85, a. 5, ad 3: “Differt
compositio intellectus a compositione rei: nam ea quae componuntur in re, sunt diversa; compositio autem intellectus est signum identitatis eorum quae componuntur.”
127

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Olivier-Thomas Venard, O.P.

intellect itself must have concretely experienced that this composition
is in keeping with reality.130 The proposition becomes a sign of the real
identity of the elements composed.131 In the words of Gilson, “the discursive movement of the judgment imitates the flow of existential energy whose act secures the unity of a real substance.”132 In brief: it is a
matter of lived—albeit quite “intellectual”—experience.
Now, “divine simplicity is perfect because it is pure act, therefore it
can only be stated by an act of the faculty of judging, without being conceived of.”133 In the case of God, the center targeted by our judgments
is pure act, an immanent divine knowing and willing:134 the act of judging is fitted to refer to it by affirming the identity of a given perfection
with the divine esse. The structural diversity of the proposition results
from our rational activity, while its unity denotes that of the One being
known.135 It is a sublime and symbolic experience in which the human
mind imitates in his Word the divine simplicity.
The very enunciation of the proposition represents the divine Oneness, beyond the irreducible plurality of its terms.136 Enunciation plays
here the role of signification: it represents the unity of God. As abstract
as it may be, it is a sort of sacramental image enabling us to think immediately of God, as any other image according to Aquinas, although
we cannot see him: “intellectus immediate de Deo cogitat quamvis non
immediate Deum videat.”137
130

Ibid., 136: “En affirmant être ce qui est ou ne pas être ce qui n’est pas, [l’esprit] unit
intentionnellement la quiddité abstraite à son exister, ou il la disjoint au contraire.
Par là, il proportionne l’esprit à l’union intrinsèque de l’essence et de son acte d’être
qui constitue le quod est, ou bien à la négation de toute mesure d’être qui signifie le
quod non est.”
131
ST I, q. 85, a. 5, ad 3: “Differt compositio intellectus a compositione rei: nam ea quae
componuntur in re, sunt diversa; compositio autem intellectus est signum identitatis
eorum quae componuntur.”
132
Gilson, Le thomisme, 59.
133
Ibid., 130.
134
ST I, q. 13, a. 7, ad 3.
135
Gilson, Le thomisme, 154–55; SCG I, ch. 36.
136
ST I, q. 13, a. 12, c.: “Hanc ergo pluritatem quae est secundum rationem, repraesentat pluralitatem praedicati et subjecti: unitatem vero repraesentat intellectus per
compositionem.”
137
Why not apply to the “abstract” image of the proposition what Aquinas states about
any other image in In IV Sent., d. 49, q. 2, a. 7, ad 8? (“Etiam quando aliquid videtur

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We Return to the Mirroring Experience of Exodus 3
Like the name uttered from the burning bush, God lets himself be known
in theological praxis as it were in a mirror. He is in the depth of human
thought and word, as the light giver of the first principles. Prestigious
Thomists speak of these principles as “truths you can only see or state,
neither demonstrate nor refute,”138 a phenomenology that resembles the
stunning effect of the name given in the burning bush. Indeed, Aquinas
connects immediately the knowledge of the first principles with the uncreated light participated in the intellectual light.139 In lumine tuo videbimus lumen. Fundamentally, the real distinction between essence and the
act of being encompasses a reciprocal foundation of the divine name and
human intelligence. Indeed, distinguishing between essence and esse in
all that exists entails asserting a pure act of being (which God is)—unless
nothing at all be intelligible, and the very activity of the intellect collapse.140
More precisely, the habitus identitatis, in which the first principle
per similitudinem alterius rei, potest contingere quod videns rem per medium cogitet de re immediate, sine hoc quod eius cognitio convertatur ad aliquam aliam rem,
quia in illud medium non convertitur ut est res quaedam sed ut est imago illius rei
quae per ipsam cognoscitur: idem autem est motus intellectus in imaginem in quantum est imago et in imaginatum, quamvis alius motus sit intellectus in imaginem in
quantum est res quaedam et in id cuius est imago. Et ideo quando per similitudinem
creaturae quam intellectus habet penes se non convertitur in creaturam ut est res
quaedam sed solum ut est similitudo rei, tunc immediate de Deo cogitat quamvis
non immediate Deum videat.”)
138
Cf. É. Gilson, “Le Moyen Age comme Saeculum modernum: Langage et doctrine
de l’Être chez saint Thomas d’Aquin,” in Concetto, storia, miti e immagini del Medio
Evo, vol. 7, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, and Corso internazionale di alta cultura: Civiltà
europea e civiltà veneziana, aspetti e problemi, V. Branca (Florence: Sansoni, 1973),
section 18.
139
Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 10, a. 6, ad 6: “Prima principia quorum cognitio est nobis innata, sunt quaedam similitudines increatae veritatis; unde secundum
quod per eas de aliis judicamus, dicimur judicare de rebus per rationes immutabiles,
vel veritatem increatam.” It is a noetic instance of the overall participation of anything created to the creator. Cf. ST I-II, q. 93, a. 1, ad 3: “Unaquaeque res intantum
habet de veritate inquantum imitatur intellectum divinum.”
140
Rineau, Jugement et concept, 116. “En adoptant la thèse centrale de la distinction
réelle d’esse et essentia, saint Thomas fonde de manière réciproque l’existence de
Dieu (comme acte pur) et la validité même de l’intelligence humaine: la distinction
d’essence et d’acte d’être, repérable en tout ce qui est, ‘impose de toute nécessité d’affirmer l’acte pur d’être sous peine de rendre les choses radicalement inintelligibles, et
pour autant de renier l’intellect lui-même en ses exigences les plus fondatrices.”

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is rooted, can be construed as a habitus Dei. This habitus is not known
firstly as a propositional principle. It is rather a condition of possibility for any cognizance, a target, mysteriously focused in all the identifications we perform while thinking.141 Now, only the esse purum implements the absolute identity that kindles and fuels the activity of the
mind. And since that esse is nothing else but God, the habitus identitatis
is a habitus Dei. In this habitual knowledge, God is not present as an
object expressly desired or known in the mind, but as its deepest desire,
triggering its entire life.142 The absolute truth of intelligence depends on
its openness to the divine.143
At the linguistic level, we could go further with literary deconstruction, and show that there is a reciprocal foundation of Scriptures and
rhetoric, the divine Logos and human language, and moreover that
the work of Thomas Aquinas contains a Christological foundation for
language. Étienne Gilson evoked it in a letter speaking of “the amazing
words of St. Thomas, that language is an analogue of the Incarnation
of the Word.”144 J. M. Schoot explores it in his book Christ the Name of
God.145 Metaphysics may understand this specular copresence of God
141

Ibid.
Ibid.
143
Cf. Rousselot, L’intellectualisme.
144
“Letter of Étienne Gilson to Jacques Maritain, 6th April 1953,” in Étienne Gilson
et Jacques Maritain: Deux approches de l’être: Correspondance 1923–1971, ed. G.
Prouvost (Paris: Vrin, 1991), 187. Cf. ST I, q. 27 and the explicative note 6 by H.-M.
Dondaine, Revue des Jeunes: La Trinité 1 (Paris: Société Saint-Jean-l’Évangéliste-Desclées, 1946), 161–62; SCG N ch.11; Quaestiones diputatae de potentia, q. 2, a. 1 and
q. 9, a. 5; and the commentary of these passages by D. Millet-Gérard, Claudel thomiste?, Littérature de notre siècle 9 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999).
145
Schoot, Christ the Name of God explores this analogy at length. The analogy with
the Incarnation concerns first of all the structure of language, combining sound and
meaning. A champion of Christological apophatism, Thomas Aquinas nevertheless
proposes an approximation of the hypostatic union in a comparison with language:
for example, the union of sense and sound in phonation (ST III, q. 6, a. 6, obj. 3 and
ad 3 [about the Incarnation]; III, q. 62, a. 4, ad 1 [about grace]; III, q. 60, a. 6 c. [about
the overall fittingness of these mysteries with anthropology]). Christ is “the way, the
truth and the life”: the signifier, the signified and the referent. Logos means: Jesus’s
own Word, the Word on Jesus, Jesus himself. This is wonderfully embedded in the
enunciative structure of the Gospels itself: see the description of its Möbius-strip
structure in O.-T. Venard, Pagina sacra: Le passage de l’Écriture sainte à l’écriture
théologique illustré par l’exemple de saint Thomas d’Aquin, Théologiques (Geneva: Ad
Solem-Le Cerf, 2010), chap. 4, section 1.
142

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and human mind or language as the noetic expression of the sophisticated causality of the aitia that Thomas inherits from Dionysius, according to which the cause may be simultaneous with its effects, since they
define the cause qua cause.146
The NT interprets this copresence Christologically. We cannot do
anything good but in Christ,147 to whose body we belong; trying to seize
him is first having be seized by him.148 In a total biblical and theological
coherence,149 Aquinas continually spoke of God and Christ as the goal,
the cause and the fuel of his study: God being both the object we strive
to see, and the giver of sight and light.
Transition
The acts of speaking and writing, signs of the act of thinking, become
nearly sacramental, active participation in the Word of God himself experienced rather than understood conceptually. Therefore we should not
refrain from speaking of God—to the contrary. That seems to be one of
the best ways to approach him—an experience we preachers do daily,
do we not?
Conclusion
In conclusion, allow me to make two points: one about metaphysics and
the other about theology. First, Étienne Gilson warned us several decades ago: “Reason does not like what it cannot conceive of, and since
existence is unconceivable, philosophy strives at avoiding it. . . . However, unless Thomism endeavors to be in touch with the heart of reality, he
146

Milbank and Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas, 31–32.
Eph 2:10.
148
Phil 3:8–11.
149
J.-P. Torrell, Saint Thomas d’Aquin, maître spirituel: Initiation 2, Vestigia 19 (Fribourg:—Éditions Universitaires de Fribourg-Cerf, 1996), 122 : “De la foi à la béatitude, en passant par l’expérience des ‘missions divines,’ le croyant expérimente Dieu
comme sublime: ‘S’il existait une réalité qui fût simultanément la source de la capacité de voir et la réalité vue elle-même, il faudrait que celui qui voit reçoive de cette
réalité et la capacité de voir et la ‘forme’ par laquelle le voir s’actualise” (ST I, q. 12, a.
2). Compte tenu du fait qu’ici-bas “nous marchons dans la foi et non dans la claire
vision,” c’est exactement ce qui se produit dans cette présence spéciale [mission dans
l’âme]: Dieu ne vient pas seulement à la rencontre de l’homme, il lui donne encore et
en même temps la possibilité de le rencontrer.”
147

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Olivier-Thomas Venard, O.P.

will not be fruitful,” especially in the problématique of God.150 It may be
that we will not be able to stay in touch with the heart of reality unless
we pay equal attention to word and language, which enable the metaphysics of judgment.
Second, if we study theology not only as a doctrine but also as a poetics, we discover an Aquinas even more “biblical” than we could imagine.
The biblical shifts from semantic to pragmatic and from predication to
deixis mainly point to an experience within the word, which refers to “the
unattainable yet inescapable interlocutor beyond every name”—an experience of “sensing its incomprehensibility,”151 culminating in prayer152 and
liturgy,153 where “speech . . . acts by transporting itself in the direction of
the One whom it denominates.”154 Perhaps we should re-envisage theology as doxology.
Indeed, in a language human beings can understand, could a God
creator of free creatures say anything but “I AM,” and invite his audience
to believe him? By plainly uttering himself, God gives a sign of both omnipotence and weakness: omnipotence because “he [has] no one greater
by whom to swear, so he [swears] by himself ”155 and weakness because
his words, necessarily human if they are to be understood by human beings, will be inserted in the games of human languages marked by sin and
death. Hence the deeply moving sentence by Northrop Frye: “as soon as
God condescends to speak, he dooms himself to death.”156 This culminates
in Jesus. What brings about Jesus’s death is the tautological structure of his

150

Gilson, Le thomisme, 65.
Basil quoted by Marion, In Excess, 151. “God remains incomprehensible, not imperceptible—without adequate concept, not without giving intuition . . . undoing of
knowledge arising from an excess, not a lack” (ibid., 160).
152
Cf. the circular shaping of prayer as described by J.-L. Chrétien, “La parole blessée,”
in Phénoménologie et théologie, Criterion idées, ed. M. Henry and J.-L. Marion (Paris: Criterion, 1992), 55.
153
Marion, In Excess, 157: “it is never a matter of speaking of God, but always of speaking to God.”
154
Ibid., 140.
155
Heb 6:13.
156
See N. Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1982); C. Malamoud, trans., Le Grand Code: La Bible et la littérature, Poétique
(Paris: Seuil, 1984), 1:168.
151

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words. Their significance ends up depending on himself, or more precisely, on what his interlocutor believes he is.
The phenomenology of prayer as an ongoing quarrel of lovers that
can be quenched only by continuing to speak with one another and not
by quitting157 might illuminate the sublime explicit of the treatise De ente
et essentia, where Aquinas, after having removed from God any composition of intentiones logicae, thus prohibiting to know God’s essence, speaks
of him as the finis et consummatio of the very act of speaking and teaching.158 Also, it helps us understand Thomas’s heroic endeavor of composing the Summa theologiae despite his acute awareness of the inadequacy
of language, but cum confidentia divini auxilii (ST, Proemium).159
Aquinas’s theology is entirely circumscribed in the circle of the divine
tautology: from the quid est Deus? of his childhood to the skillful Christological apophatism of the Tertia pars.
You have spoken well of me Thomas, what would you like for
a reward?
Nothing except you, my Lord!
This ventriloquy with the crucifix reenacts the specular experience of
Moses and the burning bush. The invitation of God and the response of
man mirroring one another culminate in the love of Christ for the sake
N&V
of Christ.

157

Chrétien, “La parole blessée,” 55.
“Sic ergo patet quomodo essentia est in substantiis et in accidentibus, et quomodo
in substantiis compositis et simplicibus, et qualiter in his omnibus et intentiones
universales logicae inveniuntur: excepto primo quod quidem est in fine simplicitatis, cui non convenit ratio generis aut speciei et per consequens nec definitio propter
suam simplicitatem, in quo sit finis et consummatio huius sermonis. Amen.” Thomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia, chap. 6, quoted by Gilson, Le thomisme, 132n3.
159
Aquinas is utterly faithful to the biblical pedagogy of prayer when he suggests that
man somehow always begs for himself when he prays to God, who waits for him to
open the door. Cf. ST II-II, q. 83, aa. 2, 15 and 16.
158

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1125

Expressing the Inexpressible: Naming the One God
in the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas and in
the Writings of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī
Joseph Ellul, O.P.

Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum)
Rome, Italy

By Way of an Explanation

THE TITLE OF THIS ESSAYrefers to an incident in the life of Thomas that occurred toward the end of his life as recounted by his biographers William of Tocco and Bernard Gui. While celebrating Mass in the
Chapel of St. Nicholas sometime around the saint’s feast day, Thomas
underwent a bewildering transformation. After that Mass it is said that
he never wrote further or even dictated anything. He even got rid of
his writing materials. To his secretary and close confidante, Reginald of
Piperno, who was astounded at such dramatic change in his Master, he
is said to have confided the following:
Reginald, my son, I will tell you a secret which you must not
repeat to anyone while I remain alive. All my writing is now at
an end; for such things have been revealed to me that all I have
taught and written seems quite trivial to me now. The only thing
I want now is that as God has put an end to my writing, He may
quickly end my life also.1
1

Bernard Gui, Vita 27, trans. Kenelm Foster, O.P. (The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents, trans. and ed. Kenelm Foster, O.P. (London: Long-

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

At this point one can only imagine the agonising turmoil taking place
within the soul of this man, who is not only considered the finest mind
in medieval western Christendom, but also an immensely prolific writer. The day after this mystical experience he is no longer capable of putting pen to paper in order to discourse on the divine mystery that he has
beheld and whom he had contemplated throughout his entire life. He
has found himself in the awesome situation of being humanly incapable
of expressing the inexpressible.
Comprehending and Naming God: The Status Quaestionis
It is true that any discourse about God can never dwell upon his essence,
which is unfathomable, but only on his relation to creatures and, particularly, to humanity, as St. Irenaeus has aptly pointed out:
As regards His greatness, therefore, it is not possible to know
God, for it is impossible that the Father can be measured; but
as regards His love (for this it is which leads us to God by His
Word), when we obey Him, we do always learn that there is so
great a God, and that it is He who by Himself has established,
and selected, and adorned, and contains all things; and among
all things, both ourselves and this our world.2
One encounters a similar argument among classical Muslim thinkers.
At the end of the twelfth century, the renowned Muslim philosopher-jurist Ibn Rušd (d. 1198) drew up a passionate defence of the study of
philosophy by way of a carefully constructed and tightly argued fatwa
entitled Decisive Treatise, Determining the Nature and Connection between Philosophy and Religion. The question posed at the beginning of
mans, Green; Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1959), 46. Cf. chap. 47 of the Ystoria sancti
Thome de Aquino by William of Tocco, chap. 24 of the Life by Calo, and most
famously chap. 79 of the first inquiry into canonization (or Bartholomew of Capua),
which appears on pp. 109–10 of this translation by Foster (“‘all that I have written
seems to me so much straw’”; “‘All that I have written seems to me like straw compared with what has now been revealed to me’”). See http://liberlocorumcommunium.blogspot.com/2010/07/bernard-gui-and-william-of-tocco-on.html.
2
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book IV, chap. XX, in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, The Apostolic Fathers—Justin Martyr—
Irenæus (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1885; reprint, 1993), 487.

The One God in Aquinas and al-Ġazālī

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this work is whether the study of philosophy was legitimate in the eyes
of Šarī a.3 He replies to this query in the following manner:
So we say: If the activity of philosophy is nothing more than
reflection upon existing things and consideration of them insofar as they are an indication of the Artisan—I mean insofar as
they are artefacts, for existing things indicate the Artisan only
through cognizance of the art in them, and the more complete
cognizance of the art in them is, the more complete is cognizance of the Artisan—and if the Law has recommended and
urged consideration of existing things, then it is evident that
what this name indicates is either obligatory or recommended
by the Law.4
Such a description of philosophy is, of course, more akin to what we
commonly refer to as natural theology, whose purpose is to prove the
existence of the creator and to provide a better understanding of God
through the perfection found in creatures and in the harmony of the
cosmos in general. Elaborating a parallel between aspects of Šarī a and
philosophy, Ibn Rušd later astutely substitutes wisdom (ḥikma) for philosophy (falsafa). In the Qurʾân one of the beautiful names of God is
al-Ḥakīm (the All-Wise). By adopting this strategy he therefore succeeded in giving philosophical discourse a Qurʾânic connotation, whereas
the commonly used term falsafa suggested something alien, non-Islamic and, for many orthodox theologians, anti-Islamic. The fundamental
question to be posed, however, is: to what extent does the human mind
apprehend the divine?
Naming presupposes some form of knowledge of the object named,
but to what extent is this notion valid within the context of discourse
3

He posed the question in the following way:
Now, the goal of this statement is for us to investigate, from the
perspective of law-based reflection, whether reflection upon philosophy
and the sciences of logic is permitted, prohibited, or commanded—and
this as a recommendation or as an obligation—by the Law.
The Book of the Decisive Treatise Determining the Connection between the Law and
Wisdom and Epistle Dedicatory, trans. Charles E. Butterworth (Provo, UT: Brigham
Young University Press, 2008), 1.
4
Ibid., 1–2.

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about God. Such is the status quaestionis of this essay. Throughout this
article I will propose a comparative analysis of how Thomas Aquinas
dealt with this issue in the Summa theologiae I, qq. 12–13, and the conclusions arrived at by classical Muslim kalām, particularly the teachings
of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī (d. 1111) concerning the names of God in the
Qurʾân.5
The Incomprehensibility of the Divine
Thomas Aquinas
Already in his Commentary on the Books of the Sentences Aquinas wrote
of God’s incomprehensibility in the sense that God always exceeds every kind of knowledge.6 Elsewhere he clearly demonstrates that comprehending God requires something more than merely seeing God.7 This
same argument is reiterated in De veritate:
The perfection of the intelligibility of the divine essence lies beyond the grasp of angelic and all created intellects in so far as
they have the power of knowing, because the truth by which
the divine essence is knowable surpasses the light by which any
created intellect knows. Consequently, it is impossible for any
5

It should be made clear at the outset that Thomas was in no way acquainted with this
work of al-Ġazālī. Like most medieval scholars, he knew of the Maqāsid al-Falāsifa
(The Aims of the Philosophers). This work consisted of an analysis of the main doctrines of al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā that were to be dismantled in its sequel, the Taḥāfut
al-Falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). However, when the former work
was translated at the end of the twelfth century from Arabic into Latin by Dominicus
Gundisalvi and Ibn Dāwūd the preface was left out. This resulted in the Maqāsid
being considered by the Scholastics, including Thomas, as a work detailing the main
teachings of al-Ġazālī.
6
See ST I, q. 12, a. 1, ad 1 and 3; a. 7, ad 2.
7
See Commentary on the Books of the Sentences III, d. 14. q. 1, art. 2, ad 1; On Truth
q.8, a.1, ad 9. Elsewhere in the Sentences, Aquinas remarks that:
God is knowable, however not that he is knowable so that his essence
may be comprehended. For every knower has knowledge of the thing
known, not according to the mode of the thing known, but according to
the mode of the knower. The mode of no creature, however, reaches the
height of the divine majesty. Hence, it is necessary that God is known
perfectly, as he knows himself, by no one.
Commentary on the Books of the Sentences I, d. 3, q. 1, a. 1; see http://dhspriory.org/
thomas/Sent1d3q1a1.htm.

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created intellect to comprehend the divine essence, not because
it does not know some part of the essence, but because it cannot
attain the perfect manner of knowing it.8
As seen from the above, Aquinas often relates negation and preeminence
closely. Beginning with ST I, q. 12, a. 6, Thomas outlines his doctrine of
divine incomprehensibility by first stating the question: Can a created
mind comprehend the essence of God? He replies by stating clearly that
“no created mind can attain the perfect sort of understanding that is
intrinsically possible of God’s essence.”
In the subsequent article he argues that “it is impossible for the created mind to attain that sort of understanding that is intrinsically possible of God’s essence”; it can, however, understand God, “more or less
perfectly according to the degree of the light of glory that floods it.”9
In article 11 of the same question he addresses the issue as to whether
any man in this life can see God’s essence. To this he replies that “mere
man cannot see the essence of God unless he be uplifted out of this mortal
life” because “our souls . . . cannot by nature know anything except what
has its form in matter or what can be known through such things . . . It is
impossible, therefore, that the soul while it lives normally on earth should
be raised to an understanding of that which is most intelligible of all, the
divine essence.”10
8

On Truth, q. 8, a. 2; see http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer8.htm#2. [Parallel
readings: De ver., q. 2, a. 2, ad 5–7; q. 20, a. 5; ST I, q. 12, a. 7; I-II, q. 4, a. 3, ad 1; III,
q. 10, a. 1; In III Sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 1; d. 27, q. 3, a. 2; In IV Sent., d. 49, q. 2, a. 3; In
Ephes. 5, lec. 3 (P. 13:490b); In I Tim. 6, lec. 3 (P. 13:618b); In De div. nom. I, lecs. 1–2
(P. 15:261b seq.; 269a seq.); De caritate, a. 10, ad 5; Super Ioan. I, lec. II (P. 10:312b);
Comp. Theol. I, c. 106; SCG III, ch. 55.]
9
ST I, q. 12, a. 7 c. All quotations from the Summa are taken from the English translation published by Blackfriars in conjunction with Eyre & Spottiswoode, London and
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964–66.
10
The same issue is discussed in De Trinitate, wherein he discusses the question as to
whether our intellect can behold the Divine form itself. In his reply he states:
We cannot know that God and other immaterial substances exist unless
we know somehow, in some confused way, what they are. Now we cannot
do this by knowing a proximate or remote genus, for God is in no genus,
since his essence is not distinct from his being: a condition required in
all genera, as Avicenna says. Created immaterial substances, however, are
indeed in a genus; but even though from the viewpoint of logic they share
the same remote genus of substance with sensible substances, from the

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

When he addresses the question as to whether we can know God by
our natural reason in this life, Thomas states: “We know about his relation to creatures—that he is the cause of them all; about the difference
between him and them—that nothing created is in him; and that his lack
of such things is not a deficiency in him but due to his transcendence.”11
He further refines his argument when he deals with the question:
Can we use any words to refer to God? Here he asserts:
We have seen already12 that in this life we do not see the essence
of God, we only know him from creatures;13 we think of him
as their source, and then as surpassing them all and as lacking
anything that is merely creaturely. It is the knowledge we have
of creatures that enables us to use words to refer to God, and so
these words do not express the divine essence as it is in itself. In
this they differ from a word like “man” which is intended to express by its meaning the essence of man as he is—for the meaning of “man” is given by the definition of a man which expresses
his essence; what a word means is the definition.14
He then replies to the first objection by stating that “God is said to have
no name, or to be beyond naming because his essence is beyond what
we understand of him and the meaning of the names we use.”15
viewpoint of physics they do not belong to the same genus, as neither do
heavenly and terrestrial bodies. For the corruptible and the incorruptible
do not belong to the same genus, as the Metaphysics says . . . In the case
of immaterial forms we know that they exist; and instead of knowing
what they are we have knowledge of them by way of negation, by way of
causality, and by way of transcendence. These are the same ways Dionysius
proposes in his Divine Names; and this is how Boethius understands that
we can know the divine form by removing all images, and not that we
know what it is.
De Trinitate, q. 6, a. 3; see http://dhspriory.org/thomas/BoethiusDeTr.htm#63.
11
ST I, q. 12, a. 12 c.
12
ST I, q. 12, a. 11.
13
This statement is reiterated in ST I q. 13, a. 8, resp: “God is not known to us in his
own nature but through his works.”
14
ST I, q. 13, a. 1 c. A footnote in the translation draws attention to the fact that “definition” (definitio) does not mean for Thomas primarily the explanation of the meaning
of a word; it shows forth the essence of a thing by giving its genus and difference.
15
Ibid.

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From the abovementioned texts, one notes that Thomas connects
each negation with some affirmation. But for him there are also theological negations that are intimately bound with an all-pervading sense
of God’s transcendence. For Thomas this inability to comprehend the
divine essence is not so much agnōsia but rather apophasis, or what the
Orthodox theologian Martin Begzos considers as its equivalent in Latin
terminology, theologia superlativa (transcending theology), rather than
theologia negativa. Negation is only one factor of apophasis.16 Names are
often removed from God, not because God lacks the perfections that
they signify, but because he is above and exceeds all creatures.
Thomas addresses the issue on two fronts, both of which have been
outlined by Gregory Rocca. The first one is that no creature (especially
the human in this life) by its own natural forces can possess what he
terms as “a quidditive grasp” of God’s essence.17 Human comprehension
of the divine is limited to the existence of God and what God is not.18 No
16

Marios P. Begzos, “Apophaticism in the Theology of the Eastern Church: The Modern Critical Function of a Traditional Theory,” in Greek Orthodox Theological Review
4, no. 4 (1996): 328.
17
Thomas had already dealt with this issue in q. 6, a.4 of De Trinitate, when he addressed the question as to whether our intellect could behold the divine form by
means of some speculative science, to which he replies:
We cannot know the essence of the separate substances through that
which we take from the senses. This is clear from what was said above.
But through sensible things we can arrive at a knowledge of the existence
of these substances and of some of their characteristics. So we cannot
know the quiddity of any separate substance by means of a speculative
science, though the speculative sciences enable us to know the existence
of these substances and some of their traits; for instance, that they are
intellectual, incorruptible, and the like. This is also the teaching of the
Commentator (i.e., Ibn Rušd [Averroes]). Avempace (Ibn Bağğa) was of
the opposite opinion; he thought that the quiddities of sensible things
adequately reveal immaterial quiddities; but, as the Commentator says,
this is clearly false, because quiddity is predicated of both almost in an
equivocal sense.
De Trinitate, q. 6, a. 4; see http://dhspriory.org/thomas/BoethiusDeTr.htm#63.
18
One already encounters his affirmation/negation duality in De Trinitate when
Thomas addresses the question of whether our intellect can behold the divine form
itself, to which he replies:
In the case of immaterial forms we know that they exist; and instead of
knowing what they are we have knowledge of them by way of negation,
by way of causality, and by way of transcendence. These are the same
ways Dionysius proposes in his Divine Names; and this is how Boethius

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creature can ever claim to possess a comprehensive, infinite grasp of the
divine essence. Although a “quidditative knowledge” of God is possible
in heaven through divine grace, a comprehensive knowledge of God by
the creature is never possible not even by God’s grace. The second one
is that God’s incomprehensibility continues even in eternity. The basic
distinction between Creator and creature is destined to remain.19
From the above it is evident that Thomas’s sense of God’s transcendence and preeminence is set within the tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius
and Boethius, but also of that of Gregory of Nyssa.20
Classical Muslim kalām as Represented by al-Ġazālī
Muslim theological thought knows its origins in the need to articulate
Muslim doctrine through the application of philosophical terms and arguments in order to meet the challenge of Eastern and Oriental Christian apologetics. Throughout the centuries such a necessity provided
a rich area for significant theological reflection and debate, beginning
with the question concerning the divine essence (dāt) and divine attributes (ṣifāt), as well as the resulting issue as to whether the Qurʾân as
understands that we can know the divine form by removing all images,
and not that we know what it is. The solution of the opposing arguments
is clear from what has been said; for the first arguments are based on
perfect knowledge of what a thing is, the others on imperfect knowledge
of the sort described.
De Trinitate, q. 6, a. 3; see http://dhspriory.org/thomas/BoethiusDeTr.htm#63.
19
Gregory P. Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2004), 47–48.
20
A particular passage from the latter’s work The Life of Moses provides some insight
on the matter under discussion:
The Divine is by its nature life-giving. Yet the characteristic of the divine
nature is to transcend all characteristics. Therefore he who thinks God is
something to be known does not have life, because he has turned from
true Being to what he considers by sense perception to have being.
True being is true life. This Being is inaccessible to knowledge. If then
the life-giving nature transcends knowledge, that which is perceived
certainly is not life. It is not in the nature of what is not life to be the
cause of life. Thus, what Moses yearned for is satisfied by the very things
which leave his desire unsatisfied.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett
Ferguson, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), Book II,
nn. 234–35, 115.

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the Word of God was created or uncreated.21 Classical Muslim kalām
draws its doctrine concerning the incomprehensibility of God first and
foremost from the Qurʾân. The so-called “Verse of the Throne” (quoted
below) offers one avenue of inspiration:
God,
There is no god but He,
Living and Everlasting.
Neither slumber overtakes Him nor sleep.
To Him belongs what is in the heavens and what is on earth.
Who shall intercede with Him except by His leave?
He knows their present affairs and their past.
And they do not grasp of His knowledge except what He wills.
His throne encompasses the heavens and the earth;
Preserving them is no burden to Him.
He is the Exalted the Majestic.
(Q. 2:255)22
In his famous treatise Al-Maqṣad al-asnā fī [maʿānī] šarḥ asmāʾ Allāh
al-ḥusnā (The Best Means in Explaining the Most Beautiful Names of
God) the renowned medieval Muslim theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī
(d. 1111) puts forward what would have been regarded in his time as a
mainstream orthodox exposition of the Names of God. Throughout this
treatise he is careful to deflect the issue from questions concerning the
21

Here it would be interesting to take note of Robert Haddad’s observation that the
entire debate took place concomitantly with the heated controversy that was raging
within the confines of the Byzantine Empire, namely iconoclasm:
In pursuing selectively the theme of mutuality of questions posed and
answers given, it would be appropriate to begin with what is for each
tradition the central event: God’s supreme revelation to man . . . the true
Islamic analogue to Christ is not Muḥammad but the Qurʾân, the divine
word revealed by God to the Arabian Prophet . . . The distance separating
the personal logos of Christianity from the impersonal logos of Islam has
appeared to virtually all Christians and Muslims unbridgeable. Yet even
in this divergence we do not fail to detect convergence. For the word
as person or as book raised a question of critical import: is this logos
created or uncreated?
Robert M. Haddad, “Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam: An Historical Overview,” Greek
Orthodox Theological Review, 31, no. 1–2 (1986): 18.
22
Unless otherwise stated, all citations from the Qurʾân are taken from Tarif Khalidi,
The Qur’an: A New Translation (New York: Viking, 2008). Parallel texts to the one
above are also found in the Bible. See, e.g., Is 40:12–14; 41:4.

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

nature of God himself, opting instead to discuss the capacities of the
subject who strives to apprehend him.23
In the presentation of their translation of al-Ġazālī’s work David
Burrell and Nazih Daher affirm that “names are more than attributes,
because God uses them of Himself.”24 What is of particular interest to
our discussion is the first part of this treatise wherein, according to Burrell and Daher, al-Ġazālī “canvasses some of the conceptual issues involved, such as differentiating name from attribute, outlining what is
involved in the act of naming, and how names relate to the objects they
purport to name.”25
According to al-Ġazālī there are two ways of knowing God, one
of them he refers to as “inadequate” and the other one he refers to as
“closed”:
The inadequate way consists of mentioning names and attributes and proceeding to compare them with what we know
from ourselves. For when we know ourselves to be powerful,
knowing, living, speaking, and hear those terms attributed to
God—great and glorious, or when we come to know them by
demonstration, in either case we understand them with an inadequate comprehension, much as the impotent person understood the pleasure of intercourse from what was described for
him of the pleasure of sweets. Indeed, our life, power and understanding are farther from the life, power, and understanding of God—great and glorious—than sugar’s sweetness is from
the pleasure of intercourse. In fact there is no correspondence
between them. The outcome of defining God—great and glorious—by these attributes, then, is by establishing imaginings
23

See Anna M. Gade, The Qur’an: An Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld, 2010), 207.
Al-Ghazālī, The Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God: Al-Maqṣad al-asnā fī šarḥ
asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, trans. David B. Burrell and Nazih Daher (Cambridge: Islamic
Texts Society, 1992), vii. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations from Ninety-Nine
Beautiful Names of God will be taken from this translation.
25
Ibid. In another work entitled Al-Iqtiṣād fī ‘l-iʿtiqād, he describes God’s eternal attributes by stating that they are “distinguishable from His essence and are eternal and
are subsistent in His essence” (zāʾidatun ʿalā dātihi wa-qadīmatun wa qāʾimatun bi
‘l-dāt). See Richard M. Frank, Al-Ghazālī and the Ashʿarite School (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1994), 48.
24

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and likenesses, and a sharing in the name. But the process of
comparison is cut short when it is said: Naught is as His likeness
(Q. 42:11), for He is living but not like living things, [52] powerful but not like powerful persons, much as you would say:
intercourse is pleasurable like sweets, but sexual pleasure is totally unlike that of sweets, although they do share in the name.
This amounts to saying that when we know God most high
to be living, powerful and knowing, we are only knowing ourselves, as we only know Him by way of ourselves.26
The second way (of knowing God)—the one that is closed—
consists in one’s waiting to attain all the “lordly” [i.e., divine]
attributes to the point of becoming a “lord,” much as a boy waits
until he matures to experience the pleasure of intercourse. But
this path is closed, since it is impossible that this reality be attained by anyone other than God the most high. There is no
other way to authentic knowledge than this, yet it is utterly
closed except for God the most high and holy One.27
The inability to know the divine essence is considered by al-Ġazālī to
be the foundation of mystical knowledge. The mystics (Ṣūfīs) are all the
wiser because they realize that there exists an unfathomable distance
between God and creatures that cannot be bridged:
If you say: what is the ultimate point of knowledge attained
by the “knowers” of God28 the most high? We would say: the
ultimate knowledge of the “knowers” lies in their inability to
know, in their realizing in fact that they do not know Him
and that it is utterly impossible for them to know Him; indeed
that it is impossible for anyone except God to know God with
26

Al-Ghazālī, Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, 39–40.
Ibid., 40.
28
This term belongs strictly to the mystical tradition in Islam. In the teachings of the
Ṣūfīs the name given to the mystic is ʿĀrif, the gnostic or adept. Hence the mystics
are considered as the “friends of God,” an elect circle to whom God grants maʿrifa,
the mystic knowledge that is the result of intuition, not of acquired learning. See
Margaret Smith, Studies in Early Mysticism in the Near and Middle East (Oxford:
Oneworld, 1995), 1–2.
27

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

an authentic knowledge comprehending the true nature of the
divine attributes.29
In his major work The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm
al-dīn),30 al-Ġazālī affirms that those who are happiest in the afterlife
would be ones whose love of God is the strongest. Now, love depends
upon knowledge, an affirmation that appears to be a well-known concept to him given that he leans toward science and toward the wise and
to whom he discloses this work.
Man is thus called in this world to know God by every means at his
disposal. But this knowledge will always remain imperfect while we still
live in the present world; it can only become complete in the afterlife. In
order to make his point al-Ġazālī employs the following analogy: “This
is like seeing a person at dusk before the diffusion of daylight and then
seeing him in full light: the only difference between the two circumstances is an increase in visibility. Hence, whenever imagination is prior
in perception, sight perfects and completes the imagination’s percep29

Al-Ghazālī, Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, 42. In a note concerning this passage, Burrell and Daher observe that there are striking parallels between this statement by al-Ġazālī on the one hand, and the thought of Maimonides and Aquinas on
the other. They first quote a passage from the Guide of the Perplexed, I:58:
Glory then to Him who is such that when the intellects contemplate
His essence, their apprehension turns into incapacity . . . and when the
tongues aspire to magnify Him by means of attributive qualifications, all
eloquence turns into weariness and incapacity!
The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1963), 137. As for Aquinas, they quote from his Expositio super Librum Boethii
de Trinitate, ed. Bruno Decker (Leiden; Brill, 1959), 2:
Since our understanding finds itself knowing God most perfectly when
it knows that the divine nature lies beyond whatever it can apprehend in
our present state, we can be said to know God as unknown, once we sum
up what knowledge we have of Him.
Both references are taken from al-Ġazālī, Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God,
186n29.
30
It is worth noting that this work was undertaken at a decisive turning point in the
life of al-Ġazālī. He had abandoned his teaching career following a profound crisis
in which he realized, by his own admission, that he had pursued such a career for
reasons of worldly glory rather than out of genuine religious motivation. However,
he also hinted that he experienced a certain dissatisfaction with purely doctrinal and
intellectual approaches to religion. This led him to abandon theological speculation
in order to embrace a more experiential approach to religion by way of Taṣawwuf
(mysticism), thereby becoming an ascetic and adopting the mystical path.

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tion.”31 It is within this framework that he describes human happiness in
the afterlife as the vision of God (ruʾyat Allāh).
Furthermore, he uses the image of a seed that is planted in the soil to
portray the passage from the knowledge of God acquired in this world
to that enjoyed in the afterlife. The seed is not the tree, but it is from that
seed that the tree will issue forth. The seed itself will grow into a tree.
Therefore the tree cannot exist without the seed. In an analogous manner, God will reveal himself fully to the soul in proportion to what it had
already possessed of him here below: an inchoative knowledge that will
be transformed into vision. In sum, without a modicum of knowledge of
God in this life one cannot hope of knowing God in the afterlife.32
Al-Ġazālī also considers distinction in degrees of knowledge
of God among creatures:
You may ask: since it is inconceivable to know Him, how can
the ranks of angels, prophets, and holy men be said to differ in
knowing Him? I would respond: you already know that there are
two ways of knowing; one of them is the authentic way which is
in fact closed to all but God the most high. Every creature who is
moved to attain and perceive Him will be cast back by the splendour of His majesty,33 nor is there anyone who cranes his neck
31

See al-Ġazālī, Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment [Kitāb al-maḥabba wa
‘l-shawq wa ‘l-uns wa ‘l-riḍā], Book XXXVI of The Revival of the Religious Sciences [Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn], trans. Eric Ormsby (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society,
2011), 56. Further on, al-Ġazālī reiterates his position when he declares that “there
is no difference between direct seeing in the next world and that which can be
known here, except in a magnification of disclosure and lucidity” (ziyādat al-kašf
wa ‘l-wuḍūḥ); ibid., 59.
32
See René Perez, O.P., “La vision de Dieu en Islam,” in En homage au Père Jacques
Jomier, O.P., Études reunies et coordonnés par Marie-Thérèse Urvoy (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2002), 165–66.
33
This statement is a probable reference to Q. 7:143;
When Moses came to Our appointment and his Lord spoke to him,
he said: “My Lord, show me Yourself that I may look upon You.” He
said: “You shall not see Me, but look instead upon that mountain. If it
remains firmly in place you shall see Me.” When the glory of his Lord
appeared upon the mountain, it levelled it to the ground. Moses fell
down unconscious. When he came to, he said: “Glory be to You! I have

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

to see Him whose glance is not turned aside in amazement.34
The second way—knowledge of attributes and names—is open
to creatures and their ranking in it differs. For whoever (1)
knows that he—great and glorious—is knowing and powerful,
but in a general fashion, is not like the one who (2) witnesses
the wonders of His signs in the realm of the heavens and the
earth,35 and the creating of spirits and bodies, and examines
the wonders of the kingdom and the prodigies of workmanship;36 closely scrutinizing the details, inquiring into the fine
points of wisdom, acknowledging in full the subtleties of organization, and is so characterized by all the angelic attributes
which bring them close to God—great and glorious—that by
attaining these properties he is in fact characterized by them.
Between these two modes of knowing lies an immense distance which it is not possible to measure, while prophets and
holy men differ in these details and in their capacities.37
Thus knowledge of the divine essence is closed to all creatures, but
knowledge of the divine attributes is open to all but with varying degrees according to their ranks and capacities in apprehending them.
This is the underlying concept of al-Ġazālī’s treatise as well as the ultimate end of mysticism (taṣawwuf) as thought and practiced in Islam: that
repented before You and I am the first among believers.”
Al-Ghazālī, Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, 42–43.
35
“Have they not contemplated the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and all the
things God has created?” (Q. 7:184)
36
The Qurʾân constantly refers to God as creator who presides over the wonders of his
workmanship, such as in the following verses:
It is He Who created for you all that is on earth. Then He ascended to
heaven, and arrayed them in seven heavens. (Q. 2:29)
He it is Who created the heavens and earth in six days, then sat firmly
on the throne.
He knows whatever passes into the earth and whatever comes out thereof;
What comes down from heaven, and what ascends thereto;
He is with you wherever you may be; He knows full well what you do.
To Him belongs sovereignty of the heavens, and to God all matters shall
revert.
He it is Who entwines night with day, and day with night, and knows full
well what lies within breasts. (Q. 57:4–5)
37
Al-Ġazālī, Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, 43.
34

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1139

of acquiring “whatever possible of those attributes, to imitate them and be
adorned with their good qualities” (al-taẖalluq bi aẖlāq Illāh) by way of explaining the divine names. In this way “whoever aims at a likeness of their
qualities will attain something of their closeness to the extent that he acquires
some of their attributes which bring them closer to the Truth most high.”
Al-Ġazālī is well aware of certain doctrines among Muslim
mystics that appeared to have fallen afoul of orthodoxy. For this
reason he speaks of “closeness” rather than “union.”38
For this reason he reiterates unequivocally:
No one knows the essential reality of God’s knowledge—great
and glorious—without having a likeness of His knowledge. But
only God has that, since no-one other than Him know it. Others know it by comparing it with their own knowledge, as we
showed in the example comparing such knowledge to that of
sweets. But the knowledge of God—great and glorious—is totally unlike the knowledge of creatures, so the knowledge creatures have of Him will neither be perfect nor authentic, but illusory and anthropomorphic.39
Naming the Divine
Aquinas and the Divine Names
The term “union” (ittiḥād) was applied by, among other ṣūfīs, Abū Yazīd al-Biṣtāmī
(d. c. 875), who was a disciple of Abū ʿAlī al-Sindī, a Hindu convert to Islam. In one
of his famous sayings, which is clearly influenced by the Upaniṣads, he declares:
“I have shed my Ego as a serpent sheds its skin, then I regarded my essence, and
I was myself, He.” See al-Bīrūnī, Tārīẖ al-Hind, I:43, quoted in Smith, Early Mysticism in the Near and Middle East, 242. The original text in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka
Upaniṣad states: “As a snake’s slough, lifeless and discarded, lies on an anthill, so
lies this corpse. But this non-corporeal and immortal lifebreath (prāṇa) is nothing
but brahman, nothing but light.” See Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.7, in Upaniṣads,
trans. Patrick Olivelle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 65.
39
Al-Ghazālī, Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, 44.
38

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

Thomas Aquinas was unique among medieval thinkers in the way
he managed to employ the analogical language of Aristotle and combine it with the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius. This approach lies at the
basis of his analogical application of terms denoting perfection in both
God and creatures. Following Pseudo-Dionysius Thomas adopted as his
guiding principle the notion that God, who is the primordial and transcendent cause of all things, manifests himself in the world through a
diversity of perfections, such as “being,” “good,” “wise,” “living,” and so
on, which flow from the divine source into the effects found in creatures. The central question addressed by Thomas is whether such names
by which we purport to speak about God can be understood to be indeed names of God. In his ensuing analysis he attempts to steer a middle course between the apparently negative approach adopted by Mūsā
b. Maymūn (Maimonides)40 and the rationalistic claims put forward by
Alain de Lille and others, that there is such a thing as an adequate discourse on God. In the Summa theologiae I, q.13, a.2 he affirms that such
terms as the abovementioned
do say what God is; they are predicated of him in the category
of substance, but fail to represent adequately what he is. The
reason for this is that we speak of God as we know him, and
since we know him from creatures we can only speak of him
as they represent him. Any creature, in so far as it possesses
any perfection, represents God and is like to him, for he, being
simply and universally perfect, has pre-existing in himself the
perfections of all his creatures . . . But a creature is not like to
God as it is like to another member of its species or genus,
but resembles him as an effect may in some way resemble a
transcendent cause although failing to reproduce perfectly the
form of the cause—as in a certain way the forms of inferior
bodies imitate the power of the sun . . . Thus words like “good”
and “wise” when used of God do signify something that God
really is, but they signify it imperfectly because creatures rep-

40

See Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Friedländer, 2nd ed.
(New York: Dover, 1956), I:58.

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resent God imperfectly.41
This text highlights two principles of vital importance in monotheism,
whether Judeo-Christian or Islamic. The first is based on the underlying
tension between the Aristotelian notion that our knowledge is derived
from the senses42 and the Dionysian insistence that the perfection of the
cosmos mirrors divine perfection while remaining so unlike God.43 The
second lies in the terms res significata (the thing signified) and modus
significandi (the manner of being signified).44 Both confirm the assertion arrived at by Thomas in the preceding article that “neither way of
speaking measures up to his (i.e., God’s) way of being, for in this life
we do not know him as he is in himself.”45 Thomas clarifies his position
when replying to the question as to whether one can say anything literally about God in q. 13, art. 3. Here he demonstrates that some of God’s
names are predicated properly, that is to say “truly and really” and not
metaphorically. In his sed contra he judiciously invokes the authority
of Ambrose, who stated that “there are many ways of referring to God
which show forth clearly what is proper to divinity, and some which
express the luminous truth of the divine majesty, but there are others
which are used of God metaphorically and through a certain likeness.”46
This would lead him to conclude that:
God is known from the perfections that flow from him and are
41

ST I q. 13, a. 2, c. Aquinas would again raise the issue in q. 13 a. 6, obj. 1, when he
states that “Dionysius says that the language we use about God is derived from what
we say about creatures” (see On the Divine Names, chap. 1). Here he is reiterating a
statement made in a. 12, ad 1 of the same question, where he notes that “Dionysius
says that what we assert of God is loose (or, according to another translation, ‘incongruous’) because no word used of God is appropriate to him in its way of signifying.”
See On the Celestial Hierarchy, chap. 2.
42
Aristotle, Metaphysics I, 1 980a25; see ST I q. 84, a. 6.
43
See Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chap. 1.
44
In his reply to the third objection in q. 13, a. 1, Thomas affirms that “demonstrative
pronouns can be used of God in so far as they point, not to something seen, but to
something understood, for so long as we know something, in whatever way, we can
point it out. And thus according as nouns and participles and demonstrative pronouns can signify God, so in the same way relative pronouns can be used.”
45
ST I, q. 13, a. 1, ad 2.
46
Ambrose, De Fide II, prol. PL 16:583.

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

to be found in creatures yet which exist in him in a transcendent
way. We understand such perfections, however as we find them
in creatures, and as we understand them so we use words that
speak of them.47
What Aquinas is stating here is that God already possesses all the perfections of creatures because he is absolutely and universally perfect.
The application of the terms “good” and “wise” to God would therefore
imply that the quality of goodness that exists in creatures preexists in
God in a more excellent way. This affirmation leads him to discuss the
issue of whether words are predicated primarily of God or of creatures.
For this purpose, Thomas introduces terms that are applied metaphorically to God, such as “rock” and “lion.” This gives him the occasion to
articulate the distinction between metaphorical and nonmetaphorical
language. Concerning the former he states: “All words used metaphorically of God apply primarily to creatures and secondarily to God. When
used of God they signify merely a certain parallelism between God and
the creature.”48 However, he is also quick to point out that nonmetaphorical words applied to God “also say what he is”:
When we say he is good or wise we do not simply mean that
he causes wisdom or goodness, but that he possesses these perfections transcendently. We conclude, therefore, that from the
point of view of what the word means it is used primarily of
God and derivatively of creatures, for what the word means—
the perfection it signifies—flows from God to the creature. But
from the point of view of our use of the word we apply it first to
creatures because we know them first.49
What has been stated above paves the way for Aquinas to begin to
formulate a theology of the divine names. He classifies the attributes
that can be predicated of God in a threefold manner: negatively, attributively, and absolutely. He then lays emphasis on the third by asserting
47

ST I, q. 13, a. 3 c.
ST I, q. 13, a. 6 c.
49
Ibid.
48

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that those affirmative and absolute names that signify a proper truth
about God’s very being lie at the very heart of affirmative truth about
God’s essence.
In art. 4, Thomas then proceeds to discuss divine names such as
“Lord,” “Creator,” and “Saviour” within the context of the issue as to
whether such words imply temporal succession. Concerning the application of these names he replies that:
“Lord”. . . signifies nothing but a relation to creatures, though
it presupposes something about what he is, for he could not be
lord without his power which is his essence. Others, such as
“Saviour” or “Creator” which refer directly to an action of God
which is his essence . . . signify something on account of which
he has a relationship.50
During the course of this argumentation, Thomas is addressing the underlying question as to how one may speak about God in such a way that
his unknowable transcendence is respected and safeguarded.
He is now in a position to discuss whether one can apply a proper
name to Divinity. In q. 13, aa. 8–9, 11, Thomas comes up with two ways
of referring to God: the name “God” and the name “He who is.” Concerning the first he restates that “God is not known to us in his own nature, but through his works or effects . . . Hence ‘God’ is an operational
word in that it is an operation of God that makes us use it—for the word
is derived from his universal providence: everyone who uses the word
‘God’ has in mind one who cares for all things.”51 However, although
the name “God” has its etymological derivation from the act of providence, this same name is also used to signify the divine nature. While
reiterating the point he raised in q. 12, a. 12, that is to say that “nothing
created is in him; and that his lack of such things is not a deficiency in
him but due to his transcendence,” Aquinas is quick to point out that it is
precisely in this manner that “the word ‘God’ signifies the divine nature:
it is used to mean something that is above all that is, and that it is the

50
51

ST I, q. 13, a. 7, ad 1.
ST I, q. 13, a. 8 c.

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

source of all things and is distinct from them all.”52 This latter statement
affirms that for Thomas the threefold way by which we arrive at knowledge of God appears in the very meaning of the name “God,” which is
thus meant to designate the reality that is above all things, is the source
of all things, and is removed from all things. As for the second name,
“He who is,” Aquinas posits three reasons for its appropriateness in designating God: (1) because of its meaning, (2) because of its universality,
and (3) because of its tense (the present, because God’s being knows neither past nor future).53 In his reply to the first objection concerning the
incommunicability of God, Thomas summarizes the conclusions that he
had arrived at and then makes a surprising statement:
“He who is” is more appropriate than “God” because of what
makes us use the name in the first place, i.e., his existence, because of the unrestricted way in which it signifies him, and because of its tense, as we have just said. But when we consider
what the word is used to mean, we must admit that “God” is
more appropriate, for this is used to signify the divine nature.
Even more appropriate is the Tetragrammaton which is used to
signify the incommunicable and, if we could say such a thing,
individual substance of God.54
Concerning the name “He who is,” in q. 4, art. 2, Aquinas had already
referred to God as “self-subsistent being itself ” (ipsum esse per se subsistens), and that “nothing therefore of the perfection can be lacking
to God, who is subsistent existence itself.” In the light of what Thomas
states in q. 3, art. 4, ad 1, this latter phrase has to be taken to mean “unspecified existence,” that is to say, “that further specification is excluded
by definition.” Considered in this manner, “unspecified existence is divine existence.” Here, as with the case of the above-quoted text, Aquinas

52

ST I, q. 13, a. 8, ad 2.
ST I, q. 13, a.11 c. Regarding the present tense, Aquinas is quoting from Augustine’s
De Trinitate V:2. One should note that, whereas the application of the present tense
to God denotes his eternity in the Christian tradition, Islam applies the perfect tense
to divine activity for the same purpose.
54
ST I, q. 13, a. 11, ad 1.
53

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was clearly influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius.55 As for the Tetragrammaton being the most appropriate name, one might posit that Aquinas was
influenced by what Mūsā b. Maymūn (Maimonides) stated on this subject in his work The Guide for the Perplexed:
It is well known that all the names of God occurring in Scripture are derived from His actions, except one, namely the Tetragrammaton, which consists of the letters yod, hé, vau and hé.
This name is applied exclusively to God, and is on that account
called Shem ha-meforash, the “nomen proprium.” It is the distinct and exclusive designation of the Divine Being; whilst His
other names are common nouns and are derived from actions,
to which some of our own are similar.56
Throughout the whole of q. 13, Thomas discusses several types of names
figuring in the Judeo-Christian tradition, all of which are biblical. He
begins by discussing names denoting perfection, such as “wise,” “good,”
“living,” which constitute the main focus of the analysis. As noted above,
he then proceeds to discuss metaphorical or symbolic names, such as
“lion,” “rock,” and so forth, all of which include a material aspect in their
meaning. Consequently, he discusses names that signify God under
some relational aspect, such as “Lord,” “Creator,” and “Saviour.” He finally focuses his attention on those names deemed special, such as “God,”
“He who is,” and the Tetragrammaton. Perhaps the best explanation for
the reason behind this “crescendo” has been provided by Rudi te Velde:
Thomas is not so much concerned with the question of which names
in particular can be attributed to God . . . but how God can be named
by us, that is: how the factual human discourse on God can be understood to be discourse about God . . . Thomas wants to make it understandable how human names—names which derive their meaning
from “our” world—can be names which are somehow appropriate to
God and by which something of God is disclosed to us.57
55

See Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names, chap. 5.
Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, chap. LXI, 89.
57
Rudi te Velde, Aquinas on God: The “Divine Science” of the Summa Theologiae (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 96.
56

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Naming the Divine in the Theology of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī
The question of how to address the divine in Islam has its roots in
the Qurʾân itself and its reference to the “most beautiful names of God”
(asmāʾ Allah al-ḥusnā).58
The actual terms that comprise the names may typically (though
not necessarily) be found at the end sections of the Qurʾân, often appearing in pairs, such as in Q. 22:59 (God is Omniscient, All-Forbearing), v. 61 (He is All-Hearing and All-Seeing), v. 62 (God is the All-Exalted, All-Supreme), v. 63 (God is All-Benign, All-Experienced), v. 64
(God is All-Sufficient, All-Praiseworthy), v. 74 (God is All-Powerful,
Almighty).59 One may find a partial list of the names in the concluding
verses of Q. 59.60
According to Muslim tradition, there are said to be ninety-nine
58

Q. 7:180; 17:110; 20:8; esp. 59:22–24.
Qurʾânic evidence for the practice of the invocation and recitation of the Ninety-Nine Names of God is to be found in two exhortations:
Say: “Call upon God, or call upon the All-Merciful: whichever you call
upon, to Him belong the names most glorious.”
Do not raise your voice in prayer, nor whisper it, but seek a middle way
between. (Q. 17:110)
To God belong the names most exalted. Worship Him through them and
forsake those who blaspheme His names. They shall be requited for what
they committed. (Q. 7:180)
See also Q. 24:18.20.21.63; Q. 30:50.54, etc.
60
Here one may also note that each of the verses is introduced by the repeated formula
“He is God”:
He is God,
There is no god but He,
Knower of the Unseen and the Seen,
All-Merciful, Compassionate to each
He is God,
There is no god but He,
Sovereign, All-Holy, the Bringer of Peace,
The All-faithful, the All-Perseverer,
The Almighty, the All-Compelling,
The All-Sublime!
Glory to Him far above what they associate with Him!
He is God,
The Creator, Originator, Giver of Forms,
To Him belong the names most beautiful;
All on earth and in heaven magnify Him;
He is the Almighty, the All-Wise! (Q. 59:22–24)
59

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names, a substantial number of which appear in the Qurʾân. The other
names that complete the list of ninety-nine are derived from Qurʾânic
themes. The number ninety-nine is based on a saying (ḥadīt), of the
Prophet and which is found in the major official collections, beginning with that of al-Buharī, which says, “Narrated Abū Hurayra: ‘Allah’s
Apostle said, Allah has ninety-nine names, i.e. one-hundred minus one,
and whoever knows them will go to Paradise.’” 61
In his treatise al-Ġazālī presents an essentially mystical ṣūfī exegesis
of the divine names together with a profound analysis of the general and
theoretical problems that they raise. This approach is evident from the
way he poses the status quaestionis:
Many have plunged into the matter of the name and the thing
named, and taken different directions, and most of the groups
have deviated from the truth. Some say (A) that the name is
the same as the thing named, but other than the act of naming,
while others say (B) the name is other than the thing named,
but the same as the act of naming. Still a third group, known
for its cleverness in constructing arguments and in polemics
[kalām], claims (C) that the name (C.1) can be the same as the
thing named, as we say of God most high that He is essence
and existent; and that the name can also be other than the thing
named, as in our saying that God is creator and provider. For
these indicate creating and providing, which are other than
Him. So it can be such that the name (C2) may not be said either to be the same as the thing named or other than it, as when
we say “knowing” and “powerful”: both refer to knowing and
power, yet attributes of God cannot be said to be the same as
God or other than Him.

61

Buhārī, Ṣaḥiḥ, vol. III, n. 894; see http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/bukhari/bh3/
bh3_893.htm. See also Muslim, Ṣaḥiḥ: Dikr, 5, 6; Tirmidī, Al-Ğāmiʿ, Daʿwāt, 82;
Ibn Māğa, Sunan, Duʿāʾ, 100. Recently the Ninety-Nine Most Beautiful Names of
God have become the inspiration behind a best-selling comic series created by Kuwaiti psychologist Nāīf al-Muṭawwaʿ. Its characters hail from a variety of countries.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8127699.stm; http://en.qantara.de/content/99-cartoons-islamic-super-heroes; http://www.the99.org/.

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

Here al-Ġazālī is referring to one of the most fiercely debated issues in
the classical period of Islam: the identification of or distinction between
divine essence and divine attributes. It involved the two major theological schools of that period, the Muʿtazila and the Ašʿariyya. As Robert
Caspar has clearly shown, the Muʿtazila adopted a strict interpretation
of monotheism. For them, monotheism required an uncompromising
observance of the transcendence and absolute unity of God. For them
God is pure essence without any attributes, because, from their point
of view, assigning attributes implied multiplicity. The Muʿtazila further
affirmed his internal unity: in God everything is one, with no distinction within the divine essence. Hence the attributes (ṣifāt) of knowledge,
power, will, speech, sight, and the like are identical with the divine essence (dāt). God knows, is capable, wills, speaks, sees, and so on, by his
essence, or rather by the attributes of knowledge, will, power, and the
like, identical with his essence. According to the Ašʿariyya, however,
the divine names and attributes,62 revealed or deduced, correspond to
realities in God and are not to be identified simply with his essence,
as the Muʿtazila declared. However, they are not something other than
God, who is one and indivisible. The Ašʿariyya apply the traditionalist
formula: they are “neither God nor anything other than God” (lā ʿaynuhu wa-lā ġayruhu), a rather inadequate formula for the theologian, but
which has the merit of respecting the mystery of God.63 He continues:
“Now the dispute (A, B) comes down to two points: (1) whether or not
the name is the same as the act of naming, and (2) whether or not the

62

As Robert Caspar rightly points out, “Islamic tradition draws a distinction between
the divine attributes (ṣifāt Allāh) and the beautiful names of God (asmāʾ Allāh
al-ḥusnā). The attributes are substantives indicating a quality, such as knowledge
(ʿilm) and power (qudra), whereas the names are what in European languages one
refers to as adjectives or present or passive participles, such as knowing (ʿālim) or
wise (ḥakīm). The names generally take precedence over the attributes, because they
are more frequent in the Qurʾân.” Robert Caspar, Islamic Theology, vol. II, Doctrines
(Rome: Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica, 2007), p. 63.
63
See Robert Caspar, A Historical Introduction to Islamic Theology (Rome: Pontificio
Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica, 1998), 178–79, 204ff. Concerning al-Ġazālī’s
engagement with the ideas of the Muʿtazila and the Ašʿariyya, see R. M. Frank,
“Currents and Crosscurrents,” in Islam: Essays on Scripture, Thought and Society:
A Festschrift in Honour of Anthony H. Johns, ed. Peter G. Riddell and Tony Street
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997), 126–32.

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name is identical with the thing named.”64 Al-Ġazālī replies that “the
name is different from both the act of naming and the thing named, and
that those three terms are distinct and not synonymous.”65 He proceeds
to discuss at some length the reasons for this conclusion. As for the third
position (C) he states that “the meaning of the name is other than the
name: the meaning of the name is the same as the thing indicated, and
the thing indicated is not the indication.”66
The method undertaken by al-Ġazālī in classifying the names of
God is of fundamental importance to our understanding of his theological approach. He takes as a basis the traditional distinctions between attributes of essence and attributes of action. The former are
subdivided into attributes that reveal the essence itself and those that
reveal eternal entities conjoined to this essence. Al-Ġazālī also explores other avenues derived from the theology of Ibn Sīnā. One may
here refer to the latter’s notions of negation (salb) and of relation (iḍāfa). In all he divides these attributes into ten categories,67 the first four
referring solely to the divine essence.
1. Those names referring to the divine essence without any other consideration, such as Allāh, and eventually al-Ḥaqq (the Truth),
when by this one understands the divine essence insofar as it is necessary existence.68
2. Those names indicating the divine essence with a negation
(maʿa salb). Among these one may include al-Quddūs (the All-Holy)
from whom everything that occurs to one’s mind or enters the imagination has been negated; al-Salām (the Bringer of Peace), which implies the negation of any defect in God; al-Ġanī, which means that

64

Al-Ġazālī, Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, 5. Here the author is associating
“name” with predicate and “thing named” with the subject of a descriptive sentence.
See ibid., 183n1.
65
Ibid., 6. In this instance, al-Ġazālī is associating “name” with word (or utterance),
the “act of naming” with knowledge, and the “thing named” with the object known.
See ibid., 183n2.
66
Ibid., 13.
67
Ibid., 159–61.
68
In this category the influence of Ibn Sīnā is evident. See Ibn Sīnā, The Healing: The
Metaphysics, trans. Michael Marmura (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press,
2005), Book I, chaps. 6-7.

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

God is devoid of need; al-Aḥad (the One), which implies that “there is
nothing like him”69 and that he is indivisible.
3. Those names referring to the divine essence, with an addition
(maʿa ‘l-iḍāfa) such as al-ʿAlī (the All-Exalted, superior in degree to all
other essences), al-ʿAẓīm (the Tremendous, transcending the limits of
human perceptions), al-ʾAwwal (The First)—al-ʾÂhir (the Last [Before
and subsequent to the final end of all existing things]), al-Ẓāhir (the Manifest [the Essence with respect to rational demonstration]), al-Bāṭin (the
Hidden, the Essence in relation to sense perception and imagination).
4. Those names referring to the divine essence with both a negation
and an affirmation, such as al-Malik (the Sovereign), which signifies
both that God needs nothing (negation) and that all are in need of him
(affirmation); al-ʿAzīz (the Almighty), which signifies that none is like
unto him70 and whose level is difficult to attain or to achieve.
The four categories referring to the eternal attributes are the following.
5. Those names referring to one or the other of the seven eternal
attributes, such as al-ʿAlīm (the Omniscient), al-Qādir (the Potent), alḤayy (the Living), al-Samīʿ (the All-Hearing), al-Baṣīr (the All-Seeing).
6. Those names referring to divine knowledge together with something in addition (maʿa ‘l-iḍāfa), such as: al-Habīr (the All-Experienced), which refers to divine knowledge in so far as it concerns what
is hidden; al-Šahīd (Knower of the Seen), referring to divine knowledge
in relation to hidden things; al-Ḥakīm (the All-Wise), which refers to
divine knowledge in relation to the noblest things known (ašraf almaʿlūmāt); al-Muḥṣī (the Reckoner), referring to divine knowledge in
relation to things numbered and computed.
7. Those names referring to the divine power with something more
added (maʿa ziyādati iḍāfa), such as: al-Qahhār (the Over-powering),
al-Qawī (the All-Powerful), al-Muqtadir (the Powerful), al-Matīn (the
Ever-Unyielding). In fact they refer rather to different aspects of this
same power. Al-Ġazālī would state that quwwa denotes the perfection of
divine power; its firmness matāna, its intensity (šidda); its dominating
effects (qahr) in being able to conquer.
69

Q. 42:11. The translation of this verse is taken from M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, trans.,
The Qur’an, parallel arabic text (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
70
Ibid.

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8. Those names referring to the divine will with something added or in connection with action (maʿa iḍāfa aw maʿa fiʿl), such as: alRaḥmān (the All-Merciful), al-Raḥīm (the Compassionate), al-Raʾūf
(the Truly Kind), al-Wadūd (the Most Loving). According to al-Ġazālī,
they all refer to the divine will in relation to a good deed or to fulfilling
the needs of the weak.
The final two categories denote those names referring to divine acts.
9. Those names referring exclusively to divine acts, such as al-Hāliq
(the Creator), al-Barīʾ (the Originator), al-Muṣawwir (the Giver of
Forms), al-Wahhāb (the Bestower), al-Razzāq (the Provider), al-Fattāḥ (the All-Decider), al-Qābḍ (the Withholder), al-Bāsit (the Giver in
abundance), al-Ḥāfiḍ (the Guardian over all things), al-Rāfiʿ (the Exalter), al-Muʿizz (the Exalter), al-Mudill (the Abaser), al-ʿAdl (the Equitable), al-Muqīt (the Nourisher), al-Muḥyī (the Giver of life), al-Mumīt
(the Causer of death), al-Muqaddim (the Advancer), al-Mu’aẖẖir (the
Retarder), al-Wālī (the Governor), al-Barr (the All-Generous), al-Tawwāb (the Acceptor of Repentance), al-Muntaqim (the Avenger), alMuqsit (the Upholder of Justice), al-Ğāmiʿ (the Gatherer of mankind),
al-Manīʿ (the Preventer of harm), al-Muġnī the Enricher), al-Hadī (the
Guide), and so on.
10. Those names referring to divine action with something more
(maʿa ‘l-ziyāda), that is to say, introducing a supplementary consideration, such as al-Mağīd (the All-Glorious), which recalls both the immense generosity of God and the nobility of his essence; al-Karīm (the
Most Generous); al-Laṭīf (the All-Benign), which combine gentleness in
action (al-rifq fī ‘l-fiʿl) with sensitivity in perception (al-luṭf fī ‘l-idrāk).
Al-Ġazālī draws a distinction between whatever pertains to a name
(ism) and whatever pertains to an attribute (waṣf): “whatever pertains to
names is based on [divine] authorization, whereas whatever pertains to
attributes is not based on authorization; rather the ones that are authentic are acceptable, but not the false ones” (al-ṣādiq minhu mubāḥan dūna
‘l-kādib).71 A name is different from an attribute; it is “an utterance imposed to indicate the thing named,” such as “Zayd,” “Qāsim,” and “ʿAbd
Allāh,” but it is not a description. When an attribute is chosen for a name
it loses its function as predicate: naming a child “ʿAbd al-Malik” does
71

See al-Ġazālī, Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, 177.

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

not imply that the individual concerned is a servant of the king. The
same applies to “ʿAbd Allāh” (servant of God “where we form its plural
by a single word ʿAbādila rather than two: ʿIbād Allāh”). Attributes, on
the other hand, “are predicates of something” and are therefore descriptive in their function. If somebody whose name is Zayd is fair and tall
he can be correctly addressed as “O tall one” or “O fair one,” “but that
would forego using his name, for his name is Zayd and not the-tall-one
nor the-fair-one.” Therefore “a name is an utterance imposed to indicate
the thing named.”72 For this reason al-Ġazālī argues that “each individual’s name is what he names himself or what anyone with authority over
him, such as his father or his master, has named him”; hence “naming
is limited to these.”73 This statement leads al-Ġazālī to pose the question
as to how we can give names to God. He begins by answering that “the
evidence that it is forbidden to assign names to God—may he be praised
and exalted—is that it is forbidden to assign them to the Prophet—may
God’s blessing and peace be upon him, except for those he gave to himself or those given him by his Lord or his father.” By way of analogy
what is forbidden with respect to the Prophet is perforce forbidden with
respect to God. To this he adds, “This is the sort of juridical analogy on
the likes of which judgments regarding divine law are based.”74 Thus, as
al-Ġazālī had stated at the beginning of his tract, the name Allāh
is the greatest of the ninety-nine names of God—great and glorious—because it refers to the essence which unites all the attributes of divinity, so that none of them is left out, whereas each
of the remaining names only refers to a single attribute: knowledge, power, agency, and the rest. It is also the most specific of
the names, since no one uses it for anyone other than Him, neither literally nor metaphorically, whereas the rest of the names
may name things other than He.75
72

Ibid.
Ibid., 178.
74
Ibid., 178–79.
75
Ibid., 51. Following this description, later Muslim theologians have asserted that
the name Allah is “the proper name of the one who is necessarily existent in himself
and deserves all praises.” Because it designates the oneness of God, the word has no
plural form, and no one can be named with it except God. The root of the name is,
73

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1153

However, he also points out at the very end of his tract that
when an expression which does not suggest [any imperfection]
at all among those who share a common understanding is taken
to be true of God, and when revelation does not expressly forbid it, then we freely permit its being applied to God.76
On account of the above al-Ġazālī affirms that “divine instruction mentions names other than the ninety-nine”;77 these, however, have been
singled out because “they would bring together varieties of meanings
which tell of [the divine] majesty which another set of meanings would
not be able to bring together, so that the combination is possessed of the
greater distinction.”78
Conclusion
In the light of the above, one can now draw certain conclusions concerning both differences and similarities in the approach taken by Aquinas and al-Ġazālī concerning the incomprehensibility of God and the
names given to him.
In the first place, one detects two differences with regard to the
fundamental principle underlying their approach to this issue, one that
also influences their respective methodologies. The first is that Thomas
invariably discusses the incomprehensibility of God within the framework of the relation between faith and reason. In Muslim kalām, however, the issue was never discussed in such a context but rather within that
of the relation between philosophy and religion, that is to say, whether
the study and practice of philosophy was legitimate within Islam as a
religion. Al-Ġazālī, in fact, was quite particular in this area. He admitted
the study of logic and related sciences but criticized Islamic philosophers for their indiscriminate application of Aristotelian metaphysics
to the detriment of theological discourse and the understanding of the
of course, al-ilāh, or literally “the God.” The definite article and the name were contracted into one and became Allah. See Zeri Saritoprak, “Allah,” in The Qurʾan: An
Encyclopedia, ed. Oliver Leaman (London: Routledge, 2006), 33–41.
76
Al-Ġazālī, Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, 181.
77
Ibid., 167.
78
Ibid., 172.

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

Qurʾân. The second basic difference is that Thomas discusses the issue
of knowing and naming God as a necessary premise to his later discussion of the Trinity, a mystery that is vehemently denied by the Qurʿân,
and to the extent that it is portrayed there, it is certainly not the one held
by Christian theology.79
Another difference lies in the fact that, whereas both Aquinas and
al-Ġazālī are in agreement about the incomprehensibility of the divine
essence, the former discusses knowledge of God through knowledge of
creatures and his relation to them. Therefore Aquinas examines the issue
within the context of his previous discussion on the analogy of perfection,
beginning with creatures and culminating in God. Al-Ġazālī, on the other
hand, examines the issue from the perspective of the knowledge one has
of the divine attributes. He sets out his argument by referring to the centuries-old debate in Islam on whether a distinction exists between divine
essence and divine attributes. He is forced into this discussion in order to
avoid the two extreme positions held within Muslim theological circles.
The first denied the appropriateness of divine attributes (the Muʿtazila);
whereas the second took descriptions of God in Qurʿânic texts at face
value thereby tending toward anthropomorphism (the Ašʿariyya).
Both Aquinas and al-Ġazālī have their preference as to which name
is the most appropriate and supreme: the former opts for the Tetragrammaton, whereas the latter prefers Allāh. In both cases their preference is
determined by a name that refers to the divine substance.
Concerning the incomprehensibility of God, both Aquinas and alĠazālī draw similar conclusions. Both relate negation to preeminence.
Only God knows himself. Hence such a degree of knowledge is unattainable by creatures and is closed to the human mind. Consequently,
the divine essence remains opaque to human comprehension. Regarding knowledge of God, both agree that the only available avenue of approach is by way of human experience, similitude, and association.
Both scholars refer to descriptions of God by way of analogy. What
is stated about the perfection of creatures is to be found preeminently
79

See Q. 5:73.116. Whereas for the Qurʾân Christians remain “People of the Book”
(Ahl al-Kitāb), there always remains a certain hesitation as to whether they should be
deemed monotheists (see, e.g., Q. 2:62; 3:110–15; 4:55; 5:69.82), unbelievers (kuffār,
see Q. 5:17.72–73; 9:30), or associators (mušrikūn, see 5:31.72).

The One God in Aquinas and al-Ġazālī

1155

and in all its perfection in God himself. As for certain graphic descriptions used in theological discourse, Aquinas applies the term “metaphors” whereas al-Ġazālī uses the phrase “imaginings and likenesses.”
Both Aquinas and al-Ġazālī accept that knowledge of God on the
part of creatures varies according to their status, that is to say, according
to the degree of perfection that they possess. Both agree that such perfection in creatures always remains a gift from God.
Both Aquinas and al-Ġazālī draw distinctions between metaphorical and nonmetaphorical terms applied to divine action and to God’s
relation to creatures. They do so by developing their arguments in a similar manner referring to the distinction between the object named and
its meaning.
Both scholars agree that naming the attributes does not even remotely grasp the full significance of the divine essence because they remain descriptive in their function and have as their terminus ad quem
the human vision of the cosmos.
In the final analysis, both Thomas Aquinas and Abū Ḥāmid alĠazālī were theologians and spiritual masters whose lives and works
were grounded in the continuous quest for God in his utter transcendence as divine essence as well as in his immanence through human
language and experience. Their respective approaches to the mystery of
God stand as a worthy example of dialogue across the borders of time,
space and cultures. They have bequeathed a legacy to subsequent generations that serves as a basis for future Christian-Muslim dialogue in an
age of mass communication and globalization.
Even more so than in the past, it is incumbent on all believers and,
particularly in the context of this essay, Christians and Muslims to seek
what lies at the heart of their religious beliefs and practices. They are
called upon to talk more of and about God in their encounters. Failure
to do so would reduce both Christianity and Islam to mere ideologies
that simply offer themselves as alternatives to already existing ones. In
his masterpiece Tahâfut al-Falâsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), al-Ġazālī came up with the following statement that deserves to
be inscribed in characters of gold:
The harm inflicted on religion by those who defend it in a way
not proper to it is greater than [the harm caused by] those who

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Joseph Ellul, O.P.

attack it in a way proper to it. As it has been said: “A rational foe
is better than an ignorant friend.”80
The underlying threat facing modern secular societies today is not a
“clash of civilizations.” It is rather a confrontation between a secularism
that is being transformed into a religion and an Islam that is being increasingly portrayed as an ideology.
On the one hand, we have a secularism that is becoming increasingly obsessed with wanting to edit religion out of the public forum by
applying means that are reminiscent of a religious fanaticism of bygone
times: ridicule, demonize, and destroy. Contrary to secularity, secularism is not happy with the mere drawing of the distinction between religion and state and the necessity on the part of both to maintain their
autonomy while at the same time collaborating for the common good.
As a movement secularism is bent on desecrating all those symbols and
beliefs that religious people hold dear, and which they consider an integral part of their life and which define their role in society. It does
not limit itself to criticizing religious beliefs and attitudes; it enthusiastically holds them up to public ridicule in order to humiliate them
and, subsequently, edit them out of existence permanently.81 At the same
time, European societies are being faced with Islamic movements that
seek to present religious belief and conduct as homogenous, doing away
with inculturation and seeking to present a standard mode of belief and
conduct. The sometimes enforced wearing of the hiğāb (or the niqāb),
the increase in the number of Muslim men wearing long beards, the frequent branding of European societies as decadent, immoral and corrupt
are typical of this attitude.
This state of affairs is being aggravated by the continuous and
persistent application on the part of the secular media (especially by
80

Al-Ġazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, trans. Michael E. Marmura (Provo,
UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002), “Second Introduction,” no. 16, 6.
81
At the height of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, the Jyllands-Posten came up with a
cartoon depicting St. Joseph pointing an accusing finger at the Virgin Mary with the
child Jesus in her arms. The caption below it read: “I did not have sexual relations
with that woman!” Long before the film Submission was aired on Dutch television,
Theo van Gogh had already caused an uproar by pouring scorn and abuse on Dutch
Jews and by calling Jesus Christ “that rotten fish from Nazareth.” See Ian Buruma,
Murder in Amsterdam (London: Atlantic, 2006), 91.

The One God in Aquinas and al-Ġazālī

1157

so-called “religious affairs correspondents”) of ideological terms to religion, any religion. Terms such as “conservative,” “liberal,” “hardline,”
“progressive,” “radical,” and “moderate” make no sense in religion,
where God is supposed to lie at the centre of any discourse.
What has been stated throughout this article is meant to highlight
the necessity for both Christians and Muslims to return to the silent
contemplation of “the one God living and true, existing before all ages
and abiding for all eternity, dwelling in unapproachable light.”82 Both
communities should pay serious attention to this common calling and
the destiny toward which both are called, that of beholding “what no eye
has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has
N&V
prepared for those who love him.”83

82

The phrase is from the preface to the fourth Eucharistic prayer. The English translation is taken from The CTS New Sunday Missal, People’s Edition with the New
Translation of the Mass (London: Catholic Truth Society, 2011), 621.
83
1 Cor 2:9; see Is 64:4; 65:17. This is echoed in a ḥadīt found in the collection of
Buẖārī: Narrated Abū Hurayra, “Allah’s Apostle said: Allah said, ‘I have prepared for
My Pious slaves things which have never been seen by an eye, or heard by an ear,
or imagined by a human being.’ If you wish, you can recite this Verse from the Holy
Quran: ‘No soul knows what is kept hidden for them, of joy as a reward for what they
“used to do.’” (Q. 32:17). Buẖārī, Saḥīḥ, IVn467; see http://www.sacred-texts.com/
isl/bukhari/bh4/bh4_471.htm.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1159-1172

1159

Recovering a Doctrine of Providence: A Report
Michal Paluch, O.P.

The Dominican House of Studies
Cracow, Poland

I WILL TRY TO DELIVERin my article a report on some contempo-

rary attempts to recover Aquinas’s doctrine of providence.1 I shall start
by reconstructing the main lines of Thomas’s teaching and then present
the crucial debate on this issue that has been exhausting the energies of
Thomists for centuries. It will allow us to understand the background of
any attempt to recover a doctrine of providence. At the end I will formulate my suggestions concerning future research.
Thomas on Providence
Aquinas’s teaching on providence has been presented many times
over the last decades. There is no need to give a detailed reconstruction.2
His doctrine comprises four main statements.
1. The guidance of the divine providence embraces all beings.
2. Rational beings are guided in a special way.

1

The following reflections were originally delivered on July, 2, 2013, at the Dominican
House of Studies in Washington, DC, as part of the Dominicans and the Renewal of
Thomism Conference.
2
Cf. J. P. Rock, “Divine Providence in St. Thomas Aquinas,” in The Quest for the Absolute, ed. F. J. Adelmann (Chestnut Hill, MA: M. Nijhoff, 1966), 67–103; J.-P. Torrell,
“Dieu conduit toutes choses vers leur fin: Providence et gouvernement divin chez
Thomas d’Aquin,” in Ende und Vollendung: Eschatologische Perspektiven im Mittelalter, ed. J. A. Aertsen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), 561–94.

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Michal Paluch, O.P.

3. Providential guidance includes in itself contingent events and
free actions by humans.
4. The analogy that helps us to conceive the operation of providence is that of the virtue of prudence.
Ad 1: It is difficult to admit that all that happens may be seen as
submitted to the guidance of providence. There are so many events
that seem to be incomprehensible and absurd, given the existence
of some divine guidance. One cannot be surprised that theologians
and philosophers have always been tempted to reduce the scope of
providential guidance. In the thirteenth century, great patrons of such
interpretations were the Arabic thinkers Avicenna and Averroes on
the one hand and Moses Maimonides on the other. They limited the
interest of divine guidance to the maintenance of species. God does
not care about falling leaves in the autumn or about a particular spider
consuming a particular fly.3
Aquinas does not go in this direction. For him the scope of the divine guidance must be absolutely complete. If we had to admit to some
limits, they would compromise the perfection of divine sovereignty and
omnipotence. In addition, such limits would be incoherent with Thomas’s
metaphysics. It is only God who supplies being to every creature. So, everything that exists needs the constant influx of esse given by God and it is
unconceivable that something exists without God’s providential presence.
God’s presence is to be understood as providential because the gift
of being—making created nature exist—activates some order, some
plan inscribed in nature itself. Yet this plan cannot be properly discovered without its purpose and reached without additional divine help.
Providence is, because of that, interpreted by Thomas as the reason for
ordering things to their end (ratio ordinandorum in finem).4 This end
and purpose of all things must be divine goodness.
Ad 2: Although Aquinas does not follow Maimonides in reducing
the scope of divine guidance, he agrees with him about a special care by
3

Cf. Maïmonide, Le guide des égarés, c. 17, ed. S. Munk (Paris: A. Franck, 1856–66 ;
new ed., G. P. Maisonneuve, 1960), 3:129–30. For more about it with the short presentation of Arabic interpretations, see M. Paluch, La profondeur de l’amour: Évolution de la doctrine de la predestination dans l’oeuvre de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris:
Vrin, 2004), 123–25.
4
Cf. Summa theologiae I, q. 22, a. 1, resp.

Recovering a Doctrine of Providence

1161

providence for rational creatures. This special kind of guidance is connected with capacity: provided with reason and liberum arbitrium, rational beings are capable of directing themselves and attain this way, the level of similarity to the Creator that is out of reach for all the other beings.
The special type of providence concerning rational beings directed
to eternal life is called predestination. The interpretation of predestination as a special case of providence is not only some terminological
option. It opens a possibility to inscribe the doctrine of predestination
into a treatise on God. On the other hand the connection of providence
to predestination allows one to establish a relationship of divine guidance to Christology. It is thanks to Christ that we receive all the salutary
support we need.
Ad 3: The most important challenge to every doctrine of providence
is to explain how to combine divine guidance and contingency, God’s
action and human freedom. In the perspective adopted by Aquinas the
clue is divine transcendence. God is radically other than the created
world. Because of his radical otherness he does not enter into the same
order with the created world, although being its ultimate foundation.
Such a way of conceiving the mystery of God has important consequences. First of all, it gives an opportunity to see the connection between divine transcendence and immanence. Paradoxically, the radical
otherness of God does not trouble the possibility of God’s immanent
presence in the created world but allows it on the innermost level. God
is immanent not despite of his trancendence but because of it.
This interpretation—expressing the doctrine of the ecumenical councils and shared by the mainstream of Catholic theologians
through the centuries—finds a description in Aquinas’s works in terms
of causality. The secondary causes may be necessary or contingent. Yet
their contingency or necessity depends on the proximate cause. The
first cause attains its effects through both the necessary and contingent
causes. As Thomas says,
even though nothing can resist the divine will, our will, like everything else, carries out the divine will according to its own
proper mode. Indeed, the divine will has given things their
mode of being in order that His will be fulfilled. Therefore,
some things fulfill the divine will necessarily, other things, con-

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Michal Paluch, O.P.

tingently; but that which God wills always takes place.5
Obviously, our mind has difficulty accepting such a solution. As in
the case of the creatio ex nihilo, we can understand such an explanation
but we cannot imagine it. God is not an element of the created world.
Because of that we will be always tempted to reduce the divine causality
to the level of created causality and we need to constantly struggle to
safeguard the divine otherness in all our attempts to develop this kind
of explanation.
A special problem connected with this explanation is a convincing
answer to the question concerning roots of evil. I will come back to this
issue soon.
Ad 4: The use of prudence as a model to interpret divine providence
may seem too anthropomorphic. But if we want to take a step forward in
our comprehension of divine life, we must rely on some analogy, keeping in mind that being created in the image of God, we represent in our
life God’s activities, although in a deeply imperfect way.
The idea to interpret providence as a part of prudence was given by
Cicero.6 The virtue of prudence was interpreted by Aristotle as “right
reason applied to practice” (recta ratio agibilium).7 Understood according to this definition, prudence contains several elements that seem to
be very useful in the understanding of providence.
First, prudence is the virtue that allows the choice of the right means
to the purpose. Providence seen through such a characteristic focuses
on the order inscribed in creatures directing them to the ultimate end.
Second, although placed on the side of reason, prudence concerns in its
activities operations of reason and will. Prudence brings the knowledge
of the ultimate end and it helps in the election of the proper means,
thanks to the integrity of the moral virtues. If we interpret providence
5

De veritate, q. 6, a. 3, ad 3. English translation from http://dhspriory.org/thomas/
QDdeVer6.htm. Cf. ST I, q. 19, a. 8. On the importance of this text, see B. J. F. Lonergan, Gnade und Freiheit: Die operative Gnade im Denken des hl. Thomas von Aquin,
trans. P. Fluri and G. B. Sala (Innsbruck: Tyrolia–Verlag, 1998), 110–12; B. McGinn,
“The Development of the Thought of Thomas Aquinas on the Reconciliation of Divine Providence and Contingent Action,” The Thomist 39 (1975): 741–52, esp. 748.
6
Cicero, De inventione II, c. 53, n. 160.
7
Aristotle, Ethics VI, ch. 4 (1140 b 4 and 20).

Recovering a Doctrine of Providence

1163

within this pattern, we understand that providence engages an integral
operation of reason and will. Third, while operations of ars are transitive, operations of prudence are intransitive; they remain in its subject.8
Providence seen in such a light must be understood as an absolutely
internal divine plan that is externally reflected in its execution called
“government” (gubernatio). Although the distinction between “internal Providence” and “external government” may seem unnecessary and
purely ornamental, it has its speculative importance. It helps to express
that providence does not abolish contingency and liberum arbitrium:
the eternal divine providence, being only internal, does not impose necessity on the events in the created world, and thus the immediacy of divine care over all creatures expressed by providence does not challenge
the consistency of chains of secondary causality taken into account in
the government.
The Favorite Dispute
Without any doubt the main challenge of the doctrine presented concerns the reconciliation between divine sovereignty and human freedom. It has been obvious for all the scholars inspired by Thomas’s work
for centuries that both should be kept but there has not been an agreement how to explain their relationship. The controversy De auxiliis at the
end of the sixteenth century determined the language of the following
debates.9 Since the dispute started between Luis de Molina and Dominic
Bañez, it has been returning to the Thomistic tradition in accordance to
the main lines given at this moment, although in a progressively more
and more nuanced way. Its two last especially instructive “editions” occurred thanks to the exchange of texts between Francisco Marín-Sola
and Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange in the first half of the twentieth century and later between Jacques Maritain and Jean-Hervé Nicolas.10 The
8

Although at the beginning of his career Thomas used the analogy of ars to explain
providence, he passed very quickly to prudentia. The reason was its intransitive operation. See J.-P. Torrell, “Dieu conduit toutes choses vers leur fin,” 565–66.
9
On this issue, see X.-M. Le Bachelet, Prédestination et grâce efficace. Controverse
dans la Compagnie de Jésus au temps d’Aquaviva, 1610–1613: Histoire et documents
inédits (Louvain: Museum Lessianum, 1931).
10
The main bibliography: F. Marín-Sola, O.P., “El sistema tomista sobre la moción
divina,” Ciencia Tomista 32 (1925): 5–54; Marín-Sola, “Respuesta a algunas objec-

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Michal Paluch, O.P.

initiators of both these last exchanges (i.e., Marín-Sola and Maritain)
were interested—in accordance with the concern of various doctrines
of providence proposed in the twentieth century—in a justification of
divine innocence11 and they studied carefully the permission by God of
moral evil. Obviously, it will not be possible to go now into the depths of
these passionate discussions. I will try to outline the main issues focusing on the last exchange.
The key concepts used in all these discussions were “motion” and
“decree.” The providential auxiliary influence should be distinguished
from the creational influx (creatio continua). Because of that, one
needs to describe the divine providential support as a constant help
that is different from creating—the term motio seems to be appropriate here—and as a divine act that is separate from the act of creation—
the term “decree” expresses this content. Yet one should never forget
that both these terms are used analogically and divine “motions” and
“decrees” should not be understood as the created ones are.12 Is it possible to define them further?
tiones acerca del sistema tomista sobre la moción divina,” Ciencia Tomista 33 (1926):
5–74; Marín-Sola, “Nuevas observaciones acerca del sistema tomista sobre la moción
divina,” Ciencia Tomista 33 (1926): 321–97; R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., La providence et la confiance en Dieu: Fidélité et abandon (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1933);
Garrigou-Lagrange, La prédestination des saints et la grâce: Doctrine de saint Thomas
comparée aux autres systèmes théologiques (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1936); Garrigou-Lagrange, “La prémotion physique,” in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique,
XIII/1 (1936), 31–77; Garrigou-Lagrange, “Pour l’intelligence du dogme de la Providence,” Angelicum 29 (1952): 241–50; J. Maritain, “Saint Thomas et le problème du
mal,” in De Bergson à Thomas d’Aquin: Essais de métaphysique et de morale (New
York: Éditions de la Maison française, 1944), in J. Maritain and R. Maritain, Œuvres
Complètes (Fribourg-Paris: Éd. Universitaires – Éd. Saint-Paul 1986–1999), VIII:9–
174, 127–51; Maritain, “L’existant libre et les libres desseins éternels,” in Court traité
de l’existence et de l’existant (1947), in Œuvres Complètes, IX:9–140, 87–118; Maritain, Dieu et la permission du mal (1963), in Œuvres Complètes, XII:9–123; J.-H.
Nicolas, O.P., “La grâce et le péché,” Revue Thomiste 45 (1939): 58–90, 249–70; Nicolas, “La permission du péché,” Revue Thomiste 60 (1960): 5–37, 185–206, 509–46;
and Nicolas’s retractationes after his discussion with J. Maritain: “La volonté salvifique de Dieu contrariée par le péché,” Revue Thomiste 92 (1992): 177–96.
11
Cf. M. Levering, Predestination: Biblical and Theological Paths (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 154–162.
12
It has a spectacular example in the explanations given to the famous praemotio
physica determinans, the key concept for Thomists looking for inspiration in the
description proposed by Bañez. They will stress that the prefix prae does not mean
any anteriority in time but only in nature. The adjective determinans does not mean

Recovering a Doctrine of Providence

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Both Maritain and Nicolas tried. But neither their motives, nor the
results are the same. Undertaking with some corrections the solution proposed earlier by Marín-Sola, Maritain wants to present an explanation
that will describe the providential guidance in such a way that the absolute
innocence of God is saved. Nicolas’s priority is to articulate the totality of
divine sovereignty and to describe the consequence of it, the absolute definitiveness of divine causality in all the cases of created activities. If God
does not define all created actions—if one could show an area of created
reality that is not under his control, God would not be God.
Focusing on the defense of divine innocence, Maritain stresses that
divine motion should not be seen in the same way in the line of good
as in the line of evil. He sees the main problem of the earlier Thomistic tradition as a lack of sufficient distinction between these two lines.
In order to distinguish more clearly he proposes to understand divine
motion as one that could be shattered. Although divine motion is fully
determined (i.e., it leads to a definite good action), it must be accepted
by the creature in order to flourish through a good act. In other words,
divine motion brings in itself a defined help to a concrete good deed but
it contains in itself the permission for the creature to fall. What is important, however, is that this permission is not a particular one; it does
not concern a particular fall of a particular creature but is universal—
that is, it is permission inscribed in all the “normal” motions attributed
to the creatures by God.
To such an interpretation of divine motion corresponds the doctrine of a divine consequent permissive decree. It is only after a refusal to
accept the divine motion that God himself refuses to give to a creature
the necessary support to accomplish a good deed. In this way all good
acts find their ultimate source in God’s causality and the initiative of evil
has its only source in the will of a creature.
Maritain makes a great effort to describe in a precise way this prithat contingency and free actions of rational creatures are excluded, but only that the
whole created action is totally submitted to divine influence. The adjective physica
does not mean that the motion is “physical” as our motions are because of some
physical contact, for example, when a hand physically pushes a stick. It is “physical”
motion in opposition to “moral.” In other words, it does concern efficient causality
and not only a final one. Cf. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, La prédestination des saints, 196;
265–311. According to this way of purification, one needs to treat all the other concepts used in this context.

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Michal Paluch, O.P.

mary causality of creatures in the line of evil. He invents special words to
express it—the creature nihilizes (néanter) the divine design. This action
or rather nonaction (cf. désagir) of a creature starts by a nonconsideration of the rule. According to Maritain the nonconsideration of the
rule is not yet a sin because it is not a lack of a good due—the rule does
not need to be considered by the creature at all times. Nevertheless, it
becomes sinful when a creature attracted by a particular good puts itself
into action without having considered the rule. Maritain thinks he can
avoid a vicious circle in this way and is able to demonstrate that sinful
actions have their roots in a starting point that is not sinful and may be
described as mera negatio.
Nicolas constantly and specifically criticized this last point. He insisted that he did not see any possibility of admitting some mera negatio
at the beginning of a sinful act that does not implicate a lack of being.
And because such an option is impossible, and the introduction of evil
must be connected with some lack of being that is attributed or not by
God, the only source of being, he saw himself unable to accept the idea
of a consequent permissive decree. According to him the only metaphysically coherent explanation for the beginning of evil must be an antecedent permissive decree.
Thus God does not permit evil only in a general way. His permission must concern particular actions. A divine motion that could be
shattered seems to Nicolas to be incoherent: divine motion cannot be
absolutely determined on the one hand and fallible on the other. Such a
solution would mean that God is not efficient in putting into practice his
will that has been already defined. To permit evil in particular actions
does not mean though, according to Nicolas, that God is the cause of
evil. In his analysis the antecedent permissive decree should be understood purely negatively: God decides only not to intervene in the fall of
a creature in a concrete situation. Because God’s action is not something
that he owes creatures, his decision should not be interpreted as a kind
of acceptance of sin and moral evil. After this divine negative decision
the creature is left to its own forces and averts from God. It is only after
this aversion that God acts positively: he attributes the necessary forces
for all that is positive in a chosen action. It is only at this stage of analysis—after the aversion of the creature from God—that the refusal of
grace should be placed.

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Nicolas had been convinced for a long time that this solution granted a correct perspective to afford a metaphysically coherent explanation
of a sinful act. In his opinion it permitted keeping the total causality of
God without attributing to him causality of sin. Nevertheless, Maritain,
a virulent critic of this solution, was not very unjust in writing that, according to Nicolas, God arranges himself not to be a cause of evil but to
make it nevertheless arrive infallibly.13
As one can see, both options have their strengths and weaknesses.
Maritain’s proposal allows in a more convenient way, the demonstration
of the difference between God’s involvement in good actions and evil
ones. Divine innocence and God’s universal salvific will (cf. 1 Tm 2:4)
are confirmed. But this gain is offset by a less convenient metaphysical
explanation. Philosophy is forced to serve theological purposes. On the
contrary, the solution presented by Nicolas is metaphysically coherent.
His explanation preserves the sovereignty of God and the totality of
God’s causal influence. Nevertheless, the price for such a defense is quite
high: even though God is not a cause of particular evil deeds, he initiates
them. Theology with its concern for divine innocence and God’s universal salvific will is forced to follow a philosophical coherence.14
Unfortunately, one cannot count on the ultimate solution coming
from the precise interpretation of Aquinas’s texts. A Thomist as well informed as Jean-Hervé Nicolas was convinced that it would be impossible to decide on the basis of Aquinas’s texts which of these two positions
is that of Thomas.15 It is without doubt partly due to the evolution of his
thinking about divine will and grace.16 So, one may expect that we will
never be able to conclude the debate issued from the De auxiliis controversy in an absolutely sufficient manner.17
13

Maritain, Dieu et la permission du mal, 41.
J.-H. Nicolas admitted in his last article on the issue the weakness of his solution in
presenting the divine innocence but maintained his critique of the metaphysical side
of Maritain’s proposal. Cf. J. H. Nicolas, “La volonté salvifique de Dieu.”
15
Cf. ibid., 179.
16
It was my attempt to show it. See Paluch, La profondeur de l’amour, 273–308; 312–14;
319–24, with all the bibliography included.
17
“Il est probable que les hommes discuteront longtemps encore sur ces problèmes
insondables et que les uns, désireux de sauver avant tout la transcendance divine,
se rallieront à des thèses qui, mettant l’accent sur le néant de la créature, risqueront
de sacrifier non seulement la liberté créée, mais la créature elle-même. Les autres,
14

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Michal Paluch, O.P.

Suggestions for Future Research
Although we should not expect an absolutely satisfying description of
the cooperation between the divine guidance and human freedom, especially in the case of evil, we may understand in my opinion why we
have such difficulties with it. Describing the occurrence of evil in the
divine design Thomas writes: “God neither wills evils to be nor wills
evils not to be; he wills to allow them to happen.”18 In order to present
the relationship of evil to the divine will adequately, he uses a special
category of permission. It means that one should avoid a description in
terms of causal relationship between evil and divine will.
Obviously, such a move may be acceptable and understood only if
we remember that (1) the world has been created out of nothing (ex
nihilo) and without divine help it is prompt to disappear to nothing and
(2) evil is understood in accordance with the Augustinian tradition as
the lack of due good and, as a consequence of that, as a lack of being.
All these elements being considered, we understand that as creation
is the entrance to being, undertaking evil is exit out of being. We have
difficulty describing the divine creative activity. We know that we can
understand it but we will never be able to imagine it. Should we really be
surprised that we have analogical difficulties in our attempts to describe
adequately activities that lead us out of being?
Nevertheless, I do not expect that Thomists will be able to abandon
experiments to solve the problems formulated by the De auxiliis controversy and to abandon the dispute I have just recalled. Some recent
studies on the issue may be proof of that.19 The necessity to sacrifice theau contraire, partant de l’expérience de la vie morale, mettront d’abord en pleine lumière la liberté de l’homme, bien qu’en montrant avec l’Église que, dans son exercice,
cette liberté est à tout instant dépendante de Dieu. Chacune des deux attitudes comportera jusqu’à la fin des temps des variantes indéfinies.” H. Rondet, S.J., “Prédestination, grâce et liberté,” in Essai sur la théologie de la grâce (Paris: Beauchesne, 1964),
201–41, 233.
18
ST I, q. 19, a. 9, ad 3. Translation from: St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, vol.
5, God’s Will and Providence (Ia. 19–26), trans. T. Gilby (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 43.
19
Some recently published studies in the line of J. Maritain: M. Torre, “Franciso
Marin-Sola, O.P., and the Origin of Jacques Maritain’s Doctrine on God’s Permission of Evil,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 55–94; M. D. Torre, God’s Permission of Sin:
Negative or Conditioned Decree? A Defense of the Doctrine of Francisco Marín-Sola,
O.P., Based on the Principles of Thomas Aquinas (Fribourg: Academic, 2009). Some

Recovering a Doctrine of Providence

1169

ology on the altar of philosophy or philosophy on the altar of theology, if
one accepts my description of the solutions presented above, cannot be
easily accepted by any Thomist. Such a situation questions the harmony
between reason and faith, a harmony that is far too important for the
Thomistic tradition not to struggle for.
Future research in this area should, in my opinion, take into account
three important elements.
A Double Perspective in the Analysis of the Divine Will
For many years I have been struck by the fact that the most important
mysteries of reality and of faith cannot be approached without a double
perspective in their description. Let us think about the description of
being in the light of a double esse/essentia or about the description of the
Trinity that must be considered as essentia on the one hand and as relationes on the other. Such a double perspective is due to the limits of our
conceptual understanding and to its chronological dimension. Should
we not expect something similar in the description of the cooperative
action of the divine and human causality? Should we not find something similar—a double perspective—in our approach to the mystery of
divine design?
It seems to me that Thomas was always willing to integrate the contingent human actions into the divine design thanks to a tool that offered a double perspective. In the first part of his career this tool was the
double voluntas antecedens/voluntas consequens, during his last years
necessitas absoluta/necessitas ex suppositione. The meaning of both these
conceptual tools is not absolutely the same. But both were used in the
sections concerning the divine will to integrate contingent actions.20
Using such concepts in the center of his reflection on the divine will,
Aquinas admitted that we cannot approach the divine will as accomplished without two complementary aspects. If we want to see the divine
will adequately, we need “two eyes” and not only one of them. Such an
recently published studies continuing the research of J.-H. Nicolas: S. Long, “Providence, Freedom, and Natural Law,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 557–605; T. M. Osborne
Jr., “Thomist Premotion and Contemporary Philosophy of Religion,” Nova et Vetera
4 (2006): 607–31.
20
For more on this issue, see M. Paluch, La profondeur de l’amour, 273–90.

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Michal Paluch, O.P.

intellectual option contains in itself an important apophatic confession:
as long as we are in via, we will not be able to reach an understanding
of the mystery of providence and of divine will that a single perspective
could afford.
I think that it was thanks to his “two eyes” attitude that Thomas felt
relatively peaceful solving the problems of human freedom. And am I
wrong in seeing an important input for difficulties raised in the discussions mentioned above in the refusal to admit a double perspective in
the description of the divine will? Such an option will be treated with
time more and more as incoherent. Yet, although Thomas changed the
double concept placed in the center of his description of the divine will,
he remained faithful to the double perspective.
Transcendence of Divine Activity
Intense appeals are regularly raised to abandon the concept of “motion”
in the description of the divine support attributed to creatures.21 It is the
doctrine of praemotio physica that may be responsible for reducing the
divine activity to immanent action considered in one order with created
activity and therefore it is the praemotio physica that may be responsible for changing Aquinas’s explanation into a kind of occasionalism
and voluntarism. To keep Aquinas’s proposal sane, one should be much
more apophatic, that is, one should refuse to explain the transcendent
causality of God using the concept of motion.
I do not think that such a critique amounts to an adequate summary
of the history of Thomistic discussions. I am not sure that the way to
protect the transcendence of divine activity may be achieved by a refusal
to treat certain topics. If we agree that the providential activity should
not be reduced to the creatio continua,22 we need some description of
this activity. If it is not the term “motion” with its limits that we use
for this purpose, we will have to employ another term with its limits. I
would not expect a solution simply from a terminological move.
21

Cf., for example, B. J. Shanley, O.P., “Divine Causation and Human Freedom in Aquinas,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1998): 99–122; D. B. Hart, “Providence and Causality: On Divine Innocence,” in The Providence of God, Deus Habet
Consilium, ed. F. A. Murphy and P. G. Ziegler (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 34–56.
22
See, e.g., on this issue Nicolas, “La permission du péché,” 9–13.

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1171

Nevertheless, this virulent critique of praemotio physica contains in
itself something just and adequate, too. The term motio is much more
able to be reduced to something immanent than, for example, the term
auxilium would be. If it is placed in the center of an analysis, one should
pay great attention to constantly purify it from all created dimensions
by recalling its transcendent features. It is probably true that Thomists, quite often, have not paid sufficient attention to see it in this way.
Therefore if we want to find a really convincing manner to present the
providential activity of God, we must treat divine transcendence as an
absolutely crucial element of any explanation.
The Christological Dimension
In the contemporary theological world that is focused on Christology,
we cannot develop a doctrine of providence that has not an obvious
relationship to Christ. Already Karl Barth being faithful to the chosen
options of his theological interpretation criticized Aquinas for his unsatisfactory Christological dimension.23
As a moderately well-informed Thomist knows, it is not true that
Aquinas’s doctrine has no Christological dimension. But it is true that
because of the order adopted in the Summa theologiae the Christological aspect remains hidden for all those who have not got the necessary
patience to embrace all the work and to carefully study its order.
Aquinas’s explanation contains all the necessary tools to face such
criticism. Predestination as a privileged part of providence opens the
way to see that the divine guidance is tuned to election and filiation
that are fully revealed in the Incarnate Word of God. Nevertheless, this
aspect must be emphasized more in the context of providence and predestination, if Thomists want to make their perspective understood by
contemporary theologians.
Conclusion
Apophatic recognition of the double perspective in the description of
the divine will, an accent on divine transcendence and attention paid
23

Cf. K. Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, vol. 2, Die Lehre von Gott, “Gottes Gnadenwahl”
(Munich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1942), 64–65, 128.

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Michal Paluch, O.P.

to the Christological dimension—these are in my opinion three main
elements that should be taken into account in any attempt to recover a
Thomistic doctrine of providence today. We have several historical reconstructions of Aquinas’s doctrine. There are a huge number of texts
dealing with its important aspects because of the De auxiliis controversy. But we still do not have—unless I have overlooked it—a comprehensive, systematic reconstruction that would be much more focused on
recovering Aquinas’s doctrine for contemporary theology than one advancing some other precisions in the unending narrative of De auxiliis.
This is a pity. The fruits of the research into Aquinas’s thought should
not be an offer restricted to Thomists.
N&V

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1173-1190

1173

Christocentric or Trinitarian Doctrine of God?
Order of Discovery and Order of Presentation
Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.
Blackfriars
Oxford, England

NONE OF US WRITESonly on the subjects of his own choice, but
it was perhaps with some foolishness that I agreed to write on any topic
that was suggested for me, and so it is with some trepidation that I approach the one that was suggested: Christocentric or Trinitarian doctrine of God? The question presents us with a choice, but our instinct
for the Catholic and makes us want to ask if we really do have to choose
between them. The subtitle moreover offers a Thomist solution to our
dilemma: order of discovery and order of presentation, with the order of
discovery allowing us to avail of a Christocentric doctrine of God, and
the quite compatible order of presentation delivering a Trinitarian doctrine of God. However, in pursuing this possibility I want to show first
that to some extent a solution already came ready-made with the introduction of the term “Christocentric” into theology. Secondly I want
to point out some problems with the distinction between the orders of
discovery and presentation, including William Hill’s characterization of
them as ways of religious and theological consciousness, the challenge
to the distinction introduced by Karl Rahner’s theology of immanent
and economic Trinity, and the fact that there would appear to be no explicit talk of an order of discovery in Aquinas’s teaching on the Trinity.
I am taking it that to speak of a theologian’s doctrine of God as Trinitarian is not simply to say that it teaches God to be a Trinity of persons
in terms of content, but that the form of the doctrine is structured in a

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Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

Trinitarian way. A glance at Aquinas’s doctrine of God in the Prima Pars
of the Summa theologiae should be sufficient to persuade anyone that
Aquinas’s doctrine is truly Trinitarian, but objections have been made
against this claim. Karl Barth’s theology is often taken as setting the bar
today for whether or not a doctrine of God is to be counted Trinitarian, and he supposed that, without placing consideration of the divine
persons first, the primacy of the doctrine of the Trinity, and thus the
Trinitarian character of the doctrine of God, is somehow contradicted.1
Here we meet the notion of the importance of one’s starting point in
theology, and the perception that the choice of starting point is crucial, at least from a rhetorical point of view, for the general direction a
particular theology takes, and the sense of what is taught subsequently.
Aquinas’s Summa of course treats the single divine essence in advance
of the distinction of persons, but since his pedagogical procedure can be
honored with a compelling defense,2 then we might conclude not only
that Aquinas’s doctrine of God is genuinely Trinitarian, but also that the
Barthian bar has been set artificially high.
So, having assured ourselves, however briefly, that Aquinas’s doctrine of God counts as Trinitarian in structure, we can now investigate
whether or not it need be threatened by the claim that the doctrine of
God must be Christocentric. A claim about Christocentricity has been
applied in more recent times to the whole of theology, though with the
focus on the doctrines of creation and grace, and latterly on natural
law;3 I am concerned here, however, with the Christocentric threat to
a Trinitarian doctrine of God. Before we ask what the orders of discovery and presentation can do to avert this threat, we should note
how the possibility of this threat was already perceived and discarded, when the term Christocentric, and the claim about the doctrine
of God that went with it, came into theology, almost certainly in the
nineteenth century. The image suggests that an intellectual enterprise,
1

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, The Doctrine of the Word of God (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1956), 300–3.
2
E.g., Gilles Emery, O.P., The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007), 44–48.
3
These debates have stemmed from the publication of Marie-Dominique Chenu,
O.P., “Le plan de la Somme théologique de saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste 47 (1939):
93–107.

Christocentric or Trinitarian Doctrine of God?

1175

a philosophy, a theology, or a doctrine of God, has a single, central
point to which all else in it must be referred. Though the image suggests a midpoint, examination of how it is used in theology reveals that
this midpoint is almost always thought of in terms of a starting point,
and here we encounter again the importance of starting points for the
character of everything else that follows. Everything else is referred
to what lies at the center, precisely because the center lies somehow
at the beginning. So, while a Trinitarian doctrine of God would be
structured by the doctrine of the Trinity, a Christocentric doctrine of
God must somehow begin with the incarnate Christ. But if that were
the case, and the incarnation does not simply come subsequent to the
doctrine of God, as it does in Aquinas’s Summa, one can see how a
truly Trinitarian doctrine of God, where God is in no way constituted
a Trinity by the incarnation, becomes open to the threat of modification. However, when we observe a variety of nineteenth-century theologies, which were seemingly among the first to accept the explicit
Christocentric claim, we can see how they were nevertheless united in
seeing things differently. Not only does the claim of Christocentrism
not mean the denial of the doctrine of God’s Trinitarian character, but
also this starting point can even positively support (and may be the
only way to guarantee) a Trinitarian doctrine of God.
The first appearance of the word “Christocentric” in English is
perhaps found in the Christian Dogmatics, published by the Reformed
theologian Jan Jacob van Oosterzee in Utrecht in 1870 and translated
from Dutch into English in 1874.4 Van Oosterzee declares that, from
its very nature, Christian Dogmatics as a whole is “Christo-centric.”
Christ, he says, is dogmatics’ “principal subject-matter.”5 Does he then
begin his dogmatics with Christology in such a way that it then shapes
the doctrine of God as the latter’s starting point? In fact he is clear that
his claim does not make Christology the starting point of dogmat-

4

The origin of the word and its implied claims warrant research I have been unable to
undertake, particularly in the German language, in which the term Christozentrisch
no doubt originated in connection with anthropozentrisch, a word already in use in
the eighteenth century.
5
Jan Jacob van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics: A Text-Book for Academical Instruction and Private Study (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1874), 15.

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Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

ics so as to displace the Trinitarian doctrine of God from primacy of
place. He says:
The claim that Dogmatics shall be Christocentric does not
therefore denote that Christology must be treated first of all; on
the contrary, there are very weighty difficulties in that method.
Rather, this is the idea that everything dogmatics has to teach
concerning God, man, the way of salvation etc., must be viewed
by the light which streams forth from Christ as center.6
The reason that Christ is light for the dogmatician is that Christ is “the
highest revelation of God.” Van Oosterzee was deliberately opposing
Christocentrism to anthropocentrism, excluding contemporary anthropocentrism by adopting Christocentrism. He says: “The so-called Modern Theology is therefore already condemned in principle, since Christ
has either no place or a very unimportant one in its system, which exhibits an anthropo-centric character.”7 Anthropocentrism, evidently,
is a bad thing. In no way does the author oppose the revelatory light
streaming from Christ as center against a starting point within dogmatics in the doctrine of God, but it is precisely this revelation in Christ that
makes this doctrine of God Trinitarian, and only this Christocentrism
that could make any doctrine of God Trinitarian.8
We can see something comparable in terms of starting points in
a rather different nineteenth-century theology, one more consciously
modern. “Christocentric” seems to have made its first appearance in
Oxford theology, possibly the first time it was used by an English-speaking author, in the work of A. M. Fairbairn, a Scottish Congregationalist
who studied in Berlin in the 1860s (where he may indeed have first encountered the word) and became the first principal of Mansfield College,
a college for training Congregationalist ministers in Oxford. Fairbairn
uses the term in his The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, published
first in 1893, and there he notes that it was somewhat in vogue.9 Now
6

Ibid., 15n3; amended translation.
Ibid.
8
For his Trinitarian doctrine of God, see ibid., 234–99.
9
A. M. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, 4th ed. (London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1893), 301.
7

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1177

more so than van Oosterzee Fairbairn has an affinity for the categories
of German Romanticism and idealism, and for the methods of nineteenth-century history. For Fairbairn, what most distinguished and determined modern theology with its own special character was “a new
feeling for Christ,” arising from the fact that “we know him better in
history.”10 He writes:
His historical reality and significance have broken upon us with
something of the surprise of a new discovery, and He has, as it
were, become to us a new and more actual Being. It is certainly
not too much to say, He is today more studied and better known
as He was and as He lived than at any period between now and
the first age of the Church.11
For Fairbairn there are two fundamental sets of questions, exegetical
questions concerning the Bible, answered by historical method, and constructive questions concerning a systematic theology, a term that in British fashion he prefers to dogmatics: systematic theology, for Fairbairn is
a kind of “elaboration” of the interpretation of Scripture that has emerged
from historical study. The first set of questions, the exegetical, gives us
the source of our doctrine or “conception” of God, as Fairbairn calls it.
According to him, exegesis allows us to discover how Christ thought of
God, and so offers the possibility to think ourselves the same way about
God as Christ did, as Father. Christ’s consciousness of God is the “source
and norm,” as he puts it, of our conception of God. However, once this
conception of God has been derived by way of historical exegesis, it itself
now becomes the “source and norm” of our systematic theology.12 From
this Fairbairn concludes: “This theology must then, to use a current
term, be, as regards source, Christo-centric, but as regards object or matter, theo-centric; in other words, while Christ determines the conception, the conception determines the theology.”13 Here we have two kinds
of starting point. Christocentrism says something about one’s starting
10

Ibid., 3.
Ibid.
12
Ibid., 301.
13
Ibid.
11

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Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

point, but not the starting point within a systematic theology itself, rather the starting point from which one has come to the task of systematic
theology. The systematic theologian starts out by receiving from the exegete the Christocentrism that arises from historical study of the Bible,
together with the determinative element for theology to which it gives
rise. In Fairbairn’s case this means the paternity of God, with which the
theologian can then begin the setting out of his systematic theology.14
Whatever the differences between van Oosterzee and Fairbairn, and
whatever the shortcomings of their theologies and methods, they share
this in common in their use of the term “Christocentric.” Though they
perceive that the term might be misused, neither uses it to remove the
doctrine of God from its primacy of place in dogmatics as a whole or to
restructure the doctrine of God by placing the incarnation at its head.
As far as the principle of Christocentricty itself is concerned, it remains
open that the doctrine of God be Trinitarian. Each treats the claim that
the doctrine of God, or dogmatics in general, must be Christocentric,
as a claim about revelation, the starting point from which we come to
the task of dogmatics, rather than what must be the starting point that
lies at the head of the dogmatics itself. But if this is the case for two such
divergent theologies, then surely it might be the case for the disciple of
St. Thomas also. One possibility is that a Thomist distinction between
the order of discovery and the order of presentation will allow us to distinguish these starting points more clearly: there can legitimately be two
kinds of starting point because there are two different orders at work in
the theological enterprise.
Interpreters of Aquinas speak of two orders or ways of knowledge,
one by which a basic process of discovery takes place, moving from one
thing already known toward something as yet unknown, and another in
which this knowledge is suitably reordered for the purposes of educational presentation. For example, in his book The Three-Personed God:
The Trinity as a Mystery of Salvation, Hill wrote: “Aquinas characterizes
the methodology developed in his Summa theologiae as that of a via doctrinae in distinction from a via inventionis, a way of discovery.”15 I take
14
15

Ibid., 426–48.
William Hill, O.P., The Three-Personed God: The Trinity as a Mystery of Salvation
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 82.

Christocentric or Trinitarian Doctrine of God?

1179

these terms, via inventionis and via doctrinae, to be equivalent to the order of discovery and order of presentation of the title of this essay. Way
(via) and order seem to me to be effectively equivalent here, because
we are concerned with the order found in movement along a particular pathway of knowledge, from starting point to its end point. Indeed,
the Gilbey Summa translates via inventionis into English as “order of
discovery,”16 and when treating “systematics” in his Method in Theology,
Bernard Lonergan likewise distinguished the “order of teaching or exposition” from the “order of discovery.”17
Hill sees the two ways (or orders) as distinguished by the exigencies
of the knower and known.18 The via doctrinae of the Summa treats things
according to an order of intelligibility within what is known, moving on
from what is most intelligible in itself and so can throw light on everything else that comes after. This explains why the Summa begins with
the Trinity, despite the limitations of our knowledge of God, enabling
all else to be then understood in the light of the Trinitarian doctrine
of God. However, Hill points out that the three-personed God is only
made known to us in the economy, following on the temporal missions
of the Son and the Spirit. So what Aquinas has done, according to Hill, is
to begin in some way by way of the via inventionis with these missions,
seeking through them to reach toward the eternal processions, the doctrine of the eternal Trinity. He has then set himself to begin again, but
with the eternal Trinity as his starting point in the via doctrinae, seeking “an understanding, however faint” of the temporal missions and the
economy in the light of the eternal processions.19 And within Aquinas’s
presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity too we find the same via doctrinae, as his treatment “brings to light an intelligible order represented
by the tripartite move” from processions to relations to persons. Aquinas’s order of presentation is thus thoroughly Trinitarian, but we need
to ask if his order of discovery is truly Christocentric, since Hill speaks

16

See, e.g., ST I, q. 79, a. 8.
Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman and
Todd, 1973), 345–46. See also his use of ordo inventionis and ordo doctrinae in
“Theology and Understanding,” in Collection (New York: Herder, 1967), 127–35.
18
Hill, Three-Personed God, 68–69.
19
Ibid., 69.
17

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Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

of the starting point of this order not as Christ, but as the missions of
Son and Spirit.
Although Hill speaks consistently of Aquinas having begun with
the two temporal missions, balancing Christ and the Spirit evenly, so
to speak, in his own more general treatment of the order of discovery
his own language is more definitely Christocentric. We can see this if we
ask: While Hill takes the way of presentation to be exemplified in the
Summa, where exactly does he locate the order of discovery? Hill places
it where he places it for us all: in the psychology of religious experience.
Just as Fairbairn in the late nineteenth century saw the way toward the
beginning of systematic theology as that of historical-critical exegesis,
so Hill, no doubt influenced by Rahner’s insistence that the Trinity must
be an experienced mystery of salvation, saw the order of discovery as a
religious way of faith encounter. Speaking of the revelation of the Trinity in the encounter of faith, disclosed in the economy, Hill writes that
“this order of knowing . . . is one indigenous to religious consciousness,”
as distinct from theological consciousness, which “alters this epistemic
order somewhat.”20 While theological consciousness gives us the ordo
doctrinae characteristic of the Summa, it cannot exist without religious
consciousness, which moves first from “faith-encounter with God centered on Jesus of Nazareth”21—Christocentrism—to the doctrine of the
Trinity. According to Hill, theological knowing then always retains this
religious “order proper to faith in its origination” as the “norm of its own
reflections.”22 But how do we get from Hill’s Christocentric faith experience, no doubt brought about by the mission of the Spirit, as the starting
point of the religious order of discovery, to the explicit focus on two
temporal missions as Aquinas’s starting point for the order of discovery?
As Fairbairn was interested in exploring the psychology of Christ’s
consciousness, Hill has an interest in exploring Aquinas’s religious consciousness and how it finally results in his theological consciousness,
as expressed in the Summa. Of the latter, Hill says, “His own thinking
. . . arrives at this order only at the end of a far less simple process.”23
20

Ibid., 274.
Ibid., 273.
22
Ibid., 274.
23
Ibid., 77.
21

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According to Hill, Aquinas accepts on faith that there are persons in
the one God, and seeking to explain this distinction moves to the idea
of relations, and from there returns to persons, now understood as subsisting subjects of relationary act, and from there moves to grasp such
notional act as “processions” grounded in the essential acts of knowing
and loving proper to the Pure Act of Being. However we assess Hill’s
analysis of Aquinas’s mental moves, identifying such mental moves can
give us a way of accounting for the different things Hill says about the
starting point of Aquinas’s way of discovery: beginning with a Christocentric faith, Aquinas’s reflection on the identity of Christ and on his
acts, the fact that he is sent by the Father and also sends us the Spirit,
could lead Aquinas to distinguishing the two missions, as a fresh, more
reflective starting point.
However, despite offering us a solution to one problem, there are
other issues that Hill’s psychological analysis raises. Clearly in Aquinas’s
psychological process, however it is reconstructed, there must have been
genuine moments of intellectual discovery. But such a process sounds
too theological to fit Hill’s characterization of the via inventionis as religious rather than theological. Moreover, though this process may seem
more theological, its order is preliminary to and quite different from
what Hill identifies as the theological way of teaching found in the Summa. So this process fits neither Hill’s religious order of discovery nor
his theological order of teaching. It would seem that, without identifying where this process stands in relation to the two orders of religious
discovery and theological presentation, and so articulating its role in
the legitimate move from Christocentric to Trinitarian doctrine of God,
the two orders on their own must appear inadequate to clarify how the
Christocentric claim does not undermine but rather supports the Trinitarian nature of the doctrine of God.
There is a hint that Hill sees Aquinas’s psychological process as
somehow a continuation of the way of discovery, but he is unclear. Perhaps he has here a third way, intermediary between the religious way
of discovery and the theological way of presentation. It does, however, seem to fit what Lonergan had called the “way of discovery” in his
treatise on the Trinity. For Lonergan, the way of discovery fitted not
so much in the domain of religion, as in that of dogmatics. Lonergan,
however, did not use dogmatics and systematics interchangeably, but

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Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

he saw dogmatic theology and systematic theology as responses to two
distinct but interrelated objects. Basing himself on Aquinas’s distinction between the objects of certitude and understanding,24 attained by
distinct acts, Lonergan saw dogmatic theology as aimed at certitude,
while systematic theology, which is found in the Summa, aimed at understanding. While the order of teaching and learning suited the goal
of understanding, according to Lonergan, the way of discovery—one
though more dogmatic than religious—suited the goal of certitude. As
with Hill, the psychological process of theological discovery must begin
with something already in place, and while Hill characterizes this as religious discovery, Lonergan characterized it as a prescientific catechetical knowledge.25
In general, then, Lonergan sees what he elsewhere calls the “way
of theological discovery” (via inventionis theologicae) as beginning with
the contents of Scripture and tradition.26 When considering the Trinitarian doctrine of God in particular, he sometimes speaks of discovery
as beginning with the dogmatic affirmation of three consubstantial persons,27 and at other times as beginning with the missions as found in
the New Testament.28 To some extent, I suppose, one begins the way of
discovery wherever one happens to be. However, given that we begin
from Scripture, the focus is first ideally on the missions, which Lonergan presumably finds the most prominent aspect of biblical Trinitarian
belief, despite the fact that Scripture speaks also of the Word in the beginning as well as of the Word made flesh (Jn 1). Then, given certain
historic questions raised about the content of biblical faith, there is a
movement of discovery, where we move toward the consubstantiality of
the persons, the identification of their personal properties, the idea that
the latter are relative and then that the relations are relations of origin,
and finally that the latter are better understood by the refinement of a
psychological analogy. Once these discoveries are made, they are then
24

Cf. Quaestiones Quodlibetales, IV, q. 9, a. 3.
Bernard Lonergan, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 12, The Triune God:
Systematics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 58–67.
26
He uses the term in Lonergan, Collected Works, vol. 7, The Ontological and
Psychological Constitution of Christ, 86–87.
27
Lonergan, “Theology and Understanding,” 129–30.
28
Lonergan, Triune God, 66–67.
25

Christocentric or Trinitarian Doctrine of God?

1183

reconceived in an inverse systematic order by the way of teaching, with
the goal of imparting understanding to those being taught.29 I suggest
that the employment here of a strictly theological order of discovery allows us to see how a Christocentric starting point in faith and revelation
can be theologically refined in such a way that the missions become a
more reflective starting point for a process of theological discovery that
properly issues in a Trinitarian doctrine of God.
However, having addressed one issue with the distinction between
the two orders, we should note a further complication, introduced by
Rahner. From Rahner’s point of view, the distinction just needs to be
overcome. In his book of 1967, The Trinity, Rahner effectively proposed
that the order of discovery should become the systematic order of presentation, thereby replacing that of the Summa and the whole tradition
leading to Lonergan. While the Summa had moved along a way from
the immanent to the economic Trinity, Rahner recommended a starting
point in the economic Trinity for any treatise that aims at a systematic
explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity. In doing this he took himself
to have “established the methodically and practically correct starting
point for a systematic doctrine of the Trinity.”30 Rahner emphasizes that
our access to the doctrine of the Trinity comes in Jesus and the Spirit,
as we experience them in salvation history through faith. The doctrine
of the divine missions is thus “from its very nature the starting point for
the doctrine of the Trinity.”31 Rahner thinks this is undeniable for any
theology, because, as he continues, “it is a fact of salvation history that
we know about the Trinity because the Father’s Word has entered our
history and has given us his Spirit.” What concerns Rahner is to make
what others would name the starting point of the order of discovery also
the starting point for the way of presentation.
When Rahner first introduces for extended discussion the question
of a methodological starting point, he seems to accept that systematic
treatises on the Trinity may continue to keep the Thomist order. What
he says here is that, if it is true that we can only grasp the content of the
29

Ibid., 66–69.
Karl Rahner, The Trinity (London: Burns and Oates, 1970), 46. I have omitted
consideration of the way in which Rahner’s axiom about the immanent and
economic can itself be said to be a theological starting point.
31
Ibid., 48.
30

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Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

doctrine of the Trinity through attention to the history of salvation and
grace, then the section on the missions at the end of the treatise needs
to be highlighted, even if it remains for educational reasons at the end of
the treatise. The doctrine of the divine missions needs to be animating
the treatise all the way through. In this case the treatise would be implicitly, though not explicitly, following “the same order as the history of
the revelation of this mystery.”32 But where Rahner is driving is for the
explicit, and not merely implicit, adoption of this order of the history of
revelation—Hill’s religious order of discovery—as the theological order
of presentation that the treatise itself will make. Not long after he says
of the divine missions: “But this starting point should not only be tacitly presupposed; the treatise should really start by positing it as such.
Otherwise the meaning and the limits of all statements of this doctrine
become unclear.”33 Merely presupposing the thesis, or leaving its treatment to biblical theology is not enough, but it requires a “systematic
presentation” where the economic Trinity can lead us to the immanent
Trinity. Rahner’s fear is that, without what he elsewhere calls this “really
first starting point,”34 everything that is said about the Trinity will be
almost inevitably misunderstood as a set of puzzling information about
God that is irrelevant to our Christian experience. This is surely reminiscent of Barth’s position that the starting point within dogmatics crucially shapes one’s grasp of everything that is said subsequently, for good
or ill. Rahner writes: “Salvation history, our experience of it, its biblical
expression give us such a previous knowledge which remains forever the
foundation and the inexhaustible, ever richer starting point, even after
it has been systematized.”35 Not so different from what Hill would later
say, except that for Rahner it should mean the end of any distinction
between the order of discovery and the order of presentation, with the
order of discovery becoming the order of presentation. There is to be
only one order with only one starting point: the economic Trinity, the
principal mystery of salvation.
What reason can we have to accept Rahner’s thesis? We may be
32

Ibid., 40.
Ibid., 48.
34
Ibid., 65.
35
Ibid., 82.
33

Christocentric or Trinitarian Doctrine of God?

1185

unconvinced that everything said about the Trinity will inevitably be
misunderstood if the economic Trinity is the starting point of the order
of discovery only and not also the starting point of the order of presentation. Likewise we may be suspicious of Rahner’s particular interpretation of the consequences of his axiom of the identity of economic and
immanent Trinity, namely, that only the Son who is incarnate can be incarnate. Finding reasons to reject Rahner’s charge that to allow that any
divine person might become incarnate is an arbitrary hypothesis,36 we
might prefer that the Summa’s order of doctrine allows us to see more
clearly why it is so fitting for the Son to take flesh. However, the Thomist might easily find other reasons to incorporate Rahner’s objection in
some way. Partly, I think, Rahner’s order has appealed to theologians,
because it appeals to a contemporary state of uncertainty about whether
it is true that Christ is truly God, whether the traditional categories for
expressing dogmatic answers are of enduring value, and whether the
ability to raise such questions is not itself the product of a historical conditioning that relativizes the questions themselves. That a question of
truth is at issue in our time should be something to appeal to a theological tradition that is concerned both with perennial truth and the particularity of our context. If Lonergan is correct that the way of discovery
is aimed at certitude, then perhaps he is right that theology should be
pursued in a way that is, in his sense, both dogmatic and systematic,
that a Thomist’s way of presentation itself should both retrace the order
of discovery and expose the Summa’s order of teaching, in a way that
addresses both certitude and understanding. We can find some encouragement to do this more systematically ourselves from what Aquinas
does more occasionally himself, how he punctuates his works with what
Lonergan identifies as the via inventionis, say by arguing to the full divinity of Christ from the Scriptures.37 He includes such points within
the order of the book, as he lectures on John’s Gospel,38 which was of
course written so that we might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and
within the order of teaching he employs in the Summa contra Gentiles.39
36

Ibid., 63n17.
Lonergan, Ontological and Psychological Constitution of Christ, 86–87.
38
For examples, see Gilles Emery, Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, 10–14.
39
SCG IV, ch. 2–9, 15–18.
37

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Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

It may be that a more thoroughgoing employment of this order of discovery as something genuinely theological is needed, if we are as theologians properly to face other contemporary questions, such as whether
the economy does not reveal an eternal coming forth of the Son from
the Spirit as well as an eternal coming forth of the Spirit from the Son.
However, I do want to acknowledge that Lonergan’s account of the
ways of discovery and learning is a synthesis from scattered remarks in
Aquinas. When Aquinas speaks of the via inventionis, he normally contrasts this way of discovery not with any order of presentation, but with
a via resolutionis or via iudicii, as he examines different ways in which
we reason from one thing to another. For example, in the Summa he
states: “Human reasoning according to the way of inquiry or discovery
begins from certain truths quite simply understood, namely first principles, and then in the way of judgment by analysis returns to first principles, in the light of which it studies what has been discovered.”40 In the
way of discovery, our reasoning starts from what is already known and
so moves to acquire new knowledge, but in the order of judgment we
can refer something now known back to first principles. For Lonergan
this is not yet a contrast between discovery and teaching appropriate
to the distinction between dogmatics and systematics, and everything
Aquinas has described here remains for Lonergan part of the wider dogmatic process he associates with discovery.41
Though I cannot find anywhere where Aquinas explicitly contrasts
the order of discovery and the order of educational presentation, Aquinas does crucially distinguish discovery—inventio—from the process in
which one learns from another who teaches. For Aquinas, teaching—
doctrina—and learning—disciplina—unite the one who teaches and
the one who learns in a single educational transaction. Doctrina means
making another to know and disciplina means the reception of knowledge, where teacher and learner are united in this single movement.42
40

ST I, q. 79, a. 8. Cf. In librum Boethii de Trinitate, q. 6, a. 1, q. 3; De malo, q. 6.
Lonergan, Triune God, 60–61.
42
On Aquinas’s educational theory, see Wolfgang Schmidl, Homo discens: Studien
zur Pädagogischen Anthropologie bei Thomas von Aquin (Vienna: Verlag der
Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1987), 15–90; Vivian Boland,
St. Thomas Aquinas, Continuum Library of Educational Thought 1 (London:
Continuum, 2007), 41–58.
41

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1187

As a consequence of this unity, the two terms, though not synonymous,
can be used to some extent interchangeably, and the order that takes
place in teaching is properly identified with the order that takes place
in learning. Hence, while Aquinas says in the Summa’s prologue that
he is setting out to write according to the ordo disciplinae, the order of
learning, Hill is not wrong to observe that it is structured according
to the order of teaching, as indeed Aquinas also employs via doctrinae
in introducing his treatment of the Trinity of persons in God.43 How
though is this order of teaching and learning to be distinguished from
the order of discovery? For Aquinas, discovery and teaching/learning
are both ways of coming by or acquiring knowledge.44 Inventio (discovery) is what it is for people to acquire knowledge for themselves, while
in learning the acquisition takes place with the assistance of a teacher (who already possesses the knowledge in question) either live, so to
speak, or through a medium such as a book. Aquinas denies that the
one who acquires knowledge for himself through discovery is teaching
himself, because he does not possess the knowledge to begin with, as a
teacher does.45 Rather the process of discovery is quite distinct from the
process of teaching and learning.
What though of the order involved in each of these ways? As for the
order involved in discovery, we have already noted that one moves from
what is already better known toward the acquisition of new knowledge.
Aquinas uses what Paul has to say in Romans 1:20, of knowledge of the
invisible things of God coming through what he has made, to show how
in the order of discovery we move from knowledge of temporal things
to knowledge of eternal things.46 Could we by analogy apply the order
of discovery to Trinitarian doctrine? From the created effects involved
in the divine missions could we perhaps discover the eternal divine persons? Hill seems to have something like this in mind in the religious experience of faith.47 However, as far as I am aware, Aquinas never speaks
of the via inventionis in connection with supernatural knowledge, and
43

Cf. ST I, q. 27, prologue.
St Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 11 (De magistro), a. 1.
45
Ibid., a. 2.
46
ST I, q. 79, a. 9.
47
Hill, Three-Personed God, 68–69, 274; cf. Emery, Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas
Aquinas, 9, 13.
44

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Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

perhaps he would have difficulty in doing so, at least in respect of faith
and revelation. This is because the Trinitarian character of God is not
something we can come to know for ourselves; we cannot discover it for
ourselves, even if we were to have knowledge of the humanity of Christ
or witness the flames at Pentecost. The fact that we do not have an active capacity to know such things that are above our nature means that
we cannot discover them for ourselves, that is, cannot “discover” them
at all, in the strict sense of the term. The acquisition of this knowledge
must rather be a case not of a sacra inventio but of a sacra doctrina,
where one can learn that God is a Trinity only because God himself
teaches us this.48 For Aquinas, we can come to know the eternal Trinity
through the temporal missions only by way of an ordo doctrinae, never
by discovery.
Hill is certainly right to hold that the Summa operates according
to the order of teaching, but Aquinas seems to prefer to use ordo doctrinae in more than one way. He supposes that, like a medical doctor’s
art imitating the healing power of nature, teaching imitates discovery.49
So, just as the way of discovery will move from what is better known to
what is as yet unknown, so will the order of teaching. How the order of
teaching works out in practice, however, will depend in part on who is
being taught and what they already know. Aquinas accepts the principle
that in teaching and learning, the order should be to begin with what is
easier for the learner. At one point in the Summa he refers to “the order
of teaching, which should proceed from what is easier to what is more
difficult.”50 However, while he accepts this as a kind of default position,
he thinks that it often needs to be trumped. As he writes in his commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate, “Sometimes in learning it is necessary to
start, not with what is easier, but with that on which the knowledge of
subsequent matters depends.”51 In this case he is concerned with the order in which one is taught different disciplines. Logic is certainly not the
easiest of disciplines, but that is what one needs to start with, because
one will need what it teaches for every other discipline, which one then
48

Cf. ST I, q. 32, a. 1.
De veritate, q. 11 (De magistro), a. 1.
50
ST II-II, q. 189, a. 1, ad 4.
51
In librum Boethii de Trinitate, q. 6, a. 1, q. 2, ad 3. Cf. the ordo addiscendi in Sententia
libri Ethicorum, VI, lec. 7.
49

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1189

learns after logic. So there appear to be different ways in which the order
of teaching and learning can take place, each dependent in a different
way on the particular needs of the learner: one order starts with what is
easier, and another with just what needs to be known before something
else can be properly known, however difficult that may be.
With regard to the doctrine of God, Aquinas envisages two different
ways in which the order of teaching and learning can work.52 In one we
move from the Word made flesh to the Word in the beginning, and in
the other we move from the Word in the beginning to the Word made
flesh. The first Aquinas finds in a gloss that states, “We pass from our
mother’s milk to the father’s table, that is, from the simple doctrine that
teaches the Word made flesh to that of the Word that was in the beginning with God.”53 Here we have an order of teaching with a definitely
Christocentric starting point: the Word made flesh. Aquinas justifies
this order on the ground that it begins with what is easier for us, what
can somehow enter into our sense and imagination rather than what
surpasses all the senses. But in the Summa we see a quite different order
of teaching, where the Word in the beginning with God is treated in the
Prima Pars, and the Word made flesh in the Tertia Pars, but where light
is thrown on the saving role of Christ’s humanity by the prior treatment
of the Trinitarian doctrine of God. The adoption of a different order of
teaching is to be explained by who is being taught: in the first case, the
gloss is concerned with what is easier for catechumens and neophytes
receiving basic instruction, and the second with what is best for those
babes who were ready for higher, theological studies, for advanced understanding, the students of Aquinas’s Summa.54
However, if we are to distinguish not a Christocentric religious order of discovery and a Trinitarian theological order of educational presentation, but two orders of educational presentation, the first Christocentric and catechetical and another more fully Trinitarian, at least two
questions remain: what role is there for any order of discovery, and what
is to be done about Rahner’s proposal, which now, mutatis mutandis,
would be that Aquinas’s second order of teaching should be dropped,
52

Super Ioannem, 1, lec. 1.
ST II-II, q. 189, a. 1, obj. 4, ad 4. See also Contra retrahentes, 7.
54
Cf. ST prologue.
53

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Simon Francis Gaine, O.P.

and the first be employed not only in catechesis but also in systematics?
Though he may not speak explicitly of a theological way of discovery in
the development of Trinitarian doctrine, there is no doubt that Aquinas
participated crucially in this crucial movement as a master of theology. And if this way of discovery does provide a crucial link between a
catechetical Christocentric order of doctrine of God and a systematic
order of teaching a Trinitarian doctrine of God, then perhaps Rahner’s
concern can be incorporated by a way of presentation that begins not
exactly by recapitulating Aquinas’s order of catechesis, but by somehow
uniting the concerns of Lonergan’s dogmatic and systematic theologies,
as we trace our way from what is given to us in the divine missions all
the way to the discovery of every aid that can then inform a properly Trinitarian doctrine of God, which can in turn illuminate for us the
N&V
whole of sweep of Christian theology.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1191-1213

1191

Divine Personhood and the Critique
of Substance Metaphysics
Dominic Holtz, O.P.

Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas
Rome, Italy

SUBSTANCE, THEY TELL US,has fallen on hard times. According
to the narrative presented in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,1
at least since Descartes, the received Aristotelian account of substance,
primary and secondary, has been displaced by new, and ultimately unsatisfactory accounts, leading to a widespread abandonment of the notion altogether. In Descartes, for example, instead of the dizzying array of particulars that are Aristotelian primary substances, or the rich
array of natural kinds that are secondary substances, we are left with
two things: extended things (the material world) and thinking things
(minds, whether human, angelic, or divine). Spinoza, for his part, reduced substance simply to one, which is to say God, or nature, or in
any event all that is. In Leibnitz, in exchange for classic Aristotelian
substances, we receive the monads, basic, fundamental units or “substances” that encompass not only every property they will ever have, but
also reflect, each in their own way, the entire universe. Locke seemed
puzzled by the whole concept of substance and, while he on some occasions regarded that something had to be the bearer of properties, he
regarded the notion rather more as a placeholder for the unknown, for
1

Howard Robinson, “Substance,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed.
Edward N. Zalta (Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2013), http://plato.stanford.
edu/archives/sum2013/entries/substance/.

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

some deep, but unseen, structure of things that accounted for the way
they are. For Hume, substance was, rather like causation, the result of
a mistake, the drawing of an ultimately unintelligible conclusion from
the perceived continuity of things. For Kant, while we must believe in
substances, this has nothing to do with how the world is, but rather by
the formal structures by which we cannot but think about the world.
A shorter, but no less damning, narrative has been offered by William Norris Clarke, S.J., what he called “The Sad Adventures of Substance in Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Whitehead”:
The three successive phases of this distortion can be summed
up as (1) the Cartesian self-enclosed substance; (2) the Lockean
inert substance as unknowable substratum; and (3) the Humean
separable substance, rejected as unintelligible—which it indeed
is as so understood. All of these have been repudiated—and
rightly so—by the majority of late modern and contemporary
thinkers. But nothing adequate has replaced them . . . As a result, real being tends to be reduced to nothing more than a pattern of relations with no subjects grounding them, or a pattern
of events with no agents enacting them. The fundamental polarity within real being between the “in itself ” and the “toward
others,” the self-immanence and the self-transcendence of being, collapses into one pole of pure relatedness to others.2
Why should that matter? Why should a dispute over id quod est or esse,
of quid est and quo est make a difference in our understanding of God,
One and Triune? For good or ill (I certainly think for the good), the
received tradition of theological, and concomitant philosophical speculation about God has operated with just those terms that have, in the
modern era, fallen under various assaults and critiques. One option, of
course, would be to join the chorus of critics and reframe the whole discussion. That is certainly possible, however ill advised. Another option
would be to continue to use the received modes of expression without a
2

William Norris Clarke, S.J., “To Be Is to Be Substance-in-Relation,” in Explorations
in Metaphysics: Being, God, Person (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1994), 103.

Divine Personhood and Substance Metaphysics

1193

care for what others think or say. This, too, is possible, but also, because
of the isolation and indeed obscurantism it could produce, likewise ill
advised. A third option might well be to try to retain those received discourses but precisely with an eye toward and in light of the worries and
critiques that have been raised. This is, of course, a more difficult task,
but I think ultimately a more rewarding one.
To that end, this essay hopes to provide a modicum of assistance.
As there is, of course, no one, unified “substance metaphysics,” so too
there is no one critique of it. So there is no intention here of being even
remotely comprehensive. Rather, I will proceed along the following
lines. First, I will consider a recent, somewhat representative, account
of substance and divine personhood from the world of analytic philosophy in the work of Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz. Second, I
will consider the proposal of someone sympathetic to classic, Thomistic
accounts of substance, but who sees them to be in need of supplement
to account for the full reality of persons, namely the work of William
Norris Clarke, S.J., drawing out the implications of such a view in light
of the work of Richard Swinburne. Third, I will consider the more radical critique of substance metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas in its relation
to Trinitarian ontology in the writings of John Zizioulas. Finally, I will
raise questions about the perils of working from divine personhood, or
for that matter divine substance, as a way of grounding our understanding of person or substance in the created order.
Substance, Divine Personhood, and Analytic Philosophy
In the narrative I outlined above of the hard times on which substance
has fallen, one might well think that no one apart from Thomists or historians of philosophy take the notion seriously. This would be a mistake.
Certainly in the world of analytic philosophy there is a lively discussion
about what substance is and how one can account for it. In saying this,
I am not suggesting that the questions are close to being settled. Fundamental to the analytic approach to substance metaphysics is, not surprisingly, the attempt to find rational grounds for identifying and defining just what counts as a substance. Typically, the question being posed
is how, or whether, a substance can be distinguished from a property or
an event. Even if it is granted that there are substances and that they

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

can be reasonably isolated, other questions arise. Some ask the question
of independence, namely, just what sort of independence is required
for something to count as standing on its own, i.e., being a proper substance. Others ask what provides the unity of a substance. For example,
on the bundle theory, substances just are the “bundle” of properties that
are used to describe them. There is nothing “else” in which these properties “are.” On another view, substances are characterized as having a
substratum, something that grounds claims about it as a particular this
or that. In these discussions, substance tends to be used more generally
in the sense of an Aristotelian primary substance, that is, some concrete
particular, although not to the exclusion of other lively debates about
secondary substances or “natural kinds.”
Two philosophers who have published in recent years defending
substance as a helpful notion are Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz. Their theory of substance depends heavily on a relatively complicated account of independence, and it would take us far away from
our present task to pursue that account. What is of interest to us is their
account of God in their 2007 work The Divine Attributes.3 Early in their
work, Hoffman and Rosenkrantz assert that, “according to the regulating notion of traditional Western theism, God is the greatest being possible.”4 They go on to assert that “God is a maximally great substance,
rather than a maximally great time, place, event, boundary, collection,
number, property, relation, or proposition.”5 Indeed, they hold that classic theism takes God to be not merely a maximally great substance, but
also a maximally great entity, which they take to be “the summum genus, or most general kind, of all categories,” comprising Concrete Entity
(Substance, Place, Time, Event, and Boundary) and Abstract Entity (Set,
Number, Property, Relation, and Proposition).6 From certain properties classically attributed to God, and in particular the power to create,
Hoffman and Rosenkrantz not only form an argument for God’s being a
substance, but indeed his being a person.
3

Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz, The Divine Attributes (Oxford: Blackwell,
2002).
4
Ibid., 13 (emphasis original).
5
Ibid., 14 (emphasis original).
6
Ibid., 15.

Divine Personhood and Substance Metaphysics

1195

Necessarily, everything is either a concrete entity or an abstract
entity, and an abstract entity, for example, the empty set, cannot
have the power to create. Thus, only a concrete entity can have
the power to create. It follows that a necessarily existing concrete entity that intentionally creates good is greater than either
a contingent being or a necessary being that does not. Such a
necessarily existing creative concrete entity must be a person,
since only a person can intentionally create good. Because a
person must be a substance, a necessarily existing concrete entity that intentionally creates good must be a substance.7
They make a similar argument later in their work, this time from the
existence of intellectual activity in God:
Why is God thought to be such a concrete substance? As a being
that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, God has
mental attributes such as believing, willing, and desiring. But
only a concrete substance of the sort in question, that is, and individual thing, can have such mental attributes. Furthermore, it
seems that if an entity is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, then that entity has intentions, beliefs, self-awareness,
intelligence, and can perform actions. Such an entity is a person.
But persons are a kind of concrete substantial entity. Finally,
God is a non-physical soul. Yet, it is also true that nonphysical
souls are a kind of concrete substantial entity.8
We might fear at this point that such a view is not especially helpful for
communicating the Thomist understanding of God either as substance
or as person. After all, Thomas has famously reminded us that the divine
essence is precisely not in the genus of substance but above every genus
(De potentia, q. 8, a. 2, ad 1). Hoffman and Rosenkrantz’s placing of
God at the top of, but thus seemingly among, all entities seems to conflict with this basic insight of Thomas’s that God is not simply an entity
among entities, however exalted.
7
8

Ibid., 18.
Ibid., 25.

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

At least as problematic for a Thomist, if not more so, in Hoffman
and Rosenkrantz’s account is the claim that God just is a concrete substance, in contrast to an abstract one. God, after all, has in himself the
perfections of all genera, and so, in radical contrast with all created
being, the divine substance also has the perfection of relation. Indeed,
Thomas’s whole account of the divine persons is predicated on, if not
the comprehensibility, at least the quasi-intelligibility of the persons in
the Godhead as subsistent relations, which is precisely what Hoffman
and Rosenkrantz say you cannot have. To be sure, for anything other
than God, they would be altogether correct. Thomas himself makes this
point in his commentary on Boethius’s De hebdomadibus. There, Thomas points out the fundamental distinction between abstract predication
(esse) and concrete predication (id quod est). However, this distinction
between the abstract and the concrete does not apply to the “truly simple” (vere simplex), in which case id quod est and esse coincide. God,
then, can just as truthfully be understood in terms properly abstract as
he can in terms properly concrete, not because he is the impossible (i.e.,
both concrete and nonconcrete in the same respect) but because the
divine being transcends even those most basic categories in which we
want to locate substance or relation.
Substance, Personhood, and Being as Relatedness
One figure who was certainly sympathetic to substance metaphysics—
and indeed in light of a Thomistic perspective, rather than a contemporary, analytic mode, but who saw in its traditional form as articulated
by Thomas Aquinas a serious need for supplement—was the Jesuit William Norris Clarke. On Clarke’s view, Thomas is to be commended for
his rich and dynamic notion of being.9 However, one fault that Clarke
finds with Aquinas’s account, and with him the scholastic tradition as a
whole, is its failure to exploit the insights gained from the consideration
of divine personhood as subsistent relation to an analysis of substance
9

Clarke, “Substance-in-Relation,” 102, seeks a “retrieval” of “the classical (pre-Cartesian) notion of substance as dynamic, as an active nature, i.e. an abiding center of
acting and being acted upon—one of the richest insights . . . of ancient and medieval
thought,” which “complementarity between substance and relation” presents but is
potentially obscured in Aristotle, and was “restored in principle” by “the medievals,
especially St. Thomas” (ibid., 103).

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as such. Indeed, out of an understandable or even laudable desire to
highlight the incommunicability of persons in the doctrine of the Trinity or the clear distinction of person and complete nature in the doctrine
of the Incarnation, Thomas, on Clarke’s view, tended to downplay the
“relational aspect of all substances” as opposed to “the in-itself aspect
of substance, existing as distinct from all others.”10 Nonetheless, Clarke
asserts that Thomas’s understanding of substance carries with it the resources for a robust account of the intrinsic relatedness of all being and
every being.
The immediate corollary of this notion of dynamic substance
[i.e., the “notion of substance as dynamic self-identity expressing itself in action” (“Substance-in-Relation,” 107)] is that every
substance, as active, becomes the center of a web of relations
to other active beings around it. For action by its very nature
generates relations with those on which it acts and from which
it receives action in turn. Action, in fact, is the primary generator of real relations within the community of real beings. An
existing substance, therefore, in St. Thomas’ universe, as active,
self-communicating presence, cannot be what it is without being related in some way. To be a substance and to be related are
distinct but complementary and inseparable aspects of every
real being. The structure of every being is indissolubly dyadic: it
exists both as in-itself and as towards others.11
For Clarke, the revealed truth that the divine persons just are subsistent
relations, and the fact that all created being participates in and imitates
the divine esse, ought to have enriched the account of created substances
in general, and the account of personhood in particular. He writes,
The explicit philosophical thematizing of the relational, interpersonal dimension of the human person had to wait until the
existentialist and personalist phenomenologies of the twentieth
century for its full highlighting and systematic development. It
10
11

Ibid., 104.
Ibid., 107–8.

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

is one of the paradoxes of intellectual history, however, that St.
Thomas and the other medieval scholastics did indeed develop
a relational notion of the person for use in the theological explanation of the Trinity. But for some reason they did not exploit
this remarkable intellectual achievement for the philosophical
explanation of the person.12
Indeed, Clarke also recalls that, for Thomas, “the person is not something added on to being as a special delimitation; it is simply what being
is when allowed to be at its fullest, freed from the constrictions of subintelligent matter. So the notions of being and person can each throw
much light on the other when brought together on the level of being
itself.”13 Said simply, for Thomas, on Clarke’s reading, “to be fully is to be
personally.”14 His argument here merits quotation at length:
Being is not just presence, but active presence, tending by nature to pour over into active self-manifestation and self-communication to others. And if personal being is really being itself
only at its supra-material levels, then it follows that to be a person as such is to be a being that tends by nature to pour over
into active, conscious self-manifestation and self-communication to others, through intellect and will working together. And
if the person in question is a good person, i.e., rightly ordered
in its conscious free action, then this active presence to others
will take the form of willing what is truly good for them, which
is itself a definition of love in its broadest meaning, defined by
Thomas as “willing good to another for its own sake.” To be a
person, then, is to be a bi-polar being that is at once present in
itself, actively possessing itself by its self-consciousness (its substantial pole), and also actively oriented towards others, toward
active loving self-communication to others (its relational pole).
To be an authentic person, in a word, is to be a lover, to live a life
12

Clarke, “Person, Being, and St. Thomas,” Communio: International Catholic Review
19, no. 4 (1992): 602.
13
Ibid., 601.
14
Ibid., 609.

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of interpersonal self-giving and receiving. Person is essentially a
“we” term. Person exists in its fullness only in the plural.15
Clarke takes this fundamental insight to be confirmed in the doctrine
of the Trinity of persons in the Godhead. From the Thomistic claim that
persons, that is, individual substances of a rational nature, are highest,
the most perfect of beings, and joining that to the theme that being, as
such, is not merely related, but relational, Clarke holds that this very
structure of being continues up even to the where being is found most
“intensely,” that is, in God himself. He writes,
It is thus of the very nature of being at its supreme intensity to
pour over into self-communicative relatedness. And since God is
the ultimate paradigm of being, of which all creatures in their distinctive ways must somehow be images, it follows that self-communication and relatedness to others must belong to the very
nature of all being as such, and especially to persons as such.16
Clarke, without denying that the Trinity is in fact a revelation, that is, without trying explicitly to naturalize the knowledge of the Trinity of persons
in God,17 does all the same place the tripersonal nature of God as a sort
of supreme instance of a general feature of all being, created or otherwise.
Thus in its highest and purest form, echoed analogously and
proportionately, with increasing imperfection, down through
creation, the radical dynamism of being as self-communicative
evokes as its necessary complement the active, welcoming receptivity of the receiving end of its self-communication. Authentic love is not complete unless it is both actively given and
actively—gratefully—received. And both giving and receiving
at their purest are of equal dignity and perfection. The perfection of being—and therefore of the person—is essentially dyadic, culminating in communion.18
Ibid., 609–10.
Clarke, “Substance-in-Relation,” 109.
17
Ibid., 108–9.
18
Clarke, “Person, Being, and St. Thomas,” 613.
15

16

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

What Clarke would have us hold is not that substance is inimical to
personhood, but rather that the doctrines of the Trinity and Creation,
when considered together, will inevitably, necessarily, “flower out” into
a plurality of persons—person because personhood just is substance at
its perfection, and persons (in the plural) because only in communion
can persons succeed at doing what all being does, that is, to be not only
in-itself, but also toward, and indeed more perfectly for, others.
In his work The Christian God (1994), Richard Swinburne presents
to us what might most charitably be called a remarkable argument that
claims to establish if not necessary, then at least probable grounds for
God as a Trinity of persons.19 Without proceeding any further (i.e., without yet noting the content of his argument), we might well take such a
claim to be stunning in its audacity, and we would surely be justified in
doing so. My aim in presenting Swinburne’s account, however, is not
simply to set him up as an easy target. Rather, there are features of his
“proof ”20 that highlight some of the real dangers in certain accounts of
being as, just as such, relational, and indeed interpersonal. That is, what
might someone, seriously committed to the belief in the Trinity and who
also holds to the intrinsically social nature of at least those substances
who are persons, opine when thinking about God?
The first striking thing about Swinburne’s Trinity of persons is that,
while accepting that there is only one God, Swinburne denies that the
conciliar claims about God’s oneness preclude the possibility of multiple
divine individuals. What the councils meant to do, rather, is to deny “that
there were three independent divine beings, any one of which could exist
without the other, or which could act independently of each other” since
19

Richard Swinburne, “The Trinity,” in The Christian God (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1994), 170–91. He also provides a summary version of the same argument in
The Existence of God, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 343ff. The
former, being the more detailed, will provide the basis for the discussion here.
20
Swinburne, Christian God, 191, rejects Thomas’s argument that God’s existence can
be known, and with certainty, but that God’s Triune nature can only be known by
revelation, since “only fairly strong inductive arguments can be given for the existence of God.” Rather, he asserts that “arguments for there being a God and a God
being ‘three persons in one substance’ will be of the same kind” and that “the data
which suggest that there is a God suggest that the most probable kind of God is such
that inevitably he becomes tripersonal” (ibid.). We must attend to this view of his
when considering what he thinks he can “prove” about the Trinity of Persons.

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1201

“if ‘there is only one God’ mean[s] ‘there is only one divine individual,’
then the doctrine of the Trinity would be manifestly self-contradictory.”21 What Swinburne suggests is that the Trinity is not an individual,
certainly not an individual substance, but rather a collective of three divine persons, a “moderate form of social Trinitarianism but one that
stresses both the logical inseparability of the divine persons in the Trinity, and the absence of anything by which the persons are individuated
except their relational properties.”22 On his view, the one divine person,
himself not (actively) caused, can bring into being another divine person (i.e., one possessed of everything that is means to be God), and then
together these two divine persons, one (actively) uncaused and the other (actively) caused, can bring into being yet another, who also enjoys
possession of all divine attributes but is distinct in being co-caused, and
the (active) cause of no other divine person.
The “first” person, the one not actively caused by the other divine
persons and whom Swinburne identifies as the Father of Christian revelation, has a kind of relative priority. Indeed, on Swinburne’s view, there
must be some means to account for how any community of divine persons could coexist without raising insuperable difficulties with regard to
competing, and incompatible, exercises of their omnipotence. Problems
of conflicts between divine beings are
avoidable if one divine being sees as part of his perfect goodness
that he should confine his causation to one sphere of activity,
while the other confines his causation to a different sphere. That
can be ensured if one of the divine beings actively causes the
other to exist at each period of time on that condition, while
the second being only passively causes the existence of the first
being (that is, does not stop him from existing), at each period
of time. In virtue of this asymmetry of dependence, the second
being recognizes the authority of the first being to delimit their
spheres of activity. The existence of one more divine being is
possible given an asymmetry of dependence, and I cannot see
how else it is possible. For only thus would each divine being
21
22

Ibid., 180.
Ibid., 188.

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

recognize who had the right to define the spheres of activity of
each. Clearly this same process could be repeated to allow for
more than two divine beings.23
Clearly indeed!
Yet, while the Father has in this scheme a kind of relative priority,
Swinburne does not hold that he is, in that sense, independent or greater than the other persons. Why not? In part, this is because Swinburne
holds that the other divine persons, while not actively causing the Father, do nonetheless permissively cause him. The Father is understood
to be granted a kind of priority by the Son and the Spirit in that he is
allowed to, for example, set the agenda for their common exercise of
divine power, to which they give their consent and so all three act as
one. However, while the Son and Spirit are both actively caused, they
themselves can be said to cause the Father permissively, which is to say,
they allow him to continue in existence and do not, for example, use
their almighty power to cause him to cease to exist. This kind of permissive causation, Swinburne argues, would be mutual, that is, the Spirit
permissively causes the Father and the Son, the Son permissively causes
the Father and the Spirit, and the Father permissively causes the Son and
the Spirit, even though the Father actively causes the Son, and with the
Son actively causes the Spirit.
To be sure, this by any normal definition would look like mere
tritheism, but Swinburne denies that this is the case. As he argues,
This collective would be indivisible in its being for logical reasons—that is, the kind of being that it would be is such that each
of its members is necessarily everlasting, and would not have
existed unless it had brought about or been brought about by
the others. The collective would also be indivisible in its causal action in the sense that each would back totally the causal
action of the others. The collective would be causeless and so
(in my sense), unlike its members, ontologically necessary, not
dependent for its existence on anything outside itself. It is they,
however, rather than it, who, to speak strictly, would have the
23

Swinburne, Existence of God, 344.

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1203

divine properties of omnipotence, omniscience, etc.; though
clearly there is a ready and natural sense in which the collective
can be said to have them as well. If all members of a group know
something, the group itself, by a very natural extension of use,
can be said to know that thing: and so on. Similarly this very
strong unity of the collective would make it, as well as its individual members, an appropriate object of worship. The claim
that “there is only one God” is to be read as the claim that the
source of being of all other things has to it this kind of indivisible unity.24
That is, for Swinburne, such a collective would “count” for any meaningful purposes as “one God.”
Now there is obviously much one could say about this account, and
very little of it, I imagine, would be charitable, certainly not from any
even remotely orthodox Christian believer. What is worth attending to,
however, is the reason Swinburne provides that such a collective would
obtain in the first place. That is, even if, as Swinburne thinks, there must
be at least one divine person, why presume that there should be more
than one? Moreover, if more than one, why should there be only three
persons, rather than any number? One of the reasons Swinburne produces to account for three, and only three, divine persons has to do with
the logic of the individuation of divine persons and the structure of their
causality. Divine individuals, Swinburne argues, cannot possess “thisness.”25 Simply put, Swinburne holds that any divine being brought into
being by another, if it had some quality that made it this God rather than
another, would have to possess some feature that provided an “overriding reason” to bring it about, rather than some other divine person.
“Yet,” he continues, “if divine individuals have thisness, there will always
be possible divine individuals which have the same essential properties
(those essential to divinity and any further individuating properties),
and so no reason for bringing about one rather than another . . . If divine

24
25

Swinburne, Christian God, 180–81.
Ibid., 179.

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

individuals have thisness, there cannot be reason to bring about one
rather than another.”26
In light of this claim, Swinburne argues that any individuation of
divine persons would have to be the result of “properties of causal relation” such that unique, and unrepeatable, properties ensue. So, if one
divine individual produces a second, then the first has the unique and
unshared relational property of being the uncaused, active cause of another divine being. Yet this could not be repeated, since any second or
otherwise subsequent caused divine individual would have nothing to
distinguish it, relationally, from the first such caused divine person. “A
third divine individual could only be different from the second,” he argues, “if he had different relational properties, and so if the active cause
of his existence was different from that of the second individual.”27 That
different active cause would be the co-causing by more than one divine
person. The resulting set of individuals would include, then, one who is
himself (actively) uncaused but the active cause of others, a second who
is himself actively caused and, co-operatively with the first, the active
cause of another, and a third who is himself actively co-caused, but the
active cause of none.
While Swinburne thinks that the argument outlined above shows
how one can have multiple divine individuals, it does not provide the
“overriding reason” for the first person to produce any other divine individual at all. The reason Swinburne advances is that a divine person
would see that love is the “supreme good,” which demands more than
one individual. “Love,” says Swinburne, “involves sharing, giving to the
other what of one’s own is good for him and receiving from the other
what of his is good for one; and love involves co-operating with another
to benefit third parties.”28 Because of his goodness, the first divine person, the Father, simply and inevitably produces the second, and they,
“co-operating with another to benefit [a] third part[y],” will likewise inevitably cooperate in producing a third. Since a fourth or any further
person would not add anything qualitative to the “sharing and co-operating in sharing” that constitute love, any further person would not be
26

Ibid., 176.
Ibid., 177.
28
Ibid.
27

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1205

necessary, and so would be produced merely by an act of the will.29 However, “any being created by an act of the will might (metaphysically) not
have existed, and so could not be divine.”30 So, while he does not regard
this account as definitive, he does think it probable: “the most probable
kind of God is such that inevitably he becomes tripersonal.”31
It is not my suggestion here that the reading, or more properly the
rereading, of substance in Aquinas by William Norris Clarke leads somehow inevitably to the quirky theology of the kind theorized by Richard
Swinburne.32 Even so, it is certainly easy to see the dangers inherent in
trying to conclude from the necessarily relational character of being to
the irreducibly dyadic nature of all being as substance-in-relation and
from this to the claim that, at its most intense level, that is, in God himself, the subsistent relations serve not as a revelation beyond human
comprehension and anticipation, but as a kind of pleasant but expected
surprise, a confirmation of the nature of all substance to “pour over into
self-communicative relatedness.”33 It is, admittedly, an extreme expression of the theme, but it is hard to see how Clarke’s approach to substance can precisely avoid at least some kind of natural anticipation of
the Trinity, as opposed to a grace-filled response to revelation by which,
the Trinity already having been revealed, we can see, albeit imperfectly,
imitations of the Trinity in the created order. Moreover, if the perfection
29

Ibid., 179.
Ibid.
31
Ibid., 191.
32
To be fair, Swinburne makes an extended argument to square his account of the
Trinity with the dogmatic tradition of orthodox Christian creeds and the Fathers
of the Church; cf. ibid, 180–91. In particular, he finds his own views echoed in the
explicit arguments made by Richard of St. Victor in his De Trinitate, viz. “that perfect
love involves there being someone else to whom to be generous; and also that perfect
loving involves a third individual, the loving of whom could be shared. The Father
needs socium et condilectum (an ally and one fellow-loved) in his loving” (ibid.,190).
Indeed, he posits that this same view is continued, with specific mention of Richard of St. Victor, in the works of later medievals, including Alexander of Hales and
Bonaventure (ibid., 191n29). Whether Swinburne’s account can be squared with
Richard of St. Victor’s, or Alexander’s or Bonaventure’s, would require another study
than this one. Minimally, however, it seems as though the kind of social Trinity of
three divine individuals, each a god but not simply the one God, for which Swinburne advocates would be as hard to justify on the basis of the Victorine tradition as
it would be on the Thomist one, or the Patristic one, Greek or Latin.
33
Clarke, “Substance-in-Relation,” 109.
30

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

of substance is to be found in those substances we know as persons, and
if we take personhood as such to require plurality, it is hard to see either
how God could help but be tripersonal or else, minimally, could help
but produce a world with created persons with whom he could interact,
and indeed fulfill his personhood by establishing the “we,” the fullness
of the person that Clarke insists can only be found in the plural.34
Substance, Personhood, and Trinitarian Ontology
Probably one of the most noted opponents of substance metaphysics
whose opposition is posed in defense of what he takes to be the Orthodox faith in the Trinity of persons is John D. Zizioulas. On Zizioulas’s
view, “person” as we know it today, whether in theology or philosophy,
owes its existence entirely to the revelation of the Trinity, which he takes
to have been most perfectly expounded by the Cappadocian Fathers,
but whose insights he fears have been lost or undone by the tradition
of Latin theology epitomized by, if not reducible to, Thomas Aquinas.
Taking his cue from Heidegger, Zizioulas gives an account in which the
discourse of ousia, of “substance,” plays the role of the villain. In Zizioulas’s narrative, the ancient Greek world found itself in a dilemma from
which it could not escape, namely, an incapacity “to endow human ‘individuality’ with permanence and thus to create a true ontology of the
human person as an absolute concept.”35 The dilemma was exemplified
by the very theatrical world that gave us the word prosopon, the mask
worn in Greek drama. In tragedy, as indeed in comedy, the prosopa, the
characters, seek to assert their freedom, but always fail to do so. Their
failure is rooted in the larger structure of the world—fate and the gods—
which put an end to the brief rebellion of the person against inevitability.
Zizioulas thinks that something similar can be seen in the Roman world
that gave us the word persona, person. In this case, “person” takes on a
social or legal character, a rôle, and thus, while seeming to provide a legal space or platform for authentic, free action, does so only by inscrib34

In this regard, I am more or less in agreement with John D. Zizioulas (about whom I
will speak below) on the relative unhelpfulness of more recent attempts to posit “the
idea of relational substance” to account for Trinitarian theology, although for quite
different reasons.
35
Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), 29.

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1207

ing the person precisely in a larger whole, the society that is understood
to precede, to be the necessary precondition for, the rise of the person.
Understood more broadly, Zizioulas sees this as the imprisoning notion
of ousia, of substance, taken to be the universal and all-pervasive condition of being that precedes and thus limits and confines all authentic
human freedom, which is the hallmark of personhood.
The turning point comes, Zizioulas thinks, with Cappadocian Trinitarian theology, and precisely with the identification of person and hypostasis. As he writes,
(a) The person is no longer an adjunct to a being, a category
to which we add a concrete entity once we have first verified
its ontological hypostasis. It is itself the hypostasis of the being.
(b) Entities no longer trace their being to being itself—that is,
being is not an absolute category in itself—but to the person,
to precisely what constitutes being, that is, enables entities to be
entities. In other words from an adjunct to a being (a kind of
mask) the person becomes the being itself and is simultaneously—and a most significant point—the constitutive element (the
“principle” or “cause”) of beings.36
This is so because, on Zizioulas’s reading of the Cappadocian Fathers,
the Trinitarian formula mia ousia, tria prosopa (one substance, three
persons) is not understood to root the unity of God in a common substance, what God is “first,” and to which are added the personal relations
of the Trinity. This, he thinks, is the classic Western error. Rather, for
Zizioulas, what “grounds” the ontology of the Trinity is precisely the
Father, who freely begets the Son and brings forth the Spirit and so freely
constitutes the divine substance. As Zizioulas writes, “Thus God as person—as the hypostasis of the Father—makes the one divine substance
to be that which it is: the one God.”37 If God is substance, it is because he
is first hypostasis or person, the Father, and he is so not out of necessity,
not out of the logic of a substance that conditions and sets limits, but out
of his superabundant freedom.
36
37

Ibid., 39 (emphasis original).
Ibid., 41.

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

The manner in which God exercises His ontological freedom,
that precisely which makes Him ontologically free, is the way in
which He transcends and abolishes the ontological necessity of
the substance by being God as Father, that is, as He who “begets”
the Son and “brings forth” the Spirit. This ecstatic character of
God, the fact that His being is identical with an act of communion, ensures the transcendence of the ontological necessity
which His substance would have demanded—if the substance
were the primary ontological predicate of God—and replaces
this necessity with the free self-affirmation of divine existence.
For this communion is a product of freedom as a result not of
the substance of God but of a person, the Father—observe why
this doctrinal detail is so important—who is Trinity not because
the divine nature is ecstatic but because the Father as a person
freely wills this communion.38
Zizioulas contrasts this Trinitarian ontology as the priority of person
over substance with what he calls “the Augustinian solution”:
according to this, monotheism is safeguarded by the one substance of God, the divinitas, which logically precedes the three
persons. In this case, monotheism survives at the expense of
Trinitarianism. The Trinity is not the way in which the one
God is, that is, in the sense of a primary ontological category, but rather indicates relations within the one God, that is,
instances of his one nature, realized and expressed mainly in
psychological or moral terms, as the memory, knowledge and
love of a certain individual substance. This is followed faithfully by Aquinas, for whom, when we generalize or abstract
from the Trinitarian persons, what remains for thought is the
one divine nature which is in general to be called “God,” not
the three persons or only one of them. Such a solution makes
it difficult logically to reconcile the one and the three in God,
and must be counted responsible for the eclipse of Trinitarian
theology in the West for such a long time. It may also account
38

Ibid., 44 (emphasis original).

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1209

for the emergence of modern atheism, particularly of the existential type, which has rejected the substantialist approach to
God and thus God as such.39
To be sure, Zizioulas has received a fair amount of criticism over the
years,40 and it would take us far afield to pursue the careful reading of
the Fathers that others have done to determine how faithfully—or not—
Zizioulas has represented the theology of the Cappadocians. What interests us here, rather, is his critique of the “Augustinian solution,” and
particularly its expression in Thomas Aquinas, and with it his anxieties about substance metaphysics. Specifically, we want to see whether
there is any merit in his concerns about Thomistic metaphysics and divine personhood. Moreover, and on an irenic note, we will want to see
whether or not Thomas has resources to respond to the kinds of concerns that Zizioulas raises about substance metaphysics in general, and
how it relates to the ontology of person in particular.
To respond to Zizioulas’s worry, we must turn to what he regards as
the smoking gun, the clear evidence of Thomas’s confusion about divine
persons, and so likewise his confusion about substance, namely Summa
theologiae III, q. 3, a. 3, “Utrum natura [divina] possit assumere [naturam creatam], abstracta personalitate.” In this question, Thomas continues
his exploration of the union of the two natures in the Incarnate Word.
Throughout the question, Thomas will outline a basic principle of the
metaphysics of Incarnation, namely, that while a person is properly the
terminus of the assumption of a created nature, the act of assuming itself,
being an act of divine power, is common to all three persons in the Trinity.
He will use this distinction to consider various hypothetical possibilities of
Incarnation, namely, whether the Word might have been incarnate more
than once, whether another person might have been incarnate, wheth39

Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church
(London: T&T Clark, 2006), 150–51.
40
Cf. André de Halleux, “Personnalisme ou essentialisme trinitaire chez les Pères
cappadociens?,” Revue théologique de Louvain 17 (1986): 129–55, 265–92; Thomas Weinandy, “Zizioulas: The Trinity and Ecumenism,” New Blackfriars 83 (2002):
407–16; Lucian Turcescu, “‘Person’ versus ‘Individual’ and Other Modern Misreadings of Gregory of Nyssa,” Modern Theology 18 (2002): 527–39; Matthew Levering,
Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2004), 205–10.

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

er all three persons might have been incarnate, and so on, culminating
in a consideration of the fittingness (convenientia) of the Incarnation in
the Son. The third article, however, is a trifle curious. Here Thomas asks
whether the divine nature, after having abstracted the distinction of persons through the intellect, could assume a created nature.
In the first two objections, Thomas appeals to principles already
clarified in the first two articles. It belongs to persons, not to natures,
to assume. Therefore remove the persons, and there is nothing left to
assume. The third objection would seem to be the one that should warm
Zizioulas’s heart. The objector says, “it was said in the first part that, in
the Godhead, when personality is abstracted, nothing remains. But, what
assumes is something. Therefore, when the personality is abstracted, the
divine nature cannot assume (in prima parte dictum est quod in divinis,
abstracta personalitate, nihil manet. Sed assumens est aliquid. Ergo, abstracta personalitate, non potest divina natura assumere).” In other words,
the objector seems to share precisely Zizioulas’s view that the Trinity of
persons is what constitutes the divine nature, not something that flows
from it, and thus logically after it. No persons, no divine nature.
Where things at first look like they might confirm Zizioulas’s worry—namely, that Thomas takes substance to be, for God, a kind of primary ontological category, to which the divine persons are posterior—is
in the opinion sed contra. Here it is asserted that the threefold personal
properties of Paternity, Filiation, and Procession, if abstracted by the
intellect, still leave God’s omnipotence behind, and it is by divine power
that the Incarnation is accomplished, so it can still happen even without
the three divine persons. Or is that reading quite right?
The key to understanding what it going on in this article is made
explicit in the response, but is announced from the beginning. This is
not, as such, an exploration of God in himself, but quite explicitly God
as understood by the human intellect. In other words, it is our confused
knowledge of God’s nature and of the divine persons that is under consideration, the kind of quasi-concept of God that is had by the human
mind, and thus a concept of something with distinctions and divisions,
parts and composition, which is how the human mind must inevitably
approach the mystery of God. Indeed, Thomas is all too ready to assert
that, if the question were considered of God himself—or rather, what
the intellect knows him to be just as he is—it would ultimately be im-

Divine Personhood and Substance Metaphysics

1211

possible to think of taking any “part” away from God. Likewise, and
more to the point, it would be impossible to take away one person and
leave anything of God intact, since the persons are distinguished only by
relations. In other words, even without being able in any way to comprehend the Trinity, we can know, even in via, that the scenario envisioned
by the question raised in this article offers an impossibility, and so the
mind rightly refuses it.
Even so, Thomas does not end there. He continues, to the annoyance of Zizioulas, to examine the question in accord with the human intellect’s way of knowing, that is multipliciter et divisim id quod in Deum
est unum. Said differently, even knowing, by revelation, that God just is
the Trinity of persons, our mind cannot, here and now, “see” that this is
so. We are perfectly capable of thinking of God only as one, but in that
one possessed of everything else we know about him, such as his goodness and his wisdom. More than that, we can still think of God, even if
entirely ignorant of the Trinity of persons, as subsistent, and of having
an intellectual nature, that is, possessing an intellect and will, and so,
by that fact, we can think of God as a person (ad 1). Indeed, this kind
of obscure knowledge of God—that is, knowledge of God but without
knowledge of the Trinity—is precisely what Thomas takes to be the position of the Jews who, it seems, justifiably (even if incorrectly) conceive
of God as a person.
What is crucial to note here, with regard to Zizioulas’s critique, is that
Thomas precisely rejects what Zizioulas claims him to affirm. That is, on
Zizioulas’s reading, Thomas imagines that there is something, the divine
substance, which in some way “is” such that it could, at least hypothetically, survive the removal of the divine persons. However, Thomas’s claim
here is something quite different. Thomas’s aim here is to reveal just how
far our intellect is from grasping how the divine persons and the divine
nature, the subjects of the first two articles, relate. We might imagine, that
is, because of the formula that makes the person the terminus but the nature, in the sense of what is common to all three persons, the principle of
the act of assumption, that persons and nature are somehow detachable.
Thomas, in response to this, gives us a twofold lesson. On the one hand,
he reminds us that this distinction does not apply to the divine persons
in God. Each person just is the one God, the divine substance, and each
person is, just as related to the other persons and not merely as constitut-

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Dominic Holtz, O.P.

ed by someone else, but being the very relation subsisting. On the other
hand, he reminds us just how distant our intellectual grasp of the Trinity
is from the divine reality. The fact that we can, without difficulty, think
of God without adverting to the Trinity of persons we know him to be,
and still conceive of him as a person recalls to us that we simply do not
apprehend, in any lasting or successful way, how the divine nature, which
is also to say the Trinity of persons, “works.”
Ironically, Thomas’s fundamental notion of what makes a person
to be a person should also be attractive to Zizioulas, rather than worrisome. As we recall, for Zizioulas, one of the principal marks of a person is freedom: freedom from the limiting determinations of substance,
freedom for generation and creation. Yet, despite Ziziolas’s worries, this
is just what Thomas wants us to understand about persons. As he tells
us, what characterizes particular individuals in rational substances from
other sorts of things is that they are not merely acted upon, moved by the
great causal nexus from the primum mobile down to the humblest rock,
but have “dominion over their acts . . . and act per se” (ST I, q. 29, a. 1).
Precisely as intellectual, and thus spiritual, persons, even those persons
who are animals and thus have material bodies, are, in their intellects,
“potentially all things,” not determined, as are merely sensory beings,
by the limits of matter to receive sensible forms. In their wills, persons
are oriented not merely to sensory, and thus limited, constrained, and
relatively determined goods, but rather to the good as known, to the
good as such. It is just this indeterminacy in intellect and will that provide rational animals and intellectual substances, that is, persons, their
dignity. It is in this sense that persons are like God who, in a supereminent way, exceeds all categories and limits, while having in himself all
perfections. While created persons do not possess all perfections and
are, by their natures, constrained in some sense, the fact that they are
not determined to this or that, and that, being spiritual, are free from
all coercive governance (at least in their will), means that persons for
Thomas exhibit just that freedom and spontaneity that Zizioulas worries, without justification, is lost to the Western intellectual tradition.
It should be clear, however, why Thomas would not be sanguine
about the prospect of trying to found the ontology of God around the
notion of the divine persons, and why we should be cautious about attempts to adjust our metaphysics to meet a perceived need to some-

Divine Personhood and Substance Metaphysics

1213

how “include” or make room for the dynamic of subsistent relations. As
Thomas reminds us (cf. De potentia, q. 9, a.5), the plurality of persons in
the Godhead falls under those things pertaining to the faith and can neither be sought out by natural human reason nor sufficiently understood.
Similarly, the very doctrine of simplicity forestalls any attempt to make
divine subsistent relations, or for that matter the divine esse, which is at
once the divine id quod est, a useful starting point for us in making sense
of the world. We see this manifest in Thomas’s allowance that God can
justifiably be called “person,” not by virtue of what we know revealed
about the Trinity of persons, but by what we can know about him even
by reason, or by incomplete revelation as to the Jews, namely of his possessing, by analogy, an intellectual nature. What is curious here is that
we can know by faith that God is not one person, but three, but there
is nothing at all in our way of knowing in via that would prevent our
reasonably seeing God as personal just in his unity. Pace Zizioulas, real
things can be known about God apart from the revelation of the Trinity
of persons, and it is less than obvious that the one God who is known is
the person of the Father (whose personalitas must be revealed to us by
the Son in any event). As much as we might sympathize with the desire
radically to reassess our metaphysics in light of the sublime truth of the
Trinity, the very modesty that Thomas calls us to in handling this most
central, but therefore most difficult to grasp, doctrine points rather away
from grounding our intellects on such truths. We must, if we want to
talk sensibly, use those categories that make sense to us, however much
the truths about which we speak stretch our sensible talk in unaccustomed and occasionally uncomfortable directions.
N&V

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1215-1231

1215

Eschatology and the Doctrine of God
in St. Thomas Aquinas
Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
Berkeley, CA

ESCHATOLOGYhas become increasingly recognized as a subdomain
of theology that must not be ignored. This has been discerned in the
Protestant milieu at least since, about a century ago, Albert Schweitzer
famously put forward the (at least seemingly new) paradigm of Jesus as
eschatological prophet. Later, Karl Barth declared that a “Christianity
that is not wholly and utterly and irreducibly eschatology has absolutely
nothing to do with Christ.”1 And in the opening line of an essay published not too many decades ago, Hans Urs von Balthasar could declare
eschatology to be the current “storm center” of theology.2 While these
latter two statements might veer toward the hyperbolic in making a case
for the systematic omnipresence or current relevance of eschatology,
they cannot be too far off the mark for Christians, who believe that “if
for this life only” we have “hoped in Christ,” we are “of all men the most
to be pitied” (cf. 1 Cor 15:19).
There is no such limitation on hope in St. Thomas Aquinas’s teaching, which in fact is significantly, and even thoroughly, eschatological.
The Angelic Doctor’s way of being eschatological involves, in part, his
1

Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans, 2nd ed. (1922), cited in T. H. L. Parker et al., trans.,
Church Dogmatics, vol. II/1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 634 (on Rom 8:24).
2
Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Some Points of Eschatology,” in Explorations in Theology,
vol. 1, The Word Made Flesh, trans. A. V. Littledale with Alexander Dru (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989; orig., 1957), 255–77.

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Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

use of Aristotelian causality as a major organizing principle. Such an
appropriation of a philosophical category by theology is probably nearly
the opposite of what Barth had in mind when he called for theology
to be thoroughly eschatological. Indeed, some have accused Aquinas,
in his eschatology as in other areas of his thought, of subjugating the
God of revelation to a preconceived philosophical system; one theologian made just such an accusation when, in contrasting “logos” thought
with that of the “promise,” he claimed that Aquinas’s way of conceiving
of the end “replaces the biblical history of the promise with a finalistic
metaphysic.”3 Our article will show that such concerns, well motivated
though they may be, are not applicable to Thomas’s theology. I will show
this mainly by reference to what Thomas says about God insofar as the
judgment, common resurrection, renewal of the world, and personal
fulfillment are concerned.
In this essay I will show, from a number of aspects of Thomas’s
teaching, including his doctrine of God, that his theology is particularly
eschatological, in that “the end” has a significant and systematic role to
play in his theology, especially in that God himself is the end of all his
creatures. I will also show that Thomas’s doctrine of God as discerned
in his teachings on the eschaton is one in which the dominion or power
of God is very prominent, primarily in his teaching that it is only God
who brings creatures to their end. In this, it is not the case that Thomas
“replaces” the God of revelation with a philosophical framework; rather,
he puts philosophical categories to work for sacra doctrina. Finally, I will
propose that these two teachings taken together (God as the end of all
creatures, but an end that they cannot reach without God’s action) offer
a conception of the divinity that is neither aloof nor pantheistic, but
both transcending and loving his creation.

3

See Jürgen Moltmann, “Christian Hope: Messianic or Transcendent? A Theological
Discussion with Joachim of Fiore and Thomas Aquinas,” Horizons (Villanova) 12,
no. 2 (1985): 328–48, esp. 333, for the quotation concerning a “finalistic metaphysic”;
on “Logos” thought vs. the “promise,” see Moltmann, “Theology as Eschatology,” in
The Future of Hope, ed. Frederick Herzog (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970), 1–50,
esp. 13n19; and Moltmann, Theology of Hope, trans. James W. Leitch (London: SCM,
2002; orig., 1964), 26–28. See also Bryan Kromholtz, On the Last Day: The Time of
the Resurrection of the Dead According to Thomas Aquinas, Studia Friburgensia 110
(Fribourg: Academic, 2010), 419–20n279.

Eschatology and the Doctrine of God

1217

Eschatology, God as End, and the Dominion of God
Before considering the relation in Thomas’s theology between eschatology and the doctrine of God, we must note that something about the
that eschatological dimension itself: it is present throughout Aquinas’s
theology. His eschatology, a kind of Christian version of Aristotelian teleology (with important differences from Aristotle’s thought, to be sure),
thoroughly penetrates his work. Indeed, in all Thomas’s major theological works, the final end is a principal theme; this is true even of the Summa theologiae (even though its section on the final end was never begun).4 To state this is not to assert something contested in the discussion
over how best to understand the structure of the Summa theologiae; in
fact, the notion of finality is a common element in all the attempts to explain that structure. In addition to the renowned neo-Platonic-inspired
exitus/reditus schema, the more well-known explanations have included
a more Aristotelian causal plan, a kind of gradated nature-grace-glory
sequence, et cetera.5 Despite the variety of emphases present in each of
these ways of conceiving of the overarching theme of Thomas’s most
famous work, there is nevertheless remarkable agreement that the structure of the work, and thus of Thomas’s theology, is systematically ordered by the direction of all things toward an end. Indeed, for Thomas,
the “end” is not merely the aggregate of things as they turn out at last;
rather, the end is the goal of all creatures. It is interesting to note that
Thomas never uses the term “last things” as a kind of shorthand for
what we might call “eschatology.” For such a shorthand term, he usually
prefers to speak of “the final end,” or simply “the end.”6 His consistent
4

See ST I, q. 2, prologue; ST III, prologue; In I Sent., prologue; In IV Sent., prologue;
SCG IV, ch. 1, para. 1 and 11; Compendium theologiae I, ch. 1 and 2; CT II, ch. 2.
5
For the various explanations for the structure of the Summa theologiae that have
been proposed, see Brian V. Johnstone, “The Debate on the Structure of the Summa
Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas: From Chenu (1939) to Metz (1998),” in Aquinas
as Authority: A Collection of Studies Presented at the Second Conference of the Thomas
Instituut te Utrecht, December 1–16, 2000, Publications of the Thomas Instituut te
Utrecht, New Series 7, ed. Paul van Geest, Harm Goris, and Carlo Leget (Leuven:
Peeters, 2002), 187–200, esp. 187–88 for bibliography.
6
Even in cases where Thomas uses a kind of plural description of last “things,” he
usually refers those things (i.e., plural) to man’s end (i.e., singular). So, in SCG IV, ch.
1, para. 11, when describing the contents of the end of the last book of the SCG, he
speaks of “the things surpassing reason which are looked for in the ultimate end of

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Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

preference for the singular is an indication of the way that he integrates
his teaching on the finality of creation into a unity. That which happens
according to the divine plan at the “end” is not an event that simply happens at the conclusion of history; rather, the end is its fulfillment.
Thus it is all the more significant that, in the view of the Angelic
Doctor, it is God himself who is this “end.” This is not to say that there
are no intermediate ends of consequence. Indeed, although subhuman
creatures have their own purposes, Thomas can even say that man is the
end of all of them.7 However, that finality is only a relative finality; over
and above humanity, God himself is the end of all creatures, including
not only men but also angels, animals, plants, and minerals.8 God creates and orders all human persons and all of creation to himself as their
end. He is the fulfillment of all creatures—principally of man himself.
That God is the end of all is certainly programmatic for Thomas. On
the part of the divine nature, God’s very goodness is that by which he is
the goal of all things. Risking an overly brief treatment, then, I merely
note that in the Summa theologiae Thomas dedicates an early article to
whether the good has the nature of a final cause, where he states that:
“Goodness is that which all desire, and since this has the aspect of an
end . . . goodness implies the aspect of an end.”9 Now God is, of course,
the highest good.10 Thus God has the nature of an end. God’s goodness,
as that which all things desire, not only supplies a rubric under which the
divine source for all directedness may be described—it is that through
which all directedness comes. And as the final cause is first in causing
and last in what is caused, so the final cause is found first in God, and
man, such as the resurrection and glorification of bodies, the everlasting beatitude of
souls, and matters related to these” (emphasis added).
7
On the notion of all things being made for man in Thomas, see In II Sent. d. 1, q. 2,
a. 3; In IV Sent. d. 47, q. 2, a. 1, qla. 1, corp.; In IV Sent. d. 48, q. 2, a. 2, ad 8; In IV
Sent. q. 2, a. 3, ad 3 and ad 6; In IV Sent. q. 2, a. 4, corp.; SCG IV, ch. 97, para. 1; De
veritate, q. 5, a. 9, obj. 13; De potentia, q. 5, a. 9, corp.; CT I, ch. 148; Super Ioan. 6,
lec. 5 (v. 44b; Marietti ed. no. 940); Super Eph. 1, lec. 3 (v. 10; Marietti ed. no. 29); ST
I, q. 44, a. 4; ST I-II, q. 2, a. 1, corp. See Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 155–63.
8
For Thomas, the end of all things (including man) is the divine goodness: In II Sent.
d. 1, q. 2, a. 2; ST I, q. 44, a. 4; ST I, q. 65, a. 2; CT I, ch. 100–1; see also In IV Sent. d.
48, q. 2, a. 3, ad 6; SCG III, ch. 17, para. 2; De veritate, q. 5, a. 9, ad 13, q. 22, a. 2; De
potentia, q. 5, a. 4, corp.; ST I-II, q. 1, a. 8, corp.
9
ST I, q. 5, a. 4, corp.
10
ST I, q. 6, a. 2, corp.

Eschatology and the Doctrine of God

1219

last in his creatures—finally (literally) in the eschaton. In final causality,
then, we have a kind of blueprint for all of creation and redemption—a
plan that is first found in God himself, indeed, in his very being.
Now, for human beings, final fulfillment is found only in the vision
of God himself.11 This is the very goal or end of Christ’s saving work, including Christ’s resurrection. In commenting on 1 Corinthians (15:28),
Thomas states that the end of Christ’s resurrection was not merely to restore the humanity of Christ, but further, to lead the rational creature “to
the contemplation of the Divinity,” in which is our beatitude, with our
end being “God himself.”12 It is noteworthy, too, that God is our beatitude; that is, he is to be the fulfillment of us as human beings, not merely
as souls. Thus our final fulfillment must include resurrection of the body,
so that the whole person may be fulfilled. What is more, this fulfillment
must include all of the elect, that the body of Christ may be completed.
But what does it mean that God is the end of all things? This does
not mean that all things are to become God (owing to all creatures’ inherent limits). It also does not mean that all things will contemplate
God—only intellectual creatures may do that. Yet it does mean that all
things are to become like God.13 Thomas will even say that all things are,
in some way, in the image of God—even though this description properly pertains only to intellectual creatures, who not only exist and live,
but can know and love him.14 But all of creation, in the renewal of the
world at the end, will be likened to God; insofar as they are ordained to
perpetuity, they may remain in the world to come.15
Now Thomas considers the creature’s end to be something that God
intends to communicate to the creature. This is God’s intended end,
God’s purpose, for his creature (which is integral to the being of the crea11

See ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7, s.c.; ST I-II, q. 3, a. 8, corp.; Yves M.-J. Congar, “L’historicité
de l’homme selon Thomas d’ Aquin,” Doctor Communis: Acta et Commentationes
Pontificiae Academiae Romanae S. Thomae Aquinatis 22, no. 4 (1969): 297–304, esp.
299.
12
Super I Cor. 15, lec. 3 (v. 28; Marietti ed. no. 950): “ostendit finem huius resurrectionis
non esse in humanitate Christi, sed ulterius perducetur rationalis creatura ad
contemplationem divintatis, et in ea est beatitudo nostra, et finis noster ipse Deus est.”
13
SCG III, ch. 19–20; ST I, q. 44, a. 4, corp.; CT I, ch. 101.
14
CT I, ch. 75; see also ST I, q. 93, a. 2.
15
For Thomas, this means that plants and animals as such have no place in the
eschaton; see SCG IV, ch. 97, para. 5; see also In IV Sent. d. 50, q. 2, a. 3, qla. 2, corp.

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Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

ture, to be sure). It is an end to be brought about ultimately by God—not
to aggrandize himself, as if this were possible, nor to do something for
his own utility. Rather, he acts because of his own goodness.16 That is, he
communicates his own perfection to them. The “patient,” or receiver, in
its way, intends to acquire its own perfection, which is to be like God;
the creature can also participate in its own process of being perfected.
Yet it is God’s initiative and grace that makes possible such conformity
to himself.
Although the creature can participate in the process of perfection,
for Thomas, the eschaton—the end—is God’s work, no matter how
much the creature desires it and strives for it. Crucially, in its final, eschatological accomplishment, it is the work of God alone. So, for example, the elevation of the soul to the vision of God is possible only by
divinely granted grace.17 Now it is true that humans can indeed be said
to merit the visio Dei and thus a glorious resurrection—of course, only
through their identification with and incorporation into the action of
God-made-man, Jesus Christ. But humans do not have the power to
bring about their own perfection. That is God’s work. This much is generally well understood.
But it is not only the eschatology of humanity that is in question
here. It should be noted that the angels also needed grace in order to be
turned toward God and so to reach beatitude, for “to see God in His essence, wherein the ultimate beatitude of the rational creature consists, is
beyond the nature of every created intellect.”18 So the beatitude of angels
is beyond the reach of their proper power, just as our beatitude is beyond
our power. In addition to angels’ final perfection, we must also consider
full human perfection, which requires the general resurrection. Thomas
insists that only divine power can bring about resurrection.19 Resurrection is absolutely beyond the capability of nature, although not opposed
to it.20 Still, resurrection is beyond what human nature can do on its
16

ST I, q. 44, a. 4, ad 1.
See ST I, q. 12, aa. 4–5.
18
ST I, q. 62, a. 2.
19
See, for example, In III Sent. d. 5, q. 3, a. 2, obj. 4; In IV Sent. d. 43, q. unic., a. 1, qla. 3,
corp. and ad 4; SCG IV, ch. 81, para. 5 and 14. See also Kromholtz, On the Last Day,
279–82.
20
See ST I, q. 105, a. 8, corp.; Super I Cor. 15, lec. 5 (v. 36; Marietti ed. no. 969) and lec.
17

Eschatology and the Doctrine of God

1221

own, for resurrection is beyond any natural hope, being among the most
exalted kinds of miracle, which can be accomplished only by God.21
Thomas says something similar of the renewal of the corporeal
world. As with resurrection, he contends that the stoppage of the heavens’ motion (and of the world’s time that results from that motion) and
the renewal of the world (at that moment) is something effected by God
alone: “The motion of heaven will cease in that renewal of the world, not
indeed from some natural cause, but by the action of the divine will.”22
The agency of God over this event is shown in that both the general
resurrection and the end of the world will occur at the coming of Christ.
That is, the end comes when Christ comes, because he brings it about.
This demonstrates his own dominion over the eschaton, and thus,
through the divinity united in his person, God’s dominion over it.23
I should point out an important way in which these last two kinds
of final perfection (general resurrection and the world’s renewal) are
linked. Thomas teaches that the heavens’ motion will cease when the
number of the elect is reached (i.e., when all who are to be saved have
in fact been saved).24 Furthermore, he holds that it will cease precisely
because the human generation and material sustenance for which the
world was made will no longer be needed—the movement of the heavens being a cause of that generation and sustenance. Once the dead have
been raised to an incorrupt life, there will be no need for the generation
(and corruption) supplied through the world’s motion.25
But note that, in Thomas’s view, the transformation of the world is
not a natural result of humanity’s change in status. Thomas does not ar9 (v. 53; Marietti ed. no. 1015); and CT I, ch. 154; see also Super Rom. 11, lec. 3 (v.
24; Marietti ed. no. 910). On the naturalness of resurrection, see In IV Sent. d. 43, q.
unic., a. 1, qla. 3, corp., ad 3, and ad 5; SCG IV, ch. 81, para. 2.
21
See In II Sent. d. 18, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3; and ST I, q. 105, a. 8, corp.; see also ST I, q. 110,
a. 4, corp.; ST III, q. 43, a. 2, corp.
22
In IV Sent. d. 48, q. 2, a. 2, corp. See also In IV Sent. d. 47, q. 1, a. 1, qla. 3, corp.; In
IV Sent. d. 43, q. unic., a. 3, qla. 2, ad 1; CT I, ch. 242; and De potentia, q. 5, a. 6, corp.
and ad 10.
23
In IV Sent. d. 43, q. unic., a. 2, qla. 2, corp.
24
See In IV Sent. d. 48, q. 2, a. 2, corp.; De potentia, q. 5, a. 5, corp., q. 5, a. 6, corp.;
Quaestiones disputatae De spiritualibus creaturis 6, corp.; Super Heb. 1, lec. 5 (v. 11;
Marietti ed. no. 75); and CT I, ch. 171.
25
In IV Sent. d. 48, q. 2, a. 2, corp.; In IV Sent. d. 44, q. 1, a. 3, qla. 4; SCG IV, ch. 97,
para. 7.

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Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

gue from the idea that all things tend toward a state of rest or any other
purely natural teleology. This is clear because he argues that, from the
viewpoint of reason, the heavenly motion could continue without end
(just as, more famously, he believes it to be philosophically tenable to
hold that the world could have had no temporal beginning)—although
revelation allows the believer to reach an understanding that the world’s
motion will end. Thus it is for properly theological reasons that Thomas
holds that the motion of the heavens will cease (as is the case for the
beginning of the world). That is, he holds that it is only God who will
cause the cessation of the celestial motion along with the renewal of the
world (just as he will cause the Resurrection). God will do this so that
the world will match humanity’s new, risen status—but the one does
not cause the other. God causes them both. Thomas holds that it is “fitting”—not necessary—that God act in this way.26
We can say something similar of the general resurrection. Thomas
holds that the Resurrection is something that even reason alone could
posit. Thomas argues that, since the human soul is immortal (which he
believes can be known from reason), and since the soul ought to inform
a body, it would be unreasonable if the human soul would go on existing
perpetually without the body—and that therefore the body ought to be
furnished to the soul in some kind of permanent way. The Resurrection
is thus reasonable.27 Now Thomas never goes so far as to suggest that the
individual is owed resurrection in justice; nor does he claim that some
kind of natural desire for resurrection is a given of human nature. After
all, he treats the Resurrection in the fourth book of the Summa contra
Gentiles, along with the Trinity and other revealed matters in which he
is dealing only with matters proper to revelation. Nevertheless, he holds
that reason demonstrates the fittingness of resurrection for humanity—
and the nonfittingness of an ultimate lack of resurrection.
Nevertheless, even though he holds resurrection to be a most fitting
end for humans, Thomas is clear that they cannot attain resurrection
on their own. This is true of those who are to be glorified and of those
26
27

SCG IV, ch. 97, para. 1; see also Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 154–237.
In IV Sent. d. 43, q. unic., a. 1, qla. 1, corp.; SCG IV, ch. 79, para. 10–11. In this,
Thomas differs from his contemporaries Albert and Bonaventure, who hold the
Resurrection to be almost exclusively a matter of revelation; see Kromholtz, On the
Last Day, 121–22n30.

Eschatology and the Doctrine of God

1223

who are to suffer eternal torment. The soul and the remains, considered
singly or together, are incapable of bringing about their own reunion.
Only God can reunite souls with their remains. Thomas holds that not
only is it the case that only God can raise the dead in this way, but also
that God cannot even delegate this power; he cannot bestow this power
of agency upon any creature. It is through Christ, through the hypostatic
union, that the Resurrection is to be caused.
It worth noting that Thomas will say that resurrection is, as it were,
more miraculous than the justification of sinners.28 Thomas says that,
unlike justification of the sinner, where there is something already in the
sinner suitable of being raised to the life of grace, the bodily remains are
completely unsuited to being raised (and the soul is certainly incapable
of effecting such an action). This is not to say that, for Thomas, resurrection is unnatural. It is a resurrection to a state that fully suits the soul
and completes human nature, but one that cannot be attained by soul or
corpse (or even by soul and corpse).
A further note on the divine dispensation is needed. This concerns
Thomas’s teaching regarding the complete renewal of human nature at
the end: human nature (not merely every individual) will be restored for
everyone, all at once, at the Resurrection.29 The same human nature is
shared by all; when it is restored, it will be restored for everyone at the
same time. Certainly, it will be restored concretely only in persons; for
Thomas, human nature is not some kind Platonistic idea with its own
existence. Still, in human persons or human souls, that nature shares
certain conditions that are to be changed such that the human nature
is restored at one time, through Christ. While salvation has been made
accessible through the initial coming of Christ, that salvation is granted
only to persons, one by one. Restoration of human nature is not granted
generally until the end. Thus the effects of original sin continue to be
felt in this life: disease and death, proclivity to sin and ignorance. What
28

ST I-II, q. 113, a. 10, corp.: “In certain miraculous works it is found that the form
introduced is beyond the natural power of such matter; so, in the resurrection of
the dead, life is above the natural power of such a body. But the justification of the
ungodly is not miraculous, because the soul is naturally capable of grace; since from
its having been made to the likeness of God, it is fit to receive God by grace.”
29
SCG IV, ch. 81, sec. 15; Super I Cor. 15, lec. 8 (v. 52; Marietti ed. no. 1010); see
Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 353–57, esp. the references at 355n94.

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Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

we can discern here, then, is the ongoing relevance of God’s dominion
over his creation, especially his human creatures. There can be no easy
assurance that all will be well unless that assurance is founded on trust
in God.
I must go further now and speak not only of the inability of the creature to attain its higher, eschatological state (or to sustain itself in that
state), but also the dependent quality of that state. Whereas its glorified
state makes the saint’s soul share in the divine life, the new state does not
identify that soul with God in every way. Of the ways in which glorification of souls in patria differs from the divine mode of being (if I may make
such a comparison), I offer only one example: the duration that Thomas
assigns to the life of the blessed. The highest operation that the blessed enjoy, the visio Dei, is a “participation in eternity (participatio aeternitatis)”
and is thus measured by the duration that Thomas calls “participated eternity,” rather than merely by aevum or by time.30 Now, for God’s eternity,
Thomas accepts Boethius’s definition: “eternity . . . is the simultaneously
whole and perfect possession of unceasing life.”31 This is a special measure
for God’s duration, since he does not and cannot change; he is immutable
in his very essence. No creature can be eternal; only God is truly eternal,
since God alone is immutable in his essence and is the only one who has
no beginning.32 As with all the qualities predicated of God, his eternity is
identical with his very self, although in the human mode of thinking, it is
a distinct way of considering him.33 Eternity is the measure of all other du30

See In IV Sent. d. 49, q. 1, a. 2, qla. 3, corp. and ad 3; SCG III, ch. 61; ST I, q. 10, a.
3, corp.; ST II-II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 2; Quaestiones disputatae De virtutibus, q. 4 (De spe),
a. 4, ad 3; Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 101–7; Carl J. Peter, Participated Eternity in
the Vision of God: A Study of the Opinion of Thomas Aquinas and His Commentators
on the Duration of the Acts of Glory (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1964), 20–
26. For a list of references, see Peter, The Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas Regarding
Eviternity in the Rational Soul and Separated Substances, Pontificia Studiorum
Universitas a Sancto Thoma Aquinate in Urbe (Rome: Typis Pontificiae Universitatis
Gregorianae, 1964), 7n26.
31
Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio, Book 5, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum
latinorum, vol. 67 (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1866–), 122, l. 12–13: “Aeternitas
igitur est interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio.” See In I Sent. d. 8, q. 2,
a. 1; CT I, ch. 8; ST I, q. 10, a. 1, obj. 1.
32
See In I Sent. d. 8, q. 2, a. 2; ST I, q. 10, a. 2; see the references in Peter, Participated
Eternity in the Vision of God, 9–12.
33
See ST I, q. 3, a. 3, corp., q. 10, a. 2, corp. and ad 3; Peter, Participated Eternity in the

Eschatology and the Doctrine of God

1225

rations insofar as it is the source of them all and goes beyond all of them.34
Now, since eternity is identified with God himself, creatures beholding
him does do not become simply “eternal.” Rather, they participate in God’s
eternity; as such, this beatific vision is limited. Thus visio beatifica goes
beyond acts measured by aevum both because it is divine (and not merely
proper to creatures) and because it excludes the possibility of losing it. The
vision of God enjoyed by the blessed is a true participation in his eternity,
but this vision does not thereby make them eternal. It may be added that,
in contrast with the blessed, the damned will not participate in eternity.
Instead, they will be in everlasting motion, measured by time.35
What I wish to conclude, in a preliminary way, is something about
the kind of finality that humanity and the cosmos have been given. It is
only in a very rough way that we may say that Thomas has Christianized
Aristotelian teleology. There are important, crucial characteristics of
Thomas’s theological appropriation of teleology that do not result from
just any use of Aristotelian finality. If Thomas teaches that there are indeed “entelechies,” or ends written into natural things that are within
reach of those things according to their own powers, those ends can
only be understood as ends that are subordinate to higher ends, higher
ends that are not within the creature’s own power to reach. This indicates the way in which God has granted to his creatures a directedness
toward himself, which can orient them to a participation in his goodness, a participation that is according to their nature but beyond their
natural power. I will return to this theme, but for now I turn to a few
ways in which certain revealed categories shed light on a kind of directedness even within God.
The Directedness of the Divinity
Having considered the doctrine of God as it can be discerned in Thomas’s teaching on the final end, I offer a cursory consideration of the eschatological or teleological aspects reflected in Thomas’s teaching on
God, particularly regarding the mission of the divine persons in the
Vision of God, 12.
In I Sent. d. 19, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2.
35
In III Sent. d. 31, q. 2, a. 1, qla. 2, ad 1; ST I, q. 10, a. 3, ad 2; see also CT I, ch. 183, and
Peter, Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas Regarding Eviternity, 110.
34

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Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

economy of salvation, that is, the mission of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit.36 We can begin by briefly naming a few ways in which there is a
direction toward an end in God-made-man, Jesus Christ. Thomas says
that a created beatitude was in the human nature of Christ, whereby his
soul “was established in the last end of human nature”—that is, in having the vision of God.37 Regardless of any difficulties determining the
precise nature of Christ’s knowledge during his earthly life, it is understood that Christ in the Resurrection and Ascension enjoyed full beatitude and full enjoyment, as the first born of all creation. Where the head
has gone, the members are to follow. Christ brings humanity into union
with the divinity, a union that will be fulfilled for all the elect only at the
end. Now Thomas notes that it was fitting for Christ to rise from the
dead to raise our hope, that we may rise on the last day (Jb 19:27), and
to complete our salvation, that we may be advanced to advance us toward good things.38 Christ’s ascension into heaven and his being seated
at the right hand of the Father indicate that the mission of the Son leads
to a return of the Son to the Father, thus pointing, in the location of his
assumed humanity, even in his human body, toward the final goal of
every human person. In his very theandric union, then, and in his work
of bringing his humanity (and therefore ours) into the presence of God,
humanity is directed to the divine.
Even more clearly, though, the doctrine of Christ’s Second Coming,
as Judge, indicates a particularly eschatological direction for all creatures. Whereas God’s ongoing governance or judgment is exercised over
men in the world (with Christ exercising this judicial power since his
ascension),39 the definitive and final judgment for human beings is twofold. First, there is the particular judgment at the end of each individu36

This is not to say that a consideration of the person of the Father would be irrelevant
here. For example, Gilles Emery has suggested the Father as the personal “term”
(end) of the economy; see Emery, The Trinity: An Introduction to Catholic Doctrine on
the Triune God, trans. Matthew Levering, Thomistic Ressourcement 1 (Washington,
DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 188.
37
ST III, q. 9, a. 2, ad 2; see Jn 8:55.
38
ST III, q. 53, a. 1, corp. (Rom 4:25). The Transfiguration is a kind of foretaste of
this: ST III, q. 45, a. 2, corp.; but whereas claritas is to be an immanent property of
glorified bodies, Christ’s body in the Transfiguration had not yet been glorified: ST
III, q. 45, a. 2, ad 2.
39
CT I, ch. 242, citing Mt 28:18; ST III, qq. 58–59.

Eschatology and the Doctrine of God

1227

al’s pilgrim life.40 Then, ultimately, there is the judgment and sentence of
everyone at the end, all at the same time. Christ will come again in glory
to preside at this final judgment, at his final “coming” or adventus, the
“day of the Lord.”41 At that time, the general resurrection and renewal
of the world will occur. Indeed, Thomas teaches that Christ’s coming at
the Resurrection makes it clear that it is through Christ that the general
resurrection comes about.42 Human ignorance of when the final end will
occur underscores God’s dominion over it. Only God effects this final
end, and thus only God knows when he will effect it.43
This much—that God acts eschatologically in the economy through
Christ—is clear in Thomas’s work. Aquinas’s teaching on the eschatological role of the Holy Spirit is not as extensive, but it is nevertheless noteworthy. The Holy Spirit is the Lord, the giver of life—eternal
life—and the final final person of the Trinity. One theme that is particularly fruitful for investigation is the Holy Spirit as “pledge” or “down
payment,” as expressed in certain Pauline texts, namely, 2 Corinthians
1:22 and 5:5, and Ephesians 1:13–14. The latter speaks of the “holy Spirit
of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance.” Commenting on this,
Thomas notes a Gloss that offers a variant reading of the passage: instead of “pledge (pignus),” it has “earnest (arra),” so that it speaks of the
“holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance” or “down
payment of our inheritance” (emphasis mine). Thomas suggests that the
connotations of “earnest” money make for the “better rendering.” His
explanation is what we are seeking here:
A pledge [pignus] differs from the object in place of which it
is given, and it must be returned once he who has received the
pledge obtains the object due him. An earnest [arra], however, does not differ from the object in place of which it is given,
40

CT I, ch. 242, citing 2 Cor 5:6; SCG IV, ch. 96, para. 1; In IV Sent. d. 47, q. 1, a. 1, qla.
1, corp. and ad 1; Quaestiones de quodlibet X, q. 1, a. 2, corp.; ST III, q. 59, a. 5.
41
CT I, ch. 242; SCG IV, ch. 96, para. 2; In IV Sent. d. 47, q. 1, a. 1, qla. 3, ad 1; In IV
Sent. d. 48, q. 1, a. 4, qla. 4, corp. and ad 2.
42
In IV Sent. d. 43, q. unic., a. 2, qla. 2, corp.; Super I Cor. 15, lec. 8 (v. 52; Marietti ed.
no. 1008); Super I Thes. 4, lec. 2 (v. 16 [v. 15 in Marietti]; Marietti ed. no. 98); Super
Ioan. 5, lec. 5 (v. 28; Marietti ed. no. 790); see also Kromholtz, On the Last Day,
325–31; In IV Sent. d. 47, q. 1, a. 1, qla. 3.
43
See In IV Sent. d. 47, q. 1, a. 1, qla. 3.

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Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

nor is it returned since it is a partial payment of the price itself,
which is not to be withdrawn but completed. God communicates charity to us as a pledge, through the Holy Spirit who is
the spirit of truth and love. Hence, this is nothing else than an
individual and imperfect participation in the divine charity and
love; it must not be withdrawn but brought to perfection.44
Let us note the implications of this promise of an eschatological presence of the Holy Spirit. In this life, there is an imperfect participation in
charity, through the gift of the Holy Spirit; but in the eschaton, there will
be a perfect participation (for those receiving it). Thus the Holy Spirit is
to dwell within the saints for eternity.
If the Holy Spirit is that person who may be in us now by grace
(speaking according to appropriation), and that person who will be in
us perfectly in glory (we pray), this is congruent with the marks of the
Trinity that are found in creatures. Thomas teaches that in every creature, there is a vestige or trace of the Trinity. Insofar as it (1) “subsists
in its own being,” (2) “has a form whereby it is determined to a species,”
and (3) “has a relation to something else,” every creature manifests its respective traces of the persons of the Trinity. That is, (1) in its subsistence
(albeit a created subsistence), it represents the Father, who is “principle
from no principle.” (2) As having form by which it is determined to a
species, it “represents the Word.” And (3) as it “has relation of order, it
represents the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as he is love, because the order of
the effect to something else is from the will of the one creating.”45 This
ordering of the thing to something else, its directedness, its purpose or
end, is a specification of the creature’s being that cannot be alienated
from it, even if it is distinct from its subsistence and its form. This ordering indicates at least a trace of God the Holy Spirit in all things, while in
humans, this is an aspect of being in the image of God; the act of loving
God would correspond to this ordering.
Thus there is an invisible coming of the Holy Spirit leading to the
44

Super Eph. 1, lec. 5 (v. 14; Marietti ed. no. 43), translation in Thomas Aquinas,
Commentary on Ephesians, trans. Matthew L. Lamb (Albany, NY: Magi, 1966), 67;
see also Super II Cor. 1, lec. 5 (v. 22; Marietti ed. no. 45), Super II Cor. 5, lec. 2 (v. 5;
Marietti ed. no. 161).
45
ST I, q. 45, a. 7, corp.

Eschatology and the Doctrine of God

1229

spiritual perfection of the souls of the saints (and culminating in an
abiding of that same spirit); this is a perfection toward which they are
particularly ordered, indicating intellectual creatures’ being made in the
image of God. At the end, there will be a visible coming of the Son, Jesus
Christ, at which will occur the visible, bodily coming to perfection of
the saints and of the world; they will be brought to their true end, the
ultimate, toward which they have always been ordered. In at least these
ways, then, the eschatological dimension is most evident in St. Thomas’s
teaching regarding the work of the persons of the Trinity.46
Conclusion
Our observations can be collected together into two groups, by which
the eschatological pattern of Thomas’s doctrine of God will emerge.
First, I noted the ways in which an eschatology as an Aristotelian teleology transformed by revelation is present in Thomas’s work. For him,
the final end is a major, programmatic theme touching upon his entire
theological project. Furthermore, later I showed that, for Thomas, God
himself is that end of all things, with all things being directed to him and
likened to him. Christ himself in the Resurrection and Ascension raised
our hope that we may follow where he has gone; the Holy Spirit is given
as a down payment, to be given fully when God is all in all; a trace of this
order to the end is in all creatures, while rational creatures are ordered
toward beholding God as their end. So, this directedness toward God is
a part of the divine plan.
Second, I also pointed out the ways in which the final end is God’s
work alone, in Thomas’s view. That is, I indicated ways in which the
creature cannot achieve the revealed end. To reach the vision of God,
46

Though unexplored here, an eschatological dimension to Thomas’s doctrine of
the intra-Trinitarian relations could be noted. For example, the doctrine that
the procession of divine persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is limited to only
three persons implies a perfection or end of those processions. Furthermore, the
proceeding forth of Son and Spirit from the Father also implies a kind of “final”
(though eternal) return of Son and Spirit to the Father in communion. If man is
in the image of God, he therefore is made for this ultimate communion expressed
eminently in the union of divine persons. And if, as Thomas holds, the procession of
persons is the cause of creation, all creatures in some way ought to bear the mark of
the final orientation of the divine persons to one another. See ST I, q. 45, a. 6, corp.
and ad 1; cf. In I Sent. d. 26, q. 2, a. 2, qla. 2, ad 2.

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Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

the grace of God is needed. It is God alone who brings about the general
resurrection and for the renewal of the world. I also made clear that
human nature has yet to be restored, still being under the effects of sin;
it is God who will ultimately bring about human nature’s restoration, at
the end. Finally, I pointed out the way in which the beatific vision has
a dependent quality, with a particular focus on its durational measure
as “participated eternity.” That all this happens at Christ’s visible Second
Coming, whose time we cannot predict, only underscores that Christ is
the one through whom all of this takes place.
We can discern a greater pattern here: in the creature, there is, on
the one hand, a certain suitability for becoming likened to the Creator,
but, on the other hand, there is a total inability to effect this likening.
In all the ways in which creatures reach their fulfillment—visio Dei for
angels and human souls, resurrection for souls’ completion as human
persons, the transformation/renewal of the world—the end is fully suited to the creature, an end that can be described as a likening to God. But
only God can bring about the transformation in question, and only God
can maintain it. What we see is a kind of extension to all creatures of the
subtle and perhaps irreducibly complex relationship between grace and
nature in humans (although with some important differences). I have
shown this pattern by a reflection upon the prerogative of God. Angels,
although the most intellectual of creatures and made to know God, still
needed God to be brought by God into his permanent presence. Man is
created to see God, but needs God’s help to attain that vision. God is the
only one who can raise him from the dead, though his soul is incomplete without his body. The world is to be transformed to become everlasting, and so will be likened to God—but it is only God who can do
this. In Thomas’s doctrine of God, the dominion of God over all these
kinds of eschatological fulfillment is consistent, explicit, and complete.
Thus, regarding the charge that Aristotelian teleology has taken
over Thomas’s theology, we can only say that such a charge clearly does
not apply. In a consistent way, there is much more at work in Thomas’s eschatology than Aristotelian teleology. An exclusively Aristotelian
teleology would not systematically place an orientation toward an end
within a thing, while at the same time placing the means for the thing’s
achievement of that end outside and above it the thing, in the transcendent God. Since Thomas has the sovereign God bringing humanity to

Eschatology and the Doctrine of God

1231

its completion through Christ, achieved in the future, according to the
wisdom and will of God, it can hardly be said that he has replaced revelation with a “finalistic metaphysic.” Rather, he has placed finality within
a metaphysics that is itself transformed by the revelation of the God of
Israel, most fully manifest in Jesus Christ.
If God has made his creatures for himself, and has made them to
participate in himself in the deepest way possible, it is a participation
that will be possible only if God himself brings it into effect—and it will
remain in effect only if God maintains it. This is a transcendent God, but
not an isolated God. He is to involve himself in bringing his holy human
creatures to himself, and in maintaining them in that beatific vision, for
all eternity. That it is ultimately God who accomplishes all this shows
that his power, far from isolating himself, suggests precisely a God who
goes out of himself to draw us to him. He has made us and redeemed
us through Christ for this end. The Spirit who is love draws us toward
the Father, to lift us to friendship with him, finally, forever. This is the
one for whom we would live, and die, that he may grant us resurrection
from the dead, that we may enjoy in him the life of the world to come.47

N&V

47

I have closed by suggesting some ways in which Thomas’s eschatology and
conception of God may provide resources for those concerned that the Christian
God be understood as closely involved with his creatures, such that humans may
enter into a personal (neither merely abstract nor merely subjective) encounter with
him; see, e.g., Second Vatican Council, Ad Gentes Divinitus, 1965, §13; Pope John
Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 1990, §44 and §77; and Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei, 2013,
§8, §34, §36.

Nova et Vetera, E
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1233

God the Son: Trinitarian Christology
Markers in the Thomist Tradition
Romanus Cessario, O.P.
St. John’s Seminary
Brighton, MA

Introduction*

IN HIS “INTRODUCTION”to questions 33–43 of the Prima Pars,
the twentieth-century Thomist scholar (whose spirit still occupies this
House of Studies), T. C. O’Brien, O.P., observes that “the final Question
[43 on the divine missions] opens out on to that singular accomplishment of St Thomas, the Secunda Pars, which centres around union
with God by grace and points to the experience, beyond naming, of
God with us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”1 This insightful remark
on the articulation and structure of the Summa theologiae suffices
to establish the theoretical grounds for what one may call Aquinas’s
Trinitarian Christology. We attribute to the second person in God the
Logos-pattern of all that is created, including human freedom and the
moral life, and we confess him, who, as man, becomes the indispensable and irreplaceable one mediator of the uplifted life of divine grace.2
*

The following reflections were delivered at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, on the occasion of an international gathering of Dominicans interested
in the Thomist tradition. Since 1941, the Holy See has recognized the theological
faculty at this House of Studies or Studium as a Pontifical or Ecclesiastical Faculty.
1
T. C. O’Brien, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, vol. 7, Summa Theologiae, Blackfriars ed.
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), xxii.
2
See ST III, q. 26, a. 2 and Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2000 Declara-

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Romanus Cessario, O.P.

In order to illustrate what Aquinas teaches about the Incarnate
Son, I have chosen five sample topics that illustrate the Thomist preferences for resolving certain disputed questions within Trinitarian
Christology. My purpose is twofold. In addition to both recalling and
pointing out the present-day importance of some characteristic features of Thomist Christology, I wish also to raise a metaquestion about
the nature and perennial validity of the commentatorial tradition in
which these features or doctrinal clarifications are found.3 In a purely
heuristic fashion then, I ask—and invite you to consider—whether it
is possible to recognize in the selected five topics (that treat several
questions related to the theology of the Incarnation) an underlying
pattern of thought that would evince the essential form of the Thomist
commentatorial tradition. To develop the “winding river” metaphor
that I have already employed in A Short History of Thomism, I would
now like to identify some “markers” in the Thomist commentatorial
tradition that have served to keep Thomist Christology from running
aground on the shoals.4
These “markers” represent theological positions that, over the centuries, have generated a large-scale consensus among commentators
on the works of Aquinas. Thomist theses such as those that relate to
Christ and others that could be enumerated, I submit, also illustrate
certain benefits that accrue to Dominicans (and others) who are willing to mine the commentatorial tradition. The benefits that I would
like to underscore in this conference include both the preservation of
a distinctively Thomist identity and the safeguarding of Catholic theological orthodoxy. Additional advantages of learning from the Thomist tradition would be easy to elucidate.5
tion “Dominus Iesus” on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the
Church. For the appropriation of eternal law to the divine Word, see ST I-II, q. 91,
a.1, ad 2, and ST I, q. 34, a. 3.
3
For a monograph that studies Christological themes in Thomas de Vio Cajetan,
see Marcel Nieden, Organum Deitatis: Die Christologie des Thomas de Vio Cajetan,
Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 62, ed. Heiko A. Oberman (Leiden:
Brill, 1997).
4
See Romanus Cessario, O.P., A Short History of Thomism (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2005), 34–35.
5
Pope Francis has recently addressed the themes of Pelagian tendencies and Gnosticism as dangers present in contemporary theology. He echoes remarks made by his
predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. See Andrea Tornielli, “Francis, Ratzing-

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First of all, consider the benefit of our keeping Thomism intact
and alive. Adherence to a body of commonly held and taught theses has kept Thomists from wandering away from basic tenets that
characterize the master whom we have gathered to commemorate. In
other words, they have given Thomists a community identity without
which gatherings such as this one would serve no distinctive purpose. This benefit does not mean that Thomism proves valuable only
to maintain school spirit and to provide a reason for reunions among
like-minded scholars. The Thomist commentatorial tradition is just
that, a living tradition of intellectual and volitional attachment.6
Thomism, of course, allows for disagreements about subissues. One
glance, for example, at the manuals published in the mid-1960s by
the Oblate Emmanuel Doronzo reveals the controlled dialectic that
Thomism opens up.7 Alasdair MacIntyre speaks about a “constrained
disagreement” that characterizes Aquinas’s theological method.8
To put it briefly: One should clear the head of the contrivance that
Thomism supplies mind-numbing palliative care for those unwilling
or unable to confront present-day currents of thought. History shows
that Thomism never sought to construct a fortress position. Consider
the adventurous undertaking sustained by John Capreolus (d. 1444).
From Rodez, a small town in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France,
this Dominican knocked at the doors, as it were, of every significant
nominalist of his age, including one of our own, Durandus of SaintPourçain, O.P. (d. c.1334).9 In any event, because Dominicans love

6

7

8

9

er and the Pelagianism risk,” Vatican Insider, June 12, 2013, http://vaticaninsider.
lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-benedetto-xvi-benedict-xvi-benedicto-xvi-25586/.
I envisage certain coherence between this view and that of “living Thomism” that
Serge-Thomas Bonino favors in his “To Be a Thomist,” trans. Thérèse Scarpelli Cory,
Nova et Vetera (English) 8 (2010): 763–73.
See Emmanuel Doronzo, O.M.I., Theologica Dogmatica, 2 vols. (Washington, DC:
Apud Auctorem, 1966–68).
Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy and Tradition (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 233.
John Capreolus set himself against the objections of Auriol, Scotus, Durandus,
John of Ripa, Guido of Carmelo, Varro, Adam, and others who attacked St. Thomas. For further information, see Jean Capreolus en son temps (1380–1444): Mémoire
Dominicaine, Numéro spécial 1, ed. Guy Bedouelle and Kevin White (Paris: Les
Éditions du Cerf, 1997).

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Aquinas, they do not want him relegated to serving as a juncture, even
though an important juncture, in the historical flow of theological
positions developed since the mid-thirteenth century. Failure, however, to sustain an identifiable Thomist point of view on substantial
questions both philosophical and theological, would indeed relegate
the study of Aquinas to a subdiscipline within medieval historical
studies. This fate describes what already has befallen other theologians of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. When was held the
last international reunion of the disciples of Godfrey of Fontaines (c.
1250–1306?), even though he ranks among the most prodigious and
popular theologians of the high Middle Ages? What about Henry of
Ghent (d. 1293)? Giles of Rome (d. 1316)?
Second, and what is more important, rightly formulated Thomist theses give precision to Catholic truth in a way that, at least in the
best-case scenario, exhibits conformity with how the Church stipulates
what the practice of the Catholic faith requires. This second benefit of
Thomism in its commentatorial vigor may not appear as self-evident as
the first. Still, one may appeal prima facie to the use made of Aquinas’s
texts in postconciliar magisterial documents, including the Catechism of
the Catholic Church, where direct citations to Aquinas occur more than
sixty times. More evidence, I acknowledge, is required to substantiate
the claim that the Thomist tradition fosters sound theological practice
within the Church. At the same time, the five theses that I have selected
for this exercise do not require historical excavation in order to illustrate
how, today, they serve to protect and elucidate Catholic faith. Each of
the five theses discloses an important feature of the “logic of the Incarnation.”10 In other words, we find abundant evidence for the importance
of the commentatorial tradition woven into the authentic pronouncements of the Magisterium.
I
Since the publication of After Virtue in 1981, it is generally agreed that
the work of Professor Alasdair MacIntyre has given an overall boost to
contemporary Thomism. For instance, the approaches to knowledge
10

See Fides et ratio, §94. The encyclical refers to Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, §13.

Trinitarian Christology in the Thomist Tradition

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that MacIntyre distinguishes in his 1990 book, Three Rival Versions of
Moral Enquiry, afford us a way to inquire about the essential form of the
Thomist commentatorial tradition. On a purely pragmatic level, it may
be hoped that applying MacIntyre’s analytical matrix to elucidate the
commentatorial tradition would render modern thinkers more benevolent toward it and make Thomism and the Thomists intelligible and,
perhaps, even appealing to them. Otherwise put, MacIntyre’s analysis
of the different views about “knowledge” represented by the Encyclopedist, the Nietzschean, and Aristotelian supplies a hermeneutical and
speculative lens familiar to many of our contemporaries through which
they may be persuaded to approach something largely unfamiliar to
them, to wit, the Thomist commentatorial tradition.
One attempt to explain the commentatorial tradition in MacIntyrian categories runs like this: Thomism, it may be argued, is encyclopedic
to the extent that it is compendious, though Thomism stands against
the encyclopedia mentality and its criteria for sure knowledge. That is,
the Thomist compendia do not stake their claims to truth on the “progress of science.”11 Thomist theologians, at least, should look up—that
is, toward the sacra doctrina—before they look forward—that is, before they try to anticipate how the intellectual swells of any given day
may find themselves disposed to receive what “comes from God’s own
knowledge,” as Matthew Levering aptly describes the content of theology.12 Next, Thomism is genealogical inasmuch as its arguably six-century-long (or more) lineage of authors’ establishes a basic pedigree, a
family tree, as it were.13 The Thomist genealogy, however, does not imply “a multiplicity of perspectives within each of which [authors] truthfrom-a-point-view may be asserted, but no truth-as-such.”14 The Thomist commentator does not destroy idols in order for something new and
unexpected to evolve, and then proceed to criticize others for not facing
the future with the bravado of an Übermensch, a Superman. I return
MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, 19.
Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering, Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 2002), 2.
13
Bonino, “Thomist Tradition,” 872, suggests that “one might prefer the . . . flexible
metaphor of a line of ancestors or the members of a single species spanning different
generations.”
14
MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, 42.
11
12

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to the metaphor of the “winding river.” Thomism instead represents a
living tradition; one marked more by its identifiable continuity than by
its occasional displays of discontinuity. The Thomist commentatorial
tradition—an expression made popular in this House of Studies by William A. Wallace, O.P.—while it begins arguably with those who first read
the works of the Common Doctor, owes its existence to the method of
the commentators, which emerges in the first half of the fifteenth century with the Defensiones of their Princeps.15 When one considers the
roughly five-hundred-year period from the death of Capreolus in 1444
to the death of Garrigou-Lagrange in 1964, it is difficult to discover major hiatuses in the Thomist commentatorial tradition.16 When Thomists
seemed inactive, the reasons were neither intellectual laziness nor their
abandonment of St. Thomas, except in the unusual case of someone like
Thomas Campanella, O.P. (d. 1639), but rather the impediments that
sprang from such catastrophic events as the French Revolution or other
forms of political repression.17
II
Briefly put, we can discover the basic structure of the commentatorial
By “method of the commentators,” I do not mean commentaries in the literal sense.
The commentatorial tradition should not be understood so much as a genus of
scholastic writings (e.g., writings that are appended to and merely summarize and
interpret the actual text of the Angelic Doctor), but rather as the application of the
principles of St. Thomas’s thought to the unique challenges of a given period. Thus
Cardinal Cajetan and John of St. Thomas both share in the “commentatorial tradition” even though John of St. Thomas did not “comment” on the Thomistic corpus
in the same manner as did Cardinal Cajetan.
16
In the late 1960s, Father William J. Hill, O.P., taught his class in dogmatic theology
that Capreolus may have been the recipient of certain oral traditions that had been
passed on within the Dominican Order. For more information about Capreolus, see
John Capreolus: On the Virtues, trans. Kevin White and Romanus Cessario (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001).
17
See my “Mary in the Thomist Commentatorial Tradition,” in Sapienza e libertà. Studi
in Onore del Prof. Lluís Clavell, ed. Miguel Pérez de Laborda (Rome: Edizioni Santa Croce, 2012): 81–88: “One of the most celebrated of the Dominican ‘dissenters’ is
Thomas Campanella (1568–1639), the highly eclectic thinker who, on account of his
political views, spent twenty-seven years in the Naples prison of his Catholic Majesty,
even though the Spanish viceroy at the time, Pedro Girón, Duke of Ossuna, was a fervent devotee of the Immaculate Conception. It was of course Campanella’s communist
views on political organization not on the Immaculate that kept him locked up” (87).
15

Trinitarian Christology in the Thomist Tradition

1239

tradition in the distinction between act and form, on the one hand, and
potency and matter, on the other. As the abovementioned Dominican
commentator, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, was wont to remark, “the
definition of potency [and act] determines the Thomistic synthesis.”18
When one explains the commentatorial tradition by reference to form
and matter, the Dominican finds that he is able both to account for historical contingencies and to identify a formal unity that makes Thomism
more than an amorphous collection of self-defined authors. The perennial form of Thomism is “individuated”—so to speak—by the particular
needs faced by Thomists in the different periods of history. Theological
disagreements supply the material or contingent element for the commentatorial tradition. Nonetheless, Thomism also claims a distinctive
form. This form distinguishes Thomists from non-Thomists and eclectic
Thomists from mainline Thomists. Form supplies, as it were, the universal and perennial element that runs through the mainline commentators. This form/matter distinction affords a way for Dominicans and
their fellow travelers to account for both the differences and, at the same
time, the fundamental unity of the Thomist tradition. The importance
of the fundamental principles of act and potency emerge no longer as
mere “theses” arbitrarily allocated a definitive place in the material constitution of Thomism. Rather, act and potency emerge as constituting
the very form of Thomism itself.19
The historical elements and differences relevant to the commentatorial tradition all arise from the application of the fundamental speculative principles (the formal element) to the particular challenges of a given epoch (the material element). Because they were each engaging different questions proper to their particular periods, Thomists, of course,
exhibit a wonderful variety: Cajetan is not Bañez, who is not John of St.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought (St.
Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1950), 37.
19
The point here is that the real distinction between act and potency (the first of the
Twenty-four Theses) is not one thesis among many. Rather, the Thomist tradition receives fundamental shape through this first and primary tenet of St. Thomas’s teaching. The real distinction between act and potency—and the implications that flow
therefrom on the levels of nature and of grace—stands at the heart of St. Thomas’s
speculative synthesis. Moreover, it is the soul of the commentatorial tradition’s application and extension of that synthesis to the unique questions that each Thomist
faced in his particular period.
18

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Thomas, who is not Garrigou-Lagrange. Nonetheless, these and other
noneclectic Thomists all share common first principles—probably reducible to less than a dozen in number; maybe even half a dozen—that
run throughout their works without suppressing these authors’ apparent
differences and unique contributions. The Twenty-four Theses that the
Holy See proposed in 1914 may be understood as a large-scale effort
to indicate such formal principles.20 Although this occasion does not
afford the opportune moment to draw up the definitive list of Thomist
first principles, were such a list to be composed, undoubtedly the first
thesis of the 1914 list would remain in first position: “Potency and Act
so divide being that whatsoever exists either is a Pure Act, or is necessarily composed of Potency and Act, as to its primordial and intrinsic
principles.”21 G. K. Chesterton illustrates what I have in mind. He wryly
remarked that Father Martin D’Arcy had observed a “remarkable difference” between Hegel and Aquinas, namely, that “for St. Thomas it is impossible that contradictories should exist together, and again reality and
intelligibility correspond, but a thing must first be, to be intelligible.” To
which Chesterton replied: “Let the man in the street be forgiven if he
adds that the ‘remarkable difference’ seems to him to be that St. Thomas
was sane and Hegel was mad.”22
Sacred Congregation of Studies, Decree of Approval of some theses contained in the
Doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas and proposed to the Teachers of Philosophy, Rome,
July 27, 1914. For further discussion and background, see Jesús Villagrasa, L.C., “Origin, Nature and Initial Reception of the XXIV Thomistic Theses in the Light of the
Controversy between Neo-Thomism and Suarezianism,” Doctor Angelicus 6 (2006):
193–230; Russell Hittinger, “Two Modernisms, Two Thomisms: Reflections on the
Centenary of Pius X’s Letter against the Modernists,” Nova et Vetera (English) 5,
no. 4 (2007): 843–80; José Pereira, “Thomism and the Magisterium: From Aeterni
Patris to Veritatis splendor,” Logos 5, no. 3 (2002): 157–93; Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality, 357–67; Pedro Lumbreras, O.P., The Twenty-Four Fundamental Theses of Official Catholic Philosophy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1944);
Edouard Hugon, O.P., Les vingt-quatre thèses thomistes (Paris: Pierre Téqui, 1927).
21
“Potentia et actus ita dividunt ens, ut quidquid est vel sit actus purus, vel ex potentia et
actu tamquam primis atque intrinsecis principiis necessario coalescat.” See Lumbreras,
Twenty-Four Fundamental Theses, 13. See also Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. VI, 383ff.
22
G. K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas / Saint Francis of Assisi (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2002), 135. See, e.g., Thesis XIX. “We, therefore, receive our knowledge from sensible things. But since no sensible thing is actually intelligible, besides
the intellect which is properly intelligent we must admit in the soul an active power which abstracts the intelligible forms from the phantasms” (Lumbreras, Twenty-Four Fundamental Theses, 24).
20

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In any event, once these common principles are recognized, historical contingency can be explained by appeal to the material and individuating principles, that is, the unique challenges that each Thomist
commentator faced in his period. At the same time, the importance of
the present emerges clearly: through their stalwart pursuit of the truth,
the work of the commentators “incarnatized” the perennial wisdom in
the contingencies of their own hic et nunc. This axiom merits credence
because the past, properly speaking, does not exist: they, the Thomist
commentators dealt with the perennial “now” of reality.23 For the Thomist, transcendental truth remains the ultimate criterion for establishing
and applying the principles that explain reality both the natural and the
supernatural. Being founds or grounds and governs Thomistic contemplation. Being—in its full, ontological density and vigor—only exists in
the present. Thomists recognize this judgment about what is real on the
levels of nature and of grace. The now of being unifies Thomistic philosophical contemplation. The eternal now of supernatural Being—God
himself—unifies theology.24 Because it is founded upon the simple priority of form to matter in scientific as well as in the existential spheres,
the “formal object” identifies and unifies scientia on the levels of both
nature and supernature.25 Being precedes scientia. Reality precedes the
scientist. The unifying, formal object affords the only way for the sciThe Thomist commentatorial tradition is not “un-historical” or “anti-historical” in
its shape and structure. Quite the contrary. The commentatorial tradition admits to
a rich diversity of engagements occasioned by the historical contingencies that characterize each Thomist’s own era. At the same time, Thomism’s formal commitment
to the real distinction between potency and act enables Thomists to interpret properly historical contingencies. The real distinction between potency and act serves as
a kind of “golden-thread” hermeneutical tool that enables us to recognize both the
essential, unified form of Thomism and the genuine differences and unique contributions of the individual Thomists.
24
Sound spiritual counsel, such as one finds within the Dominican Order, often appeals to the “Eternal Now.” God does not rely on memory. Dominican confessors
should encourage their penitents to ponder this truth, especially when the psychological dynamics of guilt fueled by the memory of past sins, or even of past offences
committed against them, weigh on the sinner.
25
Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De principiis naturae, c. 4. Also see Cajetan’s commentary on ST
I, q. 1, a. 3; John of St. Thomas, The Material Logic of John of St. Thomas: Basic Treatises,
trans. Yves Simon, John Glanville, and G. Donald Hollenhorst (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1955), 549–86; and James A. Weisheipl, O.P., “The Meaning of Sacra
Doctrina in Summa Theologiae I, q. 1,” The Thomist 38 (1974): 49–80.
23

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entist to know being and reality. For this reason, Thomism favors the
consideratio veri or that reflection upon the truth that Aquinas identifies
as contemplation.26 In other words, as Father Weisheipl has helped us to
recognize, the formal principle governs everything.27 Since St. Thomas
grasped the importance of the formal principle, he labored mightily to
articulate the division and method of the sciences.28 Philosophy is scientific. Theology is scientific. The proper parsing of the division and
method of the sciences remains foundational and requisite to authentic
Thomism, as our late and regretted Brother, Father Benedict Ashley, has
argued convincingly in his The Way Toward Wisdom.29
III
I introduce this methodological consideration about the Thomist commentatorial tradition in order to locate Thomist Christology within a
larger picture of what Thomists and the Dominican Order in particular
have sustained for nearly 750 years. The five Christological theses under
discussion do not borrow quaint examples from one or another forgotten textbook from the past. That is, this present exercise does not aim to
mount a museum exhibition of old Thomist theses. Neither should one
consider the theses as candidates for a catalogue of long-forgotten internecine battles that everyone would do just as well to forget. Likewise,
the five theses that I treat below are not meant to open up mere genealogical lines of historical inquiry; for example, to ask whether the seventeenth-century quarrels about grace and freedom would not best be
See ST I-II, q. 35, a. 5, ad 2.
Weisheipl’s commentary on the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle is most illuminating
on the nature and method of science: Aristotelian Methodology: A Commentary on
the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle (River Forest, IL: Pontifical Institute of Philosophy,
1958). For an account of Weisheipl’s understanding of Thomism in general, see my
Short History of Thomism, 12–14. See also James A. Weisheipl’s “Thomism as a Perennial Philosophy,” Chaplain’s Day Address, Cardinal Stritch College, March 14, 1965.
28
See Thomas Aquinas, The Division and Method of the Sciences: Questions V and VI
of his Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, 4th ed., trans. Armand Maurer
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986).
29
For further discussion, see Benedict M. Ashley, The Way toward Wisdom (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 63ff. See also Ashley, “The River Forest School and the Philosophy of Nature Today,” in Philosophy and the God
of Abraham, ed. R. James Long (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
1991), 1–16.
26
27

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1243

explained by delving into and then describing the various expressions of
Jesuit, Jansenist, and Dominican resentments against one another.
My proposal aims to provide constructive suggestions to help Catholic theology regain its balance after fifty years of failed attempts to gain
wide consensus on an adequate replacement for the services that Thomism rendered the Church before 1962.30 Dominicans should advance a
sacred teaching that all can agree is at home within the Church, that is,
a theology nella Chiesa, though admittedly not, della Chiesa. The Christological themes selected figure importantly in the practice of the Catholic religion. They are at home within the Church. Some theology done
today is not. Many scholars who find themselves professionally engaged
with academic theology inhabit departments of religious studies where
the penchant to abet if not to generate an inherently historicist or relativistic climate of thinking proceeds unabated. In light of this largely
unpromising twenty-first-century university setting, Dominican study
houses, I respectfully submit, offer the most likely venues for what I will
provisionally call the development of a sapiential Thomism, that is, a
Thomism that both flows from and is ordered to the consideratio veri.31
Today is not the first time that Dominicans have been called to shape
their theological reflection in a way that conforms to the consideratio
veri. Blessed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier (1832–1916) in his celebrated
“Instructions for Novices” made this observation about engagement
with the theological disciplines such as they had emerged, at least in ecclesial settings, during the nineteenth century. Our Blessed anticipates
See my “On the Place of Servais Pinckaers († 7 April 2008) in the Renewal of Catholic Theology,” The Thomist 73 (2009): 1–27.
31
Historicism and relativism are first cousins (if not siblings). When the aspiring practitioners of the sacred sciences withhold simple priority from act and form, then
potency and matter alone remain. Because potency and act are really distinct, potency without act is reduced to pure potency. Because we only understand something
insofar as it is in act, pure potency lacks any intrinsic principle of intelligibility. For
further reflection on how this analysis bears on one’s approach to the sacred sciences, see Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., De revelatione per Ecclesiam Catholicam proposita, 2 vols. (Rome: R. Ferrari, 1929); Garrigou-Lagrange, The One God: A
Commentary on the First Part of St. Thomas’ Theological Summa, trans. Dom Bede
Rose, O.S.B. (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1943), 39–92; Étienne Gilson, Thomist Realism and the Critique of Knowledge, trans. Mark A. Wauk (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 1986); and Jacques Maritain, Science and Wisdom, trans. Bernard Wall (London: Centenary Press, 1940).
30

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some of the inconveniences that MacIntyre later would point out with
respect to both encyclopedia and genealogy approaches to embracing
the true. Cormier writes:
Without overlooking in prejudice the service which positive theology offers, we especially, as Friars Preachers, should
therefore apply ourselves to scholastic theology more than to
anything else. Should we hear some persons praise the former
and denigrate the latter, we must remember that positive theology—besides the fact that it lacks the advantages of scholastic
theology enumerated above—can fall into the drawbacks about
which it reproached its rival. Indeed, many of its proponents
also propose useless problems, concerning, for example, facts of
history which have no connection with dogma, morality, or ecclesiastical discipline. They treat these historical questions too
extensively; in the midst of many citations and incidents, they
lose sight of the center of the question. Instead of clarifying,
they can even inject uncertainty by including a number of contradictory inferences which baffle the mind.32
What Blessed Cormier calls “the center of the question” corresponds, I
again respectfully submit, to what I above describe as the marked-out
middle of the “winding river”—the sapiential form of Thomism. As
preachers of the truth, Dominicans may adopt no other standpoint in
order to exercise their ministry of perfection: “For just as it is better to
illumine than merely to shine, so it is better to give to others the things
contemplated than simply to contemplate.”33 This high purpose, however, cannot be reached unless a person “give himself over to the contemplation of wisdom,” as St. Thomas himself intimates when he explains
why a contemplative person would reasonably also imitate evangelical
B. Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, O.P., Instructions for Novices, trans. George G. Christian, O.P., and Richard L. Christian (New York: Dominican Province of St. Joseph,
2013), 285–86. I read “scholastic” here not so much as a genre or style of speculative
discourse and writing, but as a method of thought and reflection founded upon a
consistent commitment to first principles.
33
ST II-II q. 188, a. 6, trans. Jordan Aumann, O.P., The Pastoral and Religious Lives, vol.
47, Summa Theologiae, Blackfriars ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), 205.
32

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simplicity in his life.34 Contemplatives should entertain nothing that
would distract them from their embrace of the true Object.
IV
The first of our five Thomist theses inquires about the formal constitutive of the created person. This first thesis, one that drew a certain
attention from Thomists of the Leonine revival, actually dates from the
earliest period of commentatorial activity and finds extended treatment
among later commentatorial Thomists. On what constitutes a person,
mainline Thomists differ from Scotists as well as from eclectic Thomists.
Scotus held for a negative definition. Suarez pursued a nonmetaphysical
approach, that is, person as properly a part of physics.35 Billot conflated
personhood with esse tout court. Mainline commentatorial Thomists,
on the other hand, distinguish person from individuated nature by appeal to a metaphysical distinction. Although Cajetan and Capreolus
sometimes are said to exemplify a radical diversity among even mainline Thomists, each agrees that what makes an individual a person is
a positive reality that falls somewhere between essence and existence.
Thomas Urban Mullaney, O.P. (d. 1989), longtime teacher in this ecclesiastical faculty, has argued that one may interpret Cajetan’s “mode” and
Capreolus’s “relation” as pointing to the same metaphysical perfection
that makes created personhood something distinct from both the individuated human nature of Christ and the divine esse to which it is united in the hypostatic union.36 In sum, Thomists hold for a metaphysical
definition of created person that maintains the real distinction between
potency and act. The implications for Christology are significant, especially when one considers everything that Aquinas attributes to the
centrality of the hypostatic union in order to keep Catholic faith from
falling apart, as he observes in ST IIIa q. 2, a. 2: quod est subruere totam fidem Christianam. The Fribourg Thomist, Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P.,
draws out other implications from what St. Thomas deems as “what is
ST II-II, q. 186, a. 3, ad 3, trans. Aumann, 111.
See John P. Doyle, Collected Studies on Francisco Suárez, S.J. (1548–1617) (Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 2010), 12.
36
See T. U. Mullaney, “Created Personality: The Unity of Thomistic Tradition,” New
Scholasticism 29 (1955): 369–402.
34
35

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most perfect in all of nature.”37
Discussion about the nature of created personhood provides a helpful point of continuity within a diachronic analysis of the commentatorial tradition insofar as the debate begins with the fifteenth-century
John Capreolus, continues through the sixteenth-century Thomas de
Vio Cajetan, remains under discussion in the early modern Thomists,
and surfaces again—in the work of Mullaney and others—among twentieth-century Thomists of the Leonine revival.38 Discussion about created personhood also illustrates the debates that arise both intraschool
(e.g., the difference between the nineteenth-century eclectic Billot and
other Thomists) and interschool Thomists, for example, the difference
between Scotus’s negative account of personhood (nonassumption) and
the Thomist insistence on personhood as a metaphysical perfectant of
the individuated nature. Discussions about the formal constitutive of a
created person also exhibit the vitality of the Thomist tradition in service to the Church. To cite one example, the Church’s stand against embryonic stem cell research would not enjoy solid grounding were the
only accounts of person those that required today’s Catholics to rely on
psychological, legal, or, if I may say so, negative—that is, nonassumption
by a higher supposit—arguments.
The second thesis concerns the nature of the instrumentality that
one should ascribe to the human nature of Christ. Is the humanity of
Christ a physical instrument of grace or does the humanity of Christ
work morally? Moral causality, in this instance, would mean that the
humanity of Christ is said to communicate a divine action because of
the attractive proposals that Christ makes, on the one hand, or, on the
other, by the modes of merit, satisfaction, and prayer that he exemplifies, as man, especially during the Passion. Thomists eschew falling back
on an exclusively moral account of the instrumentality of Christ’s sacred
See ST Ia q. 29, a. 3, as cited in Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol.
2, Spiritual Master, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 2003), 310ff.
38
For further discussion of this controversy, see George Duggan, S.M., “The Teaching of St. Thomas Regarding the Formal Constitutive of Human Personality,” New
Scholasticism 15 (1941): 318–49; James B. Reichmann, S.J., “St. Thomas, Capreolus,
Cajetan and the Created Person [1],” New Scholasticism 33 (1959): 1–31; Reichmann,
“St. Thomas, Capreolus, Cajetan and the Created Person [2],” New Scholasticism 33
(1959): 202–30.
37

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humanity. They rather affirm almost without exception that the humanity of Christ, from the moment of the Incarnation, whether dwelling on
earth or reigning in heaven, was and remains a physical instrument of
grace and miracles.39 “Physical” in this context means that the humanity
of Christ causes what it causes by comparison, mutatis mutandis, with
the divine creative action that brings everything into existence ex nihilo.
Various opinions on how the humanity of Christ works in the world
distinguish schools of Catholic theology and spirituality. Christological
exemplarism finds many adherents, with the obvious shift in emphasis in Christian spirituality from a premoved bestowal of divine gifts to
a person’s self-generated readiness to receive and act upon these gifts.
St. Louis Marie de Montfort (d. 1716) summed up the tenor of Thomist teaching when he wrote that those who abide in the Blessed Virgin Mary would prefer to be formed instead of chiseled.40 All in all, the
saints point us to Christ and Mary as the principal physical mediations
that shape Christian character. Their metaphors—for example, Our
Lady as the “channel” through which the graces from Christ the Head
flow to the members of his body—make it difficult to think otherwise.41
St. Alphonsus Liguori (d. 1787), whom we ordinarily do not include in
the standard catalogue of Thomists, speaks of Mary as the “neck” of the
mystical body, and he cites ancient and medieval authors as precedent
for the practice.42 While the reference to Our Lady as the “neck” of the
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., De Christo Salvatore: Commentarium in IIIam Partem Summae Theologiae Sancti Thomae (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer & C., 1945), 288.
40
See William G. Most, Mary in Our Life (New York: Kennedy, 1959), chap. 18: “St.
Louis de Montfort compares Mary to a mould. There are two ways to make a statue
or image, says St. Louis. One way is by chiseling it out of a block of stone, one stroke
at a time. In this method very great skill is needed, as great damage might come from
one slip. The other is to have a perfect mould, and pour molten material into it. Mary
is the mould in which Christ was formed. So also we could be quickly formed to the
image of her Son, by docility to the inspirations which come through her, both by actual graces and by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, whose spouse she is.” For the reference,
see St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, nos. 219–21.
41
Oeuvres complètes de saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (Paris: Aux Éditions
du Seuil, 1966), Amour de la Sagesse Eternelle, no. 206, 207: “il descend aucun don
céleste sur la terre qu’il ne passe pas elle [Marie] comme par un canal.” Le Secret de
Marie, no. 35, 457: “N’est-il pas juste que la grâce retourne à son auteur, dit saint
Bernard, par le même canal par lequel elle nous est venue?”
42
See, e.g., St Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary (New York: P. J. Kennedy, 1888),
741: “‘Collum tuum sicut turris eburnea’ (Sg 4:4); Mary is called the neck, for she is
39

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mystical body undoubtedly occurs in the writings of early Christian authors, it is not impossible that St. Alphonsus may have discovered this
“physical” metaphor in a Thomist theological manual used in the eighteenth century, to wit, the Cursus Theologicus of John of Saint Thomas.43
Physical instrumentality represents, only mildly, an intra-Thomist debate. The sixteenth-century Salamanca theologian Melchior Cano, O.P.
(c. 1509-60), famously prefers moral causality.44 It would be interesting
to discover the reasons for his stepping outside of the mainline position.
The sixteenth-century Protestant reformers’ rejection of created mediation may be one of them.
For a variety of reasons, the place that physical instrumentality holds
in sound theology has been eclipsed during the postconciliar period.
This thesis affects not only the activity of Christ but also the manner that
the sacraments of the Church confer grace. Issues that flow from discussion about the way that Christ’s humanity divinizes the world further
affect subjects commonly treated under the heading of ecclesiology as
well as important questions developed in Mariology. Consider the witness of Pope John Paul II: “Mary is not only the model and figure of the
Church; she is much more. For, ‘with maternal love she cooperates in the
birth and development’ of the sons and daughters of Mother Church.”45
Birth and development comport much more with physical than they
do with exemplary causality. As Cano perhaps unwittingly reminds us,

the mystic neck through whom from the head, Jesus Christ, are transmitted to us
the faithful, who are the members of the mystic body of the Church, the vital spirits,
namely, the divine help which preserves in us the life of grace.”
43
See John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, ed. Vivès, t. VII, q. 23, 403: “After God,
however, each one loves himself more than his neighbor, for he must love others as
himself. Hence, he is as it were the primary exemplar of those to be loved, because
[he loves] himself as a sharer in divine glory and others as associates in sharing. But
I make an exception for Christ the Lord, even as man, and the Blessed Virgin mother, because they share something of the nature of the source communicating grace
and beatitude to us, for Christ as man is the fountainhead of glory, and the Blessed
Virgin [is] the mother of the fountainhead and the neck through which grace is
dispensed, and therefore we must love them more than ourselves.”
44
Melchior Cano preferred to speak about moral causality, which he contrasted, however, with a natural causality. See Relectio de Sacramentis in genere, Pars IIII (Milan,
1580): “Continere (inquam) non ut causa naturalis continet suum effectum, sed ut
causa moralis” (32).
45
See Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 1987, no. 44.

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1249

rejection of physical causality may affect how Dominicans present the
sacraments as instruments of salvation.46
The third thesis concerns the motive for the Incarnation. Because
of the spiritual significance that some schools attach to the kingship of
Christ, this thesis remains one of the most researched among the interschool disputes that involve Thomists. The Franciscan scholar Juniper
Carol amassed a large volume, Why Jesus Christ?, which was published
in 1986, to defend what he calls the absolute primacy of Christ.47 Thomists, of course, recognize that the end (telos) of the Incarnation remains
the transformation of the human person. Christ comes to lead men to
glory. At the same time, Thomists uphold Aquinas’s view that the Sacred Scriptures supply no reason or motive for the Incarnation other
than the need that a sinful humanity experiences for a Savior whose
mission, precisely as dolorous, suits or becomes the state of fallen mankind.48 The malposed question, whether Christ would have become man
had Adam not sinned, began from the early twelfth century to generate theological dispute and commentary by theologians of every stripe.
Some ascribe this formulation of the question, though not the origin of
the question itself, to the German Benedictine abbot Rupert of Deutz (c.
1075–1129). Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI summarized sympathetically
this non-Thomist thesis during a general audience in 2009:
Like other medieval theologians, Rupert too wondered
why the Word of God, the Son of God, was made man.
Some, many, answered by explaining the Incarnation of
the Word by the urgent need to atone for human sin. Rupert, on the other hand, with a Christocentric vision of
salvation history, broadens the perspective, and in a work
entitled The Glorification of the Trinity, sustains the position that the Incarnation, the central event of the whole
of history was planned from eternity, even independently of human sin, so that the whole creation might praise
See my “Sacramental Causality: Da capo!,” Nova et Vetera (English) 11, no. 2 (2013):
307–16.
47
Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M., Why Jesus Christ? Thomistic, Scotistic and Conciliatory Perspectives (Manassas, VA: Trinity Communications, 1985).
48
See ST III, q. 1, a. 3.
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God the Father and love him as one family gathered round
Christ, the Son of God. 49
Rupert proposes a beautiful thought, though one difficult to sustain after reading during any given week several front pages of the New York
Times. In any event, for his part, Father Carol discovers that the question
of why God became man has been debated from the earliest periods of
Christian theology. Thomists enjoy the singular advantage of being able
to preach Christ to those who regularly read the New York Times and
also to those who may even have contributed to the headlines.
Much depends on how one resolves this question of the motive
for the Incarnation. St. Thomas’s view fits his soteriology, and not
only his, but that of the Church. Catholic practice assumes that a
twofold work for man unfolds under the agency of the Incarnate
Word for the benefit of the human race. One is the work of image
restoration, which usually finds its center in the accomplishment of
satisfaction that Christ undertook and that Christians united with
him continue to undertake, efficaciously and congruously respectively. The other is the work of image perfection, which readies the
human person for the life of benevolent fellowship with the Trinity. Thomist variations arise when one inquires about the nature of
Christ’s own satisfaction, namely, whether it was strict (condign)
or attenuated.50 The Thomist tradition, however, maintains a substantial unity in following Aquinas’s answer to the question of why
God became man. The answer also qualifies, so Dominicans should
insist, as one that supports a Christocentric view of salvation history. I would like to mention the Irish Dominican Colman O’Neill (d.
1987), whose writings clearly demonstrate that St. Thomas’s view of
Christian satisfaction is ordered not to penal substitution but to the
glorification of the Trinity—a theme that, in another philosophical
idiom, Jean-Luc Marion has addressed recently at the first Edward

Benedict XVI, General Audience, Paul VI Audience Hall, Wednesday, December 9,
2009.
50
For further information on this dubium, see Garrigou-Lagrange, De Christo Salvatore,
427–29.
49

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Cardinal Egan Lecture (May 18, 2013) under the title “The Visibility
of the Gift: Sacrifice and Forgiveness.”51
The fourth thesis treats the way one should understand the sacrificing priest and the fruits of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Thomists follow
Thomas de Vio Cajetan, O.P., when they make an argument for distinguishing among the fruits of each Eucharistic sacrifice and assign to
the sacrificing priest the capacity to apply them.52 This thesis concerns
the question of offerings for Masses and the suitability of requesting
Masses for special intentions.53 Some theologians, including eclectic
Thomists such as Louis Billot, find it difficult to separate out the fruits
of each Mass from the general intention for which the Mass is offered,
namely for the many, both living and dead.54 The inconvenience of
this position for the practice of the Church, clarified during the postconciliar period in a number of magisterial documents, especially
the 1983 Code of Canon Law, is evident.55 What is at stake, however,
in the Thomist view does not first of all concern Mass stipends. The
issue that lies behind this discussion involves the relationship of the
ordained priest to the Eucharistic sacrifice. Today, the emphasis that
the Church puts on the correlation between pastoral charity and the
Eucharist reveals that the priest’s personal identification with the Eucharistic sacrifice runs deep into his priestly identity. Thomists entertain an intraschool debate or dubium about the formal constitutive of
Christ’s priesthood. Some Spanish theologians, for example, the Carmelite Fathers at Salamanca, hold for Christ’s priesthood arising from
See Catholic New York 32, no. 19 (2013): 14.
See Thomas de Vio Cajetan, De Missa celebratione, cap. 2 “Utrum sacerdos celebrans
pro pluribus, satisfaciat pro singulis” (Opuscula Omnia Thomae de Vio Caietani
[Venice: Apud Iuntas, 1588], 147–49).
53
See Code of Canon Law, Can. 946: “The faithful who make an offering so that Mass
can be celebrated for their intention, contribute to the good of the Church, and by
that offering they share in the Church’s concern for the support of its ministers and
its activities.”
54
Louis Billot, De Ecclesiae Sacramentis: Commentarius in Tertiam Partem S. Thomae,
5th ed. (Rome: Ex Typographia Pontifica in Instituto Pii IX, 1914), thesis 56.
55
See, e.g., Code of Canon Law, Can. 945 §1, “In accordance with the approved custom
of the Church, any priest who celebrates or concelebrates a Mass may accept an offering to apply the Mass for a specific intention,” and §2, “It is earnestly recommended to priests that, even if they do not receive an offering, they celebrate Mass for the
intentions of Christ’s faithful, especially of those in need.”
51
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his habitual grace, whereas the Dominicans favor identifying Christ’s
priesthood with the grace of union, which alone “renders Christ capable of offering a sacrifice of infinite value.”56 This intraschool question,
however, already supposes that the priest exercises his headship preeminently in the celebration of the Eucharist.
The fifth thesis concerns the relationship of Christ to the moral life.
Thomists hold for a Christian life animated by the infused virtues and
gifts that in turn depend on the saving work of Christ “physically” active
in the Christian believer who lives the moral life. We speak of physical
premotion with respect to the divine agency at work in the moral life.57
When believers freely embrace the perfective ends given in nature and
perfected in grace, Thomists encourage them to ponder the question
that St. Paul poses to the Corinthians: “What do you possess that you
have not received?” (1 Cor 4:7).58 We also discover in the moral life the
pattern of the eternal Word, that is, the Logos pattern that stands as an
exemplar of the moral life, as well as the indispensable imprint of Christ’s
cross, which represents everything that a redemptive Incarnation both
accomplishes for the Christian and at the same time impresses on him
or her. Outside of the Thomist tradition, one may identify three main
alternative outlooks, shall we say, that purport to direct the living of a
Christian life. They are: first, modern, sixteenth-century casuistry; second, Christological exemplarism, which, as noted above, is compelled to
rely on what the canonical Scriptures and other recognized authorities
stipulate about being Christian; and third, twentieth-century proportionalism or consequentialism. These alternatives however, even when
account is taken of the imitatio Christi, find no substantial warrant in
the magisterial documents that since 1993 have governed the development of sound moral theology. It is difficult, for example, to read Veritatis Splendor apart from the basic Thomist theses that inspire the encycliReginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Le Sauveur et son amour pour nous (Juvisy:
Éditions du Cerf, 1933), 290.
57
For an extensive treatment of physical premotion and the dynamics of grace in the
moral life, see the three-volume work of Norbert Del Prado, O.P., De gratia et libero
arbitrio (Fribourg: Ex Typis Consociationis Sancti Pauli, 1907).
58
See Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Grace: Commentary on the Summa theologica of St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 109–14, trans. Dominican Nuns Corpus Christi Monastery (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1952), 412–38.
56

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1253

cal’s normative account of moral theology.59 These Thomist inspirations
first appear in the encyclical’s basic teleological structure that, as T. C.
O’Brien has remarked, opens up brilliantly in the Secunda Pars.60
V
I began this discussion with the suggestion that one value of preserving
the Thomist commentatorial tradition stems from its longstanding service to the Catholic Church and to her teachings both speculative and
practical. To conclude, I wish to signal areas of theological concern that,
especially since the Second Vatican Council, have been addressed in the
papal magisterium. Thomism helps its adherents to expound each of
them. (1) The culture of death. A strong account of created personhood
serves, as indicated above, the Church’s pro-life message, her defense
of human dignity, and her insistence that the respect due to persons
not succumb to evolving cultural policies, for example, on organ transplants.61 The 1995 Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II, Evangelium
Vitae, works on the assumption that the human person is not a legal or
psychological myth. (2) Sacramental reductionism. The physical instrumental causality of Christ’s sacred humanity affects the way the Church
understands herself as the body of Christ. As I have pointed out elsewhere, during the postconciliar period, sacramental theology became
absorbed into liturgical theology.62 Thomists prefer to complement liturgical studies with sacramental theology. Within this context, the issuance of Redemptionis Sacramentum sustains many of the principles that
physical instrumental causality upholds.63 Earlier, Redemptor Hominis
See Steven A. Long, “Veritatis Splendor #78 and The Teleological Grammar of the
Moral Act,” Nova et Vetera (English) 6, no. 1 (2008): 139–56.
60
For a more developed examination of these themes as they are related to the Secunda Pars, see my Introduction to Moral Theology, rev ed. (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2013).
61
See my “Organ Donation and the Beatific Vision: Thomist Moral Theology Confronts the Tide of Relativism,” in The Ethics of Organ Transplantation, ed. Steven J.
Jensen (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 195–216.
62
See my “The Sacraments of the Church,” in Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, ed.
Matthew L. Lamb and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008),
129–46.
63
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, March 25,
2004, Instruction. Redemptionis Sacramentum: On certain matters to be observed or
to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist.
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displays the strong Christology that assumes more than a merely moral
approach to Christ’s saving work. Physical causality gives a robust account of the sacramental mediations that the Church administers, of
the place that Christ holds in the political order, and of other issues that
fall today within the discipline of ecclesiology, especially the teaching
authority of the Roman Pontiff. (3) Romantic optimism. Thomist arguments for a redemptive Incarnation and the proper nature of Christ’s
mediation in the Church promote sound and realistic Christian devotion, conform to the pattern of image restoration and image perfection
that governs the Church’s sacramental practice, and take account of the
obvious fact that a fallen and divided world needs a redeemer as well as
a king.64 (4) Ministerial confusion. Thomist teaching on the application
of the fruits of the Mass to various intentions at the discretion of the
ordained priest confirms the importance of a sacrificing priest, the nature of the Mass as a sacrifice, and the relationship that Christ’s sacrifice
establishes among believers both living and dead. The papal encyclical,
Ecclesia de Eucharistia, emphasizes the relationship of the priest to the
Eucharistic sacrifice.65 (5) Moral relativism. The Thomist account of the
See Mt 27:11, Mk 15:27, Lk 23:3, Jn 18:37, and Pope Pius XI’s encyclical, Quas primas, as well as the presence of the Solemnity of Christ the King in the current liturgical calendar.
65
To cite only one text: “The expression repeatedly employed by the Second Vatican
Council, according to which ‘the ministerial priest, acting in the person of Christ,
brings about the Eucharistic Sacrifice,’ was already firmly rooted in papal teaching.
As I have pointed out on other occasions, the phrase in persona Christi ‘means more
than offering “‘in the name of ’ or ‘in the place of ’ Christ.” In persona means in specific sacramental identification with the eternal High Priest who is the author and
principal subject of this sacrifice of his, a sacrifice in which, in truth, nobody can
take his place.’ The ministry of priests who have received the sacrament of Holy
Orders, in the economy of salvation chosen by Christ, makes clear that the Eucharist
which they celebrate is a gift which radically transcends the power of the assembly
and [the ministry of priests] is in any event essential for validly linking the Eucharistic consecration to the sacrifice of the Cross and to the Last Supper. The assembly
gathered together for the celebration of the Eucharist, if it is to be a truly Eucharistic
assembly, absolutely requires the presence of an ordained priest as its president. On
the other hand, the community is by itself incapable of providing an ordained minister. This minister is a gift which the assembly receives through episcopal succession
going back to the Apostles. It is the Bishop who, through the Sacrament of Holy
Orders, makes a new presbyter by conferring upon him the power to consecrate
the Eucharist. Consequently, ‘the Eucharistic mystery cannot be celebrated in any
community except by an ordained priest, as the Fourth Lateran Council expressly
64

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1255

moral life succeeds for all the reasons that Father Servais-Th. Pinckaers
has bequeathed to us in his Les Sources de la morale chrétienne: Sa méthode, son contenu, son histoire.66
It now falls to a new generation of Dominicans to take up the heritage that belongs to them as a birthright. Misguided sympathy toward
other points of view, especially those that occupy the trendy world that
is beholden to secular university here-today-gone-tomorrow fashion,
impedes the embrace of the doctrine of Aquinas that belongs rightfully
within the Order. As Father William Joseph Hill, O.P., impressed on his
students at the time of the Second Vatican Council, Thomism is not a
closed system. Once a Dominican discovers the principles that guide
Aquinas and his commentators, he is ready for whatever challenge may
N&V
face the teacher of Catholic truth.

66

taught’” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §29).
Servais-Théodore Pinckaers, Les Sources de la morale chrétienne: Sa méthode, son
contenu, son histoire first appeared in 1985. The English edition, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Mary Thomas Noble, was published in 1995. A fourth French edition was published in February 2007.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1257-1279

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Quid per prius datur: The Thomistic Doctrine
of the Double Order of Priority between
the Created Gift and the Uncreated Gift
Guillermo Juárez, O.P.
Universidad del Norte Santo Tomás de Aquino
Buenos Aires, Argentina

“THE GOOD OF GRACE in one individual is better than the good of
nature in the whole universe.”1 This impressive affirmation of St. Thomas
allows us to glimpse the immense transformation that sanctifying grace
works within us, a transformation that, from the most intimate part of
man, extends itself to all his faculties and acts, making itself especially
manifest in those who, living according to the beatitudes, have reached
the summit of sanctity. But its profound significance could escape us if
we do not recognize that the whole spiritual organism of grace, nourished within us by the vital influence of the Holy Spirit, is that which,
in short, immediately habilitates us to possess and enjoy the Holy Spirit
itself. In effect, “by the gift of sanctifying grace, the rational creature is
elevated, so that it can freely use, not only the created gift, but also enjoy
the divine person.”2 The gift of grace is given in such a way that the soul
who receives it, also receives its unfailing fountain, the Holy Spirit.3
1

“Bonum gratiae unius maius est quam bonum naturae totius universi.” ST I-II, q.
113, a. 9, ad 2.
2
“Per donum gratiae gratum facientis perficitur creatura rationalis, ad hoc quod
libere non solum ipso dono creato utatur, sed ut ipsa divina persona fruatur.” ST I, q.
43, a. 3, ad 1.
3
“Gratia Spiritus Sancti recte dicitur aqua viva, quia ita ipsa gratia Spiritus Sancti
datur homini quod tamen ipse fons gratiae datur, scilicet Spiritus Sanctus. Immo per

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This beautiful Thomistic teaching, which is rooted in Sacred Scripture, via the profound and devout reading of St. Augustine,4 puts into
focus the close link that exists between the created gift of grace and the
Holy Spirit as uncreated gift. In this link we can affirm, on the one hand,
the primacy of the Holy Spirit as the fount of grace, and on the other,
the dependency that the giving of the Holy Spirit has with respect to the
mediation of grace, a double primacy that involves, at the same time, a
double perspective in explaining the communication of both gifts. The
joint consideration of these two perspectives offers orientations and contents of particular importance for overcoming reductionist views about
both the necessity for, and the specific nature of, created grace. A detailed
study of this double priority has permitted us to determine, in the first
place, the reason for the distinction between these elements according to
which it is said that the gift of grace, or the influence of the proceeding
divine person, are considered as the fountain of inhabitation, and from
there, the coordination and the complementarity between the ascending
and descending explanations of this mode of presence that we find in the
Opera omnia of the Angelic Doctor.5
We propose, then, to deepen our analysis of this theme by considering in turn the fact of the conjoined donation of the person of the Holy
Spirit with the created gift of grace, and the order of priority between
them both. The exposition of St. Thomas has the double peculiarity of
being confined to the Commentary on the Sentences and the Summa
ipsum datur gratia . . . Nam ipse Spiritus Sanctus est fons indeficiens, a quo omnia
dona gratiarum effluunt.” Super Ioan. 4, lec. 2. That is what Rikhof emphasizes
referring to the doctrine of St. Paul: “The presence of the Spirit is constitutive for
being a Christian believer and a Christian community. The dignity and responsibility
Christians have is based upon their being temples of the Holy Spirit. The intimacy
they have with ‘Abba, Father’ is due to the presence of the Holy Spirit.” Herwi
Rikhof, “Trinity,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. R. van Nieuwenhove and
J. Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2005), 36–57, esp. 48.
4
Cf. François Bourassa, “Don de Dieu, Nom propre du Saint-Esprit,” Sciences
ecclésiastiques 6 (1964): 73–82 ; “Le don de Dieu,” Gregorianum 50 (1969): 201–35;
Gilles Emery, La théologie trinitaire de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Cerf, 2004),
298–99.
5
I refer to the relevant research in my doctoral thesis defended at the University of
Fribourg (Switzerland) in 2006 and published as a book two years later: Dios Trinidad
en todas las creaturas y en los santos: Estudio histórico-sistemático de la doctrina del
Comentario a las Sentencias de Santo Tomás de Aquino sobre la omnipresencia y la
inhabitación (Córdoba: El Copista, 2008), esp. 499ff.

Created and Uncreated Gift

1259

theologiae, and of being presented in a very synthetic way, especially in
the latter work.6 However, even with the differences of nuance, there is
a strict continuity between the one work and the other. For the sake of
clarity, I will concentrate my remarks on the more developed contents
of the Scriptum, completing them with what we can find in the Summa.
This present study is situated within a wider investigation covering the elucidation and exposition of the philosophical and theological
sources of St. Thomas on this subject. Using some of the fruits of this
research, I will try to put into relief the influence that the teaching of the
Summa Halensis has had on this theme of sanctifying grace and the gift
of the Holy Spirit.7 In this way we will be in a better position to recognize
the originality, consistency, relevance and the implications of the Angelic
Doctor’s thought.
The Holy Spirit Is Given with the Created Gifts
The precise location in the Scriptum where St. Thomas treats the subject
of the donation of the Holy Spirit is his commentary on distinction 14
of Book I. In the second question of this distinction, the young bachelor
of the Sentences asks himself “in what sense” the temporal procession
of the Holy Spirit takes place; that is, what is it that formally determines
the accomplishment of this procession? The parallel development in the
Summa is found in the Trinitarian section of the Prima Pars and comprises only the article 3 of question 43, dedicated to the study of the mission of the divine persons. In this article, the Angelic Doctor asks a very
similar question, referring to the two invisible missions: “In what sense is
6

St. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum, vols. 1–2, ed. Pierre
Mandonnet (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929); vols. 3–4, ed. Maria F. Moos (Paris:
Lethielleux, 1933, 1947); Opera Omnia iussu Leonis XIII P.M. edita, Tomus 4–12:
Summa theologiae (Rome: Ex tipographia polyglotta S.C. de Propaganda Fide, 1888–
1906). From here onward, the abbreviations for these works (Summa–Scriptum) will
be used to facilitate reading.
7
Summa Theologica seu Summa fratris Alexandri, vols. 1–4 (Quaracchi: Editiones
Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1924–48). I have given a general presentation of this
work in my Dios Trinidad, 37–38; cf. Kenan B. Osborne, The History of Franciscan
Theology, Theology Series (New York: Franciscan Institute, 1994), 13–18; Francis
L. B. Cunningham, The Indwelling of the Trinity: A Historico-Doctrinal Study of the
Theory of St. Thomas Aquinas (Dubuque, IA: Priory Press, 1955), 253–62, 273–84.
This summa is also known as the Summa Halensis. Here I use this name and, for
quotations, the abbreviation SH.

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

a divine person invisibly sent?”8
In the Scriptum, this enquiry is articulated in two more specific ones
that prepare the way for the two articles of the question. Thus, in article 1,
Thomas asks if the Holy Spirit himself is given according to his temporal
procession or solely the created gifts. In article 2, which supposes the first
article is true, he asks how or through which created gifts the Holy Spirit
is given.9 Article one, in turn, is subdivided into two queries (quaestiunculae); that is, if the Holy Spirit himself is given with his created gifts and
which of these gifts is given first.10 This final question has a central role in
this study. However, to facilitate a more fitting understanding of the same
theme, we ought to bear in mind the totality of the contents expressed in
this question, especially those in the first part of the article.
The similarity of expression between the Scriptum and the Summa
Halensis already allows us to glimpse the influence that this work had on
the thought of St. Thomas that we are dealing with here. In effect, in the
fourth and last chapter of his luminous treatise on the divine missions in
common, the Master John of La Rochelle,11 deals with the subject of the
8

“Tertio: secundum quid divina Persona invisibiliter mittatur.” ST I, q. 43, prol.
“Videtur quod missio invisibilis divinae Personae non sit solum secundum donum
gratiae gratum facientis.” Ibid., a. 3. Some of these themes touched on in the
subordinate questions in the Scriptum are considered, at least partially, in articles
1 and 2 of this question, dedicated to the study of the existence of mission and its
temporal character, respectively, and in articles 5 and 6, where it is asked if the Son is
sent invisibly and if the invisible mission reaches all those who participate in grace.
9
“Deinde quaeritur, secundum quid attendatur processio temporalis, et circa hoc
duo quaeruntur: utrum ipse Spiritus Sanctus secundum processionem temporalem
detur, vel tantum dona ejus, vel utrumque. Et si utrumque, quaeritur, secundum
quae dona dicatur Spiritum Sanctum dari vel procedere temporaliter.” In I Sent. d.
14, q. 2, prol.
10
“Videtur quod ipse Spiritus Sanctus non procedat temporaliter vel detur.” Ibid., a. 1,
qc. 1. “Ulterius quaeritur circa hoc, si utrumque datur, quid per prius datur.” Ibid.,
qc. 2.
11
SH I, n. 502–13. This treatise was written after 1244, as it quotes Saint Albert and
Odo Rigaldi. Although the latter is an important source, the main redactor is
considered to be John of La Rochelle. Cf. SH, vol. 2, Prolegomena, 266–67. Above all,
chapter 1 of section 1 and chapters 2–4 of section 2 have been attributed to Master
Odo. The chapters dedicated to the invisible missions (mem. 2, chap. 1–5) are a
later addition. Cf. Jean Bouvy, “Les questions sur la grâce dans le Commentaire des
Sentences d’Odon Rigaud,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 27 (1960):
290–343. For the complete teaching, consult: Ernest J. Primeau, “Doctrina Summae
Theologicae Alexandri Halensis De Spiritu Sancti Apud Justos Inhabitatione” (PhD

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1261

coming of the Holy Spirit as gift. In the prologue of this chapter it is asked
in what sense (secundum quid) it is said that the Son or the Holy Spirit are
sent.12 The main reply to this question is found in the first article, where
the Franciscan master asks himself, in turn, if there is a mission because
the Son and the Holy Spirit are given, or some appropriate gift, or both
things.13 This question is subdivided, in the interior of the article, into two
more: if in the mission only the proceeding person is given, or only the
gift of grace appropriated to the person, or both;14 in this last case, what is
given first, the proceeding person or the gift of grace?15 As we can see, the
only relevant difference, as far as the organization of the contents, is that
St. Thomas leaves to the end (article 2) the determination of the nature of
the created gift by which is vouchsafed the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The guiding authority—not only in the arguments of the first question of article 1, but also in the further developments of this question of
distinction 14—is the passage from the Letter to the Romans that refers
to the simultaneous communication of charity and the Holy Spirit: “The
love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has
been given to us.”16 To this argument in favor of the giving of the Holy
Spirit himself is added another, which starts from the proper name Love
and recalls the beautiful passage in which John of La Rochelle links to
this name the ratio of gift.17 In the principal reply to this question and for
diss., Diss. Fac. Theol. Sanctae Mariae Ad Lacum, Mundelein, 1936), 42–75; Juan
Gutiérrez González, Génesis de la doctrina sobre el Espíritu Santo-Don desde Anselmo
de Laon hasta Guillermo de Auxerre: Estudio histórico de teología dogmática (PhD
diss., University of Fribourg, 1966), 114–18.
12
“Consequenter quaeritur de missione Filii et Spiritus Sancti secundum quid sit, hoc
est secundum quid dicatur mitti Filius vel Spiritus Sanctus.” SH I, n. 511, prol.
13
“Utrum dicatur missio quia detur ipse Filius vel Spiritus Sanctus vel aliquod donum
alterutri appropriatum vel utrumque.” Ibid., a. 1. In articles 2 and 3 (n. 512–13)
is asked, in turn, if the Son and the Holy Spirit are said to be sent on account of
sanctifying grace or charismatic grace (gratis datae), and if they are said to be sent
on account of an augmentation of sanctifying grace.
14
Ibid., n. 511, I. In this first part of article 1 the question is implicit. It is made clear at
the beginning of the second part.
15
Ibid., n. 511, II: “Ratione praedictorum quaeritur, supposito quod in missione
Spiritus Sancti conferatur utrumque, scilicet Spiritus Sanctus et dona eius, quod
istorum dicitur per prius esse in anima sive in creatura rationali ad quam mittitur
Spiritus Sanctus: vel ipse vel donum eius.”
16
Rom 5:5; In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, sc 1.
17
“Amor habet rationem primi doni, quia in ipso omnia ex liberalitate conferuntur.

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

gaining greater precision, St. Thomas has recourse, like the Franciscan
Master, to the double comparison or reference that we find in that which
proceeds, that is, the comparison to the principle and the comparison
with regard to the end.18
According to the first comparison, there is no doubt that the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. It is this procession that
allows us to recognize the Holy Spirit’s own identity as a distinct person
in God. The doubt arises in the comparison at the terminus of the procession. Taking up and complementing the teaching of Master John, St.
Thomas explains that this comparison is, in reality, a relation or reference of reason (relatio rationis) corresponding to the real relation of the
soul of the just to the Holy Spirit: “this respect—he says—is placed in the
Holy Spirit, not because he Himself is really referred to the other, but because the other is referred [really] to Him.”19 From this principle, he will
explain the constitutive relational structure of this temporal procession
from the inverse real relation:
“Therefore, given that, in the reception of his gifts, our relation does
not end solely in such gifts, as if we were to possess only them, but also in
the Holy Spirit, because we have the Holy Spirit by a distinct way anteriorly, we do not so much say that only his gifts proceed into us, but also he
himself. Thus it is said that the Holy Spirit is referred [in relation with] to
us in that we are referred to Him.” 20
Cum igitur Spiritus Sanctus sit amor, videtur quod habeat rationem doni. Sed non
nisi quia datur. Ergo videtur quod ipse Spiritus Sanctus detur.” In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2,
a. 1, sc 2; SH III, n. 609, sol. 1. In the version of this argument offered in the Summa
(I, q. 38, a. 2, ad 3), it apears with greater clarity that the name Gift “does not entail
giving in act.” About this subject, see Emery, Théologie trinitaire, 299.
18
In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, c.; cf. ST I, q. 43, a. 1, c.; q. 38, a. 1, c.; SH I, n. 511, II.
19
“Ipsemet Spiritus Sanctus procedit temporali processione, vel datur, et non solum
dona ejus. Si enim consideremus processionem Spiritus Sancti ex parte ejus a quo
procedit, non est dubium quin secundum illum respectum ipsemet Spiritus Sanctus
procedat. Si autem consideremus processionem secundum respectum ad id in quo
procedit, tunc . . . respectus iste in Spiritu Sancto ponitur, non quia ipse realiter
referatur, sed quia alterum refertur ad ipsum.” In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, c.; cf. ibid., q.
1, a. 1.
20
“Cum igitur in acceptione donorum ipsius non solum relatio nostra terminetur ad
dona, ut ipsa tantum habeamus, sed etiam ad Spiritum Sanctum, quia aliter ipsum
habemus quam prius; non tantum dicentur dona ipsius procedere in nos, sed etiam
ipsemet; secundum hoc enim ipse dicitur referri ad nos, secundum quod nos
referimur in ipsum.” In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, c.; cf. Super Ioan. 4, lec. 2.

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John of Rochelle taught that the mission and the donation of the
Holy Spirit end in the possession of grace, and in consequence, in the
possession of the Holy Spirit as gift.21 Aquinas develops this idea teaching that the real relation of possession has its origin in the reception of
the created gifts but does not end or linger in them “but it tends finally
to Him by whom the said gifts are given,”22 at such a point we have him
in a new way, that is, as a gift to be enjoyed. Because of this we can say
that not only the created gifts are present or proceed in us, but also the
Holy Spirit himself. In effect, given that the reference of the Holy Spirit
to us signifies nothing else than our being referred to him; in saying that
he proceeds into us, we are saying that he is possessed by us. St. Thomas
ends his argument insisting on this “inverse mode,” which he has found
to explain the temporal procession of the Holy Spirit:
“Consequently, the Holy Spirit Himself and his gifts proceed into us:
since we receive also his gifts and by them we have in a new way the Holy
Spirit Himself, in as much as by his gifts, we unite ourselves to the very
Holy Spirit or He to us, assimilating us to himself by the [created] gift.”23
The created gifts, whose reception has its origin in the relation of
possession, are those that unite us to the Holy Spirit. As I have indicated
above,24 unlike Master John, Aquinas does not want, yet, to determine
which gifts these are. What interests him for the moment is to show that
these gifts involve a modification or change in the rational creature, that
which allows us to recognize that the relation of possession in the rational creature is real. But from this relation, our mind conceives an inverse
relation that registers no change whatsoever in its subject, the Holy Spirit. By this we say that the second relation is by reason (secundum rationem). Hence we are able to speak of a temporal procession to the rational
creature, the invisible mission, and not simply of an assimilation of the
rational creature to the proceeding person; we can speak of a real gift and
not simply of a possession. In spite of the limit of the human intelligence
21

Cf. SH I, n. 511, II, a.
“Relatio creaturae non sistit in donis illis, sed ulterius tendit in eum per quem illa
dona dantur.” In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2.
23
“Et ideo procedit ipse in nos et dona ipsius: quia et dona ejus recipimus et per
eadem ad ipsum nos aliter habemus, inquantum per dona ejus ipsi Spiritui Sancto
conjungimur, vel ille nobis, per donum nos sibi assimilans.” Ibid., c.
24
Cf. supra, 4.
22

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

and language to express this mystery, the joint consideration of the real
relation of possession and the relation by reason of donation allows us to
better recognize the reality of the new presence of the Holy Spirit in souls
of the just as well as his absolute transcendency.
Considering the argument in its totality, we can better recognize
the progress that presupposes the recourse to the doctrine of the relatio rationis, by comparison with the reply that John of La Rochelle gives
with regard to the same question.25 Paradoxically, this doctrine permits
Aquinas to emphasize the fact that the Holy Spirit is really present in the
soul of the saint. In this way, it constitutes a powerful complement to the
argument taken from the notion of enjoyment taken from the Summa
Halensis.
On the other hand, it is important to emphasize, for the continuity
of our enquiry, the sudden change of register that takes place at the end
of the argument we have just analyzed. In effect, if at the first moment we
are the agents of the assimilation by means of the created gifts, immediately afterward, it is the Holy Spirit himself who acts on us through those
gifts, assimilating us to himself. Thus Aquinas introduces here the question of the double order of priority between the created gifts and the gift
of the Holy Spirit, which will be the object of the following quaestiuncula.
The characterization of the donation of the Holy Spirit as a relation
of reason allows us to overcome two particularly challenging objections
concerning the compatibility with the divine simplicity and immutability, of this new mode of presence. In the reply to the first objection, St.
Thomas explains that of the Holy Spirit “we are able to say he is in a new
way in someone according to the new [real] relation of the same creature
to Him,” just as, in general, we say that God relates in various ways to
creatures, due to the real relations that creatures have to him “are diversified according to the differing effects by which they are assimilated to
God.”26 It is evident, therefore, that the composition does not occur in
God but in the creature.
25

SH I, n. 511, resp. I. The doctrine of relatio rationis, while not totally unknown to the
Franciscan master, is not fully exploited by him in his explanation of the gift of the
Holy Spirit. See my Dios Trinidad, 142–44, 172–74.
26
“Cum dicitur Deus esse ubique, importatur quaedam relatio Dei ad creaturam, quae
quidem realiter non est in ipso, sed in creatura. Contingit autem ex parte creaturae
istas relationes multipliciter etiam diversificari secundum diversos effectus quibus

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In his reply to the third objection, which points at the divine immutability, we can see how Aquinas recovers and completes the teaching of
the Summa Halensis. In effect, Master John affirmed that the movement
registered in the mission of the Holy Spirit ought to be understood by
way of its effect.27 Aquinas adds that, if we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds into us, it is not because any change is produced in him but because we ourselves are related to him in a new way. Hence the Holy Spirit
himself can be designated as directing himself toward us under an aspect
distinct from his ubiquitous presence. And that is what we mean when
we say that he proceeds into our hearts.28
The argument of the sufficiency of the operative virtue, more developed in the Summa Halensis, now appears entirely transformed. In effect,
while there the operative sufficiency of the Holy Spirit is dealt with, in
the final objection of this article the sufficiency of the created, infused
virtue is treated instead.29 The objection asserts that the infused virtue
cannot be less sufficient than the acquired virtue in its own order and,
therefore, does not require the presence of the Holy Spirit to achieve its
task.30 In his reply to this objection, Thomas shows that the new presence
of the Holy Spirit is not due to any insufficiency of the infused virtue, but
Deo assimilatur; et inde est quod significatur ut aliter se habens ad creaturam
quam prius. Et propter hoc Spiritus Sanctus, qui ubique est secundum relationem
creaturae ad ipsum, potest dici de novo esse in aliquo, secundum novam relationem
ipsius creaturae ad ipsum.” In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, ad 1; cf. ad 2.
27
Cf. SH I, n. 511, I, ad 2. This is the great difference between the mission of the divine
persons and the mission of a human messenger, who can be sent without achieving
that which he was sent for. The movement, in this case, is realized only in the person
who has been sent. Cf. ibid.
28
“Non dicitur ipsemet in nos procedere, quia circa ipsum aliquid fiat; sed quia ex eo
quod nos ad ipsummet aliter nos habemus, ipse potest significari sub alio respectu
se habere ad nos. Et ita dicitur in nos procedere quantum ad illum respectum quem
processio ponit ad id in quod est processio; licet non quantum ad illum quem ponit
ad id a quo est.” In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a.1 ad 3; cf. ad 2; d. 15, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1.
29
Cf. SH I, n. 511, I, obj. 3 and resp.; SH III, n. 609, sol. 1. In the following article
of this question in the Scriptum, it is made explicit that this infused virtue is the
correspondent of the gift of sanctifying grace, that is, charity and the other virtues
informed by it.
30
“Constat quod virtus infusa non est deficientior in operibus meritoriis, quam virtus
acquisita in operibus politicis. Sed virtus acquisita sufficienter dirigit hominem in
omnibus civilibus. Ergo infusa in omnibus meritoriis. Non igitur oportet, ut videtur,
quod cum virtute infusa ipse Spiritus Sanctus detur, sed vel solus Spiritus Sanctus,
vel sola virtus.” In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, obj. 4.

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

to its very perfection. In effect, by its perfection, this virtue unites and
assimilates us to God, and by this union creates within us a new relation
or reference to him. It is the real relation of possession, corresponding
to the constitutive relatio of the temporal procession that is its invisible
mission, donation or inhabitation. Hence, the more perfect or sufficient
this virtue is, the more it is said that the Holy Spirit proceeds or is sent by
it and through it.31 As we can observe it, the anteriority of the created gift
here gains priority over the uncreated gift.
The union of the soul of the just with the Holy Spirit, will be explained in a more detailed way in article 2, given that it is the key for
determining which are the created gifts that formally realize the temporal procession of the Holy Spirit, which is his giving. I will concentrate my attention on the reply to the second objection of this article,
because there Aquinas will return to the doctrine of the constitutive
relation of this donation, combining it with the argument referring to
the presence of the Holy Spirit in the saint as “fruit,” which is found in
the Summa Halensis.
Master John had taught that the Holy Spirit is given to the just because, through the created gifts, the just enjoyed the Holy Spirit himself.32
Aquinas uses this reasoning to show that no new real relation whatsoever of the creature to God is sufficient to serve as the correlative of the
temporal procession of the Holy Spirit, which is his donation. Since that
which is given is possessed or contents in a new way, that is, as fruit or
to be enjoyed, the possession or containment corresponding to the procession of the Holy Spirit as gift takes place, either by sanctifying grace,
which gives us access to imperfect enjoyment, or by the gift of glory,
through which we enjoy him perfectly:
In the procession of the Holy Spirit of which we are speaking
here, that is, in as much as it contains in itself the gift of the Holy
Spirit, it is not enough that there should be a new relation, what31

“Virtus infusa est multo sufficientior quam virtus acquisita, et ex ratione suae
perfectionis habet quod nos maxime Deo conjungat et assimilet; secundum
quam conjunctionem innascitur nobis novus respectus ad Deum. Unde quanto
sufficientior est, tanto magis in ipsa Spiritus Sanctus procedere dicitur et cum ipsa.”
Ibid., ad 4.
32
Cf. SH I, n. 511, resp. I.

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1267

ever it may be, of the creature to God, but it is necessary that
it should be referred to Him as to the thing possessed, because
that which is given to someone is in some way possessed by him.
So, the divine person cannot be possessed by us except through
perfect enjoyment, and is possessed this way by the gift of Glory;
or according to imperfect enjoyment, and thus it is possessed by
the gift of sanctifying grace.33
Aquinas’s argument offers another differentiating element with respect
to the one used by Master John, given that he suggests again the change
in register in the explanation of the donation of the Holy Spirit, which
we have seen appear in the reply to the first quaestiuncula of article 1.34
Effectively, the created gift is presented, above all, as preceding the uncreated gift. But later, toward the end of the passage, the same is said in a
different register, which appears, moreover, superior. In this register the
anteriority corresponds to the Holy Spirit himself:
Or better, as that by which we are united to the object of enjoyment in the sense that the divine persons themselves leave in
our souls a certain seal of theirs, the gifts by which formally we
enjoy, i.e., love and wisdom; by which the Holy Spirit is said to be
a pledge of our inheritance.35

33

“In processione Spiritus, secundum quod hic loquimur, prout scilicet claudit in
se dationem Spiritus Sancti, non sufficit quod sit nova relatio, qualiscumque est,
creaturae ad Deum; sed oportet quod referatur in ipsum sicut ad habitum: quia quod
datur alicui habetur aliquo modo ab illo. Persona autem divina non potest haberi a
nobis nisi vel ad fructum perfectum, et sic habetur per donum gloriae; aut secundum
fructum imperfectum, et sic habetur per donum gratiae gratum facientis.” In I Sent.
d. 14, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2; cf. ST I, q. 43, a. 3, ad 1. Reading the parallel text of the Summa
without paying enough attention to this quote from the Scriptum, Rikhof, “Trinity,”
44–45, affirms that the mission of the divine person implies not only the new divine
presence and sanctifyng grace, but also the graces gratis datae. See supra quote 13.
34
We come across the same change of register with regard to these topics, with a
certain frequency, in other passages of the Franciscan Summa. Cf. SH I, n. 511, I, ad
3; n. 511, II, resp.; SH III, n. 609, sol. 1.
35
“Sicut id per quod fruibili conjungimur, inquantum ipsae personae divinae quadam
sui sigillatione in animabus nostris relinquunt quaedam dona quibus formaliter
fruimur, scilicet amore et sapientia; propter quod Spiritus Sanctus dicitur esse
pignus hereditatis nostrae.” In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2.

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

The created gift of grace or of glory is that by which the uncreated gift is
enjoyed. But the divine person imprints the gift of sanctifying grace, as a
certain personal seal, in our souls. Thus the gift of wisdom is recognized
as a seal of the invisible mission of the Son, and the gift of love, as a seal
of the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit.36 We can affirm, therefore, that
the two things are, at the same time, the cause and effect of each other.
How can we maintain this affirmation without infringing the principle of
noncontradiction? The reply to this question is found, beyond any doubt,
in the distinction between registers or perspectives from which we can
consider this mutual influence between the created gift and the uncreated gift.
Two Orders of Priority
The change in register in the description of the role that the proceeding
persons play in the explanation of the temporal procession, which is their
invisible mission, finds its fullest explanation in the reply to the second
part of article 1 of the question dedicated to the study of the formal ratio
of the donation of the Holy Spirit.37 As was indicated above, this quaestiuncula of the Scriptum has its parallel in the Trinitarian treatise of the
Summa.38 I will begin my analysis from this more concise and brief passage that reprises, a little more than fifteen years later, the initial teaching
of St. Thomas as a bachelor of the Sentences in Paris.
In setting out the issues in the Prima Pars, the reasoning inclines
decidedly to the anteriority of the Holy Spirit with respect to the created
gift of grace. It does not appear true to say that the invisible mission of
the person takes place “only according to the gift of sanctifying grace.”39
In effect, the prepositional phrase “according to” (secundum) denotes the
reference to a cause. Also, St. Paul says that it is through the Holy Spirit
that we have charity. According to this, the divine person is the cause
36

Cf. In I Sent. d. 15, q. 4, a. 1; SCG IV, ch. 23; ST I, q. 43, a. 5, c. and ad 2.
This reply corresponds exactly to that of the second question of the first article of the
chapter in which the Summa Halensis approaches the same set of problems: “Ad illud
quod quaeritur cum utrumque conferatur animae, scilicet Spiritus Sanctus et gratia,
quid per prius dicitur conferri animae.” SH I, n. 511, II.
38
Cf. supra, 2.
39
“Videtur quod missio invisibilis divinae personae non sit solum secundum donum
gratiae gratum facientis.” ST I, q. 43, a. 3.
37

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1269

from which we have the gift of grace and not the other way round.40 The
solution that Aquinas offers to this objection could not be more precise
nor more concise:
Sanctifying grace disposes the soul to possess the divine person;
and this is signified when it is said that the Holy Spirit is given according to the gift of grace. Nevertheless the gift of grace
is itself from the Holy Spirit; which is meant by the words “the
charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”41
We can thus affirm, after all, a causality on the part of the created gift.
Effectively, we can say that the Holy Spirit is given “according to” the gift
of sanctifying grace because this gift disposes the soul to possess him.42
But at the same time, as the Apostle bears witness, the gift of grace “is
from,” that is to say, proceeds from the Holy Spirit. So, if the created gift
of grace dispositively causes the presence of the Holy Spirit in the soul
of the saint, the Holy Spirit is the principle of the said gift, since through
the Holy Spirit the love of God is poured into our hearts. In the Tertia
Pars, when he explains the order of priority between habitual grace and
the grace of Christ, Aquinas will insist again on the anteriority of the gift
of the Spirit over the gift of grace. The Holy Spirit is present in the mind
by grace because he is its cause. In effect “the principle of habitual grace,
which is given with charity, is the Holy Spirit; he is said to be sent when
he comes to dwell in the mind by charity.”43 Invoking the beautiful pas40

“Haec praepositio secundum denotat habitudinem alicuius causae. Sed Persona
divina est causa quod habeatur donum gratiae gratum facientis, et non e converso;
secundum illud Rom 5 . . . Ergo inconvenienter dicitur quod Persona divina
secundum dona gratae gratum facientis mittatur.” Ibid, obj. 2.
41
“Gratia gratum faciens disponit animam ad habendam divinam personam, et
significatur hoc, cum dicitur quod Spiritus Sanctus datur secundum donum gratiae.
Sed tamen ipsum donum gratiae est a Spiritu Sancto, et hoc significatur, cum dicitur
quod ‘caritas Dei diffunditur in cordibus nostris per Spiritum Sanctum.’” Ibid., ad 2.
42
Created grace is recognized thus as the gift placed at the ontological level of man so
that he might be united to God. Cf. Jean-Hervé Nicolas, Les Profondeurs de la grâce
(Paris: Beauchesne, 1969), 150–60.
43
“Principium autem gratiae habitualis, quae cum caritate datur, est Spiritus Sanctus,
qui secundum hoc dicitur mitti quod per caritatem mentem inhabitat.” ST III, q. 7,
a. 13, c. This is a biblical term (Lk 11:13; 1 Cor 12:4–11, etc.) greatly developed by St.
Thomas and his contemporaries: the Holy Spirit is the first gift and the ratio of all the

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

sage from Ezekiel 43:2, on the arrival of the glory of God in the temple,
which makes the earth resplendent, Aquinas compares the relationship
between the new divine presence within us and sanctifying grace, with
that which exists between the sun and its light in the air: “Grace is caused
in man by the presence of the divinity as light in the atmosphere by the
presence of the sun.”44 Thus the Holy Spirit is the principle as agent that
produces immediately grace and charity in the one in whom he dwells.
The explanation of the double priority between the created gift and
the uncreated gift that Aquinas offers in the Scriptum, as well as being
more explicit than in the Summa, allows us to appreciate much more the
influence of the Summa Halensis. The question “what is given first?,”45
which dominates this first quaestiuncula, is certainly pertinent because—
as we have seen in the parallel passage in the Summa—on one hand, we
say that it is through the Holy Spirit that the created gifts are given, since
he has the ratio of the first gift.46 But, on the other hand, the created gifts
dispose us to possess the Holy Spirit and all disposition is prior to the
form for which it is prepared.47 Although these two affirmations appear
to contradict each other, in his brief reply, the young bachelor of the Sentences will manage to show how, in reality, they are mutually complementary and enriching. A synoptic presentation of the Thomas’s treatment along with that, offered a few years earlier, by John of La Rochelle,
will permit us to better appreciate his originality within the continuity of
a common teaching:

other gifts of God. Cf. In I Sent. d. 18, a. 3; ST I, q. 38, a. 2, c.
“Gratia enim causatur in homine ex praesentia divinitatis, sicut lumen in aere ex
praesentia solis.” ST III, q. 7, a. 13, c.
45
“Ulterius quaeritur circa hoc, si utrumque datur, quid per prius datur.” In I Sent. d.
14, q. 2, a. 1, qc. 2.
46
“Et videtur quod Spiritus Sanctus: quia per ipsum dantur alia, et quia habet rationem
primi doni.” Ibid.
47
“Sed e contrario videtur quod dona per prius. Quia dona ipsius disponunt nos ad
hoc quod ipsum habeamus. Dispositio autem prior est eo ad quod disponit. Ergo
etc.” Ibid., sc.
44

Created and Uncreated Gift

SH I, nº 511, II, resp.
Given that we are investigating which gift is understood
as given anteriorly to the
soul, that is, the Holy Spirit
or grace: it has to be said that
according to the comparison
of the gift to the one from
whom it is given, it is understood that in the first place the
Holy Spirit is given because
the Holy Spirit proceeds firstly
from the Father to the soul
. . . But according to the comparison of the gift to whom it
is given, grace is understood
as primary, as grace disposes
the soul and then comes the
inhabitation of the Holy Spirit.
Hence that which was first in
the order of intelligence on the
part of it being conferred by
God, is posterior on the part
of the soul who receives it.48

1271

In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, qc. 2, c.
The order of some things
according to nature can be
doubly considered: on the
part of the recipient or the
material; and thus the disposition is anterior to that
for which it is disposed; and
thus we receive the gifts
of the Holy Spirit before
we receive the Holy Spirit
Himself, because by these
received gifts we are assimilated to the Holy Spirit; or
on the part of the agent and
the end; and thus that which
is closest to the agent and
the end, is said to be anterior; and thus we receive the
Holy Spirit anteriorly to his
gifts, as with the Son, who
through his love gives us the
other gifts. And this is to be
anterior absolutely.49

48

48

“Cum ergo quaeritur cuiusmodi donum intelligatur per prius dari animae, scilicet
Spiritus Sanctus vel gratia: dicendum quod secundum comparationem doni ad illud a quo datur, prius intelligitur dari Spiritus Sanctus, quia prius procedit a Patre
Spiritus Sanctus ad animam . . . Secundum vero comparationem doni ad illud cui

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

From the double reference of the gift both to the giver and to the
beneficiary, Master John distinguishes two different registers in considering the giving of the Holy Spirit and sanctifying grace. The first register
is that which understands this giving by comparison to the one who is its
eternal origin, that is to say, on the part of God who confers both gifts.
In this mode we say that the Holy Spirit is anterior because he proceeds
from the Father to the soul before the gift of grace. Thus we can say that
this priority is given by mere proximity or nearness with respect to origin. If we bear in mind, moreover, that which proceeds first is the cause
of that which follows, we will be able to recognize here, at least, the order
of efficient causality. But this datum is not made explicit in the text. The
second register is that which understands the said giving by reference to
the beneficiary, that is, on the part of the soul that receives both one and
the other gift. This is, without doubt, the order of material causality. Thus
we say that the gift of sanctifying grace is anterior, which disposes the
soul so that it may be able to receive the Holy Spirit.
In the conclusion of his argument, the Franciscan master confirms
the implied paradox in the fact that the gift is anterior on the part of God
who confers it, and posterior on the part of the soul that receives it. On
doing this, he emphasizes something that, in reality, is present throughout the argument, and is what he really wishes to investigate, that is, the
order according to the intelligence. If we attentively read the passage
with this purpose in mind, we can confirm that the expression “is understood” at the beginning of the argument, in the explanation from order
on the part of God, and in the corresponding argument from order on
the part of the soul, is not casual. On the part of the soul, the uncreated
gift is posterior in the same order of intelligence in that this gift is first on
the part of God.
49

datur primo intelligitur gratia, quae est sicut disponens animam et deinde Spiritus
Sanctus inhabitans. Unde illud quod erat prius in ordine intelligentiae ex parte Dei
in conferendo, posterius est ex parte animae in recipiendo.”
49
“Ordo aliquorum secundum naturam potest dupliciter considerari. Aut ex parte recipientis vel materiae; et sic dispositio est prior quam id ad quod disponit: et sic
per prius recipimus dona Spiritus Sancti quam ipsum Spiritum, quia per ipsa dona
recepta Spiritui Sancto assimilamur. Aut ex parte agentis et finis; et sic quod propinquius erit fini et agenti, dicitur esse prius: et ita per prius recipimus Spiritum

Created and Uncreated Gift

1273

Finally, this distinction of registers or perspectives that the Summa
Halensis offers allows us to affirm a certain priority of created grace without negating its dependence on uncreated grace, always understanding
that the order according to which this priority is affirmed, does not presuppose temporality or succession. In fact, a little farther above, in stating the question, Master John notes with precision that a certain priority
of nature is referred to, and that this priority is linked to that which apprehended on the part of intelligence, because it is a priority that human
reason can grasp or distinguish, even when the gift of the spirit and the
gift of sanctifying grace are given simultaneously: Master John says, “And
I speak of the priority of nature according to the ratio of intelligence, not
of [the priority] of time, because it is the case that [these gifts] are simultaneous in time.”50
In the parallel argument of the Scriptum are mentioned “some elements” that are disposed according to a certain order. This means those
ontological components involved in this donation: the rational creature,
the Holy Spirit, and sanctifying grace.51 The first two are of the substantial
order and the third is an accident of the genus of quality. The first relates
to the two others as the recipient relates to that which is received. As
Master John does in the setting of this same question, St. Thomas notes
here, with a brief and concise affirmation, that the Holy Spirit and sanctifying grace are received in the rational creature according to an order
that is not temporal but according to nature, and that this takes place
in two distinct modes. There exists, therefore, two orders of anteriority
and posteriority according to the nature between the gift uncreated and
the created gift. Immediately afterward, he describes both orders in turn,
in an inverse order to the description offered in the parallel text of the
Summa Halensis.
When we say that by the created gift of sanctifying grace the Holy
Spirit is given to us, we consider the material, more exactly, the recipient
by whom both gifts are received, that is, the subject who is the rational
Sanctum quam dona ejus, quia et Filius per amorem suum alia nobis donavit. Et hoc
est simpliciter esse prius.” Cf. Emery, Théologie trinitaire, 303–8.
50
“Et loquor de prioritate naturae quae est secundum rationem intelligentiae, non
temporis, quia constat quod simul sunt tempore.” SH I, n. 511, II, resp.; cf. Primeau,
“Doctrina Summae Theologicae,” 50–51.
51
Master John had denoted them with great precision. See SH III, n. 610, ad 5.

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

creature. In this register, the created gift is presented as a disposition of
the subject and the uncreated gift as the form to which that created gift
disposes.52 Therefore the contrary argument that Aquinas offers in this
question holds true, because that which disposes the subject to the action
of the agent is anterior to the form that results from the said action.53 We
have, then, in this part of the reply, a clarification of what John was trying
to explain, in the parallel passage, with the comparison of the gift to the
soul that benefits from it: it deals with a comparison between the form,
the Holy Spirit, with the material in qua, the rational creature, made possible by the disposition that is sanctifying grace.
According to Master John, when we talk about the charity that has
been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we are talking about the
priority considered on the part of God who confers both gifts. In his description of this new order according to nature, St. Thomas makes clear
that the same order is taken on the part of the agent and the end. In effect,
from this perspective the uncreated gift has priority, because the dispensation of the created gifts is ordered to him as to its end, and because he
himself influences, as a mediating cause since he is the love by which this
dispensation takes place. Rightly, referring to this mediating influence,

52

Explaining the quasi-formal causality of the uncreated gift by analogy with that of
the divine essence in the beatific vision, Rahner loses sight of the proper value of this
order of priority. Karl Rahner, “Zur scholastischen Begrifflichkeit der ungeschaffenen
Gnade,” in Schriften zur Theologie, vol. 1 (Einsiedeln: Benzinger Verlag, 1954),
347–75, esp. 369ff. The causality of the created gift on the uncreated is not causative
but dispositive. Consequently, no contradiction exists between the teaching of the
medieval masters on one hand and that of the sacred Scriptures and the Fathers on
the other, as far as the order of priority goes between the two gifts (ibid., 354–56),
but a difference in the perspective from which the comparison between them is
considered. Rahner’s opinion finds vigorous support in the teaching of Matthias J.
Scheeben. Cf. François Bourassa, “Les missions divines et le surnaturel chez saint
Thomas d’Aquin,” Sciences ecclésiastiques 1 (1948): 41–98, esp. 49–50.
53
“Sed e contrario videtur quod dona per prius. Quia dona ipsius disponunt nos ad
hoc quod ipsum habeamus. Dispositio autem prior est eo ad quod disponit. Ergo
et cetera.” In I Sent. d. 14, q. 2, a. 1, qc. 2, sc. As we can see, St. Thomas is far from
undoing the doctrine of the created habit as a disposing medium developed by
the Franciscan masters. See the contrary opinion of Pedro U. López de Meneses,
Theosis: La doctrina de la divinización en las tradiciones cristianas: Fundamentos
para una teología ecuménica de la gracia (Navarra: Universidad de Navarra, 2001),
184–85. For this author, Aquinas opts decidedly for a description of a descending
type of divinization.

Created and Uncreated Gift

1275

he adds that the Son has given us all the other gifts through his love,
which is the Holy Spirit.
At the conclusion of his argument, Aquinas resolves the paradox
that Master John had placed at the end of his own argument. He clarifies
that, if under one aspect, the created gift of grace has priority, absolutely
speaking the uncreated gift is anterior. Therefore the priority assigned
to the created gift over the uncreated gift is nothing more than relative,
restricted to a particular consideration, because the disposition is, in the
last analysis, an effect of divine action.54
We can confirm, then, that we have in these brief and apparently
simple explanations, a notable crossover of orders: one that is absolutely
excluded, the order of time; two that are linked intimately: the order of
nature and the order of intelligence; and two that are inverse: the order of efficient causality and that of material causality. The philosophical
foundation for both medieval masters is the same; that is, the doctrine of
“principle,” and the doctrine of order and of its modes, which Aristotle
offers, particularly in Book V of the Metaphysics.
Nevertheless, order according to intelligence, which is structural in
the explanation of Master John, is mentioned by Aquinas neither in the
Summa nor the Scriptum. As noted in the above synoptic table, this is not
the only differentiating element. With reference to the end, the explicit
indication of the priority simpliciter of the uncreated gift is not found
either in the Summa Halensis nor the Summa. Moreover, the reference
to the Holy Spirit as form, particularly developed in the treaty on grace
in the Summa Halensis,55 is more explicit in the passage on the Scriptum
than in that of the Summa. Finally, to indicate the anteriority of the Holy
Spirit over created grace, Master John only says that it proceeds. In the
Summa, St. Thomas presents it as a beginning of created grace without
adding any other specification. But in the Scriptum he refers to both aspects. In effect, on one side, in the line of what is said in the Summa Halensis, he affirms that the Spirit is closer to the agent; on the other, in the
54

Emery, Théologie trinitaire, 305, appropriately notes: “du côté de notre assimilation
au Saint-Esprit suivant les conditions de notre nature humaine, la grâce créée est
première, au titre de la priorité d’une disposition. Mais du côté de l’Auteur de la grâce
(l’agent) et du côté de ce à quoi la grâce dispose (recevoir le Saint-Espirt en personne:
la fin), le don du Saint-Esprit lui-même est absolument premier.”
55
See esp. SH III, n. 609, sol. 1.

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

line of what is said in the Summa, he emphasizes the middle influence of
the Holy Spirit.
The original resource of the theory of the relatio rationis permitted
St. Thomas to complete the doctrine of Master John on the Holy Spirit as
“fruit” and thus show, with greater profundity, that the Holy Spirit is really present in the rational creature. Moreover, the doctrine of the different
orders of priority applied to explaining the relation of the Holy Spirit to
the created gift, which he finds developed in Master John, permits him to
better show how this new presence takes place. Reuniting both themes in
one explanation we can say that, by the disposition of sanctifying grace
operated by the Holy Spirit, there arises in the rational creatures a relation that has its terminus in the Holy Spirit himself, considered as form.
If this relation is real, because it brings about a change in the rational
creature, the inverse relation is by reason, because its subject, the Holy
Spirit, is not modified by it; and while the first relation is the possession
of the Holy Spirit in order to be enjoyed, the second is his inhabitation,
his invisible mission and his donation.
The Love of God Poured into Our Hearts by the Uncreated Gift
In this study I have proposed a more profound analysis of the doctrine
of St. Thomas on the communication of the created gift of grace and the
uncreated gift of the Holy Spirit to the soul of the saint, a communication
that, being simultaneous, admits a certain order and includes diverse
modes or types of order. Embracing and completing the teaching of the
Summa Halensis on the giving of the Holy Spirit, Aquinas explains in
his commentary on distinction 14 of the first book of the Sentences, that
the temporal procession of the Holy Spirit constitutive of his invisible
mission and his inhabitation, is the inverse relation to that which takes
place in the soul of the just toward the Holy Spirit, by which we say that
he possesses and enjoys him. This relation of possession is real, because
it realizes a change in the rational creature, that is, the modification that
takes place in the soul by the reception of the created gift. But the relation
of donation or inhabitation is a relation of reason, because it is conceived
by our mind due to the inverse relation, without it registering any change
in its subject, the Holy Spirit.
Master John of La Rochelle taught in the Summa Halensis that the

Created and Uncreated Gift

1277

giving of the Holy Spirit has its terminus in the Holy Spirit himself and
not in his gifts. St. Thomas completes this affirmation, applying to it the
doctrine of temporal procession as a relatio rationis. The real relation of
possession has its origin in the reception of the created gifts but does not
terminate in them; it tends subsequently toward the Holy Spirit himself.
By this we can say not only that we possess the created gifts but also
the uncreated gift; the former for use and the latter for enjoyment. For
this same reason, we can say that they proceed in us; that is not simply
the created gifts, but also the uncreated gift; and in affirming this we are
doing nothing other than insisting on the same thing, but considering it
from the inverse relation.
In this way, the argument by which Master John demonstrated the
donation of the Holy Spirit along with his gifts having recourse to the
notion of “fruit,” is completed by St. Thomas using the doctrine of the
donation of the Holy Spirit as a relation of reason. From this doctrine he
is able to explain, at the same time, the compatibility of the giving of the
Holy Spirit with the divine simplicity and immutability, and the sufficiency of the infused virtue to achieve the conjunction with God, which
is at the origin of this new presence.
Aquinas shows before that the created gifts by which is realized the
giving of the Holy Spirit are those of grace and glory, because they give us
access to imperfect and perfect enjoyment respectively. It is because they
formally realize communion with God as end or beatitude, that these
gifts give origin to the real relation of possession corresponding to the
relation of reason, which is constitutive of the giving of the Holy Spirit.
Aquinas alludes here to a distinction of registers in the explanation of
the conjoined donation of the created gift and the uncreated gift, which
we find with a certain frequency in the Summa Halensis. The created
gift appears, in the first place, as preceding the uncreated gift: it is by the
use of the gift of grace that the just enjoys the gift of the Holy Spirit. But
then, the proceeding person is presented as imprinting in the souls of the
saints the gifts of sanctifying grace. It is the same change of register that
we encounter at the end of the principal argument of the first quaestiuncula of article 1: thus, while we unite ourselves to the Holy Spirit through
the created gifts, it is also he who assimilates us to himself through the
said gifts.
Having demonstrated that the Holy Spirit himself is given with the

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Guillermo Juárez, O.P.

created gift, St. Thomas asks himself, in the second article of the said
question, which of these gifts has priority? Like the order of the exposition of the material, the reply that he offers to this question is very similar
to that which we find in the Summa Halensis. On one hand, Aquinas
affirms, like John of La Rochelle, that the uncreated gift and the created
gift are received according to an order of nature and not according to a
temporal priority; on the other, he distinguishes in this order of nature
two distinct modes. To point out these modes he has recourse to the distinction of registers already alluded to and he clarifies the distinction.
On the part of the materia or the receptive subject, which is the rational creature, the created gift is first, as it behaves with respect to the uncreated gift as the disposition with respect to the form, the first being always anterior to the second. This anteriority comprises a true and proper
causality, as can be seen with total clarity in the text of the Summa. In
effect, if sanctifying grace can be considered as anterior it is because the
rational creature needs it, to be disposed to receive the Holy Spirit. Although the Summa Halensis abounds in explanations where sanctifying
grace is compared to the Holy Spirit as the disposition to the form, its
argument from the double order of priority is, on this point, less explicit
than in the Scriptum.
On the part of the efficient and final cause, the uncreated gift is first,
because the created gift is dispensed to be ordered to him and because
he himself influences the said dispensation, as the love through which it
is realized. In the text of the Summa Halensis this order was determined
as a consideration on the part of God and the Holy Spirit; and the Holy
Spirit was mentioned solely as the first one who proceeds. In the Summa,
St. Thomas makes explicit that the Holy Spirit is the principium of the
created gift, and in the Scriptum specifies that we are concerned here
with a mediating causality and makes clear the role that the Holy Spirit
fulfills as end.
Leaving implicit the order of intelligence that structures the argument of Master John, Aquinas emphasizes in the Scriptum the order of
nature and the order of causality. Moreover, he resolves the paradox of
the double order of priority between the created gift and the uncreated gift, advanced by the Franciscan Master, explaining that absolutely
speaking the priority corresponds to the second, because the disposition
is, in the final instance, an effect of divine action.

Created and Uncreated Gift

1279

With this brief argument, St. Thomas deepens his teaching on the
presence of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the just, explaining the way
by which the uncreated gift relates to the created gift, by means of the
application of the Aristotelian doctrine of different orders of priority,
especially those corresponding to the four types of causes. The constitutive relation of this new presence of the Spirit is recognized, thus,
from its foundation, the gift of grace that is compared to him as to its
principle and as its terminus, in the way that the disposition is compared to the agent and to the form. Because of this we can say, with
propriety and without contradiction, that the Holy Spirit is the unfailing fountain of sanctifying grace that disposes us to possess and enjoy
the Holy Spirit himself.
NV

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1281-1301

1281

The Thomistic Doctrine of the Triune God and
Spiritual Life
Gilles Emery, o.p.
University of Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland

DOING THEOLOGY WITH THOMAS AQUINASmeans entering in possession of some fundamental theological and philosophical
positions, from which we develop a certain way of understanding God
and the world, that is to say, from which we acquire not only a set of
doctrines but a specific attitude, a mentality, a disposition that shapes
both thought and action. This is what Fr. Jean-Pierre Torrell meant by
speaking of St. Thomas’s “spirituality.”1 In this short essay, I will limit
myself to four points: (1) the practice of Trinitarian theology as a spiritual exercise; (2) prayer and purification of the mind in doing Trinitarian theology; (3) the doctrine of the Word and Love, and the imago Dei
as an imitation of God’s immanent acts; (4) the meaning of preaching
within the metaphysical doctrine of participated causality (“imitation”
of God). The first three deal with the distinct persons of the Trinity,
while the fourth concerns what is common to them.
A Spiritual Exercise
Since the Trinity is a mystery in the strictest sense, it cannot be proved
by rational arguments. Faith in the Trinity depends exclusively on revelation whose center is the Incarnation of the Son, his life in the flesh, and
1

Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., “Ascèse intellectuelle et vie spirituelle,” La Vie Spirituelle
153 (1999): 611–21, here at 612.

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Gilles Emery, O.P.

the sending of the Holy Spirit. St. Thomas not only rules out the possibility of natural reason attaining to knowledge of the Trinity, but also
refuses to consider God’s personal plurality as the fruit of an essential
fecundity of the divine being.2 Concerning Trinitarian faith, arguments
advanced by the theologian are thus chiefly of two kinds. The first kind
depends on the authority of Holy Scripture, which reveals that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct yet perfectly one. The other kind
consists of “persuasions”3 that do not demonstrate the Trinity but seek
to render the Trinitarian faith more intelligible in the minds of believers
(fidei manifestatio), and that show that what is proposed to faith is not
impossible.4 This purpose is achieved by considering the connection of
mysteries, and by using created likenesses or analogies of the Trinity.
The aim or nature of Trinitarian theology is well explained in the discussion of the “number of divine persons” (numerus personarum in divinis)
in the De potentia:
The plurality of persons in God belongs to those realities that
are held by faith and that natural human reason can neither
investigate nor adequately grasp; but one hopes to grasp it in
heaven, when God will be seen through his essence (per essentiam), as faith gives way to vision. However, the holy Fathers
were obliged to treat it in view of objections raised by those
who contradicted the faith in this matter and in others that also
pertain to the faith; they have done it, however, modestly and
reverently, without pretending to comprehend. And such an
inquiry is not useless, since by it our spirit is elevated to get
some glimpse of the truth sufficient for excluding errors (nec
talis inquisitio est inutilis, cum per eam elevetur animus ad aliquid veritatis capiendum quod sufficiat ad excludendos errores).
This is why St. Hilary explains: “Believing in this,” namely the
2

Summa theologiae I, q. 32, a. 1; see Gilles Emery, O.P., The Trinitarian Theology of
Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. Francesca A. Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007), 22–31.
3
ST II-II, q. 1, a. 5, ad 2: “persuasiones quaedam.” See also In I Sent. d. 3, q. 1, a. 4, ad
3: “adaptationes quaedam.”
4
ST II-II, q. 1, a. 5, ad 2. In what follows, I borrow several elements from my Trinity,
Church, and the Human Person: Thomistic Essays (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007),
1–72.

The Triune God and Spiritual Life

1283

plurality of persons in God, “set out, advance, persevere. And
though I may know that you will not attain the end, still I shall
praise you for your progress. He who pursues the infinite with
reverent devotion, even though he never attains it, will profit
from advancing forward.”5
These explanations summarize the purpose of speculative knowledge of
the mystery of the Trinity. First, Trinitarian theology is directed toward
a contemplative end that also supplies Christians with ways to defend
their faith.6 In this context, “contemplation” means theological contemplation, that is, the effort (studium, inquisitio) of the theologian in order
to make the revealed truth more manifest to his own mind and to the
minds of other believers.7 Second, the purpose of Trinitarian theology is
not to comprehend God, which is impossible, but to grasp something of
the “droplet” (parva stilla) of revelation, as St. Thomas puts it in the first
chapter of the fourth book of his Summa contra gentiles.8 He explains:
“The few things (pauca) that are revealed to us are set forth in likenesses
and the obscurities of words, so that only the studious (soli studiosi) arrive at any grasp of them at all.”9 Third, the study of the Trinity must be
undertaken with humility: here more than anywhere else, one must ex-

De potentia, q. 9, a. 5, resp., with reference to St. Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate II,10
(Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate, vol. 1, Libri I–VII, ed. Pieter Smulders [Brepols:
Turnhout, 1979], 48).
6
As early as the first question of his Scriptum super Sententiis (In I Sent. Prologue, a. 5,
resp.), St. Thomas noted: “We make our way to three things in Sacred Scripture (in
sacra Scriptura), namely: to the destruction of errors . . . to the instruction of moral
actions . . . [and] to the contemplation of truth in questions of Sacred Scripture.”
7
On the meanings of “contemplation,” see Marie-Michel Labourdette, O.P., Cours
de théologie morale, vol. 17, Les formes et les états de vie (Toulouse: Couvent des
Dominicains, 1991), 17–26; Adriano Oliva, O.P., “La contemplation des philosophes
selon Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 96 (2012):
585–662.
8
Summa contra gentiles IV, ch. 1 (no. 3345): “Quod vero subdit, et cum vix parvam
stillam sermonum eius audiverimus (Jb 26:14), ad secundam cognitionem pertinet,
prout divina nobis credenda per modum locutionis revelantur.” In my references to
Aquinas’s works, the numbers (no., nos.) refer to the Marietti edition.
9
Ibid.: “Haec etiam pauca quae nobis revelantur, sub quibusdam similitudinibus et
obscuritatibus verborum nobis proponuntur: ut ad ea quomodocumque capienda
soli studiosi perveniant.”

5

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Gilles Emery, O.P.

clude all presumption (praesumptio).10 Fourth, such a study is long and
slow, requiring perseverance. And lastly, its fruit is joy, as St. Thomas
explains in the first chapters of the Summa contra gentiles, with the same
reference to St. Hilary of Poitiers:
It is useful for the human mind to exercise itself (utile . . . est ut
. . . se mens humana exerceat) over such reasons, however weak
they are, provided there be no presumptuous attempt to comprehend or demonstrate. For the ability to perceive something of the
highest realities, if only with feeble, limited understanding, gives
the greatest joy.11
The words used by St. Thomas to signify this spiritual fruit are very suggestive: “a vehement joy” (vehemens gaudium),12 “the highest joy” (iucundissimum).13 This joy is the “joy of the truth” (gaudium de veritate),
which St. Thomas (following St. Augustine) identifies with beatitude.14
“It is impossible for any created intellect to comprehend God; yet ‘for
the mind to attain to God in some degree is great beatitude,’ as Augustine says.”15 St. Thomas also specifies that “the end (finis) of sacra doctri10

SCG IV, ch. 1 (no. 3348); Expositio super librum Boethii De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 1. St.
Thomas notes three forms of presumption: pretending to comprehend, placing
reason before faith (wanting to know in order to believe), and wanting to surpass
the limited mode of human knowledge.
11
SCG I, ch. 8 (nos. 49–50). The text continues (no. 50): “In accord with this thought, St.
Hilary declares in his book On the Trinity, speaking of this sort of truth: ‘In faith, set
out, go forward, persevere. And though I may know that you will not attain the end,
still I shall praise you for your progress. He who pursues the infinite with reverent
devotion, even though he never attains it, always profits nonetheless from advancing
forward. But in penetrating this secret, in plunging into the hidden depth of this
Birth unlimited [the generation of the one God begotten by the one unbegotten
God], beware of presumptuously thinking you have attained a full understanding.
Know, rather, that this is incomprehensible.’” St. Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate II,
10–11 (vol. 1, 48).
12
SCG I, ch. 5 (no. 32).
13
SCG I, ch. 8 (no. 49).
14
See, e.g., ST I-II, q. 3, a. 4, resp.; ST I-II, q. 4, a. 1, sc 1; Super Ioan. 10, lec. 1 (no.
1370): “Nihil aliud est beatitudo quam gaudium de veritate.”
15
ST I, q. 12, a. 7, resp.: “Comprehendere Deum impossibile est cuicumque intellectui
creato, attingere vero mente Deum qualitercumque, magna est beatitudo, ut dicit
Augustinus.” In Augustine, these words apply to our present knowledge of God in
faith: “The Word was God (Jn 1:1). We are talking about God; so why be surprised if

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na is the contemplation of the First Truth in heaven,”16 so that the end or
goal of theology, even in its practical dimension, is eternal beatitude.17
The nature of theological research is formulated very suggestively in
the Summa contra gentiles, in connection with the truths that faith alone
makes known to us through our acceptance of revelation (among which
the mystery of the Trinity and that of Christ occupy the first place): “In
order to manifest this kind of truth, one must provide likely, probable
reasons (rationes aliquae verisimiles) for the exercise and encouragement of the faithful (ad fidelium quidem exercitium et solatium).”18
The Latin word solatium means support, assistance, aid, consolation, domestic help, and sometimes even entertainment.19 In the Latin
text of Hebrews 6:18, solatium translates the Greek paraklesis: strengthening, encouragement, exhortation. St. Thomas means that, by showing
the intelligibility of the faith (and thus responding to those who deny it),
theology offers a support to believers.
As for the word exercitium, it is an echo of St. Augustine’s exercitatio,
that is to say, a training that disposes the believers’ mind to the contemplation of God’s truth.20 The word exercitium indicates the nature and
purpose of the theologian’s study. St. Thomas often applies this theme
of exercise (exercitatio or exercitium) to study and teaching sustained by
you cannot grasp it? I mean, if you can grasp it, it is not God (si enim comprehendis,
non est Deus). Let us rather make a devout confession of ignorance (pia confessio
ignorantiae), instead of a brash profession of knowledge. Certainly it is great bliss to
have a little touch or taste of God with the mind (attingere aliquantum mente Deum,
magna beatitudo est); but completely to grasp him, to comprehend him, is altogether
impossible.” St. Augustine, Sermon 117,5 (PL 38, col. 663); English translation
from St. Augustine, Sermons, vol. 4, Sermons 94A–147A, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P.
(Brooklyn: New City Press, 1992), 211. Here we should recall that the formula docta
ignorantia comes from St. Augustine, in a similar context: “There is therefore in
us a certain learned ignorance (docta ignorantia), so to speak, an ignorance which
we learn from the Spirit of God (docta Spiritu Dei) who helps our infirmities.” St.
Augustine, Letter to Proba (=Letter 130) 15,28 (PL 33, col. 505).
16
In I Sent. Prologue, a. 3, qa. 1, resp.: “Finis autem ultimus istius doctrinae est
contemplatio primae veritatis in patria.”
17
ST I, q. 1, a. 5, resp.: “Finis autem huius doctrinae inquantum est practica, est
beatitudo aeterna.”
18
SCG I, ch. 9 (no. 54).
19
See, e.g., ST I, q. 51, a. 1, obj. 1; ST II-II, q. 168, a. 3, ad 3.
20
See Henri-Irénée Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris: De
Boccard, 1958; reprint, 1983), 299–327: “Exercitatio animi.”

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perseverance, training, and frequent practice.21 Study and teaching are
counted among the “spiritual exercises” (spiritualia exercitia) that lead
one to know God and to love him.22 In the formula “spiritual exercise,”
the adjective “spiritual” carries a religious sense (seeking knowledge of
God in faith)23 without losing its anthropological signification (spiritual
as distinguished from manual or corporeal).24 The theme of exercise is
especially tied to difficulties, tribulations, and adversities: difficulties and
tribulations are the occasion of an exercitium or exercitatio that makes it
possible to overcome them. As far as doctrine is concerned, St. Thomas
presents exercise as an “elevation” of the mind that takes place according
to a progression. This elevation starts with the “easiest” things in order
to reach the “most difficult” things. The exercise consists in passing from
corporeal realities to spiritual ones, from easy things to the more arduous, from a simple doctrine to the more subtle, from faith to a spiritual
understanding of the faith.25 This theme of exercise often appears in the
context of the challenges posed by heresies.26 Errors are the occasion of
an exercise (exercitium) that gives rise to a clearer (limpidius) grasp of
the truth.27 As a summary: the “reasons” adduced by the theologian in
order to “manifest” the faith in the Trinity do not prove the faith but exST III, q. 86, a. 5, ad 3; De veritate, q. 24, a. 10, resp.; In III Sent. d. 37, q. 1, a. 5, qa. 1, obj. 2.
SCG III, ch. 132 (no. 3047): “Studium sapientiae, et doctrina, et alia huiusmodi
spiritualia exercitia.” See also ST II-II, q. 122, a. 4, ad 3.
23
The expression “spiritual exercise” is applied to study and teaching, to the religious
state, and to activities proper to this state (ST II-II, q. 189, a. 1; Contra impugnantes,
ch. 5, ad 8 [Leonine edition, vol. 41A, 92]) and, more generally, to the practice of
virtue (Super Eph. 3, lec. 4 [no. 166]; ST III, q. 69, a. 3). Voluntary poverty constitutes
an “exercise” as well (ST II-II, q. 186, a. 3, ad 4).
24
See, e.g., Contra impugnantes, ch. 5 (Leonine edition, vol. 41A, 89–90): the works
of piety (among which Aquinas counts the study of Holy Scriptures, teaching, and
preaching) are distinguished from corporalis exercitatio, corporale exercitium, and
labor manuum. See also ibid., ad 8: the exercitia spiritualia are distinguished from
the opera manualia (92). For the nuances of the vocabulary of “spirituality,” see JeanPierre Torrell, O.P., “Spiritualitas chez saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue des sciences
philosophiques et théologiques 73 (1989): 575–84.
25
Super Heb. 5, lec. 2 (nos. 269–74), with explicit reference to “the mystery of the
Trinity and the sacrament of the Incarnation.”
26
SCG IV, ch. 55 (no. 3939): “After the divine truth was manifested, certain errors
arose on account of the weakness of human minds. But these errors have exercised
(exercuerunt) the understanding of believers to search out and grasp the divine
truths more attentively (diligentius).”
27
In Metaphysicam II, lec. 1 (nos. 287–88).
21

22

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1287

ercise the believer’s mind, giving him occasion to confirm the faith, and
leading him to better grasp the truth of God with caution and precision.
And thanks to studious men who refute errors, those who possess a simpler faith are confirmed in the faith. Such theological exercise is both the
growth of the theologian himself and a service to the Church.
Prayer and Purification of the Mind
In his De Trinitate, St. Augustine constantly recalled that God cannot
be measured by visible and mortal things. Therefore, in order to grasp
God to some extent, man needs a “purification of the mind,”28 both moral
and intellectual, because only purified minds (purgatissimae mentes) can
glimpse God.29 The primary means of this purification that renders the
human mind capable of contemplating eternal realities is faith,30 together
with charity.31 Along with faith, Augustine also underlined the purifying role of prayer (purification of desire), virtuous action, and abstention
from sin, which are necessary to grasp the mystery of God.32 Augustine
emphasized in particular that in order to glimpse God, the mind must
purify itself of corporeal representations and “phantasmata.”33 The mind
must not stop at created likenesses of God but must rise to what the created realities “insinuate.”34 This is precisely the goal of the mind’s exercitatio. Although St. Thomas distinguishes more clearly between acquired
wisdom (study) and infused wisdom (a gift of the Holy Spirit),35 he maintains that, as far as knowledge of the faith is concerned, the “spiritual
doctrine” about the Triune God is not only a pure matter of understanding; rather, it demands as well a rightly ordered affectivity and inclination toward God. This distinguishes sacra doctrina from other domains
of knowledge. In other sciences, intellectual perfection suffices. But the
“doctrine of Sacred Scripture” requires a double perfection, intellectual
and affective. St. Thomas clarifies: theology is not geometry!
28

St. Augustine, De Trinitate I,1,3; IV,18,24.
Ibid., I,2,4.
30
Ibid., IV,18,24; IV,19,25; XV,24,44.
31
Ibid., VIII,4,6: “Nisi per fidem [Deus] diligatur, non poterit cor mundari.”
32
Ibid., IV,21,31.
33
Ibid., VII,6,11–12.
34
Ibid., VIII,4,7.
35
See Aquinas, ST I, q. 1, a. 6, ad 3.
29

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This perfection is twofold: one is perfection according to the intellect, when someone has that judgment of intellect to discern
and judge rightly about those things that are proposed to him;
the other is perfection according to the affection that charity
makes, which is when someone adheres totally to God. . . . For
the doctrine of Sacred Scripture has this, that in it are not things
only to be pondered, as in geometry (in ipsa non tantum traduntur speculanda, sicut in geometria), but also to be approved
through the affection (sed etiam approbanda per affectum). . . .
Therefore, in other sciences it suffices that a man be perfect according to his understanding, but in these it is required that he
be perfect according to understanding and affection (in istis vero
requiritur quod sit perfectus secundum intellectum et affectum).36
Thus conceived, Trinitarian theology demands the practice of prayer
(as the example of St. Thomas himself shows) by which the soul is
purified, elevated toward the spiritual reality of God, and ordered to
God by devotion.37
Among the many things that a good theologian should ask for are
the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the gifts of wisdom, understanding, science, and counsel. The gift of wisdom is of primary importance,
since it allows one to have a right judgment about divine things by a
certain connaturality with God. But the gift of understanding (donum
intellectus) deserves special mention, since this gift is closely linked to
the “exercise” and purification of the mind, insofar as it removes errors
in the mind’s penetration of faith’s mysteries and keeps one from falling
into the trap of erroneous judgments in matters of faith about God.38
In his teaching about the gift of understanding and the corresponding

Super Heb. 5, lec. 2 (no. 273). English translation: Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on
the Epistle to the Hebrews, trans. Chrysostom Baer, O. Praem. (South Bend, IN: St.
Augustine Press, 2006), 1:120.
37
In De div. nom. 3, lec. 1 (nos. 232–33). For further reflections, see Gregory F. LaNave,
“Why Holiness Is Necessary for Theology: Some Thomistic Distinctions,” The
Thomist 74 (2010): 437–59.
38
Bernard Blankenhorn, O.P., Dionysian Mysticism in the Early Albertus Magnus and
in Thomas Aquinas (S.T.D. diss., University of Fribourg, 2012), 328.
36

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beatitude of the “pure of heart,” St. Thomas explains that the gift of understanding brings about a special purification of the mind:
For purity (munditia) is twofold. One is a preamble and a disposition to seeing God, and consists in the affect being cleansed
from disordered affections; and this purity of heart is effected
by the virtues and gifts that pertain to the appetitive power. The
other purity of heart is as perfective (quasi completiva) in view
of the divine vision; and this is the purity of the mind (munditia mentis) purified of phantasms and errors, so that the things
which are proposed about God are not taken by the mode of
corporeal phantasms, nor according to heretical perversities (ut
scilicet ea quae de Deo proponuntur non accipiantur per modum
corporalium phantasmatum, nec secundum haereticas perversitates). And the gift of understanding brings about this purity (et
hanc munditiam facit donum intellectus).39
One could perhaps object that the gift of understanding (which requires sanctifying grace and which is accessible to the unlearned or illiterate believer) works beyond concepts, so that it is not directly linked to
the study of theology. But, as Bernard Blankenhorn brilliantly showed,
the gift of understanding does not involve a metaconceptual type of
knowledge. Rather, St. Thomas underlines its relation to the noetic content of Christian doctrine about God. For Aquinas, the perfect cognition of God and “what God is not” does not leave behind the grasp of
divine perfections and their corresponding affirmative names.40 As far
as Trinitarian doctrine is concerned (“to get some glimpse of the truth
sufficient for excluding the errors”), the gift of understanding is perhaps
the most needed for a correct exercise of theology.
To “Imitate” the Trinity
A look at the occurrences of the formula imitare Deum (imitatio Dei, imitatores Dei) in Aquinas shows that three themes, among many others,
are especially connected with the imitation of God: the image of God
39
40

ST II-II, q. 8, a. 7, resp.
Blankenhorn, Dionysian Mysticism, 324–47.

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(by far the most frequent theme), the participation of creatures in God’s
attributes, and the causality of creatures (including man’s good works
that imitate God’s goodness). For the purpose of the present essay, I will
limit myself to the first and third ones.
Aquinas’s Trinitarian theology is built on the doctrine of the Word
and Love. Beginning with the Summa contra gentiles, Aquinas accounts
for the personal properties of the divine persons by relying on his mature doctrine of the Word and Love. In the human mind, a word (verbum) is the concept of the reality known, which the intellect forms and
expresses, that is, the term of the act of understanding.41 This analysis
shows that a word is distinct from and relative to a principle. This makes
it possible for Aquinas to show analogically that the name Verbum properly and exclusively signifies the Son who is conceived by the Father,
who remains in the Father, and who is of the same nature as the Father.
This is central to St. Thomas’s Trinitarian theology: he uses the notion of
Verbum in order to explain what “generation” means in God, what the
names “Son”42 and “Image”43 signify, and even what the name “Father”
signifies in God.44 The relationship of the Son to the Holy Spirit is also
described by means of the notion of “Word,” insofar as the Word is “the
Word who spirates Love” (Verbum spirans Amorem).45 The theme of the
SCG I, ch. 53; SCG IV, ch. 11; De potentia, q. 8, a. 1; ST I, q. 34, a. 1; Super Ioan. 1, lec.
1 (nos. 25–42).
42
In the SCG, the notion of Verbum is developed in order to show “how generation
is to be understood in God, and [how we should understand] what is said of the
Son of God in Scripture” (SCG IV, ch. 11: “Quomodo accipienda sit generatio in
divinis, et quae de Filio Dei dicuntur in Scripturis”). See also De rationibus fidei,
ch. 3 (“Qualiter in divinis generatio sit accipienda”); ST I, q. 27, a. 2, resp. (“Unde
processio Verbi in divinis dicitur generatio, et ipsum Verbum procedens dicitur
Filius”); ST I, q. 28, a. 4, resp.; ST I, q. 32, a. 1, resp.; Compendium theologiae I, ch. 39
and 40.
43
SCG IV, ch. 11 (no. 3476); ST I, q. 35, a. 2, resp.
44
See, e.g., De rationibus fidei, ch. 3: “Hoc autem secundum humanae locutionis
consuetudinem filius nominatur quod procedit ab alio in similitudinem eius,
subsistens in eadem natura cum ipso. Secundum igitur quod divina verbis humanis
nominari possunt, Verbum intellectus divini Dei Filium nominamus; Deum vero cuius
est Verbum nominamus Patrem, et processum Verbi dicimus esse generationem Filii,
immaterialem quidem, non autem carnalem sicut carnales homines suspicantur.”
The emphases are mine.
45
ST I, q. 43, a. 5, ad 2; Super Ioan. 6, lec. 5 (no. 946): “Verbum autem Dei Patris est
spirans Amorem.”
41

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Son as Word is used again to account for the procession of the Holy
Spirit from the Son: Love proceeds from the Word.46
In a similar way, it is the property of love that Aquinas emphasizes
in order to manifest the personal identity of the Holy Spirit. Just as St.
Thomas shows that the knowing intellect forms a word, so he discerns
an “imprint” of the beloved within the loving will. By “love,” in analogical fashion (and by an accommodation of language),47 he does not mean
the act of loving, but the dynamic “affection” that in the human will is
found at the beginning of the act of loving, that is, what “moves and
impels the will of the lover towards the beloved.” For what comes about
in the will, St. Thomas uses either the active vocabulary of a “principle
of impulsion” (“moving principle,” principle of “movement” toward the
beloved),48 or the formal vocabulary relating to an imprint: “From the
fact that someone loves something in act, a certain imprint results, so to
speak, of the thing loved in the affection of the lover; by reason of which
the thing loved is said to be in the lover, as the thing understood is in
the intellect of the one who understands.”49 It is this “imprint” of the
beloved, or this principle that moves the loving will toward the beloved,
that allows one to account, by analogy, for the personal property of the
Holy Spirit. This teaching on the Word and Love (together with the doctrine of subsistent relations) is the central pillar of Aquinas’s Trinitarian
ST I, q. 36, a. 2, resp.; SCG IV, ch. 24 (no. 3617): “Nam amor procedit a verbo.” See
also De potentia, q. 10, a. 5; Super Ioan. 14, lec. 4 (no. 1916). In the Compendium
theologiae, and in the De rationibus fidei, the theme of Love as proceeding from the
Word is the sole argument used to account for the procession of the Spirit a Filio; see
De rationibus fidei, ch. 4; Compendium theologiae I, ch. 49.
47
This accommodation (ST I, q. 37, a. 1, resp.: propter vocabulorum inopiam) is explained
and justified by means of the theory of denominatio (ibid., a. 2, resp. and ad 2). See
Emery, Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas, 62–69, 225–43, esp. 231 and 240.
48
ST I, q. 27, a. 4, resp.: “Processio autem quae attenditur secundum rationem
voluntatis, non consideratur secundum rationem similitudinis, sed magis secundum
rationem impellentis et moventis in aliquid.” ST I, q. 36, a. 1, resp.: “Est autem
proprium amoris, quod moveat et impellat voluntatem amantis in amatum.”
49
ST I, q. 37, a. 1, resp.: “Sicut enim ex hoc quod aliquis rem aliquam intelligit, provenit
quaedam intellectualis conceptio rei intellectae in intelligente, quae dicitur verbum;
ita ex hoc quod aliquis rem aliquam amat, provenit quaedam impressio, ut ita loquar,
rei amatae in affectu amantis, secundum quam amatum dicitur esse in amante, sicut
et intellectum in intelligente. Ita quod, cum aliquis seipsum intelligit et amat, est
in seipso non solum per identitatem rei, sed etiam ut intellectum in intelligente, et
amatum in amante.”
46

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theology. On this basis, the doctrine of the Word and Love is the theological key to the invisible missions of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:
Since the Holy Spirit is Love, the likening (assimilatur) of the
soul to the Holy Spirit occurs through the gift of charity and so
the Holy Spirit’s mission is accounted for by reason of charity.
The Son in turn is the Word; not, however, just any word, but
the Word breathing Love (Verbum spirans Amorem). . . . Thus
the Son is sent not in accordance with just any kind of intellectual perfection, but according to an instruction of the intellect
which breaks forth into the affection of love.50
The same teaching on the Word and Love is also the key to the doctrine of the imago Dei in man, insofar as the imago Dei is explained in
terms of “knowing God” and “loving God.” The “image of the Trinity” in
the human soul (mens) is explained as follows:
As the uncreated Trinity is distinguished by the procession of
the Word (Verbum) from the Speaker (Dicens), and of Love
(Amor) from both of these, as we have seen; so we may say that
in rational creatures wherein we find a procession of a word in
the intellect (processio verbi secundum intellectum), and a procession of love in the will (processio amoris secundum voluntatem), there exists an image of the uncreated Trinity (imago
Trinitatis increatae).51
The emphasis that Aquinas puts on acts rests on the same basis: “For this
reason, first and chiefly, the image of the Trinity is to be found in the acts
of the soul, that is, inasmuch as from the knowledge that we possess, by
actual thought we form an internal word; and thence break forth into
love (interius verbum formamus, et ex hoc in amorem prorumpimus).”52
Not only does this teaching account for the Trinitarian theocentrism
ST I, q. 43, a. 5, ad 2.
ST I, q. 93, a. 6, resp. The precision of vocabulary is remarkable: the Father is the
“Speaker” (that is to say, the One who speaks the Word), the Son is the “Word,” and
the Holy Spirit is “Love.”
52
ST I, q. 93, a. 7, resp.
50
51

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of the imago Dei, but it also shows that Christian spiritual life consists,
first of all, in the active imitation of the Trinity by our immanent acts of
graced knowing and loving God:
The divine persons, as we said above, are distinguished from
each other according to the procession of the Word from the
Speaker (secundum processionem Verbi a Dicente), and the procession of Love from both (et Amoris ab utroque). Now, the
Word of God is born of God insofar as God knows himself
(secundum notitiam sui ipsius); and Love proceeds from God
insofar as he loves himself (secundum quod seipsum amat). . . .
Hence the divine image (divina imago) is found in man according to the word conceived from the knowledge of God (secundum verbum conceptum de Dei notitia), and to the love derived
therefrom (et amorem exinde derivatum).53
In this way, the fundamental structure of theological anthropology and
of spiritual life is directly rooted in Trinitarian theology, insofar as it
rests on the doctrine of the Word and of Love. The image of grace and
the image of glory consist of the imitation of the “notional acts” in the
Trinity, that is to say, of the “speaking of the Word” and of the “spiration
of Love.” This “imitation” of God’s acts is not a mere “representation.”
Rather, it must be understood as an inner “transformation,”54 an ontological conformation to the Triune God.55 It is a matter of “deification”
53

ST I, q. 93, a. 8, resp.
Super II Cor. 3, lec. 4 (no. 114): “[We know] the glorious God by the mirror of reason,
in which there is an image of God (quaedam imago ipsius). We behold him when
we rise from a consideration of ourselves to some knowledge of God, and we are
transformed (et transformatur). For since all knowledge involves the knower’s being
assimilated (per assimilationem) to the thing known, it is necessary that those who
see be in some way transformed into God (aliquo modo transformentur in Deum).
If they see perfectly, they are perfectly transformed (perfecte transformantur), as the
blessed in heaven by the union of fruition: ‘When he appears we shall be like him’
(1 Jn 3:2); but if we see imperfectly, then we are transformed imperfectly, as here by
faith: ‘Now we see in a mirror dimly’ (1 Cor 13:12).”
55
De veritate, q. 10, a. 7, resp.: “In the knowledge by which the mind (mens) knows
itself, there is a representation of the uncreated Trinity according to analogy
(repraesentatio Trinitatis increatae secundum analogiam): as the mind knows itself,
it begets a word expressing itself, and love proceeds from both. Thus the Father, in
54

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or divinization in the active sense. Such human acts have the Trinity
as their model (in the ontological sense: exemplary causality, participation), as their moving principle, as their object (knowing and loving God
himself), and as their end. “The intellectual nature imitates God to the
highest degree in this, that God understands and loves himself.”56
Insofar as God is the truth by essence, the same explanation applies
to truth: while all creatures are from God by creation, some are said to
be “of God” because they imitate him (per imitationem).57 Holy men are
“from the truth” insofar as they receive the transforming gifts of God’s
grace by which “they believe the truth and love it.”58
The accomplishment of good works is explained, in the same way,
as an imitation of God.59 The clearest text is certainly the commentary
on Ephesians 5:1 (“Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children”).
Here God is considered as the model (exemplar); holy men are made his
children by participating in him (participatio sui ipsius) through the gift
of the Holy Spirit. God the Father is the model of charity, especially of
kindness and mercy, “which are the effects of charity,” insofar as “God
has forgiven you in Christ.”60 In this Trinitarian exegesis, Christian life
is understood as an imitation of the Father.
Among the many topics associated with the imitation of God, fraternal correction is worth a mention: since “God often rebukes sinners
by secretly admonishing them with an inward inspiration,” we should
“imitate God” in giving a private admonition to our brothers before de-

speaking himself, begets his Word from all eternity, and the Holy Spirit proceeds
from both. Whereas, in the knowledge by which the mind knows God, the mind
itself becomes conformed to God (mens ipsa Deo conformatur), in the way that every
knower, as such, is assimilated (assimilatur) to the known object.”
56
ST I, q. 93, a. 4, resp.: “Imitatur autem intellectualis natura maxime Deum quantum
ad hoc, quod Deus seipsum intelligit et amat.” See also ibid., a. 6, resp. In other
similar texts, the theme of “imitation” is especially linked to free will (In I Sent. d. 3,
q. 3, a. 1, ad 2) and to the conformation of man’s will to the will of God (In I Sent. d.
48, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4; a. 2, ad 6).
57
Super Ioan. 16, lec. 6 (no. 2362): “Dicuntur etiam aliqui esse a Deo per affectum et
imitationem.”
58
Ibid. (no. 2363): “Cum tamen ideo credamus quia sumus ex veritate, inquantum
scilicet accepimus donum Dei per quod credimus et amamus veritatem.”
59
See, e.g., Super Rom. 6, lec. 4 (no. 515): ad Dei imitationem.
60
Super Eph. 5, lec. 1 (nos. 266–67).

The Triune God and Spiritual Life

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nouncing them.61 Finally, a central way of “imitating God” consists in
transmitting knowledge of God to others.62 This leads to my next point.
The Dignity of Being a Cause
All Thomists (and all Dominicans) know the famous phrase, contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere (“passing on to others what you have
contemplated”): “For even as it is better to enlighten than merely to
shine, so is it better to pass on to others the fruits of one’s contemplation
than merely to contemplate.”63 Following Simon Tugwell’s interpretation: “Those who propose to teach others, in whatever capacity, should
ideally be ‘contemplating’ first. That is to say, they must love the truth for
its own sake and find their chief delight in investigating it for their own
satisfaction, if they are to be effective in communicating it to others.”64
What is perhaps less known (or less often said) is the fact that, for St.
Thomas, this justification of a religious Order dedicated to study and
preaching is grounded in his metaphysics and in his doctrine of God.
In his discussion of God’s will, when explaining that God’s will extends to creatures, Aquinas formulates this transcendental, metaphysical law: every being (starting with physical beings) has a natural inclination not only toward its proper good (either to acquire it, or to rest in it),
but also to spread this good to others, that is, to make others participate
in its perfection, by a gratuitous superabundance. We may call it the law
of the generosity of being. This law is the source of the mystery of causality. St. Thomas often refers to Pseudo-Dionysius’s famous phrase, bonum
diffusivum sui, or to the following principle: “Every agent, insofar as it

61

ST II-II, q. 33, a. 7, obj. 1 and ad 1.
In De div. nom. 13, lec. 4 (no. 1006): “Ipse [Dionysius] nullum sacrorum sermonum
sibi traditorum, ad se contraxit, idest sibi avare retinuit, sed currendo sursum ad
Dei imitationem, ea quae sibi tradita sunt, iam tradidit et in futuro tradere intendit
et Timotheo et aliis sanctis viris.” Emphases in the original (Marietti edition). On
this topic, see Pawel Klimczak, O.P., Christus Magister: Le Christ Maître dans les
commentaires évangéliques de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Fribourg: Academic Press,
2014).
63
ST II-II, q. 188, a. 6, resp.: “Sicut enim maius est illuminare quam lucere solum, ita
maius est contemplata aliis tradere quam solum contemplari.”
64
Simon Tugwell, Albert and Thomas: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press,
1988), 254.
62

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Gilles Emery, O.P.

is perfect and in act, produces its like.”65 This metaphysical law applies
first of all to God himself: “It pertains, therefore, to the nature of the
will to communicate as far as possible to others the good possessed; and
especially does this pertain to the divine will, from which all perfection
is derived in some kind of likeness (per quandam similitudinem derivatur).”66 St. Thomas refers to it in order to account for the divine will and
the divine love toward creatures, for creation, and for divine providence
as well.67
This law of generosity also applies to the communication of causality. Because of his superabundant goodness, and according to the disposition of his wisdom, God communicated to creatures the “dignity of
causing” (causandi dignitas),68 the “dignity of being a cause” or “the dignity of causality” (dignitas causalitatis).69 At the center of this teaching is
the understanding of the Triune God (“first cause”) and of the creature
(“secondary cause”) as two complete causes. The collaboration of the action of creatures—including the free action of human beings—with the
action of God is not understood as the sum of two partial causes, each of
which would contribute to the production of an effect, but rather as the
exercise of two causes united per se, one of which (the creature) is subordinate to the other (God), each being complete in its own order with
respect to the effect produced,70 so that “the same effect is not attributed
to a natural cause and to divine power in such a way that it is partly
done by God, and partly by the natural agent (non . . . quasi partim . . .
et partim); rather, it is wholly done by both, according to a different way
(sed totus ab utroque secundum alium modum).”71 In these explanations,
St. Thomas underscores the universality, the immediacy, and the funda65

ST I, q. 19, a. 2, resp.: “Omne agens, inquantum est actu et perfectum, facit sibi
simile.”
66
Ibid. Here “to communicate as far as possible to others” means: to the extent to
which creatures can participate in God’s goodness, and “imitate” God’s goodness.
67
See Fran O’Rourke, “Creative Diffusion in Aquinas,” in Pseudo-Dionysius and the
Metaphysics of Creation (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005),
chap. 9.
68
In I Sent. d. 45, q. 1, a. 3, ad 4; In II Sent. d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, ad 1.
69
ST I, q. 22, a. 3, resp.; q. 23, a. 8, ad 2; Super Ioan. 1, lec. 4 (no. 119).
70
See André de Muralt, L’enjeu de la philosophie médiévale (Leiden: Brill, 1993), esp.
331–51.
71
SCG III, ch. 70 (no. 2466).

The Triune God and Spiritual Life

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mental primacy of God’s action. God acts “as the one moving chiefly”
(ut principaliter movens),72 by giving the creature being, the faculty of
acting, and the action itself, in such a way that creatures receive from
God the ability to act as a complete cause, and so that human beings act
in a free manner. God’s goodness is made especially manifest in this gift
of a proper created causality subordinate to, and maintained by, divine
causality. Among this doctrine’s many applications is our collaboration
with God:
The agent tends to make the patient like the agent, not only in
regard to its act of being, but also in regard to causality. . . . Now,
things tend to the likeness of God in the same way that effects
tend to the likeness of the agent, as we have shown. Therefore,
things naturally tend to become like God by the fact that they
are the cause of others. . . . Since a created thing tends to the divine likeness in many ways, this one whereby it seeks the divine
likeness by being the cause of others takes the ultimate place.
Hence Dionysius says, in the third chapter of On the Celestial
Hierarchy, that “of all things, the most divine is to become cooperators of God,” in accordance with the statement of the Apostle
(1 Cor 3:9): “we are God’s coadjutors.”73
According to Aquinas, cooperating with God by communicating one’s
own perfection to others is “the most noble way of imitating God (nobilissimus modus divinae imitationis).”74 And an eminent mode of such
cooperation with God consists in the collaboration with God’s act of

72

Super Rom. 9, lec. 3 (no. 778).
SCG III, ch. 21 (nos. 2022 and 2023): “Agens autem intendit sibi assimilare patiens
non solum quantum ad esse ipsius, sed etiam quantum ad causalitatem. . . . Sic
autem tendunt res in similitudinem Dei sicut effectus in similitudinem agentis, ut
ostensum est. Intendunt igitur res naturaliter assimilari Deo in hoc quod sunt causae
aliorum. . . . Cum igitur per multa tendat res creata in divinam similitudinem, hoc
ultimum ei restat, ut divinam similitudinem quaerat per hoc quod sit aliorum causa.
Unde Dionysius dicit, III cap. Caelestis hierarchiae, quod omnium divinius est Dei
cooperatorem fieri: secundum quod Apostolus dicit, I Cor. III: Dei adiutores sumus.”
74
De veritate, q. 9, a. 2, resp. (with reference to Pseudo-Dionysius: omnium divinius est
Dei cooperatorem fieri).
73

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Gilles Emery, O.P.

salvation.75 Here I will consider only one aspect: the communication of
revealed knowledge about God, that is, teaching and preaching the faith
(and spiritual counseling).76
Before using the phrase “it is better to enlighten than merely to
shine” (or “it is a greater thing to give light than simply to have light”)
in describing a religious Order dedicated to studying and preaching,
St. Thomas applies this principle to the causal action that one creature
exercises on another, in the context of creation as a diffusion of God’s
goodness, and he includes an explicit reference to the imitation of God:
“The creature approaches more perfectly to God’s likeness if it is not
only good, but can also act for the good of other things, than if it were
good only in itself; that which both shines and casts light is more like
the sun than that which only shines.”77 This metaphysical principle also
appears in the general discussion of how creatures imitate God’s goodness in the context of God’s providence. Being “assimilated” to God is
the ultimate end of all creatures. Such assimilation does not consist only
in creatures’ substantial being (esse substantiale), but also in the proper
operation (propria operatio) by which they imitate God’s goodness,78 so
This also applies, and in first place, to angels. See, e.g., In II Sent. d. 11, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1:
“Deus est custos primus et principalis, apud quem summa providentia residet: nec
est propter suam insufficientiam quod suam providentiam de hominibus exequitur
per Angelos, sed propter ordinem suae sapientiae. Tum quia congruit Angelis, ut
scilicet eis haec dignitas non negetur, quod sint duces hominum reductionis in
Deum; et in hoc Deum quodammodo imitantur, inquantum cooperantur Deo in
introductione hominum in finem.”
76
On the association of hearing confessions with preaching, see ST II-II, q. 188, a.
4; Contra impugnantes, ch. 4. Hearing confessions (dispensing the sacrament of
penance) belonged to the mission of the Order of Preachers from its beginning;
see Leonard Boyle, O.P., Facing History: A Different Thomas Aquinas (Louvain-LaNeuve: Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, 2000), 141–59.
77
SCG II, ch. 45 (no. 1222): “Perfectius igitur accedit res creata ad Dei similitudinem si
non solum bona est sed etiam ad bonitatem aliorum agere potest, quam si solum in
se bona esset: sicut similius est soli quod lucet et illuminat quam quod lucet tantum.”
The context is the distinction of created things: “Oportuit igitur, ad hoc quod in
creaturis esset perfecta Dei imitatio, quod diversi gradus in creaturis invenirentur”
(ibid.). Note the mention of the “imitation of God.”
78
SCG III, ch. 20 (nos. 2009–16): “To become like God is the ultimate end of all
(assimilari ad Deum est ultimus omnium finis). . . . Things tend toward this objective,
of becoming like God, inasmuch as he is good. . . . Each thing becomes like the
divine goodness in respect of all the things that belong to its proper goodness. Now,
the goodness of the thing consists not only in its mere being (non solum in esse
75

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1299

that “things also tend toward the divine likeness by the fact that they
are the cause of other things (res intendunt divinam similitudinem etiam
in hoc quod sunt causae aliorum).”79 On this basis, St. Thomas recalls that
“likeness to God is more perfect (perfectior est assimilatio ad Deum) in
respect of conformity in action (secundum conformitatem actionis) than
in respect of conformity in some form (secundum conformitatem alicuius formae): thus that which both shines and illuminates is more like
the sun than that which shines only.”80 Such texts allow us to speak of a
“spirituality of creation and providence” in Aquinas, a spirituality that
stresses the active collaboration of creatures through their causal action
for the benefit of other creatures.
The phrase contemplata aliis tradere must be situated precisely within this metaphysical teaching.81 It is directly connected to St. Thomas’s
understanding of act, being, goodness, and operation. On the one hand,
creatures imitate God by collaborating with him as secondary causes.
On the other hand, while nonrational creatures are ordained to a similitude of the divine goodness (in both their being and operation), rational creatures are called by grace to participate in this supreme mode of
God’s goodness, which is God’s beatitude: their ultimate end consists in
attaining to God himself by knowing him and loving him, that is to say,
in finding their beatitude in God (the accomplishment of the imago Dei,
as we saw above).82 For the human being, in both cases (participation in
suo), but in all the things needed for its perfection (sed in omnibus aliis quae ad
suam perfectionem requiruntur). . . . It is obvious, then, that things are ordered to
God as an end, not merely according to their substantial act of being (secundum
esse substantiale), but also according to those items which are added as pertinent to
perfection, and even according to the proper operation (et etiam secundum propriam
operationem) which also belongs to the thing’s perfection.”
79
SCG III, ch. 21 (no. 2017).
80
De potentia, q. 2, a. 4, obj. 4. The response (ad 4) confirms this principle: as the
divine Son is like the Father in the divine nature, so too he is like the Father in the
action following divine nature (essential action).
81
For the kinds of causality involved in teaching and preaching, see BenoîtDominique de La Soujeole, O.P., “Le mystère de la prédication,” Revue Thomiste
107 (2007): 355–74.
82
In IV Sent. d. 49, q. 1, a. 3, qa. 1, resp.: “Et quia omnia procedunt a Deo inquantum
bonus est, ut dicit Augustinus, et Dionysius; ideo omnia creata secundum
impressionem a creatore receptam inclinantur in bonum appetendum secundum
suum modum; ut sic in rebus quaedam circulatio inveniatur; dum, a bono
egredientia, in bonum tendunt. Haec autem circulatio in quibusdam perficitur

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Gilles Emery, O.P.

God’s beatitude and in God’s providence), it is a matter of being assimilated to God’s acts: to his notional acts (the image of the Trinity), and to
his creative act (the dignity of being a cause).83 Contemplation and action are grounded in God; they are an “imitation” of, and a participation
in, God’s own operation.
A final remark is in order. Contemplation is not only the starting
point of teaching and preaching the faith; it is also its end. In his discussion of the relationship between the active life and the contemplative
life, St. Thomas explains:
A sacrifice is rendered to God spiritually when something is offered to him. And of all man’s goods, God specially accepts that
of the human soul when it is offered to him in sacrifice. Now a
man ought to offer to God, in the first place, his soul . . . and in the
second place, the souls of others. . . . And the more closely a man
unites his own or another’s soul to God, the more acceptable is his
sacrifice to God. Wherefore it is more acceptable to God that one
apply one’s own soul and the souls of others to contemplation than
to action.84
Teaching and preaching the faith are an eminent form of “spiritual
sacrifice.” They consist of leading others to the contemplation of God, so
that the goal or end of teaching and preaching is reached when others
creaturis, in quibusdam autem remanet imperfecta. Illae enim creaturae quae
non ordinantur ut pertingant ad illud primum bonum a quo processerunt, sed
solummodo ad consequendam ejus similitudinem qualemcumque, non perfecte
habent hanc circulationem; sed solum illae creaturae quae ad ipsum primum
principium aliquo modo pertingere possunt; quod solum est rationabilium
creaturarum, quae Deum ipsum assequi possunt per cognitionem et amorem: in
qua assecutione beatitudo eorum consistit, ut ex dictis patet.”
83
“Notional acts” (actus notionales) are the “speaking of the Word” and the “spiration
of Love” (they entail a real distinction within God). Creation is an “essential act”
(actus essentialis) insofar as it is common to the three persons.
84
ST II-II, q. 182, a. 2, ad 3: “Sacrificium spiritualiter Deo offertur cum aliquid
ei exhibetur. Inter omnia autem bona hominis Deus maxime acceptat bonum
humanae animae, ut hoc sibi in sacrificium offeratur. Offerre autem debet aliquis
Deo, primo quidem, animam suam . . . secundo autem, animas aliorum. . . . Quanto
autem homo animam suam vel alterius propinquius Deo coniungit, tanto sacrificium
est Deo magis acceptum. Unde magis acceptum est Deo quod aliquis animam suam
et aliorum applicet contemplationi, quam actioni.” The emphases are mine.

The Triune God and Spiritual Life

1301

contemplate the objects of faith that a preacher has contemplated (in his
study of the mystery of God) and passed on to them.85
In a Quodlibet held in Paris between 1268 and 1271, St. Thomas gave
this definition of the theologian’s mission (his own mission!) with respect to the cura animarum: “Doctors of theology are like ‘principal artificers’ who inquire and teach how others ought to procure the salvation
of souls.”86 According to Leonard Boyle, this is what Aquinas intended to
do in his Summa theologiae: not only theology at the service of pastoral
care, but theology as pastoral care;87 and this in a community of teachers
and students, a societas studii ordained to teaching and learning.88 N&V

On teaching and preaching as a sacrifice (sacrificium doctrinae), see Gilles Emery,
O.P., “Le sacerdoce spirituel des fidèles chez saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste
99 (1999): 211–43, here at 238–39.
86
Quodlibet I, q. 7, a. 2, resp. (Leonine edition, vol. 25/2, 196): “Et similiter theologiae
doctores sunt quasi principales artifices, qui inquirunt et docent qualiter alii debeant
salutem animarum procurare.”
87
Boyle, Facing History, 151: “C’est, je suppose, ce que Thomas, le ‘doctor veritatis’
voulut faire dans sa Somme—non pas, je me hâte d’ajouter, la théologie au service de
la cura animarum, mais la théologie comme cura animarum.”
88
Contra impugnantes, ch. 3 (Leonine edition, vol. 41A, 65): “Societas studii est
ordinata ad actum docendi et discendi.”
85

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2014): 1303-1326

1303

Book Reviews
The Feminine Genius of Catholic Theology by Matthew Levering
(London: T&T Clark, 2012), ix + 157 pp.

MATTHEW LEVERINGhas written widely: on the priesthood in
Roman Catholicism, and on a wide range of doctrinal topics, always
anchoring his work in Christology and the Trinity. The title of this book
evokes a number of echoes in terms of recent Catholic theology. Pope
John Paul II employed the term “feminine genius” in his Apostolic letter “On the Dignity and Vocation of Women” (1988), and again some
years later in his “Letter to Women” (1995). The Pope isolated various
charisms of the female genius that were rooted in the particular embodiment of women: maternity, from which receptivity, sensitivity, and generosity flow. Subsequent to these papal writings, Catholic theologians
have been embroiled in a long-running controversy in attempting to
define this particular “feminine genius.” The various approaches range
from “essentialist” definitions of women based on their bodily form to
others who, on the opposite side of the spectrum, argue that gender
is socially constructed and there are no fundamental feminine traits.
There are complex positions dotted along this spectrum. There is also
much at stake as the questions of “service” (in terms of differing forms of
ordained and nonordained ministry) and “power” (which gender group
exercises power over other groups) are contested. While it would seem
that John Paul II took a clear position on women and the priesthood,
there is an enormous amount of wriggle room regarding the nature of
women and their roles within the Catholic Church. Pope Francis seems
to be beginning to address this question.
Readers with this background in mind will initially be disappointed
by Levering’s book. There is no reference to the Pope’s address (from

1304

Book Reviews

which the title must derive) and no references to the theology of body
that underlay these teachings. Levering of course knows this debate
and is a subtle and creative theologian. I think he is trying to broaden
the perspective on this question by trying to show that “feminine genius” can be explored by drawing from women writers to illuminate the
key doctrinal themes of Roman Catholic and Christian theology. The
scheme of the book is ingenious and most illuminating. Rather than
chronologically outlining the works of the eighteen women he draws
on, Levering structures the ten chapters of the book thematically, using
ad hoc writings to illuminate the chosen theme. The women span the
second half of the last century, with the exception of Egeria (300–400s).
The other writers are Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), Elisabeth of
Schönau, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Hadwijch, Angela of Foligno, Gertrud the Great of Helfta, Birgitta of Sweden, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Catherine of Genoa, Teresa of Avila, Jane de Chantal, Louise de Marillac, Juana Inés de la Cruz, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Elisabeth
Leseur, Thérèse of Lisieux, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Edith Stein, Maria
Faustina Kowalska, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910–97). This list
is quite an achievement in drawing on such different temperaments,
styles, and geographic diversity. The themes are most traditional and the
staple of systematic theology: Trinity, Christ, creation, sin, sacraments,
the Church, the virtues, Mary and the saints, prayer, and eternal life.
The reader senses a genuine and lasting contribution to the theological
themes. Levering lets us hear the voice of these women and knits and
weaves their work into a beautiful tapestry of prayer, praise, and a life
immersed in the love of God.
I have one minor reservation. Levering concludes the book by saying that these women writers exemplify an interiority and intimacy
with the divine life that is their special feminine genius. In one sense
that is entirely true. In another sense, one could only establish the special “genius” of women if he compared it to other male writers working
with similar genres. For example, Bernard of Clairvaux, John of the
Cross, Francis of Assisi, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Thomas Merton
all present moments of remarkably interior and intimate writings. They
could be said to exemplify “feminine genius.” Likewise, Edith Stein’s
philosophical writings are as hard-nosed, exterior, and rigorous as Edmund Husserl’s work or the Summa of Thomas Aquinas. We have to

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1305

turn to her letters, an altogether different type of genre, to find another type of Stein. But reading the letters of Karl Rahner or Karl Barth
equally illuminates the complexity of sophisticated personalities. I am
not entirely convinced that Levering establishes that there is such a
thing as “feminine genius,” but he does show that we ignore the rich
and complex writings of these figures at our great peril. For that, we are
N&V
deeply indebted.
Gavin D’Costa
University of Bristol
Bristol, England

Philosophical Anthropology: An Introductionby Jose Angel Lombo
and Francesco Russo, translated by Piers Amodia (Downers Grove, IL:
Midwest Theological Forum, 2013), xv + 264 pp.

IN THEIR FOREWORDto Philosophical Anthropology: An Introduc-

tion, the authors (both professors of philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross) state their intention to provide not “a treatise upon
philosophical anthropology in the strict sense but an introduction to the
study of that subject—an introduction that seeks to offer the fundamental
elements for such study yet without delving exhaustively into the details
of each subject and without dwelling on more specialized questions or
an all ongoing debates” (xiv). While the authors indicate that Christian
revelation is the ultimate context and occasional inspiration for their reflections, they mean to offer a text of rational argumentation in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition (4–6). Despite the ambiguous reputation
of the Thomistic manual genre, a well-crafted textbook can be desirable
not only for its integrated presentation of a topic that Thomas may never
have synthesized, but also for its ability to bring Thomas’s thought into
greater engagement with current readership by employing contemporary
discourse and addressing contemporary concerns. Philosophical anthropology, at least in English, has needed just such an introductory text for
several decades. This work admirably meets that need.
The book’s two-part structure divides the whole into nearly equal
halves, and reveals the authors’ guiding vision of the study of the human
being. Part 1, titled “The Human Person: A Corporeal-Spiritual Being,”

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Book Reviews

explores human nature through a metaphysical perspective. Here the text
“uses an analytical method to reflect upon the human person as a living being in the world, possessing his own fundamental properties” (xiv).
Part 2, titled “Personal Self-Fulfillment: Between Relationality and Historicity,” views the human being as existing person situated within relational and temporal dimensions. In part 2 the work “adopts a synthetic and
dynamic perspective to demonstrate the particularity of human existence
as characterized by freedom” (ibid.). Not surprisingly, Thomas and Aristotle receive the most attention in part 1. In part 2, authors such as Plato,
Augustine, Victor Frankl, Romano Guardini, Josef Pieper, Max Scheler,
Robert Spaemann, and Karol Wojtyla also play prominent roles.
This overall structure alone has much to commend it. The inclusion
of part 2 indicates an appealing ambition on the authors’ part to display
the human being not just in its essential structure (which many texts
might have been content with), but also in its actual situation within a
world. By ordering the two parts as they have, the authors establish the
priority of metaphysical foundations and structures. At the same time, the
authors show how these structures come to fruition within human living.
Students new to Thomas, or even to philosophy in general, are likely to
be concerned initially with many topics included in part 2: the presence
of suffering and evil, the significance of human relationships, the role of
culture, and the objective reality of values. Such students will be pleased to
find these topics addressed, and done so in a manner that builds upon the
metaphysical reasoning of part 1. More seasoned readers of Thomas, by
contrast, will appreciate seeing the familiar metaphysical analyses organically followed by no less substantive personalist considerations.
The order of chapters in part 1 is conventional, following the lead of
Aristotle’s De anima and Thomas’s Summa theologiae I, qq. 75–76. After
a brief reflection on philosophical anthropology and its method (chapter
1), we find an analysis of life with its characteristics and degrees in the
natural world (chapter 2). The remaining ten chapters treat of the soul, the
body, the powers or “faculties” in general, external senses, internal senses,
intellect, appetite (“tendential dynamism”) and freedom, affectivity, sexuality, and death and immortality.
As a whole, part 1 is clearly organized and expressed, exhibiting sound
interpretation of Thomas’s thought and an astute sense for important details. Two items are of particular merit. First, the authors frequently refer

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1307

to contemporary scientific literature or to scholarship (mainly Italian) in
the Thomistic tradition, which has sought to articulate Thomas’s reasoning in light of current scientific developments. This is an assuring move,
especially when the chapters cover such topics as the body or the external
and internal senses. Second, chapter 4 on the human body and chapter 10
on the affective realm are especially welcome. Thomas does not focus on
the body in his admittedly theological works, yet prephilosophic human
experience and scientific investigation can go far in aiding a view of the
body as that which reveals, to a great extent, the human being as a whole.
The affective realm, while it has often been presented in Thomistic texts
(usually under the label of “the passions”), is granted a relatively robust
treatment here. The authors spend some time sorting out terminological
matters, distinguishing and relating “affection,” “passion,” “emotion,” “feeling,” “mood,” and “sensation.” After giving accounts of these phenomena
in terms of human awareness and appetite, the authors examine the dynamism and typology of the affections. They maintain that while the affective realm does not constitute a third faculty alongside intellect and will
(105), the affections remain a “particularly appropriate expression of the
substantial unity of body and soul, of spirituality and sensibility” (118).
Part 2 begins with a substantial examination of the person from
metaphysical and historical angles (chapter 13). Six more chapters investigate freedom and self-fulfillment; relationality; culture; values;
work, feast, and play; and time and history. Certain chapters are almost
surprisingly substantial in content. For example, chapter 15, on the relationality of the person, begins by considering relationality as originary
and man as social by nature. It then devotes attention to the various
tendencies and accompanying virtues that constitute relational living:
pietas, observantia, dulia, obedientia, gratitudo, vindicatio, veracitas,
amicitia, and liberalitas. The chapter ends with discussions of human
self-fulfillment in the context of society, and individualist versus collectivist conceptions. Chapters 13 and 14, on the person and on freedom
and self-fulfillment, are similarly extensive.
More noticeably than in part 1, the text here makes rich use of many
thinkers, most of whose names are instantly recognizable, as mentioned
above. The authors do not hesitate to employ helpful contributions from
across the philosophical spectrum, nor do they hesitate to point out accompanying deficiencies. For example, chapter 14’s discussion of freedom

1308

Book Reviews

and self-fulfillment includes a brief account of the distinction between individuals and persons articulated by Nikolai Berdyaev, Emmanuel Mounier, and Jacques Maritain. The authors suggest that while the distinction
has some validity given the right context, it is ultimately insufficient in
light of the metaphysical account of the person already established in
chapter 13 (166–67). Similarly, in chapter 17, Max Scheler’s contribution
to a theory of values receives approbation for its insight into values as
objective and universal; yet his larger view of the person is noted as faulty
(217–18).
I have two minor criticisms. First, I would have appreciated more
direct quotes from the primary thinkers, especially in part 1, which
contained very few. Second, while many chapters are quite detailed and
substantial in content, others are noticeably less so. Sometimes this unevenness may be warranted, given the aim and limits of the work (thus
chapter 16 on culture), but at other times one wishes for a more thorough
presentation (chapter 5 on the faculties and chapter 11 on sexuality, for
example).
In sum, Philosophical Anthropology: An Introduction is notable for its
broad scope, its analytic and synthetic accounts of the human being, its
sound presentation of Thomas’s thought, and its felicitous use of thinkers—metaphysical, personalist, literary, and scientific—from within the
Western tradition. More than a fine introduction to philosophical anthropology in the Thomistic tradition, it stands out through including
the personal, relational, and cultural dimensions of human existence.
Experienced teachers may even find their own thinking stimulated in a
certain direction by the text’s uniting of the metaphysical and personalist approaches. The work would make an excellent text for introductory
courses in colleges, universities, and seminaries. For seminary philosophy
in particular, Robert Sokolowski has encouraged the use of good textbooks. With such works as Philosophical Anthropology: An Introduction,
N&V
his suggestion could be fruitfully followed.
John Finley
Kenrick-Glennon Seminary
St. Louis, MO

Book Reviews

1309

Theology, University, Humanities: Initium Sapientiae Timor Domini  edited by Christopher Craig Brittain and Francesca Aran Murphy
(Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011), viii + 243 pp.

ANY THEOLOGIANworking in the academy is well aware of the

precarious place that theology occupies within the modern university.
Even if the institution claims a confessional identity, theology faculty
must navigate an intellectual battlefield stretched between two fronts.
On the one hand, university administrations question the “usefulness”
of theology in a secular world that views higher education as a means
to a lucrative career. On the other hand, fellow disciplines constituting the “humanities” (or “arts” in many American universities) frown
upon theology as an obscurantist sibling that undermines their own
struggle to prove the usefulness of the humanities in the modern job
market. That theology is “queen of the sciences” is dismissed as an
antiquated (and even arrogant) myth. Theologians might bemoan this
situation in hushed corners or at academic conferences, but they are
remiss to propose any tangible remedies.
The present work under review may not offer any grand solution to
this situation, but it does mark a rare collaborative effort to place theology in dialogue with other disciplines and thus charts a path forward. The
edited volume is a diverse collection of papers presented at a conference
on theology’s place within the humanities. The editors readily admit that
the contributors do not come to any unified solution. Nevertheless, a
common stone inscription found at the University of Aberdeen—the
host of the conference—serves as a collective starting point for each author: the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Theology has
something unique to offer the university, if for no other reason than,
as Francesca Murphy argues in her introduction, theology “can remind
the humanities how to have a practical aim without being useful” (6).
In other words, theology challenges the postmodern materialistic worldview and points to a greater purpose in life. The authors demonstrate
how theology can be a valuable liaison between the modern university
and the humanities by critically questioning unnamed premises—what
one contributor identifies as theology’s “ability to sniff out small gods”
(191).

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Book Reviews

The book offers two noteworthy strengths: an extensive interdisciplinary perspective on the role of theology in the academy and an impressive quality of scholarship. P. Travis Kroeker begins the conversation
by placing Kant, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky in dialogue with Augustine
on the liturgical nature of justice in society. Although the article could
benefit from a more generous (and thorough) reading of Augustine,
Kroeker makes a memorable case for how “rights are related to rites”
(34). John Webster continues the discussion with an intriguing recovery
of Bonaventure’s underappreciated work On the Reduction of the Arts to
Theology. Webster employs the service of the great scholastic to show
how theology “is not a ‘faculty’ but a culture” in that it provides a “comprehensive account of all things in the light of God” (51). David Jasper
shifts gears to outline a case for a “theological humanism” that forms
a “creative imagination” (73) poised between intellectual extremes. He
argues that theology must recognize its own limitations, and some readers may question whether Jasper overstates the apophatic nature of theology. Joachim Schaper combines history and exegesis to provide the
work with a historical perspective. The article is sure to raise the eyebrows of many readers, as Schaper attempts to save biblical criticism
from the “dogmatism” underlying “theological exegesis.” He takes on
John Barton and Richard Hays by way of Schleiermacher and Troeltsch.
Theology in general, and biblical studies in particular, must wrestle with
the complexities of history if it is to be an academic discipline. In one
of the more controversial lines of the book, Schaper insists that biblical
studies (and theology by extension) must “never let itself be governed
by dogmatically inspired hermeneutical axioms. If it does, it ceases to
be historical and critical” (89). A “critical” assessment of this statement
might question whether it is not itself “dogmatic” in its eschewal of ecclesiological considerations. Simon Oliver pays closer attention to logical premises in the following essay. He critiques modern philosophy’s
prioritization of potentiality over actuality. This trend, he maintains, results in positivistic definitions of God based on human experience that
refuse to consider revelation. As an antidote, Oliver recovers Nicholas of
Cusa’s claim that God is “actual possibility” or “possest” in that only God
is creator (99). Here theology can help philosophy move beyond subject-object dualism through a creator-creature paradigm. Laurence Paul
Hemming is not so sure that such a move is possible in the next article.

Book Reviews

1311

He argues that theologians cannot escape the Hegelian dialectic of the
infinite and the finite, and shows how attempts to escape this reality by
de Lubac and Milbank only reaffirm the dominance of this imperative.
David McIlroy takes the book in a completely different direction with
questions about theology in relation to legal theory. He uses the thought
of Herman Dooyeweerd and Thomas Aquinas—two unlikely interlocutors—to argue that only theology can explain the “why” behind law’s
foundations in justice and authority (145). Christopher Brittain (also an
editor) gives a voice for sociology by disputing Stanley Hauerwas’s rejection of the social sciences for Christian thought. For Brittain, theology
cannot be divorced from social reality by means of a rhetorical “invisible
church” or coming kingdom (164). Rather, Christian theology can aid
sociology with an understanding of “charity, reconciliation and redemption,” yet by the same token, sociology can help locate these ideas in the
reality of social life (171). In a similar vein, Christopher Insole speaks
for political theory as he challenges theologians (many following Hauerwas) who maintain that liberal democracy is fundamentally antitheological. To define “liberalism,” Insole begins with “practices” rather than
theory via a “methodology of attention and disaggregation before adjudication” (178). His point is simple: theology does have something to
contribute to political theory, but if it is to move beyond rhetoric, it must
discern the actual complexity and diversity of “liberalism” in the modern world. Gavin D’Costa is also critical of Hauerwas from a Catholic
perspective. Although he sympathizes with Hauerwas’s distain for the
state of the modern university, D’Costa questions Hauerwas’s “bonfire
of the disciplines” in ostensibly claiming that the Christian is “immune”
from the critique of nontheological disciplines (204). D’Costa’s alternative is the worldview of Ex corde ecclesiae and the Catholic pursuit of
a genuine “Christian culture” in which theology guides but does not
suffocate dialogue between the various disciplines of the university. Instead, theology reminds the other disciplines that the (Catholic) university constitutes a collaborative pursuit of the same truth. He concludes
with a fascinating example of how this dialogue can take shape between
theology and literature. Brittain concludes the book with a reflection on
how contemporary Christianity might recover John Henry Newman’s
“idea” of a university that saves the “Lost Soul”—the individual adrift
in the modern world, unable to “think about, and bear, complexity and

1312

Book Reviews

difference” (225). Overall, this diverse (and at times, even divergent) assortment of essays invites theology to dialogue with history, sociology,
politics, philosophy, legal theory, and literature.
Despite the astounding breadth of perspectives presented, the book
exhibits two weaknesses. Murphy acknowledges the first limitation in
her introduction: the interaction between theology and history fades
into the shadows of the book, and she laments that the volume did not
include additional essays on how theology and ecclesiology can both
inform modern conceptions of history and learn from historical research (12). Here Schaper’s concern that theology is deaf to the voice
of history is well taken. Newman’s idea of a Catholic university was not
divorced from his theories on the development of doctrine. Questions
about continuity and change continue to frame ecclesiological questions
(e.g., the reception of Vatican II) and, more often than not, haunt the
silent premises of many systematic and biblical theologians. From an
American perspective, the work also lacks any discussion of the emergence of “Catholic Studies” programs in recent decades. To be sure, the
phenomenon is more or less limited to higher education in the United
States (Durham’s Centre being a noteworthy exception within the United Kingdom), and the editors are careful to maintain a cross-confessional discussion of the topic at hand. Nevertheless, the development
of such programs has arisen as a direct response to how the theological
search for truth can collaborate with other disciplines in the university
(including, but not limited to, the humanities). D’Costa’s case for the
creation of a “Catholic culture” seems to resonate with a similar goal.
Of course, no collection of essays can be exhaustive, and one only hopes
that this timely work will foster further conversation and inspire future
publications. Any scholar in the humanities has much to gain through
the insights of this work, and the theologian may consider using this
N&V
text in a graduate or faculty seminar.
Paul G. Monson
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, CA

Book Reviews

1313

Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its
Implications for the New Evangelization by Ralph Martin (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012), xvi + 316 pp.

IT IS NOT WITHOUT MERITthat Ralph Martin’s recent volume

is prefaced by some sixteen endorsements from leading theologians,
bishops, and cardinals. Will Many Be Saved? is an erudite but accessible
work that raises the long-overdue question of whether we have properly received Vatican II’s teaching vis-à-vis the possibility of salvation for
non-Christians.
As Martin indicates in his preface, the book’s principal focus concerns the proper interpretation of Lumen Gentium 16, a text that constitutes “the most extensive treatment of this question in the conciliar
documents” (xi). At the heart of the author’s argument is his contention
that the text’s last three sentences are almost always ignored. From an
analysis of these sentences Martin develops his thesis that they “contain a key to overcoming a doctrinal confusion that is hindering our
response, as individuals and as a Church, to the recent popes’ persistent
calls for a ‘new evangelization’” (xii). This confusion, Martin maintains,
involves the widespread supposition that the majority of mankind will
somehow or another be saved. In contrast, Martin takes “a position that
is not often argued—namely that the conditions under which people
can be saved who never heard the gospel are very often, in fact, not
fulfilled” (xii).
Martin sets the stage for his argument in a brief opening chapter.
Citing Ratzinger, he observes that we are witnessing a mass apostasy in
today’s Church (3). Evangelization is therefore just as important as ever,
but the importance of mission is not sufficiently recalled today. Martin
pointedly frames the issue:
If it is not really necessary to become a Christian in order to be
saved, why bother to evangelize? The reasons often given for
evangelizing include appeals to a “greater richness” or a “greater
fullness” or a “making explicit what is already implicitly there.”
In a culture that is characterized by hostility to claims of absolute truth and unique means to salvation, many Catholics apparently find these reasons to be less than compelling (5).

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Book Reviews

At least to this reader, it is not obvious how this last sentence follows from Martin’s brief summary of the reasons for evangelization
mentioned immediately beforehand. Yet while these and other potential
reasons could have been taken more seriously, the soundness of Martin’s
point is seen in the very fact that Catholics often seem uninterested in
evangelizing. Even among those of us who do engage in a ministry of
evangelization, our ministry often lacks urgency. Martin recognizes that
a reason for this is that there does exist a “certain tension” between the
call to evangelize and the fact that the Church affirms salvation is possible for those who have never heard the Gospel (5).
Chapters 2 and 3 contain a detailed examination of Lumen Gentium
16. According to the conciliar text, salvation is possible for non-Christians “under certain very specific conditions”: that their ignorance of
the Gospel not be culpable, that they sincerely seek God, that they follow the light of conscience as moved by God’s grace, and that they welcome whatever good or truth they live amidst (9). However, Catholics
often gloss over the final three sentences of LG 16, which indicate that
the above conditions are not always met. Indeed, some translations fail
to capture the sense of the Latin saepius in this text, which means that
“very often” non-Christians find themselves deceived by the Evil One
and exchange the truth of God for a lie (15, 58).1
A significant portion of chapter 3 is dedicated to tracing the history
of the doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus (EENS) based on Francis Sullivan’s chronology.2 With Fr. Sullivan, Martin is aware that the various
formulations of the doctrine must be understood within their proper
historical context and thus in light of their audience and intention. Issued in 1949 in response to the teaching of Fr. Leonard Feeney, the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston is described by Martin
as the culmination of the doctrinal development he has surveyed. Cited
by LG 16 in support of its teaching, the letter “reaffirmed the ‘broader’
understanding of EENS that did not require explicit membership in the

1

As a possible indication of the Council’s intention here, Aloys Grillmeier notes
that the original draft of the section now known as LG §16 had the heading “Of
non-Christians who are to be led to the Church.” Ibid., 18.
2
Francis Sullivan, S.J., Salvation outside the Church: Tracing the History of the Catholic
Response (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002).

Book Reviews

1315

Church for salvation, but allowed for relatedness by implicit, even unconscious, desire” (47-48).3
Martin’s conclusions at the end of chapter 3 provide a clear summary of what LG 16 is and is not teaching. On the one hand, it is important
to consider that not every proclamation of the Gospel can be deemed
“adequate,” and thus not everyone who rejects such a proclamation can
be judged culpable of unbelief (53). However, Martin balances this positive observation with a note of realism: “Just because salvation is possible for people who are inculpably ignorant of the Gospel or who have
not heard a presentation that is adequate, does not mean they are hereby
saved” (53). Salvation requires grace, and a person who says “yes” to
God in the depths of his conscience must persevere in corresponding to
this grace until death. Inattention to this last point has led many Catholics “to take a superficial and cavalier attitude” toward the possibility of
non-Christians being saved (53).
One of the theologians claiming “salvation optimism” is none other than Francis Sullivan, upon whose chronology of EENS Martin has
drawn. While giving due respect to Sullivan’s careful analysis of the doctrinal history of EENS, he critiques the latter for claiming that there
has been a reversal from pessimism to optimism in the Church’s official stance on the salvation of non-Christians (54-55). “Unfortunately,”
Martin does well to observe, “no sources are indicated for the alleged
‘presumption of innocence’ that is supposedly the ‘official attitude’ of
the Church. Huge leaps in logic are being made here” (55). When the
innocence of non-Christians is presupposed, the possibility of salvation
described in LG 16 is often wrongly taken to mean probability, and this
is what is damaging. For this reader, Martin’s criticism of Sullivan on
this point was one of the highlights of the book. It is a salutary reminder that Vatican II’s teaching does not amount to an official perspective
change whereby we may presume innocence, and therefore salvation, in
the case of non-Christians.
3

For a particularly insightful treatment of the mechanism by which non-Christians
may respond to grace in a “pre-conceptual manner,” see the following work discussed by Martin: Charles Journet, What Is Dogma?, trans. Mark Pontifex, O.S.B.
(New York: Hawthorn, 1964), 30–39. For a further application of Journet’s theology,
see Matthew Ramage, Dark Passages of the Bible (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013), esp. chap. 4.

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Book Reviews

In chapter 4, Martin switches gears to treat the biblical foundations
of LG 16. The primary focus of the chapter is Romans 1–2, which is both
explicitly cited and implicitly alluded to in the council text. Romans is
important because it “shows us that something is really at stake: eternal
salvation or damnation” (91). When Romans 1 teaches that the Gentiles
have the law written on their hearts, Paul is using this observation not
to exonerate the Gentiles, but rather to indict them. The Gentiles are far
from innocent: they are “without excuse” (Rom 1:20). Also covered in
this chapter—more briefly—is Mark 16:14–16, another text cited by the
council. While Martin does well to focus on these texts, it does seem
odd that a chapter dedicated to the biblical foundations of LG 16 would
not devote more time to the other two texts cited in this section of the
text, in particular 1 Timothy 2:4 which would have provided a more
“optimistic” balance to Martin’s assessment. As a general but related observation, there seems to be a lacuna in the work insofar as it pays minimal attention to the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Many
statements from these pontiffs seem to paint a more optimistic portrait
of non-Christians than one finds in Martin’s analysis. These must be given more attention if we are to ascertain that in which a proper reception
of LG 16 consists.4
Comprising nearly half of the book, chapters 5 and 6 investigate and
critique the theology of Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, men
selected because “their views on the possibilities of universal salvation
are cited as the basis of a prevailing consensus among Catholic theologians in favor of a strong hope that everyone may be saved” (129). For
his part, Rahner overestimates the “response rate” of the human race to
the grace of God (101). According to Martin, Rahner’s “completely optimistic description of the conciliar teaching . . . is only possible when the
complete text is ignored” (107). Further, Rahner insinuates that Lumen
Gentium was not itself dogmatic but a “start” to further dogmatic devel4

In particular, the book would have benefited from more attention to John Paul’s
Redemptoris Missio, which is mentioned a handful of times; Dominum et Vivificantem, which is mentioned only once; and Redemptor Hominis, which is omitted
entirely. Similarly, Benedict XVI’s encyclical on hope, Spe Salvi, is mentioned only
once within a footnote (284n14). Though not magisterial, the document Dialogue
and Proclamation from the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue is another
significant document that should be mentioned in the endeavor to properly receive
the teaching of LG §16 .

Book Reviews

1317

opment (124). Bringing Ratzinger’s analysis to bear on this view, Martin
sharply criticizes Rahner for disregarding the council’s actual texts in
the name of a supposed “spirit” implied in them (124).
Nearly twice as long as his chapter on Rahner, Martin’s critique of
Balthasar in chapter 6 is thorough and incisive. Contrasting the approaches of these two thinkers, Martin describes Rahner’s theology as
an attempt to “dive under” the words of Scripture, finding in human
anthropology “a transcendental subjectivity that is already addressed by
God and is most likely positively responsive to the ‘supernatural existential’” (134). Balthasar, on the other hand, attempts to “jump over”
the words of Scripture in positing extrabiblical possibilities of salvation (e.g., through a conversion after death). Martin’s conclusion is that
Balthasar “departs from the content of revelation and the mainstream
theological tradition of the Church in a way that undermines the call to
holiness and evangelization and is pastorally damaging” (178). Specifically, Balthasar’s declaration of a “stalemate” between biblical passages
that seem to speak of universal salvation versus those which speak of a
densely populated hell “makes clear his belief in an all-but-certain universal salvation” (183). Also problematic in Martin’s view is Balthasar’s
claim that we have a “duty to hope for the salvation of all” (169). Martin
finds there to be an equivocation on “hope”. The term is not problematic
if taken to mean “we hope and pray” that all be saved, but it is another
thing to affirm we can have supernatural hope for the salvation of all
men. Martin believes—with good reason—that Balthasar is using hope
in the latter of the two senses (173-74). While still admiring Balthasar’s
genius, this reader has had to revisit his own assessment of Balthasar’s
soteriology in light of Martin’s analysis.
In sum, Martin’s recent work is a timely reminder that the true spirit of Vatican II is to be found within its texts in their entirety. To be
sure, Lumen Gentium represents a development with regard to how the
Church views the status of non-Christians. However, LG 16 also soberly
reaffirms the real possibility of damnation and thus the need for Christian missionary activity. The Church today needs a properly balanced
pastoral strategy cognizant of both the universal action of the Holy Spirit and the pervasiveness of sin, which poses a real threat to salvation.
Matthew J. Ramage
Benedictine College
Atchison, KS

N&V

1318

Book Reviews

The Biblical Interpretation of William of Alton by Timothy Bellamah, O.P. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), xi + 354 pp.

IN THIS BOOK,Fr. Timothy Bellamah makes an important contri-

bution to our understanding of medieval exegesis both by providing the
first full-length study of the largely unknown Dominican biblical commentator, William of Alton, and by publishing critical editions of the
prologues to six of his seven known biblical commentaries.
Born in England, but sent to Saint-Jacques in Paris at some point
after entering the Dominican Order, William of Alton came to be one
of the Dominican regent masters in theology at Paris in the academic
year 1259, occupying the chair that Thomas Aquinas left vacant after
his transfer from Paris to Italy. Twenty-five biblical commentaries (or
“postills,” as the line-by-line commentaries he produced are often called
in medieval and modern sources) are attributed to William. Attempting
to determine which of these commentaries William actually authored
presents no small number of difficulties. As Bellamah acknowledges,
“no explicit internal evidence of William’s authorship of any of these
texts has yet been found” (11). Nonetheless, there is some important
external evidence that guides Bellamah as he sifts through the works
attributed to William. For example, in some of the manuscripts the medieval scribe attributes a work to William. Also, in 1275 three works
are mentioned on a stationer’s list as being authored by William. We
also find references to William’s works mentioned in the catalogues of a
few medieval libraries. This external evidence allows Bellamah to conclude that the postills on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and John are
very likely to be from William. Bellamah refers to these four postills
collectively as constituting the Group A commentaries, while all of the
remaining ones are placed into a B group.
Bellamah identifies a set of characteristics common to the postills
of Group A, such as William’s stylistic and lexical choices as well as his
exegetical concerns. For example, in his divisio textus, William “systematically opens with an excerpt of the text commented upon, or lemma,
which is regularly followed by hic” (17). To take another example of a
distinguishing feature of the Group A commentaries, Bellamah shows
that there is a notable primacy placed on the literal sense in these com-

Book Reviews

1319

mentaries. Bellamah acknowledges that these and the other features
common to the Group A commentaries can be found individually in
the commentaries of William of Middleton, Albert the Great, Bonaventure, and other near contemporaries of William. Nevertheless, their simultaneous presence in any one commentary is taken as evidence for
William’s authorship. Based upon the internal evidence culled from the
Group A commentaries, Bellamah convincingly argues that three of the
Group B commentaries should be attributed to William. Thus in addition to the commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and John,
Bellamah identifies commentaries on Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, and Ezekiel
as the work of William of Alton.
Bellamah goes on to situate William’s exegetical method within the
larger context of patristic and medieval exegetical practices. William accords a primacy to the literal sense of scripture, and in order to be able
to delve more deeply into the literal sense of scripture, William shows a
special concern for uncovering what he can about the life and thought
of the human authors of the books on which he comments. One way
that Bellamah shows the uniqueness of William’s concerns for these
matters is through comparing how Thomas Aquinas and William treat
the figure of John in the prologues to their respective commentaries on
the Fourth Gospel. While both Thomas and William are interested in
the human author of the Fourth Gospel, Bellamah notes that “Thomas’s focus is speculative, William’s historical” (37). In the prologue to his
commentary on John, William reflects on various episodes in the life of
St. John, such as his conversation with Christ at the Last Supper and the
charge that Christ gives him to take care of Mary. William even takes
into account the pseudo-Jerominian prologue to the Gospel that portrays John as the groom at Cana who leaves his bride to follow Jesus. By
contrast in Aquinas’s prologue the only biographical detail mentioned
about John is a passing reference to John’s reclining upon Jesus’s chest
at the Last Supper. Aquinas instead focuses on John as a model of one
who has contemplated God well and as such becomes a good instrument for communicating divine revelation to others. For William, however, John’s many encounters with Jesus during his earthly life show him
to be an intimate friend of Christ and a trustworthy witness to divine
revelation.
Bellamah devotes a chapter to William’s sources, which included

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Book Reviews

pagan authors, the Church Fathers, the Glossa Ordinaria, and his own
contemporaries. William’s commentaries are heavily indebted to these
sources in that much of the text of his own commentaries is drawn verbatim or by close paraphrase from them. William, for instance, borrows
heavily from the commentaries of Hugh of St. Cher and Bonaventure.
Nevertheless, Bellamah shows that William was no mere compiler, but
presents him instead as one who offers a creative synthesis of his sources
that issues in an original contribution to the study of the Bible. Both his
originality and his debt to his sources are on display in the final chapter of the book, where Bellamah discusses a series of theological topics
that are present in William’s biblical exegesis. The topics discussed are
prophecy, divine condescension, the works of Christ, preaching, contemplation, spiritual sensation, and evangelical poverty.
This book also includes two valuable appendices. In Appendix I,
Bellamah discusses all of the commentaries attributed to William. He
provides information on the manuscripts containing these commentaries, before explaining why the claim of William’s authorship of a given
commentary is or is not accepted according to the criteria he had rigorously set out earlier in his book. In Appendix II, Bellamah publishes his
editions of the prologues to all of the commentaries that he attributes
to William with the exception of Isaiah. His editions follow the principles established by the editors of the Leonine Commission, and this
includes reproducing the orthography of the medieval scribes. Thus in
the editions of these prologues one will find hec instead of haec and set
instead of sed, and so on. This practice is certainly to be commended
since it preserves for the modern reader some of the unique features of
medieval Latin.
As research into medieval exegesis continues it is quite possible that
additional commentaries by William will be uncovered, and Bellamah
has provided a solid foundation for all future studies of the texts and
N&V
theology of William of Alton.
Andrew V. Rosato
Mount St. Mary’s University
Emmitsburg, MD

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1321

Choosing from Love: The Concept of “Electio” in the Structure of
the Human Act According to Thomas Aquinas by Lambert Hendriks
(Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli, 2010), 358 pp.

THE MAIN THRUSTof Lambert Hendriks’s work establishes a new
foundation from which to understand human action. He ably shows
that the foundation of a human act is the human person—an integrated
whole who retains a single moving intention that is caused and maintained by his love for some good.
The nature of the human act has been perennially a topic of discussion among ethicists and moral theologians, and it has gained prominence in the past few decades among Thomists of various stripes. Partly
in response to a cacophony of voices after Vatican II expostulating on
conscience, freedom, and juridical norms, many have returned to the
fundamental issues of morality, focusing on the nature of a human act,
that is, a moral act from the perspective of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas’s account of human acts in questions 6–21 of the prima
secundae of his Summa theologiae has become a classic text for subsequent thinkers. It is not thereby accepted as entirely perspicacious. On
the contrary, these passages have proved difficult to grasp fully even by
disciples of the Common Doctor. To modify extreme voluntarist interpretations of Aquinas, the Dominican priest Charles René Billuart
(1685–1757) proposed a way to understand human action from the perspective of Aquinas, a twelve-step scheme that described the genesis of
human action as an interplay between the human faculties to one degree
or another. Billuart’s twelve-step scheme has shaped most subsequent
discussions of Aquinas’s action theory. After Servais Pinckaers’s reevaluation of moral theology as a whole and Billuart in particular, recent
works have modified Billuart’s schemes to various degrees, for example,
Daniel Westberg’s Right Practical Reason (1994), Stephen L. Brock’s Action and Conduct (1998), Michael Sherwin’s By Knowledge and by Love
(2005), and Livio Melina’s The Epiphany of Love: Toward a Theological
Understanding of Christian Action (2010). It is into this context that
Lambert Hendriks enters with his published dissertation, Choosing from
Love. With Melina as the director of the dissertation, Hendriks’s method
and exposition follow a scholastic route.

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Hendriks’s work is divided into six chapters, along with an introduction. Chapter 1 is prefatory, surveying Aquinas’s sources, and chapter 6 is the summary and conclusion. Therefore this review focuses on
chapters 2–5: choice in Aristotle, love, choice in Aquinas, and the union
of reason and will.
By way of establishing key themes in his exposition, Hendriks devotes chapter 2 to Aristotle’s concept of choice. For Aristotle, just as the
human person is an integral whole, composed of soul and body, so human action contains an “organic” unity on account of the acting subject. Additionally, the good itself is a unifying higher principle insofar
as the agent strives for the good through his desire. Although one can
parse different elements that compose the human act, those elements
are correlative, mutually enriching, and equally necessary. There is a
“strict collaboration in choice between desire and reason” (90), as may
be seen in Aristotle’s famous description of choice as “either desiderative
thought or intellectual desire” (Nicomachean Ethics VI, ch. 2 [1139b4]).
Hendriks shows that “the Philosopher does not know or does not want
to give priority to either [faculty]”; this is because they “work together
with equal weight” (91). Furthermore, “choice itself is part of the action,
and not some process that ends before the actual act begins”—that is,
choice is not only a moment of volition; it remains present throughout
the act chosen (92). Aristotle’s integrative approach to human action
demonstrates that character is modified by the process of human action: internal motivations and the external execution of the act are both
at work. Aquinas develops these insights and incorporates them into
a greater theological synthesis. The Dominican, drawing from other
sources including Augustine and John Damascene, has a clearer concept
of a “rational appetite,” the will. Hendriks argues that the distinction
between higher and lower appetites enables Aquinas more adequately to
integrate the rational and desiderative elements in human action.
Chapter 3 is entitled “The Vulnerability of the Agent,” a concept
Hendriks borrows from Paul Wadell, The Primacy of Love: An Introduction to the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas (1992). Hendriks follows Aquinas in saying that “all of the agent’s moral life” consists in seeking and
finding what we love, and then finding joy in it (132). Because human
action necessarily involves desire, it is founded on love. But love is radically shaped by the character of the person, that is, by an acquired hab-

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itus that forms the disposition of the agent such that some things seem
good—and therefore loveable—and other things do not. Because every
agent wills an end, the end unifies all of the actions of an agent who pursues the means that lead to the end. Likewise, the striving of the agent,
stemming from his knowledge and desire of the end, gives unity to the
components of a human act. Hence there is a fundamental unity in the
acting subject and his action, a unity that guarantees that love is present
throughout a human act, from its conception to its completion.
In Wadell’s terms, “Love is the utmost vulnerability” because “love
[is] an abiding openness to all that is good” (88, 84). Developing this insight, Hendriks shows that “the appetite is what makes the subject ‘vulnerable’ for things outside him” (143). When appetite becomes united
to reason, it “presupposes a voluntary receptivity to reality” (144). From
this perspective, the passions that arise from appetite can contribute to
human action and thus should not be suppressed but cultivated to do
the good (157). Seeing the will as a “rational appetite” helps one to grasp
that, contrary to the conception of later Scholastic thought, it is not a
neutral faculty; it has an inclination toward the good, an inclination it
shares with the lower appetites. Furthermore, the appetites belong to the
entire person; they do not belong simply to one part. It follows that there
is continuity between the sensible and rational appetite: the higher can
share rightness with the whole of a person’s affectivity. In this “dynamic
of love,” before the agent engages his will and chooses, “there is already
a movement that orders the agent to act by means of a passive power,
which is open for the object that the agent acts for” (175). Although the
“specifically human” faculties, the reason and the will, may not yet be
engaged, the human act is already in genesis, since the action is one of a
complete person. In sum, the only way to correctly understand what an
agent does it to take into consideration his intellectual, volitional, and
affective dispositions (184). This is because the various causes of human
action are linked together in the single moral act.
Chapter 4 concerns choice, that is, electio. It is a crucial moment
for the person, for “at this point the acting person becomes attached
or committed to the action he wants to accomplish . . . it comprises the
human act in its fullness” (203–4). In brief, choice is “the decision to act”
(206). Because the decision to act is always directed toward an end, and
an end as such is desired for its goodness, choice necessarily involves a

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striving of the will toward a good. This striving, this inclination of love,
is present in all moments of the human act. Thus there is a “continuous
movement of the will that accompanies the act from the very beginning
until the very end” (213). For Thomas, intention and choice name the
same thing seen from different points of view: on the one hand, a person does not … the means; and, on the other hand, one fully chooses in
accord with one’s firm intention. Intention “unites the efficient cause of
the will and the ordering of reason” (219).
With real innovation, Hendriks in chapter 4 helpfully discusses how
virtue can elucidate the nature of the human act. Virtue reveals the substrata of every human act because “in a supreme way the virtuous act
contains all of the affectivity and inclination that is in some way present in every human act,” for a virtuous act is human excellence visibly
manifested (221). Because a virtue is a stable habitus, it shapes how a
person responds to an object, thus preparing a person to love the good
on emotional and volitional levels. Virtue is an “elective” habit: “it stems
from choice, is preserved by choice, and is ordered to choice” (225). It
follows that “virtue comes from love and leads to love . . . the virtues
are strategies of love” (230). Hence the best version of a human act is a
virtuous act: it is a pristine specimen, as it were, that discloses the depths
of human action. This is especially true of the infused supernatural virtue of charity, which is “the virtue that commands that which the other
virtues choose” (250).
Hendriks avoids both voluntarism and intellectual determinism
by showing the interdependence of intellect and will. He emphasizes
Thomas’s doctrine that “the will is the material principle and reason the
formal principle of choice” (see ST I-II, q. 13, a. 1). Following Pinckaers’s reading, Hendriks shows that Thomas’s account of the human act
is “structural,” not temporal. Thus the intellect does not have temporal
priority over the will, contrary to oversimplifications of the issue. It is
true that, whenever the will errs, the error was first in the intellect. But
the intellect does not act independently. Appetite moves the intellect
to act in any given instance. Thus right reason is dependent, as it were,
on right appetite in order to function well: and virtue is precisely what
orders appetite. It is in this context that Hendriks discusses the issue of
“self-determination,” gesturing toward St. Gregory of Nyssa with an observation that “we are our own parents, since we create ourselves as we

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will through our decisions” (269). Reason is the root of freedom according to the classic Thomistic line that Hendriks follows, because one’s
inclination toward something will cease whenever its goodness is not
considered by reason. In sum: “The will is free to act or not to act, in
conjunction with reason’s capacity to specify any aspect of something as
a good for the agent” (276). “The will and the intellect mutually include
one another: for the intellect understands the will, and the will wills the
intellect to understand” (ST I, q. 16, a. 4, ad 1). There is therefore a “reciprocal causality” between intellect and will (322); they are co-movers
(see ST I-II, q. 9, a. 1). Insofar as the human act begins with a sensate
encounter with an object, love has priority. Insofar as the human act
properly speaking begins when the agent rationally reacts to the object,
reason has priority. In accordance with the theme of the unity of the
human person, freedom is not synonymous with indifference or spontaneity; it cannot be reduced to one’s “simple liking”; rather, it involves
“the realization of a human being’s nature and involves the whole of
one’s life” (276).
Chapter 5 constitutes the culmination of Hendriks’s argument.
Based on his fundamental conclusion, discussed earlier at length, that
“the principle of action is love rather than the will or reason, and therefore the agent as a whole is to be considered as acting,” here Hendriks
directly critiques Billuart’s schema. Although Thomas Aquinas himself
distinguishes the various “partial acts” that form the complete, organic
human act, Hendriks holds that these partial acts are “mere theoretical
elements.” This stance is similar to that of biologists who look at the
human body from a systems perspective and argue that microparticles,
such as atoms and electrons, do not exist as such as “parts” of a body.
Rather, the body exists as complete, organic whole. Particles of a body
no longer exist on their own; their continued existence depends on their
association and incorporation into the greater whole. Although atoms
and the like can be extracted from the body, they cease to be parts of
the living body by that very process of extraction. A similar situation
obtains for the sequence of simplex apprehensio . . . electio . . . fruitio.
“They can be helpful to analyze the human act logically, but they do not
reflect the reality in action absolutely and by themselves” (277). This is
because those “moments” in the human act are not “complete in themselves, even when they are partial acts” (280). In other words, Hendriks

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critiques Billuart for perceiving the human act as an “extrinsic object”
and then chopping it up into little bits. This takes the life out of human
action. In contrast, Hendriks’s virtue perspective shows that “choice is
involved in the whole act,” that love is the life of choice, and that therefore love is the life of the human act (282). It follows that “each partial
act is also present in the others,” so long at they are related to electio
(287, 289). These partial acts “can be considered different points of view
of the one loving will that becomes concrete and particular in its way
to the good,” such that the single human act is not composed of various
partial acts pasted together (298); rather, the act as an integral whole can
be viewed from various aspects.
With his book Choosing from Love, Lambert Hendricks insightfully
explains the heart of the human act. The implications for his study are
enormous, for he successfully clarifies an issue that has been discussed
at length for centuries. It is highly recommended. Drawing from a wide
variety of recent Thomistic thought on the human act, especially in the
English-speaking world, he has synthesized many voices and shown that
the human act is best understood as an organic whole. Minor faults include the circularity and repetitiveness of his thought, which is partly
on account of his theme; additionally, there are a number of grammatical errors and infelicities. These faults do not substantially detract from
the power of Hendriks’s insight and the thoroughness of his exposition.
Love is present throughout the human act—natural love, sensitive love,
and reasonable love. This insight can pave the way toward a more realistic, a more adequate, a more personal explanation of the human act, one
N&V
that fits both experience and reason.
Ezra Sullivan, O.P.
Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas
Rome, Italy