et Vetera Nova Fall 2015 • Volume 13, Number 4 The English Edition of the International Theological Journal Senior Editor Georges Cardinal Cottier, O.P. Co-Editors Reinhard Hütter, Duke University Divinity School Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Dominican House of Studies Associate Editors Holly Taylor Coolman, Providence College Gilles Emery, O.P., University of Fribourg Paul Gondreau, Providence College Scott W. Hahn, Franciscan University of Steubenville Thomas S. Hibbs, Baylor University Christopher Malloy, University of Dallas Bruce D. Marshall, Southern Methodist University Charles Morerod, O.P., Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg John O’Callaghan, University of Notre Dame Chad Pecknold, Catholic University of America Michael Sherwin, O.P., University of Fribourg Board of Advisors Anthony Akinwale, O.P., Dominican Institute, Ibadan, Nigeria Khaled Anatolios, University of Notre Dame Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, CA John Betz, University of Notre Dame Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., Angelicum Christopher O. Blum, Augustine Institute Stephen Brock, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross Peter Casarella, University of Notre Dame Romanus Cessario, O.P., St. John’s Seminary Boyd Taylor Coolman, Boston College Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P., Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Douglas Farrow, McGill University Anthony Fisher, O.P., Archbishop of Sydney, Australia Timothy Gray, Augustine Institute Paul J. Griffiths, Duke University Divinity School Russell Hittinger, University of Tulsa Paige Hochschild, Mount St. Mary’s University Andrew Hofer, O.P., Dominican House of Studies Matthew L. Lamb, Ave Maria University Joseph Lienhard, S.J., Fordham University Steven A. Long, Ave Maria University Guy Mansini, O.S.B., Saint Meinrad School of Theology Francesca Aran Murphy, University of Notre Dame Thomas Osborne, University of St. Thomas (Houston) Trent Pomplun, Loyola University Maryland Christopher J. Ruddy, Catholic University of America Richard Schenk, O.P., University of Eichstätt Michele Schumacher, University of Fribourg Janet Smith, Sacred Heart Major Seminary Christopher Thompson, St. Paul Seminary Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap., Dominican House of Studies William Wright, Duquesne University Instructions for Contributors 1. Address all contributions, books for review, and related correspondence to Matthew Levering, mjlevering@yahoo.com or Reinhard Hütter, rhuetter@div.duke.edu. 2. 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Nova et Vetera The English Edition of the International Theological Journal ISSN 1542-7315 Fall 2015 Vol. 13, No. 4 Commentary Virtue and Addiction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wojciech Giertych, O.P. 969 Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal and the Meaning of Marriage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mats Wahlberg 1003 Articles What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be: Creaturely Possibility, Divine Ideas and the Creator’s Will in Thomas Aquinas.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul DeHart 1009 Aquinas on the the Divine Ideas and the Really Real. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gregory Doolan 1059 The Second Vatican Council and the Theological Authority of Sacrosanctum Concilium as a Constitution. . . . . . . . . . . . Christian Washburn 1093 Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem: Merit for Others and the Divine Plan in Thomistic Thought. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aaron Weldon 1125 The Right to Religious Freedom: Thomistic Principles of Nature and Grace.. . . . . . . Thomas J. White, O.P. 1149 Evangelium Vitae At 20 Abortion Shame, Abortion Shaming, and the Reintegrative Mercy of God (Evangelium Vitae §99). . . . . . . . . . Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. 1185 Evangelium Vitae, the Rhetoric of Freedom, and Roe v. Wade’s Totalitarian Implications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Crawford 1209 Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist?: An Indication from Evangelium Vitae. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. 1229 Symposium On Robert Louis Wilken’s The First Thousand Years Response to Wilken’s The First Thousand Years. . . . . . . . . . Gillian Clark 1245 The Undivided Church: Myth and History. . . . . . . . Andrew Hofer, O.P. 1255 Christianity’s First Millennium: Reflections on Robert Louis Wilken’s Magnum Opus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kavin Rowe 1261 “If I forget you, O Jerusalem”: Zion’s Place in Global Christianity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Warren Smith 1269 Book Reviews Saving Karl Barth: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Preoccupation by D. Stephen Long.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anne M. Carpenter 1283 The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification by David Vincent Meconi, S.J.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul J. Griffiths 1289 Rekindling the Christic Imagination: Theological Meditations for the New Evangelization by Robert P. Imbelli. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jim Keating 1292 Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation: The Mediation of the Gospel through Church and Scripture by Matthew Levering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mats Wahlberg 1294 The English edition of Nova et Vetera is published quarterly and provides an international forum for theological and philosophical studies from a Thomistic perspective. Founded in 1926 by future Cardinal Charles Journet in association with Jacques Maritain, Nova et Vetera is published in related, distinct French and English editions. The English edition of Nova et Vetera welcomes articles and book reviews in theology, philosophy, and biblical studies that address central contemporary debates and discussions. We seek to be “at the heart of the Church,” faithful to the Magisterium and the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, and devoted to the work of true dialogue, both ecumenically and across intellectual disciplines. Nova et Vetera (ISSN 1542-7315; ISBN 978-1-941447-41-3) is published quarterly by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 1468 Parkview Circle, Steubenville, OH 43952. 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For subscription inquiries, email us at novaetvetera@stpaulcenter.com or phone 740-264-9535. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 969–1002 969 Virtue and Addiction Wojciech Giertych, O.P. Theologian of the Papal Household Introduction Ethical reflection may be compared to grammar. Knowledge of grammatical rules is not absolutely necessary. Most ancient Romans did not study Latin grammar, and yet they spoke the language that they picked up from their parents. But those who did study grammar found it is useful, and not only as a tool in the teaching of Latin to barbarians. This was because grammar explains the internal rules of a language, and so it expands the possibilities of expression, ensuring precision in articulation. In deciphering the structures of the language, it influences thinking, the articulation of thought, thereby correcting unjustified simplifications and logical errors. Something similar may be said about ethical reflection. Moral life differs from a speculative discourse about ethics and moral theology. When an individual is raised in an honest family and a cultural setting that coherently affirm basic moral values, upright living becomes almost automatic. The perception of fundamental moral truths may then be intuitive and adherence to them simple. But a rational, speculative study of the principles of ethics is still worthy of the effort because it contributes to inner moral coherence. In the face of contrary winds, coming from internal temptations or from adverse surroundings, the clear knowledge of moral principles assists in the correction of behavior and in the development of psychic mechanisms of moral action. Philosophical ethical reflection furnishes the grammar of upright living. Moral theology furnishes the grammar of the fecundity of grace within the life of the Christian. Those who have succumbed to grave moral disorder and have become addicted to some ruining enslaving idol will not be cured uniquely by 970 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. theoretical knowledge. More than the grammar of up-right living is needed, but clarity of reflection may assist in the sorting out of intuitive perceptions and instinctive reactions that, being imprecise or even contrary to reality, lock the individual in a track that is not leading to liberty. Ethical reflection may center on acts, on norms and on virtues. The casuist approach focuses almost uniquely upon acts, assessing their moral qualification. Norm ethics tries to understand the principles that govern individual acts. When ethical reflection limits itself to the imposition of rules and procedures that are derived from sacred texts or from some decisions of higher bodies, the conscience is reduced to the level of a subjective, basically insignificant intuition or feeling. Virtue ethics, as it is developed in the great Catholic tradition, looks into the psychic mechanisms of good living. Not only concern about the avoidance of accidents and the study of obligatory traffic regulations are necessary, but also the ensuring that the internal driving mechanism is adroit and that the finality of the journey is clear. And, when it turns out that the internal mechanism is faulty, ways of repairing it have to be found and explained. In the study of morality, a basic principle of methodology has to be followed. The method of cognition is conditioned by the object that is studied. Moral action involves the spiritual faculties of the reason and the will as they face the verum bonum. Furthermore, these faculties may be under the influence of divine grace. Since human nature encompasses a spiritual and a bodily component, moral action, both good and deformed, may be studied by theology, by philosophy, and by the experimental sciences. Neurobiological sciences offer their input in the study of the addicted person, but they have no right to make the erroneous metaphysical assertion that only physical and biological reality exists, meaning that only their discoveries merit attention.1 The human brain is a condition for fully human action, and so its functioning and failures need to be studied, but empirical sciences cannot question or deny the validity of philosophical and theological enquiry. The conclusions of theology, philosophy, and empirical science about the human person, virtuous action, and addictive deformations of the ethos need to be put together in a coherent whole. Martin Rhonheimer, “Ragione morale, persona e virtù: la prospettiva aristotelico-tomista di fronte alle sfide attuali,” in Persona e natura nell’agire morale: Memoriale di Cracovia. Studi. Contributi, ed. Juan José Pérez-Soba, Paweł Gałuszka, (Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli, 2013), 185–201. 1 Virtue and Addiction 971 The Moral Virtues The term “virtue” describes primarily a psychic capacity for good action. It is not a description of the moral value in itself, but of the formed conditioning of the upright person, who has the capacity of adhering creatively to the moral value. Virtues cannot be appropriately understood within a frame of mind centered uniquely upon moral obligations. The catalogue of virtues worked out by traditional ethics is not a list of moral precepts and duties that appear within various sectors of the human psyche and life. It is a description of permanent conditionings of the human faculties as they are habituated to adhere to the true good. In the adherence to the good, the faculties need to take into account the inherent essences and finalities of reality, and it is that reality that attributes value to the faculties as they aim for it. Thus, it is possible to distinguish between virtues and vices as between those internal conditionings of the psyche that focus on the true good and those that deny it. The faculties, however, are geared towards the good in its generality, and so, when they are grasped by virtue, personal and cultural conditionings color that grasping. It is not, therefore, surprising that a historian may note across the ages differing practical perceptions of what is deemed to be virtuous activity.2 This is not necessarily a sign of historical moral relativism, but rather a pointer to the fact that, within the virtuous grasping of the true good, there is room for a creativity that is lived out from within a given social and cultural context. The Augustinian definition of virtue as ordo amoris allows for a dual interpretation. It may mean that virtue orders loving, purifying it from untrue and only apparent loves. And it may also mean that virtue brings the order contributed by true loving into the entire ethos. The moral order generated by virtue signifies the stringing together of the dynamism of the body and spirit into an internal pattern that is purposeful and harmonious. The virtuous person enjoys the peace that comes from having one’s interiority well organized for clearly defined and good aims and experiences internal joy that springs from creative action. When the moral order is formulated externally through the moral law, this is a verbal articulation of that order that persists within the virtuous individ Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue. A Study of Moral Theory [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984]) seems to be perplexed by this. When the understanding of virtue is purified from an excessive obligatory trait and from an Enlightenment dry facticity, and instead, it centers on the psychological quality of the virtue, the cultural rooting of practical adherences to the true good ceases to be perplexing. 2 972 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. ual and has a primacy over law.3 Moral law is pedagogical. It serves in the focusing of the reason towards the objective common good, which has an attractiveness of its own.4 Thus it serves interior liberty.5 Moral virtues that are grouped around the cardinal virtues of fortitude and temperance are located within the affective movement of the emotions. Virtue allows for the integration of the passions, which are bodily, within the focus supplied by the spiritual faculties of the reason and the will. The integration and mutual cooperation of the bodily and the spiritual spheres is not only necessary, but also possible, even though the dominion of the spiritual faculties over the bodily is political and not despotic,6 meaning that the individual does sometimes have to play with himself so as to grow in the virtuous disposition, without ever excluding the dynamism of the passions. Virtue does not deny feelings, which are natural and therefore good. Their strength depends upon the temperament and bodily disposition of the individual. Virtue brings a rational mean into the attachment to an object, but not into the emotional experience itself that is generated by the object. That experience may be infinite and has to remain so. Sobriety allows for restraint in the drinking of wine in view of a given situation and its responsibilities. It does not, however, question the enjoyment of good wine. The virtuous person may acquire an exquisite competence in assessing the qualities of good wine, and this competence and passion for good wine Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (hereafter, ST), IIa-IIae, q. 57, a. 1 ad 2: “[A]n idea in the mind, a rule or pattern for prudence or practical wisdom, prescribes what is a just deed according to reason. If this be set down in writing, it is called a law” (trans. T. Gilby, vol. 37, [London: Blackfriars, 1975]). All further quotations from and citations of ST will be from this edition series, given with translator’s name, vol. number, and year, unless otherwise noted. 4 This is the sense of the opening phrase within Aquinas’s definition of law: “[O] rdinance of reason for the common good” (ST Ia-IIae, q. 90 a. 4, [Gilby, vol. 28, 1966]), which is not to be interpreted as the command of the legislator. Cf. Wojciech Giertych, “The Definition of Moral Law,” Angelicum 85 (2008): 627–648, and Giuseppe Abbà, Lex et virtus. Studi sull’evoluzione della dottrina morale di san Tommaso d’Aquino (Rome: LAS, 1983). 5 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Letters of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, 2 Cor, ch. 3, l. 3, 112: “Therefore, one who avoids evils, not because they are evil, but because of God’s commandment, is not free. But one who avoids evils, because they are evils is free. But this is done by the Holy Spirit . . .” (trans. F.R. Larcher, B. Mortensen, and D. Keating [Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012]). 6 ST Ia, q. 81, a. 3 ad 2: “But understanding and reason are said to rule aggressiveness and desirousness in a politic manner . . .” (T. Suttor, vol. 11, 1970). 3 Virtue and Addiction 973 is brought into play in creative virtuous living. In fact, virtues need the passions that supply the bodily stuff of the virtues, for it is the passions that invite a creative generosity within virtuous action.7 Servais Pinckaers, in his last book,8 improved upon his earlier study of the virtues9 by considering them in the light of the passions. Instead of beginning his reflection with an explanation of how the virtues handle the emotions, Pinckaers focused first of all upon the emotions themselves, presenting them as necessary and normal human reactions. Love, desire, sadness, disgust, pity, fear, and anger are needed in truly human living. In his presentation, he included also such passions that had not been dealt with in traditional presentations: the sense of humor, the appreciation of silence, religious feelings, fascination for work, and the need for leisure. This reversal of approach aimed at eliciting the colorfulness of necessary human feelings that are brought wisely to the fore in virtuous living. Virtue entails a rich, passionate, cultured, and creative reaction to human challenges. In mature human life, the passions are the friends of virtue. They generate the perception of challenges and provoke a response. Those whose passions are undeveloped and who are not virtuous fail to perceive the challenges, and their life is then superficial and boring. The integration of the emotions by virtues influences the entire person. If there is disorder within the passions, the intellect itself will find it difficult to ensure an appropriate direction. The feelings have to be right.10 When they conform to reason, they also render the reason more apt to direct action in accord with justified motives. The true good is then perceived with greater facility as a good. Natural bodily dispositions and formed habits have an impact on perceptions and reactions, but they are not beyond rational judgment and direction, on the condition, of course, that the bodily input is basically healthy. Well domesticated and integrated passions contribute to internal peace. The psychic mechanism of virtue is explained through the term habitus, which means something more than a mere habit. The habitus is an expression of the free choice, the liberum arbitrium, in which the reason and the will combine in the rational choice of a good. The habiST Ia-IIae, q. 59, a. 5 ad 3: “Man’s good activity, however, is in conjunction with passion, even as it is produced with the help of the body” (W. D. Hughes, vol. 23, 1969). 8 Passions et vertu, (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2009). This book was published after Pinckaers’s death. 9 Plaidoyer pour la vertu, (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2009). 10 Cf. Vincent Twomey, Moral Theology after Humanae Vitae: Fundamental Issues in Moral Theology and Sexual Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), 89. 7 974 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. tus, and therefore the virtue, assures permanence, facility, pleasure, and creativeness in choosing the good. Since the good is chosen rationally, understanding the values implied and in a creative way, this provokes an interior joy that springs from doing something good. The input of the passions in some moral virtues adds to the joy because the good is done with passion. Even in a virtuous act that involves sadness, as in pity, which contributes to charity, there is an interior spiritual joy that affirms the bodily reaction of sadness caused by somebody else’s suffering. The permanence of the habitus in virtue does not mean the following of routine and stereotypes, since the habitus is creative. All the moral virtues require the guiding input of the cardinal virtue of prudence, which assures the creative transfer from intention, through occasional deliberation, to decision and execution. To prevent a deformed understanding of prudence, which often is reduced to the act of caution, it would be appropriate to rename it as “creative resourcefulness.” That resourcefulness expresses a personal culture of responsibility and contributes to the growth of the liberty of quality.11 The virtuous person is always startling because he perceives challenges that others fail to notice and reacts to them with full inventiveness. That is why it is easier to guess the reactions of those who are mechanical and stodgy in life than the unpredictable creativeness of the virtuous. Having said this, it is not surprising that many people fail to cross the threshold of virtue, or even vice. They are moved by spontaneous passions or by others, and when they do something good, this is because events have forced them to do so, rather than as a result of a thought out personal choice.12 And when they fall into evil, this is because their weakness has drawn them, but they are not necessarily creative, or therefore vicious, in evil. Aquinas distinguished clearly between the acquired and the infused virtues. Acquired virtues focus on the goods of the society of this world, and they are the result of human effort. The infused virtues are given by God as a gift of grace and they bring one into the communion of saints. What differentiates them in practice is the mode of functioning of reason. In the infused virtues, reason sees beyond natural arguments because it is open to a higher divine rule.13 If it is true that Aquinas’s moral synthesis Cf. Servais Pinckaers, Les sources de la morale chrétienne. Sa méthode, son contenu, son histoire, (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1985), 355–379. 12 Cf. Michel Labourdette, Cours de la théologie morale, vol. 1 (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2010), 303. 13 ST Ia-IIae, q. 63, a. 4: “It is evident the measure of desires appointed by a rule of human reason is different from that appointed by a divine rule” (Hughes, vol. 23, 1969). 11 Virtue and Addiction 975 was made in the light of the new law of the Gospel, that is the law of grace,14 and not just in the light of the natural law, meaning that it is a theology and not a philosophy of action, it follows that the long discussion of the virtues is a presentation of the fecundity of grace. The moral virtues are therefore viewed primarily as being directly infused by God,15 but with human consent16 and collaboration in their development. This teaching of Aquinas has been followed by the Catechism of Trent, which spoke about the “retinue of all the virtues” infused in the soul in the moment of justification, that is, already at baptism.17 The new Catechism is more reticent about this and prefers to follow the position of Duns Scotus.18 It discusses the moral virtues and then simply states that these virtues “acquired by education, by deliberate acts and by perseverance ever-renewed in repeated efforts are purified and elevated by divine grace,” and these “human virtues are rooted in the theological virtues, which adapt man’s faculties for participation in the divine nature.”19 Thus, it seems that the new Catechism accepts that the theological virtues are infused by grace, adapting the human faculties so that they can encounter God, but it stops short at saying that there is a direct initial influence of grace within the moral order. The moral virtues are said to be acquired first by natural effort, and then, eventually, they may be purified by grace. This reserve suggests that the sphere of human morals has to be corrected primarily by natural asceticism and effort, although within a horizon of faith. The restraint of the new Catechism, which prefers here the Scotist position rather than the traditional teaching of Aquinas, shows that the great theological debate of the twentieth century on nature and grace has not yet been thought through down to its conclusions in the realm of 14 15 16 17 18 19 Cf. ST Ia-IIae, qq. 106–108; Pinckaers, Les sources de la morale chrétienne, 174–194. The general definition of virtue refers to infused virtues. Cf. ST Ia-IIae, q. 55, a. 4, arg. 1: “Virtue is a good quality of mind by which one lives righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God works in us without us” (ibid.). ST Ia-IIae, q. 55, a. 4, ad 6: “Infused virtue is caused in us by God without our action, but not without our consent” (ibid.). Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests, trans. J. A. McHugh and C. J. Callan (New York: Joseph Wagner 1956), 188 (part 2, ch. 2, q. 5): “This grace is accompanied by a most splendid train of all virtues, which are divinely infused in the soul along with grace.” Cf. Michael S. Sherwin O.P., “Infused Virtue and the Effects of Acquired Vice: A Test Case for the Thomistic Theory of Infused Cardinal Virtues,” The Thomist 73 (2009), 29–52. Catechism of the Catholic Church (hereafter, CCC), §§ 1804, 1810, and 1812. 976 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. morals. Grace is not to be viewed as an optional extra layer superimposed upon a supposedly self-sufficient nature without really transforming it. While the distinction between the natural and the supernatural order needs to be maintained, defending the dignity of nature and its own capacities, grace has to be affirmed as working within nature, and as being an overarching gift of God that was planned even before nature was created and that leads to an end that surpasses nature (cf. Eph 1:4–5; 1 Pt 1:18–20).20 The fecundity of grace within the moral order should not be lost as theological reflection veers between the two extremes of quietism and Pelagian naturalism. Avoiding such loss is precisely what the theological category of the infused moral virtues tries to do, showing how the gift of grace may seep into the ethos, generating virtues, including those that are located within the passions. Failure to present this due to the unique focus of philosophical ethics (even virtue ethics, which is still philosophical ethics), leaves the person lost in moral disorder on his own. If the theology of morals is to be of any use, it has to describe the cooperation with grace precisely where the sinner and the addict need that grace most. According to Aquinas, the moral teaching offered in the Church is not given only to convince about values. It is there to show how the grace of the Holy Spirit can be used in the face of moral challenges.21 Vice, Sin, and Addiction Having stressed the creativeness of virtue in which the habitus is active, the same has to be said about vice. A true vice is a fruit of an evil habitus and not merely of a bad habit, and so it is inventive. It is not mechanically automatic, but elective, even though it may come with spontaneous facility. A vice is thought out and its evil is consciously cultivated. The fact that one has acquired a vice is no excuse, because it adds to the 20 21 Cf. the illuminating work of Lawrence Feingold (The Natural Desire to See God according to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters [Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2010]). This is one of the functions of the secondary element of the new law. Cf. ST Ia-IIae, q. 106, a. 1: “There do however belong to the New Law certain elements which in a way dispose us for the grace of the Holy Spirit, and some which are concerned with its exercise. These may be considered secondary in the New Law, and Christ’s faithful had to be instructed about them both orally and in writing, both as regards matters of faith and as regards actions” (C. Ernst, vol. 30, 1972). Wojciech Giertych, “Theological Ethics or Moral Theology?” in Camminare nella Luce. Prospettive della teologia morale a partire da Veritatis splendor, ed. L. Melina and J. Noriega, (Rome: Lateran University Press, 2004), 537–563. Virtue and Addiction 977 malice of the sin. It is possible to sin out of malice, not having yet a vice, but a sin that flows from a vice is always malicious. The vicious person has neither the unconsciousness of the sinner sinning out of culpable ignorance, nor the anguish of the sinner sinning out of weakness. He has not just “fallen into” sin. Malicious action, flowing from an installed and cultivated vice, may be completely void of passion and done in cold blood or it may incorporate the force of disordered passions. Since vice is cultivated, after conversion, the truly vicious person will become a great saint, because such an individual has the capacity to integrate all the richness of the psychic forces in view of the chosen purpose. Not many people arrive at such psychic coherence within the evil that they commit. Generally sinfulness is more superficial and incoherent. Aquinas differentiated theoretically between sin and fault, even though already in his time the two terms were often identified in common parlance. Peccatum (sin) refers to a human action that is intrinsically irrational. Culpa (fault) refers to a sin that is willed.22 It is possible that an individual may commit a sinful action as a result of external pressure and so there will be no fault, or limited fault, in the action, even though the action itself will be evil and will generate evil repercussions.23 (An abortion forced by a parent upon a young and confused teenager may involve a limited culpa on the part of the unfortunate girl, but it will be a peccatum that will be remembered in the years to come.) The sins of weakness are sins in which the passions are the driving force. The passions elicit a movement that then influences the cognition and the will. Such sinners may have good judgment, but they cannot resist temptations because, in the final moment, their passions draw the free choice, eclipsing the light of the conscience. These sins are also willed, because had they not been willed, there would have been no fault, but the initiative coming from the passions is so strong that the free choice chooses to set aside the light of the conscience and proceeds to sinful action.24 Repeated sins of weakness, if they are not subjected 22 23 24 Thomas Aquinas, The De Malo of Thomas Aquinas, trans. R. Regan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), q. 2 a. 2: “And we should note that the three things—evil, sin and moral wrong—are related to one another as more and less general. . . . The privation of form or right order or due measure in anything . . . has the nature of evil. But we call sins acts lacking due order or form or measure. . . . But sin has the nature of moral wrong only because it is voluntary.” Wojciech Giertych, “Free Will, Addiction, and Moral Culpability,” Addictive and Compulsive Behaviors: Seventh Workshop for Bishops, ed. Edward J. Furton (Boston: The National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2000), 113–124. Thomas Aquinas, Truth (De veritate), trans. J. V. McGlynn, vol. 2 (Indianapolis/ 978 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. to repentance and control, may easily become sins of malice, but this does not necessarily have to be the case. The accumulation of sins of weakness does not have to result in the acquisition of a cultivated vice, since these sins flow from uncontrolled and uncontrollable passion, but they may generate a habituation in sin, an automatic attraction for it, stimulating psychic mechanisms that do not necessarily have their origin in the reason and will. Addiction normally is the result of weakness, rather than of malice. It is an excessive, disordered attraction to some sedative that temporarily alleviates anxieties and pain flowing from some moral or psychic disorder. Those who regularly succumb to moral failures out of weakness are tormented by them. They feel the anguish, and yet they cannot liberate themselves from sin, which draws them, and which they do not approve. Thus they drown the anguish with some small or great drug, which only confirms and renews the anguish. What is it therefore that blocks the good will and prevents the handling of the passion by virtue? Aquinas notes that, in the sacrament of penance, the aversion against God that is present in every mortal sin is corrected, but the disordered conversion towards sinful action may remain as an internal disposition, even though it is weakened.25 Thus, being in a state of grace, in which the infused moral virtues are granted by God, does not immediately ensure against contrary internal dispositions flowing from previous sinful acts, and these 25 Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994), q. 17, art. 1 ad 4: “[T] he judgment of conscience consists simply in knowledge, whereas the judgment of free choice consists in the application of knowledge to the inclination of the will. This is the judgment of choice. Thus, it sometimes happens that the judgment of free choice goes astray, but not the judgment of conscience. For example, one debates something which presents itself to be done here and now and judges, still speculating as it were in the realm of principles, that it is evil. . . . However, when he comes to apply this to act, many circumstances relevant to the act present themselves from all sides, for instance, the pleasure of fornication, by the desire of which reason is constrained, so that its dictates may not issue into choice. Thus, one errs in choice and not in conscience.” ST IIIa, q. 86, a. 5: “[T]he fault of mortal sin is pardoned through grace reversing the turning of the mind from God. Yet even when grace has done this, there can still remain that which arises as the result of the inordinate turning to a corruptible good. . . . Therefore there is no reason why, once sin has been forgiven, certain dispositions caused from previous acts may not yet remain. These are called after-effects of sin. Nevertheless, they continue in a weakened or diminished state, not having man in their grip. Indeed they persist more as dispositions than as habits . . . ” (T. C. O-Brien, vol. 60, 1966). Virtue and Addiction 979 may prevent the joy and facility in good action.26 Absolution does not automatically free from addictions. Thus, the regular sinner constantly falls, sometimes crying out in his weakness, and yet he encounters resistances that disenable him from adhering to the true good, from growing in virtue and in personal liberty. The addict is enslaved in his disorder. Why is this so? Succumbing constantly to weakness, drawn not by conscious vice but by disordered passions, he is moved by other causes than ill-will and so his fault may be limited, but the disruptive effects of the peccatum and its enslaving power will be manifest. What is the nature of these internal mechanisms that are the consequences of habituated sin, and how can one be free from them? Is the compulsive sinner sick and therefore not morally responsible for his disordered actions because they have physiological causes which need medical treatment? Or is he constitutionally healthy, yet disordered on the spiritual level, needing a process of deeper conversion rather than one of healing? Or are the obstacles against the good on the psychic level, somehow combining the physiological and spiritual levels and influencing them? Experience shows that whoever is an addict is always an addict. Even when, through appropriate spiritual and psychological direction and medical aid, the addict returns to moral and psychic balance, the psychic, and even physiological, addictive inclination remains. A non-drinking alcoholic will therefore have to maintain abstinence, because there are in him permanent psychic, and even neurobiological, changes that have made him weak in this particular field. Why are the Infused Moral Virtues so Weak? Having said this, we still face the crux of the theological problem. If the infused moral virtues operating in all the dimensions of the ethos are a gift of grace, why are they so weak? Why do they seem to be nonexistent in cases of addiction? Not only those baptized Christians who have consciously and willingly locked themselves in corrupt perversity, but also those who struggle and pray and receive the sacraments and do not approve their own sinful actions sometimes experience the pain of being 26 ST Ia-IIae, q. 65, a. 3 ad 2: “It sometimes happens that a man who has a habit finds difficulty in acting from it, and consequently feels no pleasure and satisfaction in the act, because of some extrinsic impediment. . . . Likewise difficulty may be experienced in the performance of the habits of the infused moral virtues, because of certain contrary dispositions surviving from previous acts” (Hughes, vol. 23, 1969). 980 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. as if enslaved by some great or small idol. Does their problem consist in the fact that they have not received an appropriate catechesis and so do not understand the issues involved? Or are there other spiritual, psychic, or neurological factors that are at play? It would be simple if a clear explanation would have a healing effect. But not even theological knowledge is a Gnostic cure. It can only offer the grammar of the fecundity of grace, but the living out of that grace requires a humble personal relationship with the Redeemer and an involvement of the entire human psyche, gradually freed from distorted resistances. Theological reflection rooted in a clear perception of the workings of the moral psyche is useful but, in itself, insufficient. It may be clarifying to remember that the theological anthropology of the acting person offered by Aquinas is modeled on the glorified humanity of Christ, and it is then illuminated from within with the help of precise philosophical conclusions drawn mainly from Aristotle. As such, it offers a magnificent horizon, showing how a mature person, transformed by grace, who has become an image, an icon of God painted by God Himself, functions.27 It is not surprising, therefore, that an average individual has difficulty in locating himself within that synthesis grounded on the supernatural organism composed of the infused virtues, gifts of the Holy Spirit and beatitudes, because the final stage is not the same as that of the beginner, who perceives his own weakness with greater force than the fruitfulness of grace. But a clear understanding of the intricacies of the transformed moral psyche is useful, because it may help in the individuation of erroneous steps and obstacles that may have arisen and lead not to sanctity but to anxieties and their concomitant addictions. In discussing the infused moral virtues, Fr. Michael Sherwin, O.P. came to a paradoxical conclusion: The post-conversion Christian . . . has the power to overcome his inclination to sin, even though he might still not experience this power as something he can exercise with ease, promptness, and joy. In other words the beginner finds himself in the unique position of having virtues that he does not psychologically feel like he has.28 27 28 ST Ia-IIae, prol.: “[W]e go on to look at this [His] image, that is to say, at man” (Gilby, vol. 16, 1969). Sherwin, “Infused Virtue and the Effects of Acquired Vice,” 46. Virtue and Addiction 981 The addict who has just returned to the state of grace has received real but still imperfect infused moral virtues that need to be cultivated and strengthened before they will supply the ease of upright living. Such a claim may be made within a theological discourse, even though, in the purely philosophical reflection that was typical of ancient Greek thought, this conclusion would be unthinkable. The acquired moral virtue is either perfect or inexistent. But an infused moral virtue may persist in an undeveloped stage in a soul that is still struggling against serious difficulties.29 An important aspect of Christian catechesis is making converts aware that they already have received grace, which is working within them, even though they do not feel this. It is imperative that one believes in the existence of received grace and its accompanying infused moral virtues, even when returning sinfulness seems to suggest the opposite. The adherence in faith to the truth about the reality of grace, precisely when the disordered psyche and contrition painfully remind about committed sins and when maybe the accuser tries to lock the individual in pessimist self-condemnation, is extremely liberating. This is precisely the role of the Paraclete, who defends against a depressive, despairing conviction that there is no way out of the weakness. The Holy Spirit offers hope. Theological reflection that has the horizon of a grace-enriched anthropology and refers to the progressive experience of saints30 may try to understand how the infused moral virtues can be activated, even by those who are seemingly locked in addiction, and also what are the factors that can erect a resistance against them. It is said that, in a good handling of the emotions that contributes to the growth of virtue, the truth of the situation recognized by the practical reason in the very moment of action is decisive. How and according to what criteria is this truth perceived? It is not a general scientific or philosophical truth, and not even a general ethical truth that can be learnt from books31 and that is measured by its concordance with objective, unchanging reality, since practical truth is of a different type. 29 30 31 Michael S. Sherwin O.P., “The Return to Virtue: Challenges and Opportunities,” in Dominicans and the Challenge of Thomism, ed. Michał Paluch, O.P. and Piotr Lichacz (Warszawa: Instytut Tomistyczny, 2012), 196. The Thomistic synthesis offers a speculative vision viewed from the summit. The Carmelite spiritual tradition tries to describe the progressive stages of spiritual growth. In the Prologue of part IIa-IIae of the Summa, dealing with the specifics of Christian morals, Aquinas wrote: “Generalities about morals have a limited value because actions are so individual” (O-Brien, vol. 32, 1974). 982 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. It does not concern universals, but concrete contingent acts, which are always located in some circumstances, and which at present are nonexistent, and are only about to exist. The practical truth, in its essence, is a judgment about the event that is to take place, and this judgment is made immediately, spontaneously, through the interior inclination of the virtuous person.32 The virtuous act is similar to that of an artist or sportsman, which is done immediately, even though a theoretical reflection about it is possible. The judgment that takes place within a moral virtue is intuitive, suggested by an emotion, concrete, ascertaining the value involved, and in some sense is empirical, for it recognizes that the intended act is good.33 Since within the virtuous act there is a practical cognition, it must have some criterion of its truthfulness that differs from the criterion of theoretical knowledge. Where is it? How is the individual to know that precisely such an action or such an expression of emotions is appropriate in the particular moment, in accord with the truth of the situation? Responding to this question, Aquinas stated that the truth of the practical reason is found in its concordance with the domesticated emotions and with the rectified movement of the will that is animated by love.34 Thus, within the subjectivity of the acting person there is an internal attractiveness towards the practical truth that is “connatural” for the emotions because the emotions themselves suggest it.35 32 33 34 35 ST Ia, q. 1, a. 6 ad 3: “[T]wo ways of passing judgment. This may be arrived at from a bent that way, as when a person who possesses the habit of a virtue rightly commits himself to what should be done in consonance with it, because he is already in sympathy with it; hence . . . the virtuous man himself sets the measure and standards for human acts. Alternatively the judgment may be arrived at through a cognitive process, as when a person soundly instructed in moral science can appreciate the activity of virtues he does not himself possess” (Gilby, vol. 1, 1964). Rafael-Tomas Caldera, Le jugement par inclination chez Saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Vrin, 1980), 70–71. ST Ia-IIae, q. 57, a. 5 ad 3: “The speculative intellect is true when it conforms to objective reality. . . . On the other hand, the practical intellect is true when it conforms to a right appetite. This conformity has no place in regard to necessary matters . . . but only in those contingent matters which we can effect, whether they are internal activities or external works” (Hughes, vol. 23, 1969 ); q. 56, a. 3 ad 1: “[V]irtue . . . depends in some way on love, inasmuch as it depends on the will, the primordial motion of which is love” (ibid.). João Baptista Mezzalira, “Amore, virtù e ‘conoscenza per connaturalità’ sfumature della conoscenza affettiva in San Tommaso d’Aquino,” in Persona e natura nell’agire morale: memoriale di Cracovia, studi, contributi, ed. Juan José Pérez-Soba and Paweł Gałuszka (Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli, cop. 2013), 347–354. Virtue and Addiction 983 Is this classical explanation satisfactory? It seems to suggest a vicious circle. The cognition of the practical truth requires an ordered affectivity, and the affectivity is ordered only when it inclines toward the practical truth. Consequently, it is said that the moral virtues require a well-functioning prudence,36 but prudence requires the existence of moral virtues for the perception of the practical truth, because, if there is disorder in the affectivity, the perception of the practical truth is clouded and prudence cannot function.37 Does not the difficulty with the moral virtues, whether infused or acquired, lie precisely here? It is said that they exist when everything is functioning well, and when everything is not functioning well it seems that the virtues do not exist. What then is the individual suffering from moral disorder to do so that finally he will grow in virtue? He would prefer if his affectivity did not disorder him so that he could move towards the appropriate good, but this will only be possible when he will not be disordered! He would want his will to be animated by love, but that will be possible only when it will be animated by love! The addict experiences the fact that he is locked in a trap, and the teaching on the virtues does not liberate him. Furthermore, if he constantly hears moralizing words of criticism, suggesting a culpable weakness of the will, the sadness caused by the perplexity leads him to have recourse to the alleviating means that gives a temporal relief, and thus he falls into even greater addiction. In response to this conundrum several issues have to be addressed. The Primacy and Quality of the Theological Life First of all, it has to be remembered that the dexterous functioning of the infused moral virtues is not the end of Christian life. It is not moral perfection in itself that is to be sought, but the encounter with the living God. An individual who is tormented by some moral, even addictive, weakness may still maintain an attachment to God that will lead to sanctity. In fact, God sometimes leaves a thorn in the flesh that reminds about humility and the need for basing oneself on the mysterious grace of God (2 Cor 12:7). This permission of weakness is a sign of divine 36 37 ST Ia-IIae, q. 57, a. 5: “[P]rudence . . . is necessary for a good life” (Hughes, vol. 23, 1969). ST Ia-IIae, q. 58, a. 5: “[R]ight judgment about things to be done, namely prudence, requires that a man has moral virtue”, and ad 3: “Prudence not only helps us to be of good counsel, but also to judge and command well. This is not possible unless interference from the passions, destroying the judgment and command of prudence, be removed; and this is done by moral virtue” (ibid.). 984 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. concern that saves from the worst evil, which is the self-exclusion from grace through pride.38 It is not therefore the moral virtues, acquired or infused, that are to be in the center of attention, but the theological virtues that ensure a contact with God. When faith is formed by charity, meaning that it involves a movement towards God—in Deum, because of God, who is loved above all—this movement in time transforms the entire moral ethos. All, in particular those who experience the slavery of sin and addiction, need to focus primarily not on the sin from which they would like to be freed, nor on the opposite virtue that they hope for, but on the friendly relationship with God that is to be maintained. The primacy of the theological virtues liberates from self-centeredness and from self-condemnation because, in their exercise, there is a counting in faith on the saving power of Christ, who is trusted. That is why true contemplative prayer in which faith is exercised is so fundamental. The sinner needs to believe in the supernatural quality of the faith that he has received as a divine gift and that enables him to access the power of God (Mk 5:30). Regular prayer in which the believer rests in God, believing that a contact has been established, opens to the mysterious workings of grace. Belief in the redemption generates hope, the theological virtue that gears the will towards a graced mysterious future unfolding itself in life. St. John of the Cross noted that the theological virtue of hope grows in the soul when attachment to memories is purified.39 The capacity to remember is a natural psychic function that is to be cherished. But the soul has the inclination to hold on to memories, good or bad, concerning self or others, and that attachment blocks the spiritual capacity of going forward in life. Just as it is necessary to let go of good memories, so as to affront new challenges and leave space for others, so it is necessary to let go of memories of past abuses that had been suffered and of past sins that had been committed. Forgetting is not the same as forgiving. 38 39 Aquinas, Commentary on the Letters of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, 2 Cor, 2 Co., ch. 12, l. 3, 472: “Therefore, because the matter of this vice, that is pride, is mainly found in things that are good, because its matter is good, God sometimes permits his elect to be prevented by something on their part, e.g., infirmity or some other defect, and sometimes even mortal sin, from obtaining such a good, in order that they be so humbled on this account that they will not take pride in it, and that being thus humiliated, they may recognize that they cannot stand by their own powers.” Cf. M. M. Labourdette, La foi théologale et la connaissance mystique d’après Saint Jean de la Croix (St. Maximin: Revue Thomiste, 1935) and L’espérance: “Grand cours” de théologie morale, Tome 9 (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2012), 80. Virtue and Addiction 985 Forgetting is a psychic moment, whereas forgiving is spiritual. Belief in the redeeming power of the Paschal Mystery made present in the sacraments allows for the disentanglement from paralyzing memories and from committed sins. It can be observed that those who do not believe in the Redemption are often hooked on the memory of past sufferings, and that memory is then a source of constant pain.40 Psychological training and counseling may partially alleviate this pain, but it will not liberate from it, so long as the Redemption is ignored. The virtues of faith and hope lead to charity, the divine virtue that enables the befriending of God and of others who are also the friends of God. The love of God needs to be nourished and developed so that it will structure the main focus of life. Within charity, all human needs can be trustfully and ardently presented to God. The overcoming of daily difficulties can be offered to God as a gift. Charity does not require the denial of self, a sort of disinterested approach towards God. The perception of one’s real needs and desires and an approval of them, together with an ascetic avoidance of attributing an idolatrous status to them, have a place within the loving relationship with God. The conviction that human nature is intrinsically corrupt and so self-centered that it has to be absolutely denied within charity is a Lutheran idea that inappropriately sets agapé against eros. To love God, one has to love oneself and others in view of God. Human nature, together with its passionate desires and needs, has therefore a prime place within the love of God because that nature is good, created by God.41 The relationship with God, sustained in trustful prayer and confidence in the power of grace, grants a mystical dimension to life, and so also to efforts of self-control. Asceticism can only work when it is simultaneously mystical. Even at the beginner stage, when moral disorder is enticing and drawing into its trap, the believing trusting Christian can engage in acts of love that humanly seem impossible, and yet are possible due to the power of grace.42 40 41 42 This can be clearly observed in the Jewish approach to suffering. Twomey, Moral Theology after Humanae Vitae, 150–152. Aquinas, Truth (De veritate), vol. 3 (trans. R. W. Schmidt), q. 24, a. 12, ad sc. 6: “Free choice can accordingly have choice and deliberation not only about the matters for which its own power suffices but also about those for which it needs divine help.” See also Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter on the Splendor of the Truth Veritatis splendor (Boston: St. Paul Books and Media, 1993), § 103. 986 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. The Functioning of the Will The Second issue that needs to be addressed is the correction of the understanding of the will. It is not to be expected to be endowed with a force that it does not have. Multiple difficulties with traditional Catholic moral theology derive, as Servais Pinckaers has shown, from a Nominalist understanding of the nature of the will. Once Aquinas’s interpretation of the will is understood, his presentation of the psychology of moral agency, of the virtues, and of the role of grace all fall into place. An excessive voluntarism generates false expectations about willpower, and then when seemingly the will is forced, in fact most often, it is the emotions of the irascible appetite that are stimulated, and this leads to psychic short-circuits. Some temporary alleviating solutions may then be sought for, but this will not be a true internal liberty. The main function of the will is not the obedient execution of externally imposed obligations, but love, and that love springs from within the will. The will primarily is not a force that exerts pressure on self and on others. First of all, it experiences impression, because it is attracted towards the good. This means that the freedom of the will is not arbitrary, absolute, and indifferent to value. The will has an internal determination towards happiness, which is its final end, and towards such objects that correspond with the finalities of all the other human faculties. These include the truth known by the intellect and the appropriate objects of the passions and the body.43 Thus, the will is spontaneously drawn towards the most profound and universal goods, which natural law reflection tries to enumerate. Whereas, on a more superficial level, dealing with particular goods that may be various, the will is not determined towards any given object. In this particular undetermined movement, the will does not function alone. It works in cooperation with the reason as it specifies the object of its willing, as it exercises the willing, and as that willing is tied or not tied to the ultimate finality that is appropriate for the will and the other objects that are necessary for happiness.44 In 43 44 ST Ia-IIae, q. 10, art. 1: “The beginnings of its [the will’s] motions has to be something willed naturally. This is the good as common to all things . . . also the ultimate end. . . . Moreover it embraces whatsoever answers to the nature of the person willing. . . . By nature he wills all that matches his entire ability, not just his will, for instance to know the truth, to be, to live, and so forth, indeed all that relates to the integrity he was born to have; the universal object of will embraces all these as so many particular goods” (Gilby, vol. 17, 1970). Aquinas, Truth (De veritate), vol. 3, q. 22, art. 6: “Since the will is said to be free inasmuch as it is not necessitated, the freedom of the will can be viewed in three respects: (1) as regards its act, inasmuch as it can will or not will; (2) as regards Virtue and Addiction 987 these three moments, the liberty of specification, the liberty of exercise, and the tying of what has been chosen to the deepest innate inclinations, the will cooperates with reason. As the will repeatedly works with the reason, facility in creatively choosing appropriate goods is acquired. It follows, therefore, that growth in the liberty of quality is possible. Liberty within the person is not an unchangeable, innate given. It needs to be formed. “Freedom itself needs to be set free.”45 It is worth noting that Aquinas rarely uses the term “free-will”—libera voluntas—by which, paradoxically, he means the determination of the will towards that which is in accord with its nature.46 His preferred term for human liberty is liberum arbitrium, the “free choice,” which denotes the joint action of the reason and the will.47 The fact that the reason and the will function together in a non-sequential manner, mutually influencing one another, means that the free choice is creative. The stages of intention, occasional deliberation, decision, and execution within action are all simultaneously both volitional and rational. Thus there is room for a perception and creative adherence to the true value in each one of these three or four stages. Prudence, the virtue of creative resourcefulness, assures the passage through all these stages and stimulates virtuous activity.48 Real moral life is not reduced to volitional obedience to the norms, that is, to a rubber-stamp execution of their commands as they are presented by the conscience. It does not deny the moral norms that point to the major values and exclude evil, nor does it deny the light of conscience as it alerts to moral challenges. Rather, virtuous living involves something more: the creative free choosing of the good in all 45 46 47 48 its object, inasmuch as it can will this or that, even if one is the opposite of the other; and (3) as regards its ordination to the end, inasmuch as it can will good or evil.” Cf. John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, § 86; Servais Pinckaers, Les sources de la morale chrétienne, p. 355–399; and Wojciech Giertych, “Conscience and the Liberum Arbitrium,” in Crisis of Conscience, ed. John M. Haas (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1996), 51–78. Aquinas, Truth (De veritate), vol. 3, q. 24, art. 1 ad 20: “[W]hen there is the question of the objects of appetite, we do not judge about the last end by any judgment involving discussion and examination, but we naturally approve of it. Concerning it there is no choice, but there is the will. We have in its regard a free will (liberam voluntatem) . . . but not a free judgment, properly speaking, since it does not fall under choice.” Ibid., q. 24, art. 4: “Free choice (liberum arbitrium) accordingly does not designate a habit but the power of the will and reason—one is subordinated to the other.” Cf. Daniel Westberg, Right Practical Reason; Aristotle, Action and Prudence in Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). 988 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. its richness. Failure to perceive this inventive moment in moral agency and the second role of reason, after conscience, within the free choice has limited moral awareness to a mere execution of obligations by an obedient or disobedient, supposedly absolutely indifferent and solitary will. Such a simplified understanding of moral responsibility does not invite growth in virtue and can never be fully satisfying. In fact, the suggestion that everything depends uniquely upon sheer will, which has to be forced if it is weak, generates frustration and then the search for some form of escape. To grow in virtue—that is, to grow in internal liberty—it is imperative that an innate, indeterminate, and absolute liberty, independent of all the other faculties, be not attributed to the will, for all failures are then immediately and uniquely blamed upon the culpable will. The will is not locked in absolute, indifferent isolation, and so it is susceptible to external influences, and these do not deform the dignity of the will. The will needs the support of reason, which supplies the motives for action, and it is also open to be influenced by emotional dynamism, and all this is normal. But, since we are marked by the consequences of original sin, we need time to grow in liberty, without forcing the will, learning how to use its dynamism together with other spiritual and psychic forces. Virtues can be cultivated only within a respect for the inherent finalities of the body and soul, of the sexual drive and all the other passions. The input of all the human faculties as they cooperate within the free choice needs to be affirmed and felt as good, and only then repeated acts that flow from mature and reasoned choices will contribute to the rooting of virtues in the psyche. If some addictive dependency has appeared, the fragment of true liberty that has survived needs to be developed, thereby contributing to growth in virtue. Life experience and the joy of inventive generosity that is in accord with the natural finalities of the human being form the virtues, the sum of which determines the personal character. The Christian remembers, of course, that the will is also susceptible to another correcting influence, the movement of grace. Divine influence cannot be felt in any way, but it may be recognized in faith and invited into action. Since God is the creator of human nature, he may act within the human will without in any way deforming or manipulating it. The first cause may act within the second cause in such a way that the second cause loses nothing of its dignity as it is moved by the first cause.49 The 49 ST Ia, q. 83, a. 1 ad 3: “God is the first cause on which both the natural and free agents depend. And just as his initiative does not prevent natural causes from being natural, so it does not prevent voluntary action from being voluntary but Virtue and Addiction 989 acts of the infused moral virtues are therefore fully human and fully divine at the same time. The Practical Judgment And finally, for action to be good and contributing to the growth of virtue, the instinctive practical judgment of the moral act has to be in accord with objective truth as it can be known by the speculative reason. The same reason sometimes functions in the speculative mode and sometimes in the practical mode focused on the contingent act that is about to take place. Within a moral act, there is an immediate practical judgment coupled with an inclination towards what is subjectively perceived as the truth of the practical action. Aquinas uses a number of terms—such as inclinatio, aptitudo, proportio, amor naturalis, complacentia, coaptatio, unio, consonantia, and harmonia—to describe this psychic inclination.50 The richness of the employed terminology points to the instinctive character of this movement, which is far from a purely rational reaction to arguments of cold logic. This is because this immediate inclination results also from the specific physiological characteristics of the individual. In the perception of the practical truth, the sensitive usefulness judgment (translated sometimes as the “power of cogitation”) comes into play also. This sensitive judgment is one of the internal sensitive cognitive powers (along with memory, imagination, and the sensus communis that gathers together the impressions of the external senses). The sensitive usefulness judgment is called the vis aestimativa when it appears in animals. It instinctively suggests what is useful as food or building material for a nest and what represents a danger. Since, in humans, this judgment is marked by rational knowledge, it is called the vis cogitativa. It seems to coincide with the practical reason, as it issues a judgment about future action, and hence the terminological concurrence. But the two are, in fact, not identical, because the vis cogitativa has its specific physiological location in the brain. It functions, however, as if it were a spiritual faculty of the mind, because instinctively it collates justifications and, together with memory (the power of experience) it grasps the meaning of a sensitively ascertained object, suggesting a “connatural” practical truth that is appropriate for action and emotional reaction.51 Contempo- 50 51 rather makes it precisely this” (Sutter, vol. 11, 1970). Caldera, 62–63. ST Ia, q. 78, a. 4: “And so what we call natural instinct (aestimativa) in other animals in men we call cogitation (cogitativa), which comes upon intentions of the kind in question through a process of comparison. Which is why it is also called the particular reason, to which medical scientists assign a fixed part of the 990 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. rary neurological studies of the brain have localized the organ through which moral decisions are made. It is known that its wounding impairs the capacity for practical moral reasoning.52 Neuroscience tells us only that the brain enables moral reasoning; it does not tell us why a person gives a particular reason to justify an action.53 The brain has a great plasticity, and as a result of past actions, personal decisions, and external factors, neuronal connections are made within the brain, engaging its various parts. These connections are in constant flux. They condition the sensitive reaction that instinctively judges the eventual usefulness of the perceived object.54 The brain is not to be identified with the mind, even though it is its necessary foundation. The brain is embodied in the body, but it is also embedded in the person, who is subject to various external influences, suggestions, and rational arguments, some of which are in accord with human nature and its intrinsic finality and others which are not. These external, psychic, environmental, and social factors contribute in a dynamic way to the generation and the transformation body, the middle of the head; for it compares individual intentions the way the reasoning intellect compares universal intentions.”; q. 81 a. 3: “In man . . . the power of cogitation (cogitativa) takes the place of instinct (aestimativa); some call this the particular reason because it relates and groups particular experiences. So man’s sense appetite naturally responds to it” (Suttor, vol. 11, 1970); Aquinas, Truth (De veritate), vol. 2, q. 14 a. 1 ad 9: “The cogitative power (cogitativa) is that which is highest in the sensitive part of man, and, thus, sense in some way comes in contact with the intellective part so that it participates in something of that which is lowest in the intellective part, namely discursive reason. . . . For this reason, also, the cogitative power is called the particular reason”; ibid., q. 15 a. 1: “But sometimes, the cogitative power, which is a power of the sensitive soul, is called reason, since it makes comparisons between individual forms, just as reason, properly so called, does between universal forms . . . This has a definite organ, the middle cell of the brain”; Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, trans. C. I. Litzinger (Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1993), bk. 6, l. 9, 1249: “Because singulars are properly known by the senses, it is necessary that man should have experience of these singulars (which we say are principles and ultimates) not just by exterior but by interior sense as well . . . the sensory power of judging (vim cogitativam vel aestimativam), called particular reason”; ibid., bk. 6, l. 9, 1255: “[S]o in particulars unconditional judgment about singulars belongs to the sensory power of judgment (vis cogitativa) called understanding (intellectus).” 52 It is described as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) (Walter Glannon, Brain, Body, and Mind: Neuroethics with a Human Face [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011]), 99–106. 53 Ibid., 114. 54 Rhonheimer, “Ragione morale, persona e virtù,” 185–188. Virtue and Addiction 991 of neuronal connections within the brain,55 which then condition the functioning of the sensitive usefulness judgment. In practice, therefore, the cognition of the sensitive usefulness judgement is collated with the judgment of practical reason. Their functioning in a healthy individual is such that the instinctive recognition of the practical truth and its cognition by the practical reason are basically the same. A pianist, who is moved by his artistic sense, hits the key immediately, with no preceding rational reflection.56 Speaking in a known foreign language, one immediately finds the appropriate word. The ping pong player reacts to the approaching ball more quickly than he would be able to think about it. Similarly, in virtuous action, the appropriate reaction is found directly, as it expresses the integration of the reason and will with the emotion in the grasping of the good. In technical and moral proficiency, these reactions, the meaning of which can be theoretically pondered, become automatic precisely because the sensitive judgment of the usefulness of the object and the practical recognition of the truth about it by reason combine. This Thomistic explanation could be followed through, and so it could be said that a sort of habitus is formed in the sensitive vis cogitativa that inclines towards the specific contents of this automatic cognition. It has to be called a quasi-habitus, rather than a normal habitus, because this automatic judgment is more the fruit of neuronal instinctive reactions than of conscious choice. It functions immediately, but the fact that the instinctive cognitions are specifically such is a consequence of internal bodily dispositions, of previous conscious actions, and of accustoming, as well as of external environmental and cultural influences. Thus, many of these contributing factors are conscious. It is no surprise, therefore, that some people have developed a greater facility in a given virtue than others, just as some people have technical and artistic capacities that others do not have. This is because their temperament and personal histories differ. The inclination that springs from the quasi-habitus in the usefulness judgment is experienced as being “connatural,” but it does not necessarily incline to that which objectively is in accord with human nature. If it corresponds with the fundamental finality of human nature, it contrib55 56 Glannon, Brain, Body, and Mind, 11–40. Physiological information concerning the neuroscience of ethics given by Glannon is interesting, but his ethics of neuroscience is unacceptable because it is based on an erroneous metaphysics of the person. My piano teacher used to say that we should not follow the Gospel rule “Search and you shall find.” The key is to be found without searching. 992 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. utes to the generation of virtue. If it does not, it impedes the virtue. There are people who protest against appeals to an immutable natural law because they claim that their subjective “nature” is different. There is a kernel of truth in this reaction, because the spontaneous sensitive usefulness judgment, together with its physiological backing, is changeable, and so it may direct towards that which does not correspond to objective human nature. This fact explains the possibility of training animals. Their vis aestimativa is manipulated by humans. An animal that appears in the circus does not react as its animal nature dictates, but in accord with the training that it has received from a human. Also in men, the sensitive vis cogitativa may be geared in various ways, and so it may incline to objects that are contrary to the basic finality of human nature and its components. This observation is by no means recent. Aquinas knew about this and he gave examples of distortions in the instinctive judgment of what is pleasurable. Sometimes a sick person has the impression that what is sweet is sour. There are people who, due to a particular alteration of their physiological disposition, find pleasure in eating the soil or coal. There are those who find a “connatural” pleasure in homosexual acts, sexual encounters with animals, or in cannibalism.57 It is known today that pedophiles often had been previously victims of this abuse and that this is the origin of their perverse urge. The liberation from such inclinations that are contrary to the true finality of human nature is not easy, because the quasi-habitus of the usefulness judgment, rooted in the brain, has been formed in a distorted manner. These inclinations should not be regarded as “natural,” even though they appear to be “connatural.” They contradict the natural finality of the human faculties and their objects, and so they do not lead to deep satisfaction and internal peace. Instead, they generate anxiety, in spite of the fact that the environment may approve of them. Psychic disturbances generated by this anxiety often 57 ST Ia-IIae, q. 31, a. 7: “Thus something which is ‘against human nature’ (contra naturam), either as regards reason or as regards physical preservation, may happen to be in harmony with the natural needs (connaturale) of this man because in him nature is ailing. He may be ailing physically: either from some particular complaint, as fever-patients find sweet things bitter, and vice versa; or from some dispositional disorder, as some find pleasure in eating earth or coals. He may be ailing psychologically, as some men by habituation come to take pleasure in cannibalism, or in copulation with beasts or with their own sex, or in other things not accord with human nature” (E. D’Arcy, vol. 20, 1975). Cf. Anthony C. Daly, “Aquinas on Disordered Pleasures and Conditions,” The Thomist, 56 (1992): 583–612. Virtue and Addiction 993 lead to an obsessive search for gratification or for some other means to alleviate the pain. This is an easy step towards addictions that contradict virtue. The seeming conundrum of moral virtue integrating the emotions with the reason and the will through reference to the practical truth is therefore resolved without a vicious circle. Ordered affectivity can be the criterion of practical truth on the condition that it is understood that affectivity is ordered only when it is in accord with its natural finality, leading towards its appropriate object. But it is known that the practical reason and the vis cogitativa do not always incline towards an object that truly corresponds with the natural finality of the will and the emotions. This inclination is sometimes corrupted, and then an object of the instinctive practical cognition is experienced as “connatural,” while in fact it is unnatural. Thus, it generates a resistance against virtue. But what truly is in accord with objective nature elicits a deep and authentic “connaturality” springing from interior coherence, and it is the source of happiness. Nature supports the inclination towards the true good, whereas the distortion of nature disintegrates the person and leads to anxiety. True “connaturality” may, therefore, initially have to struggle against a rooted distorted inclination that had been acquired and is experienced as being “connatural.” Only when false interior psychic mechanisms have been reworked so as to be in accord with the inherent finality of nature will a true “connatural” reaction contributing to virtue appear. The changeability of brain structures, conscious opposition to demoralizing environmental influences, and a religious conversion facilitate in this, but it is known that the plasticity of the brain declines with age, and so liberation from deeply rooted disorders becomes more difficult with time. This explanation is based upon the philosophical perception that beings are endowed with finality. The fundamental inclination towards appropriate ends is metaphysical and not necessarily psychological, even though conformity with basic finalities elicits psychological reactions. The choice of individual moral acts has, therefore, to take into account the deepest finalities of the will and of the other faculties of the body and soul that incline towards their appropriate objects.58 All faculties 58 ST Ia, q. 78, a. 1 ad 3: “For a thing is desired as it is in reality”, ibid., q. 80, a. 1, ad 3: “each [power of the soul] by natural appetite reaches for the right object” (Suttor, vol. 11, 1970); ST Ia-IIae, q. 26, a. 1 ad 3: “[E]verything has a built-in sense of affinity (connaturalitam) with whatever accords with its nature” (Suttor, vol. 19, 1967). 994 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. and their objects have an inherent meaning. The finalities of the human composite are not a subject of free choice because they are determined by nature. Nature is given, whereas the means leading to the ends are chosen through the liberty of specification and the liberty of exercise. What is decisive, therefore, is whether the inherent finality of the objects of choice have been perceived and respected, or not, because it is this finality that is the ultimate measure of truth for the practical reason, and it attributes rectitude to the affective faculties engaged in choice.59 Returning to the examples of distorted pleasure given by Aquinas, the respect for human life, which is fundamental for human nature, attributes moral value to the choice of means. Thus, the eating of coal or of human flesh is not an appropriate object for the feeling of hunger. Practical truth that is in accord with the finalities of nature is grasped instinctively as such, and so a specialized intellectual formation is not required for moral rectitude. Whenever the practical truth is recognized and accepted, it generates a resonance in the affectivity that sustains moral virtue. Growth in virtue does not then require any extraordinary effort. It comes about automatically. But where the reason has been geared into scepticism and does not trust its own capacities, and where the vis cogitativa has been distorted through an accumulation of sins and external deforming influences, a reference to speculative truths about the finalities of the basic objects of willing and a teaching of the “grammar” of moral action will be useful. But more than a theoretical understanding is needed for moral conversion. The distorted quasi-habitus in the vis cogitativa has to be undone. Resistances Against Virtue When the instinctive perception of the object of practical cognition is incorrect, it elicits a distorted accompanying affective reaction and all this becomes an obstacle to moral virtue. The reasons for this are Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, bk. 6, l. 2, 1131: “[T]he end and the means pertain to the appetitive faculty, but the end is determined for man by nature. . . . On the contrary the means are not determined for us by nature but are to be investigated by reason. So it is obvious that the rectitude of the appetitive faculty in regard to the end is the measure of truth for the practical reason. According to this the truth of the practical reason is determined by agreement with a right appetitive faculty. But the truth of the practical reason itself is the rule of the appetitive faculty, in regard to the means. According to this, then, the appetitive faculty is called right inasmuch as it pursues the things that reason calls true.” 59 Virtue and Addiction 995 multiple, both internal and external,60 coming from habituation and cultural influences. Deformed inclinations and specific conditionings color the perception of truth. It is known that thinking often follows instinctive inclinations and actions, trying to justify what has been previously decided. This does not mean that change is impossible.61 A certain type of music may be instinctively appreciated, but an individual can develop a taste for music coming from a different culture. The reactions of a driver in Britain are instinctive, but new reactions can be acquired on the European continent with driving on the right and not on the left. Similarly, liberation from deformed moral reactions is possible62 on the condition that the object of the instinctive practical cognition will be perceived in its truth. Sometimes the instinctive perception of the practical truth is only partial, failing to note the fullness of truth and the inherent finality of reality, and this limited perception impedes then the appropriate virtue. A clear example of this can be seen in the realm of chastity. Human sexuality has two finalities, the unitive and the procreative, both of which have to be recognized by the practical reason as the appropriate object of sexual passion.63 When, due to the endorsement of the contraceptive Aquinas, Truth (De veritate), vol. 1 (trans. R. W. Mulligan), q. 1, a. 11: “[T]he spontaneous action of a thing always takes place in one way, unless by accident it is impeded intrinsically by some defect or extrinsically by some impediment. Consequently, the judgment of sense about proper sensibles is always true unless there is an impediment in the organ or in the medium.” 61 ST Ia, q. 83, a. 1 ad 5: “[A]ccording to the constitution of the individual, so fulfilment appears to him, for his temperament disposes him to choose or reject a thing. But these dispositions are subject to rational decision” (Suttor, vol. 11, 1970). 62 Caldera, 92–94. 63 Bl. Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Letter on Human Life Humanae Vitae. Cf. the Latin version given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis LX (30 Septembris, Cf. the Latin version given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis LX (30 Septembris 1968), §§ 11–12, pp. 488–489: “It is necessary that each conjugal act remain ordained in itself to the procreating of human life. “This doctrine… is based on the inseparable connection (nexu indissolubili), established by God, which Man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance, both of which are inherent to the marriage act. Due to the intrinsic nature of this connection (intimam suam rationem), the conjugal act which unites husband and wife in the closest of bonds renders them also apt (idoneos) to bring forth new life, according to laws written into the nature of males and females. And if both of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, are preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme mission of parenthood to which Man is called.” This is my own trans60 996 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. mentality, there is an automatic mental and affective exclusion of the procreative moment, the unitive moment acquires an autonomous prominence and becomes a sort of idol. Having a unique status, the unitive moment expects full satisfaction. But, sexual desire reaching out only to a half-truth of its fitting object cannot be true to itself. Such truncated, so-called “safe” sexual passion denies the procreative truth of sexuality, of the sexual partner, and of the responsibility that parenthood entails, and so it does not express true love. It can never therefore be fully satisfying. In consequence, the desire becomes insatiable, constantly demanding gratification, and as a result, it cannot be easily integrated within the virtue of chastity. Thus, it leads to egoist abuses and sexual addiction. It goes without saying that a proper perception of the inherent finalities of sexuality and their emotional approval are necessary for growth in chastity, not only within married life but also in the life of celibates. The phenomenon of a faulty perception of the object of emotional reactions that appears clearly in sexual addiction can also be discerned in respect to other emotions. The assertive emotions of hope, audacity, and anger supply the psychic force to undertake the challenges of personal and social life. When responsibility for one’s life is understood to be inappropriate because it is totally forbidden by a superior power, the untrue or half-true object of the practical reason does not then meet with a normal emotional reaction that would offer a necessary stimulus in life and would be directed with ease. Such a neurotic blocking of justified aspirations leads to nefarious consequences. People living under totalitarian regimes where personal initiatives and grass-roots social responsibility are deemed to be totally unfitting have a false idea of the object of their psychic energy. In Russia, the internal inhibition of personal aspirations and social activity generates profound psychic wounds. As a result people react with brutality, they can be easily manipulated, and often they fall into alcoholism of proportions unimagined in Western civil societies.64 64 lation of this fragment of the encyclical. Most translations (including those on the Vatican website, and the Polish translation quoted by St. John Paul II in his theology of the body—Mężczyzną i niewiastą stworzył ich [Lublin: KUL, 2008), 360]) ignore the comma after the intimam suam rationem and then interpret this phrase as referring to the physical union of husband and wife and not to the nexus, the connection between the unitive and procreative significances. This greatly weakens the fundamental message. Furthermore, the current translations suggest that the mere physical intimate union of the spouses makes them apt (idoneos) to receive life. This is not true. Abortion, divorce and paternal indifference with the abandonment of single mothers prove the opposite. The psychological shock of the election of St. John Paul II and his cry, “Do not Virtue and Addiction 997 In another context, when the emotions of anger or sadness have as their object a parent who has miserably failed in parental responsibilities, the emotional life of the child is deeply wounded. The combining of justified negative emotional reactions with a natural attachment to the parent can be extremely perplexing. The resulting emotional disorders are a breeding ground for all sorts of addictive behaviors. Generally, those who fall into drug addiction do so not because they have a too strong desire for pleasurable experiences offered by the drug, but because they are suffering a deep and perplexing sadness that they do not know how to handle, and so they escape to the addiction. The Handling of the Emotions The emotions, being a part of the bodily component of man, are intrinsically good. They are to be appreciated as such, not only rationally, but also in the instinctive assessment of their movement. Humans have the same set of emotional reactions as animals, but these are located within a perception and appreciation of their universal meaning. In moments of hunger, desire, sexual attraction, fear, ambition, or anger the human being can perceive and understand the object of the passionate movement as participating in the universal true good and therefore can move towards that object appropriately, respecting wider concerns, the needs of others, and other issues that may have a greater immediate importance. As the free choice directs the emotions to the good, it approves their basic dynamism because it takes into account their natural finality and the rational consistency and finality of their appropriate objects that are grasped. The reason does not necessarily have to have an in-depth speculative knowledge of moral objects so as to direct the emotions. It is sufficient that, functioning as the practical reason together with the vis cogitativa, it perceives the inherent significance of the object to which the emotion is moving. But if a basic error appears in the assessment of that object, then also the emotional reaction to it will be faulty. Aquinas, with his common sense and optimistic approach, attributed a due place to the passions in his moral synthesis. They are to be neither denied nor elevated to prime rank in action. Within their natural structure, the emotions have a need for cooperation and recognition of the directive guidance of the spiritual powers, but they also have their own dignity. For this reason Aquinas located the virtues of temperance and fortitude within the passions themselves. In this he disagreed with St. be afraid,” had a liberating effect upon the repressed Catholic societies of the communist world. 998 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. Bonaventure, who located these cardinal virtues in the will. The Franciscan imagined that the virtuous individual has to constantly restrain the wild force of the passions by sheer will-power. The Dominican appreciated the positive value and colorfulness that the emotions give to life, and so he did not expel them from virtue. Both when the emotions are directed by reason within the natural acquired virtues and when they are directed by the believing reason that is open to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit within the infused moral virtues, they retain their richness and affective charm. This is because they have within themselves an innate openness to this higher guidance.65 Even though Aquinas did not work out a phenomenology of psychic disorders because in his major synthesis he presented the graced individual who is an icon of God, he was aware of the fact that the emotions can be handled badly, as when they do not cooperate with the reason and the will or when other emotions try to stamp out an undesired emotion. Precisely for this reason, Aquinas differentiated between chastity and continence. Chastity is a virtue allied with temperance, and therefore it is located within the sexual appetite itself that it domesticates. Continence is not a virtue but an emergency restraining reaction located in the will, without any cooperation of the emotions.66 The example of a neurotic mechanism that Aquinas gave was the internal blocking of sadness and anger resulting in their explosion and not integration. This happens when fear of punishment replaces the guiding force of the reason and pretends to be the conscience.67 Such basically neurotic reactions do not 65 66 67 ST Ia-IIae, q. 74, a. 3 [ ad 1]: “Likewise, in us the sense appetite excels that of all other animals in that it was made to be moved by the reason” (J. Fearon, vol.25, 1969); ST Ia-IIae, q. 68, a. 4: “But to be moved by the command of reason is in accord with the nature of the faculties of appetite, likewise, to be moved by the prompting of God, as by a higher power, is in accord with the nature of all man’s faculties” (E. D. O’Connor, vol, 24, 1974). ST IIa-IIae, q. 155, a. 4: “Now intelligence burgeons more in the temperate than in the continent, because by temperance the sensory appetite itself is subordinated and as it were wholly possessed by mind, whereas with continence its low desires remain rebellious” (Gilby, vol. 44, 1972). Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, trans. F. R. Larcher (Lander: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012), ch. 5, l. 6 (454): “[I]nternal affections, when they are kept within and permitted no outlet, burn the more strongly within. This is clear in sorrow and anger which, when they are kept within, continually increase; but if they are given any kind of release outwardly, their vigor is dissipated. But a prohibition, since it threatens a penalty, compels man not to give outward expression to his desire, so that, being kept within, it burns more vigorously.” Virtue and Addiction 999 generate virtue. Instead, they produce the exact opposite, disordered, obsessive, and compulsive reactions that are outside the control of the spiritual faculties. It is within such faulty mechanisms that addictions are born. The precise individuation of human faculties and of the two sets of emotions that are the concupiscible and the irascible appetites worked out by classical psychology allows for an explanation of neurosis that is clearer and more convincing than the one offered by Sigmund Freud. The Viennese psychiatrist discovered that an emotion can be repressed within the psyche, from which it occasionally erupts in a disordered and compulsive manner. Freud attributed the repressing power to the superego, which he understood as being a mixture of internal psychic forces and external social and moral pressures. He therefore postulated the liberation from such external moral formation. The results of this cure have turned out to be disastrous. He was correct, however, in noting the phenomenon of repression. The Dutch psychiatrists Anna A. Terruwe and Conrad W. Baars found that neurosis can be explained better with the help of Thomistic terms.68 They defined it as the repression of one emotion conducted by another emotion, most often coming from the parallel appetite. The emotion of fear or the emotions of energy that are within the irascible appetite are to serve the emotions of the concupiscible appetite so that they may attain their appropriate end. When, instead, they stifle them, appearing as a wedge between the concupiscible emotions and reason, neurosis results. In the language of pastoral experience and theology, this mechanism can be described as scrupulosity and Pelagianism. The scrupulous individual panics about past and future, real and imaginary sins, and tries to exclude his nascent feelings through the only force which he trusts, his fear. The Pelagian, on the contrary, has a resolute confidence in the power of his psychic emotional energy composed of the emotions of hope and audacity that he often mistakenly treats as the will, and using that energy, he tries to exclude the undesired emotions of the concupiscible appetite, be they the sexual desire or other fascinations and their opposites. In neurosis, the undesired emotions are not necessarily understood as being evil, but they are felt as being intrinsically inappropriate because the instinctive practical cognition of their objects is faulty, and so as a result, the emotions are repressed, meaning that they are as if buried alive. Since they cannot be permanently excised, they reappear 68 Psychic Wholeness and Healing: Using ALL the Powers of the Human Psyche (New York: Alba House, 1981). 1000 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. in a compulsive, un-free manner, leading to actions that are addictive. The habitual repression of an undesired emotion springs from the erroneous perception of the object of practical cognition by the vis cogitativa. Since, this is in part the result of a faulty education and of environmental influences, Freud was correct in claiming that the repressing superego contains something more than just internal psychic factors. When, following a distorted surrounding culture, the object of practical cognition is interpreted in a manner that is contrary to its inherent finality, it must fail to elicit a harmonious reaction of its corresponding emotion. That emotion is then experienced as something disturbing, and so another emotion attempts to repress it. Furthermore, if the moral law had always been presented not as a rational guidance to be received rationally, but as a voluntarist force demanding immediate ad nutum obedience, this also must result in negative emotional reactions. Thus, in pondering on emotional disorders that are conducive to addictions, the objects of the major emotional movements and their inherent finalities need to be reflected on so that they will be aptly grasped by the practical reason. These fundamental emotional drives are the sexual drive and emotional assertiveness, since they enable procreation and the resilient undertaking of life’s challenges. Only the derailment of these basic drives generates neurosis and its consequent obsessive-compulsive reactions. Other emotions and their objects do not have such a fundamental importance, but they too can also be drawn into distorted addictive behavior. A neurotic approach to sexuality may provoke the addictive consumption of sweets serving as a replacement of the emotional sweetness that is hungered for. Growth in the moral virtues that govern the emotional sphere can take place only when the emotions are approved of, felt as being fundamentally good, and then guided by the free choice, in which the practical reason, together with the instinctive backing of the vis cogitativa, cooperates with the will, moving towards the true, rather than the falsely presented, good. Furthermore, when there is an attachment to God through faith and charity, the emotions can collaborate with the spiritual powers with ease, speed, and joy. They thus supply a bodily charm to the infused moral virtues that are located within them. Conclusion Neuroscience offers a helpful input into the study of psychology and human agency. It observes permanent changes in the brain that occur as a result of addictive substance abuse. It can propose pharmacological aids that alleviate anxieties. The pertinent observations of neuroscience can Virtue and Addiction 1001 therefore be integrated into a comprehensive understanding of human nature, composed of body and spirit and open to the transforming power of grace. It cannot, however, be concluded that the results of the empirical sciences furnish the only possible knowledge and the ultimate explanation of both good and distorted moral action, of virtue, sin, and addictions. Such a conclusion would be an unjustified metaphysical claim denying reality to what is not perceptible through empirical cognitive methods. Neurological observations describe only what is happening in the body, and so they cannot judge the spiritual sphere, even as they observe the mutual correspondence of the body and spirit. A speculative description of psychic and moral mechanisms should not therefore be questioned. Nor should openness to grace be questioned. An act of faith and its ensuing act of charity can be conscious, made uniquely for the love of God, and since such acts are psychologically and socially observable, they probably also are accompanied by some neurological changes that are subject to empirical observation. Grace itself cannot be measured by empirical methods, but mental states resulting from belief in God and his grace can. Spiritual problems have to be resolved in a spiritual way, even when they have psychic and physiological repercussions. The problem of addiction and the corresponding question of growth in virtue are fundamentally spiritual issues. Moral conversion is a process, and time is needed for it. The Christian, even when he is burdened by repeated sin, prays: “May your healing work, O Lord, free us, we pray, from doing evil and lead us to what is right.”69 The infused virtues are born of grace, and so they are genitum non factum, begotten not produced. Their development, being the fruit of the fecundity of grace, has to pass through progressive purifications, some of which are actively undertaken through ascetic effort, and others are passive, meaning that they are forced by God Himself. It is obvious that the passive purifications are more fruitful. Grace fits nature, and so it can elicit within human nature the charm of the children of God responding creatively and generously to the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:14) in the life of the infused virtues. At the same time, however, it has to be remembered that grace is a foreign body within nature, and so its healing influence, like that of a surgeon’s knife or of a virus, generates a feverish reaction. Not every rebellious phase is a sign of moral perversion. Sometimes, in the case of the believing Christian, it is a sign that grace is at work. Crises are necessary stages that force a true conversion. It is not uniquely adornment with virtues that grace is 69 Prayer after Communion, 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time. 1002 Wojciech Giertych, O.P. ultimately building in the soul, but transparency to the movement of the N&V grace of the Holy Spirit. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1003–1008 1003 Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal and the Meaning of Marriage Mats Wahlberg Umeå University Umeå, Sweden What does it mean to contract a sacramental marriage in the Catholic Church? According to current Catholic doctrine, to marry someone means—at a very minimum—to make the following commitment: (M): I bind myself to my spouse in such a way that from now on, and as long as the marriage bond exists, I cannot voluntarily (while being in full possession of my mental faculties) have sexual relations with anybody else, without thereby committing a grave sin. Marriage is an exclusive bond between two people, and to consciously and willingly violate it is to incur grave guilt. This is received Catholic teaching. Now, suppose that we would insert an exception clause into the formula above, so that it expresses a more qualified commitment. Marriage, according to this modified understanding, means that: (MM): I bind myself to my spouse in such a way that from now on, and as long as the marriage bond exists, I cannot, except under certain circumstances, voluntarily have sexual relations with anybody else, without thereby committing a grave sin. Would this insertion change the Catholic doctrine of marriage? It is hard to deny that it would. Marriage according to MM—unlike marriage 1004 Mats Wahlberg according to M—is morally compatible with extra-marital sexual relations, under certain circumstances. This is clearly an innovation. Cardinal Walter Kasper has presented a famous proposal for allowing some divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion. He claims that his proposal is purely pastoral, and that it has no implications for the Catholic doctrine of marriage. I will now demonstrate that this claim is false. Kasper’s proposal entails that marriage must be understood in accordance with MM instead of M, which means that the proposal changes the meaning of the marriage commitment. The Cardinal’s proposal has two parts. The first part concerns cases in which the original marriage may possibly be invalid. This part of the proposal will not concern me here, but only the second, more controversial part, which deals with cases where the validity of the first marriage is not in question. Kasper suggests that divorced and remarried persons whose first marriage is valid should be allowed to receive the Sacraments of Penance and Communion after a process of discernment, provided that they satisfy certain conditions: If a divorced and remarried person is truly sorry that he or she has failed in the first marriage, if the commitments from the first marriage are clarified and a return is definitively out of the question, if he or she cannot undo the commitments that were assumed in the second civil marriage without new guilt, if he or she strives to the best of his or her abilities to live out the second civil marriage on the basis of faith and to raise their children in the faith . . . do we then have to refuse or can we refuse him or her the sacrament of penance and communion, after a period of reorientation?1 Kasper is very careful to declare his adherence to the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage, so his idea is not that the first marriage should be regarded as dissolved. Neither is his idea that people who persist in grave sin (adultery) should receive Communion—this would be a very obvious break with Catholic doctrine. What he seems to suggest, instead, is that people who satisfy the conditions listed above should not be counted as unrepentant sinners. After all, they seem to be caught in a situation from which there is no escape, except by taking measures that might incur new moral guilt (such as breaking up the family of the second, civil marriage). Walter Kasper, The Gospel of the Family, 32 (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2014). 1 Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal and the Meaning of Marriage 1005 That this is how Kasper sees things becomes clear when he discusses Pope Benedict XVI’s suggestion that divorced and remarried persons may receive spiritual Communion even though they cannot receive Communion sacramentally. Kasper says that this suggestion raises questions: “For the one who receives spiritual communion [in this case the remarried divorcee] is one with Jesus Christ. How can he or she then be in contradiction to Christ’s commandment?”2 This is a rhetorical question, and Kasper’s answer is that he or she cannot. Divorced and remarried persons who are caught in a moral dilemma and try to make the best of their present situation are not in contradiction to Christ’s commandment against adultery. Supposedly, they must have contradicted this commandment earlier when they contracted the second marriage, but Kasper seems to hold that at least when children have entered the picture, the moral situation has changed so that a divorced and remarried Catholic can have sexual relations with his or her second spouse without thereby sinning gravely. And if the divorced and remarried person has confessed and received absolution for his or her past adulterous behavior, he or she can now receive Holy Communion. It is unclear whether Kasper means that the act of having intercourse with a second spouse is objectively wrong even though subjective culpability (and hence sinfulness) may be lacking, or that the act itself is not objectively wrong because the circumstances surrounding it have changed the moral species of the act. For my part, it is very hard to understand how subjective culpability could be lacking if the sexual act itself is objectively wrong. What we are talking about here, after all, are persons who voluntarily and willingly engage in sexual activity while being in full possession of their mental faculties. So it is more probable that Kasper views the act itself—seen in its proper context—as morally unproblematic, due to the special circumstances that surround it. This interpretive issue need not detain us here, however, because it is clear in any case that Kasper believes that a married Catholic can, under certain circumstances, voluntarily, willingly, and with full knowledge of what he or she is doing, have sex with somebody who is not his or her legitimate spouse, without thereby incurring subjective guilt—that is, without thereby sinning gravely. This means that Kasper rejects the understanding of Catholic marriage represented by proposition M above, in favor of MM. It could be argued that this change in the Catholic doctrine of marriage is of little significance, because it consists merely in the addi Ibid., 30. 2 1006 Mats Wahlberg tion of an exception clause (“except under certain circumstances”) to a general principle that still holds good. But an exception clause can undermine a general principle if the circumstances that allow the exceptions are common enough. For example, if we were to say that stealing is generally forbidden except for people who have below average income, then we would clearly have introduced an exception clause that largely undermines the principle. The question, then, is how common the circumstances are that— according to Kasper’s proposal—can allow for exceptions from the principle that breaches of marital fidelity are gravely sinful. Those circumstances seem to be rather common. The very reason why Kasper drafted his proposal is that many people in our society have divorced, remarried, and started a new family. We can also imagine that the frequency of Catholic divorces will increase in the future, and that remarriage after a divorce will become more popular. We could, for example, imagine a situation in which a great majority of Catholic marriages end in divorce, and in which a great majority of those who have divorced also civilly remarry. In such a situation, the exception clause might have direct relevance for most Catholics. It is important, in this context, not to be misled by Kasper’s insistence that his proposal “is not a broad path for the great masses, but a narrow path for the indeed smaller segment of divorced and remarried individuals who are honestly interested in the sacraments”.3 It is true that in order for an individual to be allowed to receive Communion, the individual must (according to Kasper’s proposal) have genuine faith and be prepared to go down a penitential path. But this is not of relevance here, for the morality of acts of extra-marital sex cannot depend on whether the persons who perform them have faith and are interested in receiving the sacraments or not. An immoral act does not become less immoral because the person who performs it is a serious believer. So even if it is true that only a small minority of people might be sufficiently devoted to be eligible to receive Communion, there are many other divorced and remarried Catholics who in moral respects are in the same situation as the devoted few. If the ones who want Communion can sleep with their second spouse without sinning, then so can many of those who are not interested in Communion. Moreover, even though only a minority of married Catholics will actually “take advantage” of the exception clause, Kasper’s proposal Ibid., 32–33. 3 Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal and the Meaning of Marriage 1007 entails that the clause is an integral part of all Catholic marriages. The possibility to have sinless sex outside of one’s marriage (under certain circumstances) will exist for everyone who gets married in the Catholic Church. This means that the Cardinal’s proposal deprives people of a certain power that the Church has hitherto ascribed to them—namely, the power to commit themselves in a morally binding way to a lifelong and exclusive relationship. People can certainly get married, and they can promise to be faithful, but they cannot—if Kasper is right—totally renounce the possibility of having morally guiltless sex with somebody besides their legitimate spouse. This possibility will always be left open, even for those who (presently) do not want it to be left open. These consequences follow with logical inevitability if we accept that the moral dilemmas that confront some divorced and remarried Catholics can take away the moral guilt of having extra-marital sex. To accept that it can is to add an exception clause to the doctrine that voluntary extra-marital sex is always sinful. What if a married couple would attempt to get rid of this exception clause by promising never to be sexually unfaithful to each other under any circumstances? Well, is not this what the Church has always taken the marriage vows to mean? If Kasper is right that married people can nevertheless have sinless sex with a second partner after a divorce, why would it make a difference if a couple were to spell out the meaning of the wedding vows more clearly? The duty to preserve one’s second family after a remarriage can apparently override any promises that one has made to one’s first spouse. When a person breaks an irreversible, morally binding commitment of the kind that Catholic marriage has so far been thought to represent and maneuvers herself into a situation where she has important responsibilities toward a second spouse and children, what we have is a tragic situation. Such situations call for heroic responses. They do not have solutions that make everybody happy. The Church’s traditional recommendation is that the civilly married couple practice sexual continence. This is clearly a very imperfect solution. It is difficult to realize in practice, and there is no guarantee that it will succeed in preserving the children of the second marriage from harm. However, to acknowledge that two people are capable of giving themselves to one another in an irreversible and morally binding way is to accept the possibility of tragedy. You cannot believe in the possibility of this kind of commitment without acknowledging the possibility of 1008 Mats Wahlberg tragedy. This is simply because a morally binding, lifelong commitment that excludes sexual relations except with one particular person excludes this regardless of what happens in the future. Regardless of what other relationships and responsibilities one may enter into or shoulder later on in life. Either we must say that commitments of this very consequential and demanding kind are impossible for humans to make, or we must accept that people who make them may possibly end up in tragic circumstances. Kasper’s proposal commits us to the first alternative: commitments of this kind are impossible to make. Any commitment that a person makes can always be defeated by things that happen down the road. This is why the Cardinal’s proposal is far from doctrinally innocent. If it carries the day within the Catholic Church, future Catholic couples will contract marriages that (they believe) are compatible with having morally innocent sex with a third party, under certain circumstances. Circumstances, moreover, that can be consciously brought about by anyone who really wants to start all over again with a new life partner. N&V This would be truly tragic. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1009–1057 1009 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be: Creaturely Possibility, Divine Ideas and the Creator’s Will in Thomas Aquinas Paul J. DeHart Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN Among those philosophers carrying the inheritance of Thomas Aquinas into contemporary intellectual engagements, one of the most creative and penetrating was James F. Ross, who taught at the University of Pennsylvania for almost five decades until his death in 2010. His deep insights into the great medieval thinker were expressed in a forbidding prose style, at once repetitive and elusive; often they were not foregrounded, but emerged by way of their incorporation into his own constructive project. Though he was deeply critical of the unquestioned canons and hidden ontological presuppositions that masquerade as common sense in much so-called “analytic” philosophy, he tended to stick to the reigning Anglo-American philosophical argot, avoiding the common Thomist terms of art. It is perhaps for these reasons, to say nothing of an approach to reviewing the books of colleagues that could sometimes be brutal, that his influence has not yet matched his stature. In specialist Thomist circles he is perhaps best known for his provocative intervention in a recent controversy concerning the status of the divine ideas in Aquinas. The language of ideas, though rooted in ancient Platonism, had for centuries been taken up into Christian theology in order to express the eternal knowledge God has of the various creatures, a knowledge that “precedes” and creatively grounds them. Aquinas, like most other medievals, readily adopted the notion, responding to the authoritative weight of its usage by Augustine and Dionysius but adapting it to fit into his 1010 Paul J. DeHart own framework of thought.1 Especially in the twentieth century, scholars began arguing vigorously about the precise motive for this adoption and the precise nature of this adaptation. The particular issue that Ross addressed concerned what should be, in Aquinas’s scheme, the systematic relationship between God’s ideas, God’s will, and the possibilities of things prior to their creation or, more radically, of those things which will never be created. Opposing himself mainly to two very distinguished Aquinas interpreters—Lawrence Dewan, O.P. and John F. Wippel (who themselves were responding to earlier stages of the debate)—Ross criticized any account of the divine ideas that characterized them as an infinite set of discrete items, objects of God’s eternal knowledge, each corresponding exactly to some creatable possibility, whether actually realized in time by the divine will or not.2 Ross admitted that, in many places, Aquinas’s language could easily be interpreted on such lines. But what he called “photo-exemplarism” had to be wrong, he argued, both because of how individuation works in Aquinas and because of how the latter conceives the radicality of the creative act. On the one hand, it is dubious “to think that ‘the realm of the contingent’ determinately decomposes into actual and possible individuals and common natures, or into exemplar ideas for them”; hence, “[d]ecomposition into individuals may be a consequence of creation, but not an exemplar condition for it.” Put another way, “there cannot be a domain of ‘all possible creatures’ or ‘every possible individual of every possible kind’ because there is nothing to ‘divide’ being into ‘all possible kinds’: there can be no individuated mere possibilities, no definite ‘elder brother you might have had.’”3 On the other hand, because God creates ex nihilo not just individuals but A valuable and thorough survey of the ancient developments and their appropriation by Aquinas is provided in Vivian Boland, O.P., Ideas in God According to Saint Thomas Aquinas: Sources and Synthesis (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996). 2 Lawrence Dewan, O.P., “St. Thomas and the Possibles,” The New Scholasticism 53, no. 1 (1979): 76–85; John F. Wippel, “The Reality of Nonexisting Possibles According to Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Godfrey of Fontaines,” The Review of Metaphysics 34, no. 4 (1981): 729–758; James F. Ross, “Aquinas’s Exemplarism, Aquinas’s Voluntarism,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 64, no. 2 (1990): 171–198. Dewan responded in “St. Thomas, James Ross, and Exemplarism: A Reply,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 65, no. 2 (1991): 221–234. Ross answered in turn with “Response to Maurer and Dewan,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 65, no. 2 (1991): 235–243. Though Ross addressed mainly Wippel in his original essay, he noted in his response to Dewan (237, fn. 1) that the latter’s “seminal” paper had also been in his mind from the beginning. 3 Ross, “Aquinas’s Exemplarism,” 174. 1 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1011 kinds and, indeed, defined possibilities for creatures, the “domain” of his power “is realized with its exercise. . . . God’s power has no exemplar objects, only a perimeter (that is, finite being) plus a limit (that of internal consistency, compatibility with the divine being).”4 Of course, Ross concedes that Aquinas does indeed say that God’s knowledge of created things, and of every possibly creatable but never actual thing, is rooted in his perfect comprehension of his essence, of which all creatures are nothing more than modes of participation. Thus he knows all possible creatures. But it was Ross’s contention that this should not lead us to imagine God being “confronted,” as it were, by an eternal range of possible products unavoidably and already given in his self-understanding, from which he “selects” some to actualize: “creation is not ‘adding actuality’ to a possible world.”5 On his more voluntarist reading of Aquinas, the divine will has a more central and creative role to play than simply providing “instantiations” of already constituted possibilities. However, to the degree that his argument has found detailed engagement, beginning with Dewan himself, it has not been received sympathetically.6 To be sure, there has been little discussion of Ross’s detailed position on the inherent logical and metaphysical flaws in the “photo-exemplarist” account. Instead, the retort to him has been that, whatever its weaknesses, something like “photo-exemplarism” was evidently behind Aquinas’s discussions of divine ideas. What follows is based on the conviction that Ross, though his specific readings of some Aquinas passages may be in need of adjustment here and there, offers, on the whole, a more appropriate and satisfying way of interpreting Aquinas. It will be an attempt to offer a fresh reading James F. Ross, “God, Creator of Kinds and Possibilities: Requiescant universalia ante res,” in Rationality, Religious Belief and Moral Commitment, eds. Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 318–319. 5 Ibid., 318. 6 Besides the reply of Dewan cited above, see John F. Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas on the Divine Ideas [1993],” in The Gilson Lectures on Thomas Aquinas, ed. James P. Reilly (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2008), 132, where Wippel dismisses Ross in a footnote and refers the reader to Dewan; Aaron Martin, “Reckoning with Ross: Possibles, Divine Ideas, and Virtual Practical Knowledge,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 78 (2005): 193–208; and Gregory T. Doolan, “Is Thomas’s Doctrine of Divine Ideas Thomistic?” in Wisdom’s Apprentice: Thomistic Essays in Honor of Lawrence Dewan, O.P., ed. Peter A. Kwasniewski (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007). Doolan offers similar comments in Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008). 4 1012 Paul J. DeHart of the Aquinas evidence in order to secure the possibility that Ross’s insights into what creation means and what ideas are can, in fact, be defended. The basic problem to be acknowledged at the beginning, and which affects the entire debate, is the scanty and ambiguous nature of that evidence. Especially on the central issue of divine ideas and their relation to what I will be calling non-existents (i.e. possibilities open to the creator’s power but never realized, as opposed to actual creatures), Aquinas has some things to say, but not much. In fact, the sporadic and compressed nature of his comments invites us to see here an issue which did not seem to him worthy of too much attention. By the end of the entire discussion that will now ensue, it is at least to be hoped that the marginality of the issue for him will not seem strange. In the meantime, it must be admitted that much of what follows is tentative and that the position outlined for Aquinas will be partly speculative, an attempt to think “with Aquinas” and, under his guidance, to draw some conclusions he never troubled to formulate definitively. His writings will not warrant, I believe, much more than that. The hoped-for result will not be a triumphant refutation of Ross’s opponents, but rather the delineation of a space in Aquinas’s thought within which Ross’s account can be located and find genuine support. The first three sections will each examine one important aspect of Aquinas’s way of thinking about divine ideas in general; the collective relevance of these positions to our problem has not received sufficient attention. The fourth and fifth sections will marshal this data, drawing out their possible implications in order to attempt an imaginative fleshing out of Aquinas’s nowhere fully-stated mature position on the divine knowledge of non-existents. This speculative construction will provide the positive counterpart to the negative thesis of the paper, showing how Aquinas can be read as envisioning a divine knowledge of non-existents quite distinct from his knowledge of creatures, a kind of knowing that points us away from a “photo-exemplarist” array of discrete ideas of possibles eternally in God’s mind, complete with all potential details of concrete state and interrelations (thus replicating the sort of knowledge God admittedly has of actual creatures). While the fourth section will present Aquinas’s vision by focusing on the more central role of the Divine Will in the content of the divine knowing, the fifth section will illustrate how the resulting apparent “lack” of eternal divine knowledge of uncreated possibilities in no way represents a cognitive deficiency on God’s part. The sixth section will turn to the most developed presentation of the opposed “photo-exemplarist” reading of Aquinas, that of What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1013 Lawrence Dewan, in order to raise questions both about it and about his related criticisms of Ross. The brief concluding section will summarize the results of the discussion. Ideas as Implications of God’s Unique Intellectual Object We begin with a key passage: Idea, properly speaking, has regard not only to actually practical cognition, but also to habitually practical [cognition]. Whence, since God has virtually practical cognition concerning all those things that he can make, even though they never are nor will be made, it remains that there can be [an] idea of what is not, nor was, nor will be; not, however, in the same manner as [there is an idea] of those [things] which are, or will be, or were; because with those [things] which are, or will be, or were, that they are to be produced is determined from the purpose of the divine will, but not with those [things] which are not, nor will be, nor were; and so [things] of this kind have in a certain way indeterminate ideas.7 In answering objectors, Aquinas adds a couple of further points. In the first and second replies of article 6, he distinguishes the presence or existence of (possible or actual) creatures “in God” (in Deo, in ipso) from their presence or existence “in his knowledge” (in Dei cognitione, in eius scientia), pointing out that “because God knows all things distinctly . . . things are distinct in his knowledge even though in him they are one.” Then, in answering the third objection, he specifies that by God’s “practical” knowledge he means the knowledge “to produce into the act of existence the things . . . of which he has ideas” (producere . . . res in esse quarum ideas habet). This article, short as it is, turns out to be the most Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 3 a. 6 (hereafter, QDV). Translations from this work are my own. The rather stilted version I provide here is deliberately over-literal, useful for a passage that will be subject to closer verbal analysis. Right away, it serves to bring out an issue that will not be pursued further, but which is not irrelevant for the discussion. It concerns singular versus plural forms of the word “idea.” Aquinas will very often use the singular “idea” even when the ideational content or referent (i.e., what the idea is “of”) is plural in form. One could cautiously infer that a plurality of things does not pluralize the divine idea in any straightforward way. The issue is clouded by the standard English translations, which habitually but carelessly introduce far more plural usages (“ideas”) than the Latin contains. 7 1014 Paul J. DeHart explicit single treatment of the issue in question in his entire corpus.8 One question immediately forces itself on our attention: what is meant by the proviso that there are ideas both of creatures and of non-existents, “but not in the same manner” (non tamen eodem modo), and that the ideas of non-existents are “in a certain way indeterminate” (quodammodo indeterminatas)? This exegetical query poses as well as anything the interpretive question answered in divergent ways by Ross and his opponents. Aquinas’s wording suggests that the ideas of non-existents are “indeterminate” because they are not determined to production by the purpose of the divine will. But are we to take this to mean that they are, in terms of their cognitive nature and content, simply identical to the ideas of (actual) creatures, their only difference being that they are not actualized by an act of divine will, hence an act itself, so to speak, extraneous to their cognitive status? That might be a fair statement of the position Ross is opposing. His own preference is to assign a less extrinsic role to the divine will in constituting ideas in general, such that, precisely because the ideas of non-existents are not determined to creation by God’s will, we might suspect that, even on the purely cognitive plane, they do not relate “in the same manner” to their cognitive content (i.e., the things which do not exist and never will). Aquinas does not here decide the issue for us. But in this and the two following sections we will use the language of this passage to bring out in turn three major aspects of his thinking on ideas as developed elsewhere in his writings. These aspects will be necessary elements in the development in sections IV and V of a more systematic picture of God’s knowledge of non-existents, one which will favor Ross’s position. The first aspect is indicated by Aquinas’s careful distinction between the way created or creatable things are in God and the way they are in God’s knowledge. The entire role of the doctrine of ideas is to explain how there can be multiple things “distinctly known” by God without plurifying his utterly simple being. The second aspect (discussed in section II below) focusses on the term “thing” (res): if it is asked what ideas are primarily “of,” the consistent answer for Aquinas is that they are, first and foremost, ideas of things. This turns out also to have surprisingly large implications. Third and finally, Aquinas stipulates here that there Aquinas treats in detail the general issue of divine ideas in three main blocks of material: first in the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum I, d. 36, q. 2 (hereafter, Sent.), then in QDV q. 3, aa. 1–8, and finally in the Summa Theologiae I, q. 15, aa. 1–3 (hereafter, ST). A few much shorter discussions are scattered elsewhere in his corpus. 8 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1015 are ideas “properly speaking” of non-existents, just as there are of creatures. This points to a distinction that underlies all of Aquinas’s more detailed accounts of God’s ideas, one between idea in a narrower and more proper sense and idea in a broader sense. However, on a single point related to this distinction, Aquinas strikingly reversed himself, and on a matter of prime importance to our discussion: do non-existents have in God an idea properly speaking or an idea only broadly speaking? It will be argued (in section III below) that his shift on this question, though involving merely a technical adjustment in his terminology, is in fact a significant clue for untangling the problem at hand. Turning to the first point, there can be no understanding of what ideas are according to Aquinas and what work they do for him without seeing the relevance of his much-discussed treatment of the originally Augustinian notion of the “intellectual word” or “word of the heart.” More than one commentator has stressed that the special role of the word of the intellect, which is primarily a feature of Aquinas’s account of human understanding, provides him an analogical way to reconcile the vast, even infinite, plurality of things known by God with the ultimate simplicity of his act of intellection. Very briefly, Aquinas sharply distinguishes between two mental forms involved in intellectual cognition. There is, on one hand, the intellectual species that informs the intellect in its act of knowing, serving as the shared formal medium by which the intellect (intellectus) and the thing understood (res intellecta) coalesce or coincide in the act of understanding. This “perfects” the intellect itself as cognizant. But as informed or perfected, the now actualized intellect engages in the production (“conception”) of a second form, the intellectual word, by which the intellect actively expresses to itself (and potentially to others, hence “word”) the intelligible content of its achieved cognitive unity with the thing understood. Aquinas sometimes calls this “word” the “intellected” (intellectum), thereby emphasizing both its status as a product of the act of intellect and its role as counterpart and completion of that act. In other words, it is not the thing “outside” the intellect that is the “object,” properly speaking, of intellectual knowledge. The object is the complement that specifies an individual act and is the term that completes or perfects it (Sent. I, d. 1, q. 2, a. 1 ad 2). Thus, the object of the successful intellection is not primarily the thing understood (res intellecta), but the thing-as-understood (res ut intellectum), existing within the understanding.9 Some of the more important discussions in Aquinas include QDV q. 3, a. 2 and q. 4; Summa contra gentiles, bk. 1, ch. 53 (hereafter, SCG); Quaestiones disputatae 9 1016 Paul J. DeHart The important thing to note is that the thing-as-understood, or intellectual word, is not simply the existent thing, but rather its understandability, its potentially infinite ensemble of intelligible aspects or self-relations. Its existence as intelligible is a unique achievement of intellectual power, the result of that union with intellect that is effected only by intellect. In response to a particular problem, Aquinas now analogously applies this schema of the intellectual act in order to identify the nature and role of divine ideas. But what is an “idea”? Generally, an idea is a formal standard, a likeness in accord with which something is, at least, cognitively grasped or, more properly, intentionally fashioned. Aquinas argues repeatedly that God’s knowledge must contain ideas of creatures in accord with which he creates, since creation, in all its diversification, is an intentional act. But how can this multiplicity within God, especially given the classic (Augustinian) understanding that “all that is within God is God,” avoid making him metaphysically composite? Aquinas’s teacher, Albert the Great, had argued that, since all the different creatures are each individually nothing but a limited range of imitative perfection, and thus collectively represent many different modes of participating in the infinitely perfect divine essence, they constitute nothing but different relations to or “regards upon” (respectus) the divine. Their reality outside God constitutes their diversity, but within God, they are only relations of reason (secundum rationum), and thus their only reality there is their unity with the simple divine being.10 It appears that Aquinas was at least partially satisfied with this explanation in his own early commentary on the Sentences, but, perhaps anticipating the objection that Duns Scotus would later make to this position, he moves beyond this answer to make a close analogical application of the intellectual word (Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 3, a. 2 [hereafter, QDV]).11 His point is to make as clear as possible that it is not the created things as real outside of God that de potentia dei, q. 8, a. 1 and q. 9, a. 5 (hereafter, QDP); and ST I q. 27, a. 1 and q. 34, a. 1. 10 Albert the Great, Commentarii in I Sententiarum, d. 35, E, aa. 7–9, in B. Alberti Magni Ratisbonensis episcopi Opera omnia : ex editione Lugdunensis religiose castigata, et pro auctoritatibus ad fidem Vulgatae versionis accuratiorumque patrologiae textuum revocata, auctaque b. Alberti vita ac bibliographia suorum operum a PP. Quetif et Echard exaratis, ed. Auguste Borgnet et al., vol. 26 (Paris: L. Vivès, 1890–1899), 189–195. 11 On this see Bernard Lonergan, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, vol. 2 of Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 19. What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1017 plurify and denominate the ideas, but rather their status as “intellecta,” as generated within the divine intellectual act by which God eternally knows his own essence as multiply participable. Does this mean the ideas themselves are so many objects of God’s intellect, so many “words”? No. For, in fact, God’s act of understanding has and can have only one “object,” properly speaking. A discrete act of intellect is metaphysically singular because in it the intellect is informed and actualized by a single intellectual species. The eternal act that is God’s intellect, which is nothing other than God’s very act of existence, is unique in that God knows himself and everything else (i.e., all that does or could participate in the likeness of his perfect essence by being created) only through his own essence. And one form perfectly and exhaustively grasped results in the conception of one intellectual word (SCG I, chs. 51–54: “intentio intellecta”). This word is, of course, identical with the eternally generated Son, the perfect reflection of the mind of the Father, the “repetition” without multiplication of the divine essence intelligently grasping itself as such. But if there is only one word, how are there many ideas of different creatures? The answer lies in the nature of intelligent act itself, which eminently contains within its single formal grasp a virtual range of subordinated intelligible truths. God and only God is the first and “per se” object for God. But in and through knowing his infinity, God also implicitly knows the infinite finitudes which do or could partially assimilate to him. Note that there is no shift of objects here; God does not stop considering God in order to consider the participants. The point of the model of intelligence is precisely that it allows for subordinated knowings within the simplicity of a higher knowing. We will return in the next section to the implications of this intelligible model for God’s grasp of non-existents. For now, it clarifies two things about Aquinas’s discussions of divine ideas generally. First, it provides a mechanism by which Aquinas can see the single divine essence as itself the proper exemplar for many highly divergent creatures without in any way multiplying that essence. Loosely speaking, the unique divine existent can become the model for this or that finite existent because, in understanding himself, God also, by the very same act of understanding his own infinite existence, understands every act of existence which falls short of that infinity. By abstracting, so to speak, from the completeness of his self-grasp, God thereby artificially isolates a limited zone of imitability, as if bringing together in one view (Aquinas speaks of a “comparatio”) his fullness and a “section” of it, all else being “blocked out.” The association with the act of understanding makes this 1018 Paul J. DeHart possible. God cannot be less than God, but he can understand himself as less than himself, and in many different ways. He thus “receives” the form of the thing that creatures are to imitate (i.e., his essence) as not simply the “idea,” but in the form of his essence understood with a limited proportion to itself. Only as res ut intellectum could God’s essence also serve as the idea for this, that, and everything else created. God’s self-concept is thus virtually decomposable into a primary object virtually containing secondary ones. But God’s infinite essence in itself is not decomposable in any way. There are not “secondary” acts of divine being really “contained” in God’s essence, only diverse reflections in the divine intelligence that themselves constitute what is not God, non-divine beings. But the second advantage of the model of the intellectual word must be emphasized right away, lest the account above suggest multiple acts of divine knowing, or perhaps a first “stage” of divine self-knowledge followed logically by a second “stage” or secondary act of “reflection” whereby God knows the multiplicity of participations. God’s intellect, unlike ours, is not discursive. In order for us to attain intellectual knowledge, we must collect and intelligently correlate the results of many acts of cognition. Likewise, once we have obtained an intelligent grasp of some matter, we would need multiple subsequent acts of articulation in order to relate the stages of our logical ascendance to that knowledge, or to tease out the various implications already grasped therein. But nonetheless, at its ideal peak, the knowledge, even in a human knower, is already there, contained in the intellectual concept, even if not adverted to or subsequently reflected upon. In God, we should imagine the grasp of infinite subordinated partial truths as itself nothing other than his single “glance” (intuitus), his one act of sheer intelligible self-transparency, on the analogy of our highest intellectual attainments. The centrality of the model of intellection lies behind a curious remark in Aquinas’s discussion of ideas. In explaining why there are many ideas but only one divine “art” or “wisdom” (equivalent here to God’s essential self-understanding), Aquinas compares God to a builder who, “when he understands the form of a house in matter is said to understand the house, but when he understands the form of a house as considered by himself [or observed by himself, a se speculatam], from the fact that he understands that he understands it, he understands the idea or intelligible content [ratio] of the house” (ST What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1019 I, q. 15, a. 2 ad 2).12 God, Aquinas explains, understands many things by his one word or art (i.e., his intellectual species), but what he understands (i.e., the intellecta) are therefore many and are called ideas. This multiplicity is not only of the things themselves but also of the res ut intellecta. But how can this be, if all is understood by understanding the single essence? The answer lies in the unique achievement of intelligence, which the parable of the builder illustrates, albeit somewhat cryptically. The point is to remind us how understanding many things can be understood in one act because understanding as understanding involves a cognitive grasp not just of the thing outside, but also of the mental medium by which that grasp occurs (i.e., the interior word). God, like the builder, does not just understand the many; he knows that he knows the many through an internal form itself intelligible precisely as such. An earlier discussion (ST I, q. 14, a. 6 ad 1) clarifies this by a comparison with the sense of vision: “the eye does not know the stone according to the act of existence the stone has in the eye, but through the species of the stone which it has in itself it knows the stone according to the act of existence it has outside the eye.” In contrast, “the intellect knows the stone according to the intelligible act of existence it has in the intellect, inasmuch as it knows that it understands [cognoscit se intelligere],” but for just that reason it also knows the stone in its proper nature as outside intellect. We can now understand better Aquinas’s conclusion that “God does not just understand many things through his essence, but also he understands that he understands [intelligit se intelligere]” them that way, and this is to understand “many ideas to be in his intellect as things intellected [ut intellectas]” (ST I, q. 15, a. 2 ad 2). The unique achievement of intellect as opposed to sense knowledge, called elsewhere its “turning back on itself” or reflexio, is not to be understood as a second, subsequent act to the original knowing, but rather as implicit in the one act of understanding itself. Intellect understands the thing by knowing within itself the thing-as-understood. Hence there is multiplicity in the divine knowledge, not just outside it (his point here), but this is no threat to the unity of divine knowing precisely because that knowing is intellectual and (as explained in the previous paragraph), this means that “there is indeed one [idea] of all things on the part of the divine essence, but a plurality [of ideas] is found on the part of the diverse proportions The adjective “speculatus, -a, -um” is very rare in Aquinas. For a similar instance, where the sensible phantasm is adverted to (speculatum) by the knower rather than the sensed thing itself, see Sententia de sensu et sensato, tractate 2, lectio 3. 12 1020 Paul J. DeHart of creatures to the essence.”13 The “reflective” nature of intellect makes this possible as a single act. So, to sum up, because ideas are things-as-understood and these are not prior to the act of divine knowing itself (as objects of sense knowing would have to be), God’s knowing of his essence as variably participable is not simply a “finding it so.” The participants are not “already waiting” there in the divine essence itself. They are constituted only as implicit in the cognitive achievement that is God’s self-intellection. God’s essence as infinite being and his power as infinite efficacy do not present the ideas as such apart from the act of intelligence—hence, the stress repeatedly laid by Aquinas on the distinction between the one intelligible species in God and the word as conceived, with its many subordinated “intellecta.” The preliminary result is a reminder that the operative analogue for our thinking of divine ideas must always be intellectual grasp, as opposed to vision or imagination. We can now turn to the second issue arising from our initial quotation: instead of focusing, as up to now, on how ideas fit in the divine act of knowing, the question here is what primarily is known by God through ideas. What is the Size of an Idea? Already in his earliest discussion of ideas (Sent. I, d. 36, q. 2, a. 1), Aquinas distinguishes “idea” in a narrower sense that, in accord both with common usage and etymology, refers to the exemplars according to which things are produced in being by God from “idea” in a broader sense that refers to any intelligible content (ratio) of the divine knowing that corresponds to anything knowable (other than himself). The bearing of his discussions, I would argue, is that ideas, properly, in some sense, “track with” or “match up with” things (res) as producible in being, as existents (entia) bearing their own act of existence (esse). The “thing” par excellence, to Aquinas’s way of thinking, is the individual substance, especially as determined by its unique specific form. As he argues (ST I, q. 45, a. 4), when we speak of a creature we mean first and foremost the subsistent thing. The myriad accidental qualifications of substances, that we tend to think of as giving them their concrete identities, Aquinas does not deign to grant the status of existents properly speaking (entia). Accidents, which, as inhering in the substance, can only share in its act of existence, as well as aspects of an existent abstractable by intelligence but having no existence apart from it (such as material forms), are more fittingly called co-existents (coexistentia). QDV, q. 3, a. 2. 13 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1021 This privileging of the substantial thing carries over into all Aquinas’s major discussions of what can properly be said to have its own idea in God’s mind. Two criteria appear to be at work, not always clearly distinguished: first, some aspects of creation knowable by God have only an “idea” in the broader sense (i.e., of anything merely knowable in some relatively distinct way), whereas some have it properly (i.e., of an actually producible thing); second, some aspects of creation have their own distinct idea, whereas others have no complete idea, but rather are known or created as an aspect of something else that does have a complete idea. Thus, what cannot exist except in mental abstraction, such as prime matter apart from the composite,14 or genus apart from species,15 is said, to use language favored in the commentary on the Sentences, not to have an idea according to its complete intelligible content (perfecta ratio idea) or to lack the completion of idea (perfectio ideae). When it comes to accidents, Aquinas distinguishes so-called proper accidents (necessary concomitants of a particular specific form) from categorical accidents that are contingent. Since no particular accident of the latter kind necessarily accompanies a given substance, it must have its own idea, though only in the broader sense. The proper accident, however, will have no complete idea for itself, but will share in the idea of the species it necessarily accompanies, which is an idea in the narrower sense.16 Of special note is his stance on singulars, multiple instantiations of a single species, individuated by matter. Aquinas is consistent throughout his writings that, since divine governance of the world extends to singulars, there must be ideas of singulars, a stance Aquinas recognizes as somewhat un-Platonic. His stance is qualified or complicated, however. The single proper idea of a thing “covers” its specificity, its genus (which cannot be apart from species), and its individual instantiation, if the species has one (as angels, for example, do not).17 Yet the formal differentiation between one species and another is more perfect than the differentiation of individuals within the same species, and therefore “the distinction of intelligible contents [rationum] is more perfect corresponding to diverse species than to diverse individuals.”18 The conclusion seems to be that the idea in the proper sense, as of what can be brought to exist in some determinate and substantial way, aligns more closely with species than Cf. Sent I, d. 36, q. 2, a. 3 ad 2; QDV q. 3, a. 5; ST I, q. 15, a. 3, ad 3. Cf. ST I, q. 15, a. 3 ad 4. 16 Cf. QDV q. 3, a. 7; ST I, q. 15, a. 3 ad 4. 17 Cf. QDV q. 3 a. 8 ad 2. 18 Sent I, d. 36, q. 2, a. 3 ad 3. 14 15 1022 Paul J. DeHart with singulars, though, as known by God, individuals have their own idea in the broader sense. It should be noted that the passage treating ideas of non-existents with which we began section I above is one among this set of articles (in QDV q. 3) dealing with “special cases” (prime matter, accidents, individuals, etc.). We will need to return to this, but for the present, a significant question arises from this discussion. Is not the created cosmos more than just a collection of things or substances? Are they not crucially and complexly interrelated by a swarm of accidental or even essential relations of efficient and final causality, relations always shifting as the cosmos moves through time? In fact, is this not what we mean by the world? The answer to all these questions is yes, and Aquinas is quite aware that this critical dimension of creation must also be the result of pre-existent knowledge and intention in God. But what is almost never noticed in discussions of the divine ideas is that this pre-existent knowledge of what might be called the “order” of things to each other does not itself point us to just another idea, but to something quite different. “The exemplar form of a thing taken absolutely according to its species is idea; but the form of a thing as it is ordained to an end is providence.” Aquinas adds that idea relates to species as providence relates to fate, the order God has implanted in things.19 But unlike ideas, providence is not plural. “In things good is found not only as regards their substance [i.e., foreknown by God through the idea], but also as regards their order towards an end, and especially their last end . . . the intelligible content [ratio] of things ordered towards an end is . . . providence.”20 Aquinas argued that the ideas of created things must be plural because “the order of the universe is properly intended by God” and he could not have an idea of the total order without ideas of the parts going to make it up (ST I, q. 15, a. 2). Only later in the Summa does he name this unique “ideam ordinis universi” as providence. To the plurality of ideas of things there must correspond the single idea of the order of the whole. This includes the ordering of created things to each other in various ways (i.e., the many ways in which the different species of things are drawn into a network of relations of means and ends). But beyond this, and more importantly, there is the ordering to God himself, what Aquinas calls the final or ultimate end. It is both these ordering relationships together that unite the many different things with their differing grades of being to one another, constituting a single universe. Cf. QDV q. 5, a. 1 ad 1. ST I, q. 22, a. 1. 19 20 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1023 Aquinas, in a number of places, distinguishes this twofold order of the world, the order of parts to each other to make up a whole (which itself would include various relations where one creature serves another as its proximate end) and the order of the whole to the final end. He also points out the priority of the latter, just as the ordering of the soldiers to each other for the good of the army is subordinated to the ordering the army to the good of the general, which is victory.21 This mutual ordering of creatures to each other results directly in the divine governance of “all the acts and movements that are to be found in each single creature”; governance moves each thing to its due end.22 This providentially ordered web of created acts and ends, which for us is the mark of things in their concrete reality, is for Aquinas a higher good than that of the creatures individually: “For each thing in its nature is good, but all things together are very good, by reason of the order of the universe, which is the ultimate and noblest perfection in things.”23 But precisely because it is the highest perfection in things, (i.e., a created perfection), it falls short of the infinite perfection of the divine essence, which is the ultimate end of the universe, as it is the perfect act of being and goodness in which all created things participate simply as creatures. The crucial thing to see is the clear distinction Aquinas routinely draws between creatures as things, chiefly substances, and the created universe as a totality, which he calls “this course of things [iste cursus rerum]” or the “order of things” (while a different universe would be “alius ordo rerum”).24 But since God foreknows all created things (by containing their ideas) and also foreknows the order of things (by containing the intelligible content of providence), a question arises that Aquinas never fully answers, and may never have concerned himself with: what sort of logical relation subsists in the divine mind between the ideas and providence? Two conclusions that might cautiously be drawn from scattered clues and hints will be important for our overall argument. The first thing to be said is that Aquinas discerns the closest relation between the things that go to make up the actual created order and that order itself. For one thing, this world, the actual order of actual creatures, is identified as such by the ensemble of kinds of creatures it contains. Thus, Aquinas argues (Sent. I, d. 44, q. 1, a. 2) that the universe is an integral whole, and hence, Cf. Sent. I, d. 44, q. 1, a. 2. ST I–II, q. 93, a. 1. 23 SCG bk. II, ch. 45, par. 10. 24 ST I, q. 25, a. 5; cf. QDP q. 1, a. 5. 21 22 1024 Paul J. DeHart if additional kinds of creatures were added or current kinds replaced, one would no longer be speaking of the same world. (The significant focus on kinds is due to the fact that the specific form is ontologically superior to individuating matter, which multiplies “accidentally,” so to speak. Hence, “the universe is ennobled more by the multiplication of species than by the multiplication of individuals within one species”).25 That is why there is little point in speaking of this universe as the best possible; it could only be the best relative to the particular kinds of creatures it actually contains.26 But there is something else. Aquinas indicates in numerous places that because, as has already been mentioned, the good of the ordering of the whole to God supersedes the good of the parts in their ordering to each other,27 it must be said that things are not created at random but are created to complete or perfect this particular universe (the only one there is). The production of the parts is for the sake of the production of the whole.28 The universe is not produced merely as the background condition for the actualization of creatures, but rather, to take an example, God “wills the human being to be, so that the universe may be complete.”29 This suggests a picture in which the particularity of different creatures and the particularity of the total created order mutually condition one another. The order is of just these things, and these things exist to perfect just this order.30 But it also suggests a logical precedence of providence over the many ideas insofar as they represent a mere accumulation of possibilities unrelated to one another. At the very least, some of Aquinas’s language should give pause to anyone inclined to picture God’s ideas of creatures as, as it were, fully complete and determinate “prior” to or apart from their being foreseen in their total providential organization. Consider how closely Aquinas at times links the very act of distinguishing things from each other to their ordered interrelations in the world. Thus, he says that the divine wisdom is the cause of the distinction of things and thus contains the exemplars31 because “the determination of forms must be reduced to the divine wisdom as its first principle, for divine wisdom devised the order of the universe, which order consists SCG II, ch. 93, par. 5. Cf. QDP q. 3, a. 16, ad 17. 27 Cf. SCG III, ch. 64, par. 10. 28 Cf. QDP q. 3, a. 16. 29 SCG I ch. 86, par. 5. 30 Cf. ST I, q. 47, a. 3. 31 Cf. ST I, q. 47, a. 1. 25 26 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1025 in the variety of things.”32 Such a wording is at least open to a picture of creation in which, rather than simply selecting and actualizing already distinct “possibilities,” God distinguishes in the act of creation itself. This impression is strengthened by the comparison, borrowed from Aristotle, of the species of things with numbers. As Rudi te Velde points out, “like numbers [the different species] form a continuous sequence from the lowest to the highest species without any gap.” When he adds that “[t]he perfection of the universe is such that every possible nature is instantiated in it,” he should have included a proviso that makes clear that other universes are possible—namely, that the range of species is continuous and complete in relation to just this concrete created order.33 But the basic point is well taken, and provides a further impetus for our imagining that the specific forms of creatures in their diversity are not simply given but are “tailored,” so to speak, by the divine wisdom to fill out and complete the unique course of things intended by God. Yet another passage that at least gestures in this direction (QDV q. 5, a. 1, ad 9), attributes the so to speak “formal” hierarchical relations of things to each other (i.e., their arrangement along relatively different ontological planes or levels of excellence) to the divine act of “disposition,” while their being ordered to their end is a function of providence. But Aquinas immediately undermines too sharp a separation here, since he proceeds to argue that “disposition” in this sense is just as much determined by the final end of the ordering of the world to God as are the other ordering acts of providence, so much so that “divine providence is, in a sense, the cause of God’s disposition of things, and for this reason an act of his disposition is sometimes attributed to his providence.”34 In other words, the providential ordering of things to one another includes the very pattern of distinctions among specific forms and should not be reduced to a simple “operatizing” of already given forms. This same article (QDV q. 5, a. 1) also points toward the second important conclusion that arises once it has been grasped that creation, ST I, q. 44, a. 3. Rudi A. te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 229. Harm Goris, in his appreciative review of this book (“Participation and Substantiality: An extensive summary of, and some notes on R.A. te Velde, Participatie en substantialiteit,” Jaarboek Thomas Instituut te Utrecht 11/12 [1991/92]: 112), rightly warns that the contiguity of species should not be interpreted (as Te Velde appears to do) to mean that God’s freedom in creating would be constrained by a principle of plenitude demanding the instantiation of every possible creature. 34 Cf. ST I, q. 22, a. 1 and ad 2. 32 33 1026 Paul J. DeHart for Aquinas, necessarily involves the bringing together of ideas and providence. In his answer to the first objection, Aquinas argues that, while an idea can, in a certain way, pertain to speculative knowledge (he apparently intends “idea” in the narrower, more proper sense, since he speaks of “the exemplar form of a thing considered absolutely in its species”), providence exclusively concerns God’s practical knowledge “from the fact that it implies an order to an end, and so to the work by means of which the end is attained.” The overall point of the article is to argue that the providence by which God “foresees,” and in accordance with which he creates the universe, cannot be traced back to the divine knowledge alone, but must incorporate the divine will to create as well. This marks an important distinction between providence and the notion of idea that Aquinas had developed earlier (QDV q. 3, a. 6, the passage quoted at the beginning of section I above). There he had made a close linkage of the ideas of producible things with God’s practical knowledge (whether actually or virtually practical). But here (QDV q. 5, a. 1), in his answer to the second objection, amplifying the point of his reply to the first, he points out that “practical knowledge taken absolutely relates in common to cognition [both] of the end and of the means to the end,” but it does not “presuppose the willing of the end.” The eternal divine “ratio” that he calls providence, however, does indeed include just this act of willing. Hence his conclusion to his answer to the first objection: “although an idea can pertain to speculative knowledge in a certain way, providence pertains solely to practical” (ibid.). Aquinas’s talk of a practical knowledge that pertains to speculative knowledge “in a certain way” (aliquo modo) suggests that he is here recalling the distinction he developed (at QDV q. 3, a. 3) between “actual” and “virtual” practical knowledge. By insisting that God’s knowledge of providence actually includes the will to produce the world thereby foreknown, he is contrasting providence especially with that kind of idea associated with practical knowledge that also involves “in some way” (quoddammodo) speculative knowledge,35 namely, the idea of the non-existent, the producible that God will never produce.36 This kind of idea refers to the kind of knowledge God has of what-might-have-been. At the time of composition of the Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, Aquinas still wants to identify this knowing as practical, even though as merely “virtually” practical, it is uncoupled from or unrelated to the divine will to actual creation. This is presumably the Cf. QDV q. 3, a. 3. Cf. QDV q. 3, a. 6. 35 36 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1027 point of specifying this as knowledge “taken absolutely,” as attributed to the cognitive power alone without relation to the act of will. But this means that, even though God foreknows the things he will not create, he cannot be meaningfully said to providentially interrelate such things into a world. The entire network of the myriad causal interconnections between creatures that go to make up what can be called a universe or world, and which involve each creature being at once means for some and ends of others, and in turn interacting with others as its own means and ends, presupposes the actual will of God that a universe come into being. On this point Te Velde appropriately cites Aquinas’s interpretation of Boethius’ De Hebdomadibus: “Every end that is not the ultimate end only has the character of an end insofar as it is ordered in relation to the ultimate end.”37 We should pause for a moment to take stock of this remarkable finding. The implication is that, although the divine knowledge encompasses knowledge of everything God could create, it does not follow that God envisions an array of “possible worlds.” God knows the infinite substances, entities (entia), “things” that could participate his goodness, and he does so by knowing his own essence perfectly. But this is not to know infinite “worlds,” for there is more to a world than things, and a world itself is not a thing properly speaking, but an aggregate of them, a “dispositio” or “ordo” of things created and put into mutual relation. Only this defines a world. In fact, it defines the one and only world there is, and it does so by “operatizing” the envisioned substances—that is, giving them their own fullness of possessed being, including accidents and relations, and inserting them into the total web of causes and effects. At the very least, this way of looking at Aquinas makes it difficult to draft him into the ranks of “possible worlds” theorists. The underlying point is, again, the mutual conditioning of things and their order. The dilemma for such a reading of Aquinas can be put as a series of questions without answers. Are the infinite things not to be created already world-determinate, already ordered to each other? If so, then is only one such mutual ordering possible, hence a fixed and finite number of possible worlds? If not, then is their “subsequent” ordering quite distinct from their inherent qualities, and hence, are they eternally “disordered,” distributed randomly within a pre-existing possibility space? But how could they be definite without being ordered to one another? And again, how could some be “selected” and placed in a quite different order, that Te Velde, Participation, 29, citing QDV q. 21, a. 5. 37 1028 Paul J. DeHart of the actual created world? We will gladly leave such conundrums aside, since the thrust of the current paper is precisely that the very notion of an infinity of definite things preexisting in God’s mind, from which he “selects” some to create, is not at all helpful as a guide to Aquinas’s way of thinking. Ideas in the Proper Sense and Divine Intent: A Shift in Aquinas’s Position What is “indeterminate” about God’s ideas of non-existents, of what is not, was not, and will not be? In our initial quest for an answer we have highlighted two aspects of Aquinas’s thinking about ideas in general. The first was that the multiplicity of ideas must be understood as so many instances of deliberate divine self-abstraction or not-knowing, whereby God’s intelligent grasp of his essence as a whole already, as a single eternal act, implicitly and eminently contains its own partial modes in their plurality. The second was that ideas are attuned, first and foremost, to subsistent entities properly speaking, but also that ideas as such do not include the mutual interrelations of these entities in their own acts of being. Only providence sees them as parts of a single created and willed order; there is no divine “entertaining” of multiple “possible worlds” prior to the creation of the actual one. The third and final issue was already broached when it was noted how Aquinas (in the QDV) is able to contrast providential knowing, as necessarily involving will, with a kind of divine idea that is “practical” and yet need not involve any actual willing of the practical operation, namely, the idea of the non-existent as producible (rather than actually produced). However, what must now be attended to is the strange fact that Aquinas came to abandon the position upon which this early account of the ideas of non-existents is based. That God’s idea of non-existents is an idea in just as proper a sense as that of actual creatures, and hence that the “practical knowledge” which must characterize all such divine ideas narrowly speaking does not imply the willed intention to create—some time after the composition of the Quaestiones disputatae de veritate Aquinas came to flatly reject these notions, so carefully insisted upon there in that early work. A brief discussion of the evidence for and possible implications of this shift will be needed to complete this section. I would suggest that there is an obscurity hovering over Aquinas’s earlier discussions of God’s knowledge of non-existents, one having to do with the various senses in which knowledge can be divided into practical and speculative. A retrospective light can be cast on his earlier account by keeping in mind the threefold distinction drawn in What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1029 the Summa (ST I, q. 14, a. 16). One criterion for determining whether knowledge is speculative or practical concerns what is known: knowledge of what is producible by the knower is practical, but speculative knowing concerns what is not so producible. A second criterion is the manner or mode of knowing: to know something in terms of its general identity or characteristics is speculative, since practical knowing involves the particular grasp of elements, circumstances and procedures necessary to produce the distinct artifact. The third criterion has to do with the end or goal of knowledge: if the knower is concerned only with the truth or falsity of some assertion or state of affairs, the knowledge is speculative, while practical knowledge is directed to and terminates in the actual performance of what is envisioned. For purposes of the following discussion, practical knowledge according to the first criterion can be called objectively practical, while the second criterion marks modally practical knowing, and the third criterion determines intentionally practical knowledge. The point of the distinction is that, in a given case, all three criteria will not necessarily agree: an instance of knowing could, for example, be practical according to one of the criteria but speculative according to the others. As was said earlier, Aquinas, throughout his career, worked with a distinction in the divine ideas between ideas properly or narrowly speaking, which are the patterns according to which creatures are made, and ideas more broadly speaking, which denote any intelligible aspect of the created order, whether a “thing” or not, that God eternally knows. The shift in Aquinas’s thinking comes down to this: in the Quaestiones disputatae de veritate (q. 3, aa. 3–6), he firmly states that the ideas of non-existents must be regarded as ideas in the proper sense, while in the Summa (at I, q. 15, a. 3) he states with equal firmness that such ideas are not ideas in the proper sense, but only in the broader sense.38 I will suggest that this shift should be read as evidence of an increasing awareness on his part of the central role played by the divine will (i.e., the will to create this universe) in what and how God knows. It should be pointed out that, in ST I, q. 15, a. 3, though he repeats his standard division of ideas into principles of knowing and of making, Aquinas does not, as earlier, speak in terms of the latter following more properly from the sense of the term “idea,” or the former only in a broader sense. Too much should not be made of this indifference, however. The later Quodlibet IV, q. 1, a. 1 finds him appealing once again to his earlier argument, that the word “idea” signifies a form according to the likeness of which something is produced. So, he cannot be said to have abandoned his position that an idea more properly is an exemplar, though he finds no need to advert to it in the passage from ST. 38 1030 Paul J. DeHart The ground for Aquinas’s earlier position is laid when he argues (QDV q. 2, a. 8) that God knows non-existents and not just actual creatures, apparently presupposing (without adverting to) the fact that God’s knowing of non-existents must be objectively and modally practical (since the non-existents in question are producible and God knows how to produce them). The most straightforward way to answer the objections, then, appears to be to call God’s knowledge of both creatures and non-existents basically practical, while acknowledging a difference in divine intention (some are created, some not). Thus, in this passage, the difference between creatures and non-existents that is emphasized is not the different ways God might know these two classes, but rather the sheer divine will to create one and not the other. The result, necessary due to his strategy of argument here, is that practical knowledge is defined entirely in terms of object and mode, and intent becomes somewhat secondary, as is clear from the illustration used: cannot a human craftsman think up a product, and know how to produce it, but decide not to do so? Indeed, this argument privileges modality in defining practical knowledge. It is not the producing of something, but the knowing how to produce it (what in this article he calls the “rationes operis” and later [q. 3, a. 3] the “modum operandi” or “modum operis”) that truly marks practical knowledge. Actual production then becomes a matter, in a telling image, of simply “extending” this already achieved knowledge to the actual operation. This discussion, with its vivid analogy of the human craftsman, leaves the impression that the will to operate (i.e., intention) is rather extrinsic to practical knowing.39 The next crucial discussion occurs when, guided no doubt by this earlier argument, Aquinas specifies (QDV q. 3, a. 3) that God’s practical knowledge must fall into two sorts: actually practical (knowing things that he actually creates) and “virtually” or “habitually” practical (knowing things that he could create but does not). The question then arises as to whether ideas in the proper sense are restricted to God’s actually practical knowing or are involved in his virtually practical knowledge as well. It is crucial to note that Augustine’s classic account of ideas dominates The concept “intention” does appear in the definition of ideas at QDV q. 3, a. 1, but, perhaps under the influence of this earlier decision, the intent in question is mainly the intent of similitude, not of production. In other words, the practical intention of the artist having an idea is only that any produced artifact will be fashioned deliberately to resemble the idea; no further intention to produce the artifact is necessary. 39 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1031 the discussion here.40 Aquinas carefully analyzes Augustine’s language to find support for his own distinction of ideas properly and ideas broadly, and locates it in Augustine’s use of “forma” as well as “ratio.” “Form” means an idea in the proper sense, since form can connote causality (“informing”), while “ratio” is a broader notion involving only cognitive similitude. Nor is this the only contribution of Augustine, for the second objection reminds readers that Augustine explicitly stipulated that not only is everything that comes to be or passes away “formed” by “ideas,” but also everything that can come to be or pass away. In choosing not to dispute this authority, Aquinas is practically forced to the conclusion that ideas in the proper sense apply even to God’s virtually practical knowledge. The vague characterization of ideas in the proper sense as involving causality, the impetus (built into the language of “virtually” vs. “actually”) to see practical knowledge primarily in terms of mode and not intention, and finally Augustine’s own words all combine to influence this decision. Once the explicit question is put (QDV q. 3, a. 6, the passage with which this section began) about whether there are ideas of non-existents, the answer is by now a foregone conclusion. Yes, there must be such ideas, and in the proper sense of the word. Aquinas insists on this despite the third objector’s argument that Dionysius (Aquinas’s other great authority alongside Augustine) links ideas as exemplars (i.e., in the narrow sense) to their actually being willed by God. Aquinas must, in his reply, resort to some verbal sleight of hand, but it is possible that in later work he continued to ponder Dionysius’s position, which admittedly sits awkwardly with the position at which he has arrived. After all, how much sense does it make to speak of an exemplar that never has an exemplatum, which is what Aquinas’s position here on ideas of non-existents amounts to? At any rate, the conclusion of question 3, article 6 leaves him in effect with a threefold classification of ideas: there are “rationes” (ideas in the broader sense), ideas “proprie” (of actual creatures, willed by God), and ideas somehow “proprie” and yet “indeterminatas” (ideas of non-existents). The upshot of his later position, then, will be to simply dissolve this curious third category and fold ideas of non-existents into the first category, leaving ideas of actual creatures the only ideas in the proper sense. Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus 83, ed. A Mutzenbecher, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975), 44a:70–73. Question 46, “On Ideas,” incalculably influenced the scholastic discussion of divine ideas. 40 1032 Paul J. DeHart There are strong signs of this turn away from his earlier position already in the Quaestiones disputatae de potentia dei (q. 1, a. 5, ad 11), where he points out that God must indeed have ideas of non-existents (since he has no “potential” ideas—i.e., all his ideas must be “thought out” [excogitati] and not habitual, a term pointing to the status of any idea as a produced intellectual word) but that these cannot be ideas according to the perfect notion of the term, since such ideas are “ordered to the work” of production.41 Thus he now rejects his own earlier argument (QDV q. 3, a. 6) that there can be full and proper ideas even of what merely can be so ordered. The new position is further solidified in the commentary on the Divine Names, where he completely forsakes his earlier reading of Dionysius so as to set up an account wherein there is no longer any sense in speaking of an exemplar in God (i.e., an idea properly speaking) unless it can be differentiated from an exemplatum outside God (i.e., an actually willed creature).42 All this is given its decisive expression in the Summa Theologia I, q. 15, a. 3. Here the merely possible creature no more warrants an idea in the full sense than do accidents or mental abstractions. The disappearance of proper ideas of non-existents is cemented by a newly stabilized terminology: there are only two senses of the term idea, the broader “ratio” and the narrower “exemplar” (Earlier he had no distinct term designating ideas in the proper sense).43 A brief comment in the context of a later disputed question (IV q. 1, a. 1) simply reiterates this conclusion: idea in the proper sense involves not only some likeness, but the intent to produce something to that likeness.44 What Aquinas’s new position amounts to is a decision to make the practicality of a divine idea hinge not, as in his earlier discussions in the Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, upon its mode (i.e. “knowing how” to make something, whether one wills to make it or not), but rather upon its intention. A possible line of reasoning lying behind Aquinas’s self-re SCG bk. II, ch. 47, par. 4 shows that “excogito” is used by Aquinas as a metaphorical synonym for “conceive,” so that what intellect “thinks out” has the status of an intellectual word. 42 Aquinas, Expositio super Dionysiam De divinis nominibus, ch. 5, lectio 3. 43 The intricate etymological argument from Augustine’s usage grounding his earlier position on the two senses of “idea” at QDV q. 3, a. 6 has now been abandoned in favor of a simple appeal to Plato! As already noted, Aquinas, in this passage, does not use the terminology of broader vs. narrower/more proper. This is probably connected with his tactical decision to employ Plato’s language rather than Augustine’s. 44 Aquinas, Quaestiones de quodlibet I–XII. IV, q. 1, a. 1. 41 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1033 versal suggests itself. The problem lies in the degree of precise applicability of the craftsman analogy to God. For a human being, to know, say, a house is one thing, to know how to make one quite another. And there are other things, natural objects, which we cannot produce at all. Thus the case of a craftsman knowing how to make something but simply choosing not to do so, makes perfect sense as a distinct category of knowledge. But the case of the divine creator is so different as to greatly weaken the analogy in this specific instance. The comparison only works if, in both cases, objectively and modally practical knowing is meaningfully different from objectively and modally speculative knowing. For the human maker, they clearly are, but for God they are not. God’s eternal foreknowing of the producible thing can be distinguished as practical versus speculative neither according to object nor according to mode: not according to object because, unlike the human maker, for God, whatever is inherently producible at all is producible by him; not according to mode, because, again unlike the human maker, God’s “practical” knowing of the producible qua producible is simply identical with his “speculative” knowing of his own potency.45 Since God creates and does not fashion, there is nothing to know in the thing other than its operability. Aquinas can still make use of the comparison,46 but he no longer tries to make it bear the weight of grounding any conceptual distinction between kinds of ideas. Thus, the result of this later position of Aquinas is that the only meaningful distinction to be made between God’s practical and speculative knowledge of things other than himself is intentional: God wills to create some things, the rest he does not. The former have exemplars (ideas properly); the latter do not. There is no longer a shadowy “third realm” of complete ideas of non-existents. His shift on this issue should not be dismissed as a typical terminological ambiguity that he chooses to resolve differently on different occasions according to the needs of the argument at hand. Rather, I would suggest that it be read as the rectification of something like an anomaly in his overall position on ideas. In coming to emphasize the relative unimportance of any modal distinction between God’s speculative and practical knowledge, with the implication that “virtually practical” divine knowing is a largely otiose category, Aquinas is also correcting the earlier impression that the divine willing (i.e., the decision to create or not) is completely extraneous to the content of The final reply at ST I, q. 14, a. 16 (a rare instance in the ST of a reply “in contrarium”) makes this plain. 46 Cf. ST I, q. 15, a. 2. 45 1034 Paul J. DeHart God’s cognition. For it seems that it was Aquinas’s position all along that God’s will and intention are decisive in determining what and how God knows. The next section will discuss why this is so. God does not “See” All that He Knows To lay out the position on divine foreknowledge against which I am arguing, one could employ the terms just used: to claim that divine ideas of non-existents are essentially similar in terms of cognitive content to ideas of actual creatures is to make the divine will to create utterly extrinsic to the divine knowing of the creature. There is a mere actualization, or not, of possibilities already “given,” so to speak, by the divine understanding to the divine power. The preceding three sections have outlined three aspects of Aquinas’s account of divine ideas, none of which have garnered sufficient attention in most previous discussions, but all of which are crucial in helping to envision an alternative account of how God knows non-existents. The topics of section II (distinguishing ideas of things from their incorporation within the willed providential order) and of section III (Aquinas’s mature position linking exemplars exclusively to actual, willed creatures) will be pertinent in the present section, where I will attempt to specify how Aquinas defines the role of divine willing with respect to God’s cognitive achievement. The topic of section I (grasping ideas as subordinated intelligibilities implicitly contained within the divine understanding’s unique intentional object, the Word) will come into play in the next section, where I will suggest reasons why the lack of exemplars for non-existents in no way impairs the perfection of the divine knowledge. If the surmise behind the reading of Aquinas on offer here is correct, then there must be some way of describing, in Aquinas’s terms, what is different in the divine knowledge associated with an exemplar or idea in the complete, more proper sense, as opposed to the knowledge associated with an idea broadly speaking, a “ratio.” Does Aquinas make such a distinction? One important passage where he indeed does so is in the Summa Contra Gentiles (bk. I, ch. 66, par. 8), in which Aquinas, elaborating upon just this question of God’s knowledge of non-existents, appeals to an already established scholastic distinction between God’s “knowledge of vision” (notitia or scientia visionis) and his “knowledge of simple intelligence” (notitia or scientia simplicis intelligentiae). The former regards God’s knowledge of all that is, has been, or will be created, existing “outside” of him, so to speak, while the latter regards his knowledge of all things, actual and possible, as contained within his power. God What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1035 knows all possible things, whether they are created or not, in the latter way; but only actual creatures are known in the former way, too, i.e. only actual creatures are “seen” by God. It is striking that one of the direct implications of Aquinas’s shift (described in the previous section) on ideas properly speaking (exemplars) is that, while his earlier stance would have allowed exemplars in God’s simple intelligence and in his vision indifferently, his later position would mean an exclusive alignment of exemplars with God’s vision of actual creatures only. This is the key to understanding what makes exemplars different cognitively, in terms of what is known, and not just intentionally, as actually willed by God. In other words, the question asked at the beginning of section I concerning Aquinas’s vague proviso that ideas of non-existents are “indeterminate”47 can now be answered. I would propose that the cognitive distinction between exemplars and ideas of non-existents is to be found precisely in Aquinas’s account of the difference between God’s vision and simple intelligence: [T]hose things that are not, nor will be, nor ever were, are known by God as possible to his power. Hence, God does not know them as in some way existing in themselves [in seipsis], but as existing only in the divine power. These are said by some to be known by God according to a knowledge of simple intelligence. The things that are present, past or future to us God knows in his power, in their proper causes, and in themselves [in seipsis].48 Two important things follow from this passage when it is read in light of the results of the previous sections. First, it is the privilege of God’s vision alone to know things as causally co-implicated with each other. But it has already been pointed out that God’s foreknowing of these cannot be reduced to knowing the ideas of things, but only to his eternal knowledge of the one actually willed providential “course” of things (cursus rerum). In other words, Aquinas is here indicating one way in which the divine will is the critical determinant of the content of divine knowledge of the world. For only those possibilities willed into actual relations can be “seen” in the divine vision. Second, the other cognitive achievement that separates God’s vision from God’s simple intelligence relates to knowing things “in seipsis,” QDV q. 3, a. 6. SCG bk. I, ch. 66, par. 8. 47 48 1036 Paul J. DeHart in their formally inherent acts of existence. To understand the force of this, some potential misunderstandings have to be put aside. An initial confusion might result from a comparison of this language to that of the Summa (I, q. 14, a. 5), where Aquinas says that God does not know any creature “in seipsis.” But the context makes clear that the two seemingly contradictory wordings are the result of two different positions being opposed. The SCG passage insists that God “sees” actual creatures in their own proper existence, rather than in the eminently unified existence they have in the divine potency. The Summa passage, however, insists that God does not know creatures “in themselves” in the sense of “through an adequated proper ratio” because God knows all things through his own essence, and this is not a species adequated to any creature, but infinitely surpassing all of them.49 The first usage of “in seipsis” concerns the mode of being of what is known, while the second usage concerns the mode of the divine act of knowing, its medium quo. But this raises another question. If, with regard to the mode of divine knowing, the language of the Summa (I, q. 14, a. 6) suggests there is no distinction between actual creatures and non-existents, would this not lead us to interpret the SCG passage in such a way that the added content, so to speak, of God’s knowledge of vision has no relevance to the medium of divine knowledge, and hence indicates no distinction on the level of ideas between creatures and non-existents? Such a reading would go against the grain of the position being argued here, but fortunately there is another passage that performs the useful service of specifying, in terms of ideas, just what the difference is between God’s vision and his simple intelligence. It also suggests that it was Aquinas’s basic intent all along to demarcate ideas of creatures from ideas of non-existents in terms of the very content of their respective ideas. The passage is so important, and to my recollection has been so little discussed or even cited, that it demands quotation at length: God, who comprehends himself, knows all things which are in any manner in him, but in different ways [diversimode]. Because [on the one hand] those things which are, will be, or have been at any time he knows through knowledge of vision: because that is “seen,” properly speaking, which has an act of existence outside the seer. And although his essence, through which he sees, is one, yet because he sees them through distinct ideal rationes, he Cf. ST I, q. 14, a. 6 ad 3. 49 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1037 therefore has distinct cognition concerning them, as long as he knows anything good according to its proper idea, or anything bad according to the idea of what is opposed to it. But the distinction of these rationes is from the diverse relations [respectus] of the exemplar, namely the divine essence, to the things seen. But [on the other hand] those things which are not, nor were not, nor will be, yet could be or could have been or could be in the future, because in themselves [in seipsis] they do not exist, they have no distinction in themselves [in seipsis], nor do they exist except in the power of God himself, in which they are one: whence there cannot be diverse relations according to which the rationes of these possibles are distinguished; and hence these God does not know through distinct ideas, but through the cognition of his power, in which they are: and thus he is said to know them by simple intelligence, because it is the mark of intelligence to conceive even those things which are not outside the conceiver.50 The point of the passage is as firm and clear as one might wish: God’s knowledge of mere possibles is nothing but a knowledge of his power, and this knowledge does not warrant distinct ideas, or at least ideas distinct in the same sense that ideas of actual creatures are distinct. I do not think the passage need be read as strictly ruling out all plurality of intelligible content in regard to God’s knowledge of non-existents. In the Quaestiones disputatae de veritate (q. 6, aa. 5 and 6), Aquinas manifestly affirms that the lack of determinate existence that marks non-existents within the divine power in no way renders the divine knowing of them itself indistinct. Anything, he says, that God can consider distinctly, may be said to have a distinct “ratio” in the divine cognition. But the context here shows that he is speaking of “rationes” as ideas in the broader sense. I would submit that, in the citation from the Sentences, it is equally plain that those “rationes ideales” that attain the dignity of distinction by their actualized diversity of relation to the divine essence can only be ideas in the narrower sense, what Aquinas will eventually restrictively term “exemplars.” The distinctness in question (or lack thereof) is inherent, so to speak, in the counterparts of the respective kinds of ideas and in no way indicates any vagueness or defect in God’s cognition itself. God knows all creaturely reality, actual and possible, with exactly the degree of distinctness that it actually possesses. If one is inclined to imagine Sent. III, d. 14, q. 1, a. 2, qc. 2. 50 1038 Paul J. DeHart Aquinas’s ideas in “photo-exemplarist” terms, then it is almost irresistibly tempting to argue that things must always be distinctly known by God just because they are always known through distinct ideas, and then to attribute the same level of cognitive distinctiveness to ideas as such, consequent only upon the perfection of divine knowledge and quite irrelevant to the divine will to create or not. But the arguments and passages above suggest a different picture. There is a definite level of distinction within that class of ideas that attain the status of exemplars, deriving from the fact that created actuality accrues additional knowable content from the formally inherent acts of existence and causal interconnections of actual creatures existing “outside” of the divine potency. Finally, this access of knowable content is itself due solely to the divine will electing the actual created order in which we now stand. Sometimes to Know More is to Know Less Here is a different way of stating the “temptation” lurking within the “photo-exemplarist” turn of thinking: prompted by the legitimate concern to safeguard the perfection of the divine cognitive achievement, it seems safest to synthesize the various accounts in which Aquinas describes the unsurpassable range and depth of resolution characterizing God’s knowledge of actual creatures and simply apply that same degree of cognitive grasp associated with exemplars across the board, retrojecting it, so to speak, into God’s knowledge of non-existents as they dwell eminently in his power. But this is to make the mistake of assuming that the actual cognitive content of non-existent objects is identical with that of actual creatures, and the foregoing discussions have offered some forceful considerations that should dictate against that assumption. We have seen that the ideas in God’s eternal knowledge of creatures vary in the degree of what might be called the “vividness” of their boundaries and determinacy as they approximate to or recede from Aquinas’s paradigm of the creaturely existent (i.e., the substance as defined by its species). We have also seen that Aquinas was inclined to assign great significance to the divine decision to create some creatures as part of an actual worldly order, and that in at least one crucial passage he indicated that what God “sees” of such actual creatures must differ in kind from what God “sees” of non-existents. But this raises the question that must be dealt with in this section: why, if all this is true, does Aquinas repeatedly insist that God still has knowledge, indeed proper knowledge, of the infinity of things he chooses not to create, not just of what he actually makes? “Photo-exemplarism” has no problem answering this question, since it rejects any distinction in kind between ideas of creatures and What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1039 ideas of non-existents with regard to their richness of content or detail. God’s “cognitive achievement” is the same in either case. Responding to this will involve showing, first, that our analogical modeling of God’s cognition should be controlled more by the understanding already discussed of the divine ideas precisely as intelligible termini (intellecta), and less by imaginative extrapolation from our own sensuous vision. Then, second, an accounting will be called for whereby it is shown that no cognitive deficit can be assigned to God’s not knowing non-existents with the degree of full implication and determination that characterizes creatures because there is quite simply nothing there to know. Before turning to the first point, it will be helpful to recall that, besides “seeing” actual creatures in their causal order, God knows by simple intelligence the infinity of things that he can create, including but ranging infinitely beyond actual creatures. As infinitely less than God but nonetheless really existing, the created order cannot represent an added increment, so to speak, within the space of ontological possibility eternally defined by God’s being. Hence, it is a deficient participation: different, but not more, indeed different because less. The same principle must hold on the level of knowledge: when God knows actual creatures “apart” from himself in their inherent being and causal interconnection, the two kinds of knowing that mark off vision from simple intelligence, what is known is indeed different, but it cannot be truly more than God knows in grasping them through the perfect comprehension of his essence as participative possibilities within his own power.51 The drift of our entire argument has been that, for Aquinas, the cognitive content of ideas of creatures must be different from that of ideas of non-existents, different because willed, but not merely different as willed. But now it must be added that this difference itself must be “already” implicit within God’s utterly simple grasp of his potency. What is needed is a way of imagining a divine grasp of all possible creatures in their implicit infinity and distinctness which is meaningfully different from the divine vision of the actuality-as-world possessed by some, but in which the latter is in some sense eminently contained. The key is to be found in the topic of the first section above: the analogical model must be our own act of intellect and its inherent infinity. When Aquinas argues (in QDV q. 8, a. 4) that the created human mind of Jesus in hypostatic union with the eternal Word can see all that God sees in his knowledge of vision, but, as with any other creatures, cannot possibly see all that God can do (i.e., cannot share in God’s simple intelligence), the prior supposition is that the actuality of the entire created order is miniscule against the background of the infinity of divine power. 51 1040 Paul J. DeHart The most helpful discussion for this is in the QDV (q. 2, a. 9), concerning how God knows infinites. There, Aquinas carefully compares God’s knowledge of the infinite things that could participate in his goodness with a human being’s intellectual grasp of the nature of the color of some infinitely extended surface. If the entire surface is white, for example, and the intellect understands the meaning of whiteness, then the human knower, through a single intellectual act, knows the whiteness of the surface at every point of its unlimited expanse, even though he or she is not presently considering any particular point or section in its particular whiteness, and in fact could never attend to them all. The crucial point for the comparison is that this intellectual cognition, far from being less than the concrete beholding of each discrete instance of white, is in fact a higher cognitive achievement. It is an “eminent containment” of the infinite white extension within a single concept. Indeed, perfect cognition, Aquinas insists, is simply incompatible with knowing any infinity qua infinite, since quantitative infinity in itself is a mark of imperfection or privation, a lack of determinacy. In the same way, would it not perhaps be beneath God to imagine that he knows the infinity of created things that could exist by simply “beholding” them from eternity discretely, as an unlimited aggregation? Instead, as was discussed earlier, God has the idea of every possible creaturely existent (ens) by understanding himself as “maxime ens” and thereby implicitly understanding every modality by which something could be less than his essence. The result is, indeed, an infinity quantitatively speaking, but because each specific form is a deficient participation, it represents an “intensive” finitude of existence, and can thus be intellectually co-conceived with the concept of the divine essence itself without itself being “singled out” in particular. This is what Aquinas means when he argues that not even God knows a quantitative infinite “according to its infinity” (or “per viam infinitatis”) by, so to speak, “running through” every possibility one by one or considering a set of infinite and discrete items. The parallel passage in the Summa (I, q. 14, a. 12) shows where God’s intellect transcends the “infinity” of the human intellect. The human’s grasp of some intelligible truth about creation implicitly contains a potential infinity of instantiations of that truth, but, as occurring via some limited intelligible species, it can only know the relevant intelligible aspect. God’s species, however, is the divine essence itself, and so there is no aspect of the infinite number of possible and actual beings, including their principles of individuation, that is not already known in the single divine intuition. This presents a conundrum that can be tack- What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1041 led in two different ways. The “photo-exemplarist” position imagines that Aquinas’s point must be that God’s more powerful species allows him to know distinct things along the lines that we do when we sense them, as discretely imagined items. But this ends up analogically assimilating God’s achievement more to our lower cognitive apparatus (sense, imagination) than to our higher (understanding). By a single cognitive act, we know infinite human beings in understanding the “ratio” of human being, though we do not know them as individuated except through sense-mediated encounters. God, however, through his single cognitive act, knows even the propria of the individuals. It is, I am urging, more true to Aquinas to read God’s perfect cognition of individuals in their distinguishing details in terms of a higher instance of intellection, of knowing in unity, rather than in terms of a much more high-powered sense function that knows by an accumulation or multiplication of individual marks. The latter turn of thought is what might be called a “raw extrapolation” approach to God’s knowledge of the infinity of possible creatures. It follows the natural inclination of imagination by taking our sense intuition of multiplicity and simply projecting it to infinity in the case of God. The alternative imagining of divine ideas being advocated here would involve, if it can be put this way, a kind of “telescoping” of successive layers of incidental detail when, through the divine will, the passage is made from the “rationes” of possible things in God’s simple intelligence to the exemplars of actual creatures. At each level, possibilities only implicit in eminent form at a higher ontological level but grasped in God’s intellect are drawn out, made explicit, by the divine decision to create just this world. We moderns tend to think of concrete reality in terms of “states of affairs,” maximally determinate cross-sections of the world through a single instant (whether confined to a “local” event-complex or expandable to encompass an entire “world-moment”), including the mass of all accidents and relations. But the kernels of concrete reality are, for Aquinas, identities perduring through time, specific substances to which accrue a successively shifting array of accidents and relations that are assigned to an ontologically diminished level as parasitic upon the substantial act of being. Even material individuation is relatively “per accidens,” which is why ideas are “more properly” of species. So, the depth of detail which “photo-exemplarism” is so anxious to read back into God’s knowledge of merely possible things is actually present in those things as possibles only eminenter as a second, lower-order level of inherent possibilities for that kind. Intellect, for Aquinas, grasps, first 1042 Paul J. DeHart and foremost, what something “is,” absolutely speaking, while the relative modes that are the dispersed aggregation of this “is-ness” among lower (material) creatures are incidental to true identity. Thus any such “details” are sufficiently, even perfectly, known in God’s understanding of what the thing is, even though no determinate range of specifications of them is actually under eternal consideration. That is why Aquinas can say that all created perfections, whether those of specific forms themselves, as well as those added by their “second acts,” or operations, are contained virtually in the divine perfection just as the conclusions of the demonstration are virtually pre-contained in the premises.52 So in God’s simple intelligence an infinity of things, existent or not, are known primarily as producible bearers of their own acts of existence, yet not as a collection but in an unimaginably unified way. Only in God’s vision are some possibilities resolved out of this unity pursuant to their being collectively co-implicated and mutually operative as a world. God eternally and eminently knows every possible thing in every possible mode, but this in no way involves envisioning an infinity of concrete “possible worlds.” This is no failure, since Aquinas is ontologically unimpressed by circumstantial detail simply as such, all such incident being in service of the concrete total order. This order, we have seen, is more excellent than the things ordered, and yet it must also be said it is for the sake of the very things so ordered. Is this a paradox? Not really, because, though the individual substances themselves are ontologically ultimate in the finite order, they are all limited, and hence, collectively, their unified aggregate is a closer approximation to God’s perfection. Recall that substantial forms are perfections in their own right,53 and so substance is more perfect compared to any particular set of its accidental qualities or operations taken in themselves, even those that perfect the substance as its second act. They are for the sake of the substance, which is why nature supplies the faculties of operation through the specific substantial form. And yet, no individual substance or set of substances is more perfect than the total beauty of the “course of things.” So, according to Aquinas, for God to know “all possible things” is the ne plus ultra of genuine speculative cognition. To know more, to know the actual world, is no longer to remain at the purely speculative level, since God knows them as actual in the good end, which is himself, and thus also in their proper created ends, and this is his providential knowledge of this world, the only one there is. Otherwise put, the “ratio” of Boland, Ideas in God, 223, n. 116. Cf. QDV q. 1, a. 10 ad sc 3. 52 53 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1043 the disposition of actual things into an ordered interaction (world) is itself part of God’s willed decision to create at all. Conversely, the simultaneous grasp of any possible formal participation by a unified thing (the world not itself being a thing, but an ordered aggregate) is an ultimate cognitive perfection in the speculative order. So the willed passage from knowing the merely possible to knowing the creature can be pictured as the progressive unfolding of regions of eminent implication within the divine intelligence: by knowing his essence, God knows every possible thing; by knowing his own wisdom, a range of actuals is known, accommodated to each other in the fitness of order; by knowing these forms in their ordered specificity, God knows all their accidental and operative competences and their genera and wills some of those competences to be actualized. The point of this analogical picture is simply to suggest ways of acknowledging the divine perfection of knowing this world and knowing every possible non-existent creature as well without falling into the trap of thinking of the divine mind as pre-containing a set of determinate items. There is no failure of knowledge here. Just as Aquinas explains God’s self-comprehension not as a containment of himself, but rather as complete transparency to himself, so too God comprehends all possibility not because he contains an unlimited set of “things” but because nothing (no thing) is hidden from him.54 Consider the related case of utterances, where Aquinas argues that God knows the truth of propositions even though he does not think propositionally.55 Thus, even though God knows all propositions that can be formed, it cannot be by precontaining a “list” of all possible sentences! This is akin to the mistake that generative grammar was intended to expose, the kind of “brute force computing” thinking that mistook chess skill for a fast computation that at each turn had to run through every possible move. What grounds fluency or mastery of a language? It is certainly not the memorization of every possible verbal combination suitable to every possible situation. Similarly, the divine creation of this world should not be conceived, à la Leibniz, as the “selection” from a pre-given infinite array of already constituted discrete possibilities. It should rather be seen more in terms of the “feel” involved in the production of a work of art, not the output of a divine computer but a gesture of immense and unerring tact. We do not regard human linguistic skill as a poor substitute for a computerized thesaurus of utterances, but rather vice versa. So, too, Cf. ST I, q. 14, a. 3 and ad 1. Cf. ST I, q. 14, a. 14. 54 55 1044 Paul J. DeHart we should not try to envision God’s knowledge of infinite possibility by equipping him with a hypertrophied human imaginative apparatus, but rather recall the miracle of even merely human intellection. To recall Aquinas’s example, our knowing the infinite white surface may be compared to God’s knowing of the infinity of creatable things in his power. Now, if I consider a specific part of the surface, the rest is hidden due to an accidentally (though inevitably) limited relation of my vision to the surface. I know it all, but can consider only some. With God as well, there is a “consideration” of only “some” of the expanse of possibility contained within him sufficient to resolve it into definitely possible entia (it is not as if God’s essence itself is eternally parceled out into creature-size packages), only in this case the limitation is not accidental at all. The zone of inspection is demarcated by God’s will to create just this, to actualize as a world just this region of imitability. The consideration is limited only by the eternally free will to create; nothing is hidden. What must be fundamentally challenged in the “photo-exemplarist” turn of thought is the transfer of Aquinas’s descriptions of divine cognition of actual creatures into direct application to divine cognition of non-existents. A moment’s consideration will show that the warrants for his conclusions cannot easily be extended in this way. Does God know the world? Yes, but only as the unique result of his particular providential will. So there are no “possible worlds” to know. Does God know exhaustively every actual state of affairs? Yes, but a state of affairs is only fully determinable as embedded within a world-order. So, again, there are no merely possible states of affairs, utterly detached from the actual creation, to know. Does God know material singulars? Yes, but the reasons are, first, that otherwise he could not providentially manage individuals, so the implication for knowledge of non-existent singulars is obvious. The second reason is that, otherwise, God would not know what some creature knows. Again, no extension to the case of non-existents follows, as no creature knows or can know a non-existent singular. Indeed, we are told that God knows singulars and that he knows non-existents, but never, to my knowledge, that he knows singular non-existents. Finally, does God know kinds of things, properly, according to their specific essences? Yes, and here we must say he also knows every possible kind of non-existent, but not according to their discrete infinitude. We are told he knows things properly because, otherwise, he would be unable to wisely insert them within a world order. Non-existents, though implicitly grasped in their potential differences, are not willed into patterned interconnection and hence call for no discrete consideration. What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1045 Part of us will always be ready to balk at this. Troubled by the dreams of modal logic, we find it hard to acknowledge that what fails in God’s ignorance of sheerly possible states of affairs is not at all God’s knowledge, but rather the knowability of the object. But for those who share Aquinas’s basic metaphysical instincts, possibility can only attain definition as anchored to actuality. Knowing what a creature “could do” makes sense in some way, but speaking of what a kind of thing that is not actual “could do,” by removing us a step from the actual, instantly suffers a drastic diminishment of meaning. Merely possible creatures are known determinately by God in their eminent identity with his essence, hence as indeterminate in themselves. In fact, since even an infinity of creatures could not fully express God, it is hard to know what is meant by saying that God knows all possible participations of himself in the form of a set of discrete items. For Aquinas, multiplicity is the immediate concomitant of inferiority to God. There must be an infinity of “angles of decline” from the divine essence, and along any one of them there will ramify an infinite set of progressively unanchored possibilities. Note that the set along a given line will neither exclude nor even border upon any other set. Due to their intensive finitude, there is no way for creatures, even in their infinite quantity of possibilities, to fulfill the divine potency. To use a mathematical metaphor, the possibility space defined by the divine essence presents an impossible “tiling” problem. The reason is that, as possibilities pile on possibilities, at each hypothetical step removed from actuality, they do not merely diverge. Their supporting linkages with the real dissipate, and along with them their definiteness of meaning, the ontological equivalent of the iterating images in two mirrors facing each other that recede to their vanishing points. Hence, it is no cognitive failure on God’s part not to know the identity of “the first cousin of the chiropractor of the third son of the little brother you never had.” And yet, somehow, to the degree that the “photo-exemplarist” indulges in a reading of Aquinas’s ideas in terms of possible worlds (and it is not clear how such terms can be consistently avoided), the identity of that “first cousin” must be just as concrete and determinate as yours or mine! One has only to glimpse the bizarre and awkward metaphysics involved here to seize on one of James Ross’s most basic points and to be driven back to Aquinas in search of something more elegant.56 Such a search lies behind this section’s presentation of an alternative The elegance, I should clarify, lies entirely in the handsome economy of Aquinas’s metaphysical technique, not in the comparatively clumsy attempts of this paper to evoke it. 56 1046 Paul J. DeHart imagery of divine knowing. It has been guided by the conviction that any conception of God’s way of knowing non-existents must, in its analogical extrapolation “upwards” towards God’s cognitive supremacy, keep constantly in mind some basic epistemological themes in Aquinas. One is that greater knowability follows upon greater actuality. Another is that what is less inherently knowable must be known through what is more inherently knowable. A third is that greater achievements of intellection occur through a decrease of primary objects, not an increase. These, along with a few precious clues here and there in his works, have pointed away from any account that would populate God’s mind with an accumulated mass of detail that, apart from an actual world complex, is inherently meaningless and unreal. The resulting picture agrees with Ross’s position. There are no exemplars in the full sense of definite non-existents, because the latter are inherently unknowable in their definiteness. They do not exist in God (the only place they exist) as distinct in themselves. Of course, God’s knowing of them is distinct in that God knows himself perfectly, and perfectly too every principle that could possibly differentiate anything from himself. But in so knowing, God already knows all that is really knowable, and in the most excellent way. The details involved in knowing actual creatures are not really “additions” to God’s knowledge, but are more like “precipitates” out of the selected participants as put into a world-order. For God not to know them in detail, e.g. their singularity in matter, their accidents, their general “passiones,” would be a deficiency, since we, and angels too, can know them: they are there to be known. But not to know such things about non-existents is no lack; not to know nothing is compatible with knowing everything. Let us sum up the account proffered here. Divine ideas attain the dignity of exemplars only as they are drawn out by an act of sovereignly free creativity, a divine inward glance (intuitus) highlighting a limited zone within the abyss of God’s being. To use scholastic language, the real differentiation of a field of scientia visionis from the immensity of the scientia simplici intelligentiae occurs only as mediated by the scientia approbationis; it is nothing other than the willing of this world.57 What is initially so hard to accept is that the resulting resolution of “detail” is no higher achievement, is nothing like (to use an image suggested by Aquinas) something blurred subsequently coming into focus.58 It is more like a kind of degradation, a decomposition of what is already perfectly, For the phrase scientia approbationis, see ST I, q. 14, a. 8. Cf. ST I, q. 14, a. 6. 57 58 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1047 because more highly, known, a condescension that is warranted only by the demands of providential engagement with the detailed actualities of this cursus rerum. Compared with any creaturely knowledge of the world, it is supremely intricate and encompassing. But, as a knowing of creatures in themselves (through a cointelligence of God’s own essence with some of its possible limitations), it is not an additional cognitive attainment, but rather a gracious declination from God’s knowing the full intensity and glory of his infinite power. It is a “spinning out” of a specified set of possibilities attached to some of the infinite entities capable of participating in his essence. It is different, but not more, since it was all “already” there. The familiar phenomenon of a fractal image might prove a distant analogue. Through a single, compact mathematical formula a picture results that unfolds infinite layers of detail on each level of resolution. If I “zoom in,” I see more detail, but more detail is not produced; it is “already” there in the algorithm, though not regarded, not considered. God knows all possibility, but not discretely, until he “zooms in” to create just this, choosing to know some of his potency as also different from himself in ordered, multiple interaction, as so many non-divine acts of being and causality collectively operating and thus mutually concretizing one another. In Support of Ross Against his Critics The foregoing discussions provide a way of reading Aquinas on ideas and non-existents very close, though not identical in every detail, to that of Ross. However, a creditable case can also be made for the sort of account Ross resists, which has been most fully developed by Lawrence Dewan in the already noted 1979 article that, along with pieces by Wippel and others, first prompted Ross to address the issue. But, in spite of Dewan’s evident penetration and the masterful breadth of his Thomistic learning, there are problems in the position he constructs for Aquinas, and his later attempt to usher Ross’s rival account off the field does not quite serve the turn. Dewan sets up the problem in a skewed way from the outset when he argues that the voluntarist is on the horns of a dilemma: either the supposed willing of essences or quiddities that the voluntarist demands is identical with God’s natural willing of his own goodness and power, or it is a willed choice. In the former case it could not be otherwise, and so ends up identical with the position it resists and that Dewan supports, namely, an eternal set of defined possibilities already known within the divine essence. In the latter case, it assumes that the quiddity somehow 1048 Paul J. DeHart exists as a possibility in God, but in a different mode of being from the divine essence, and we are stuck with the “esse essentiae” of Henry of Ghent and Scotus.59 But the dilemma is created by Dewan himself. The voluntarist does not believe that quiddities as defined possibilities exist at all apart from the choice to create the creatures they define. And his associated reading of the Quaestiones disputatae de potentia dei (q. 3, a. 5 ad 2), where quiddity is created only in that actuality is attributed to it, is by no means a necessary one.60 Dewan exploits the ambiguity of Aquinas’s language there to guide the discussion onto a favored path, but the voluntarist should reply that the question at issue is not whether a quiddity has a being in God’s intellect other than the divine being, but rather whether the quiddity as such has any being in God’s intellect apart from God’s decision to create it. In other words, Dewan has framed the question in a way that already presupposes his own position that divine “possibility” is already eternally “parceled out” into defined quiddities, utterly detached from any divine will to create. Dewan’s position requires an infinite set of individuated creaturely possibilities that God’s own self-understanding “confronts” him with, as it were. Aware of those places in Aquinas where (in potential tension with this scheme) he speaks of the plurification of ideas as due solely to God’s act of intellect “causing” or “excogitating” them, Dewan tries to identify in Aquinas an eternally anterior moment in God where all creaturely possibilities in their definiteness are simply and passively “beheld” by God as an inevitable concomitant of knowing his own essence. But the first stage of this argument, which attempts to grant a dubious technical status in Aquinas to the term “possibility” by appeal to the latter’s definition of omnipotence (ST I, q. 25, a. 3), depends upon two unwarranted moves.61 Aquinas argues that, in order for us to define God’s omnipotence in a non-circular way, we need to employ a universal negative definition of “a” possibility as the subject of a non-contradictory act of predication. Dewan most questionably grants the “possibilities” so defined an absolute status in themselves, thus transforming a merely human intellectual requisite into an eternal condition under which God’s own self-knowledge labors. But God’s knowing is not propositional, nor predicational, and thus our posterior apprehensions of definite essences as encoding distinctly formulable possibility conditions have nothing to do with God’s own mode of eminently Dewan, “Thomas and Possibles,” 77, n. 4. Ibid., 77, n. 5. 61 Ibid., 78–79. 59 60 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1049 grasping multiplicity in unity. Moreover, the wording of Aquinas’s definition does not turn primarily on the non-contradictoriness of things, but rather more generally on the non-contradictoriness of divine creative acts, of the states of affairs that “fall under” his omnipotence. As has been argued in this paper, the ordering of possible worlds would constitute an infinity of such acts, which, according to the logic of Aquinas’s position, do not themselves fall under any definite eternal pre-cognition. This is a second reason not to assume that “possibilia” as propositionally definable, retroactively, from our standpoint, must determine God’s own self-comprehension from eternity. The second stage of Dewan’s argument also prompts some questions. He offers a curious reading of the Summa (I, q. 15, a. 2, ad 2) that discovers in it a distinction, found nowhere else in Aquinas, between a “first” divine knowing of pure possibilities that is distinct from a “second” divine act of reflection that constitutes ideas.62 On the contrary, the last part of the body of the article shows quite clearly that God’s knowing of the imitability of his essence is simply identical with his knowing ideas. As for the ad 2 itself of this article, the start of the passage should have made it evident that the contrast Aquinas is drawing is not between God’s knowing possibilities in themselves and then, in a second act, the ideas of them. Rather, God, by one act, knows created things (the question is concerned exclusively with actual creatures; non-existents are nowhere mentioned), and in so doing knows them also not as “over there” outside him, but as excogitated intellectual termini. The point, as we argued above in dealing with the same passage, is that God does not just know the truths of many creatures, he knows them via the prior production of their intelligible contents as ideas, just as the maker of the house knows the house not just through receiving its species from “out there,” but by his mind’s observing that species as thought out within. In a similar way, Dewan is forced to explain away Aquinas’s own language ad 3 that speaks of God’s intellectual self-comparison “causing” the plurification of ideas. He says that, as mere relations of reason, the differentiating relations of ideas to the divine essence require no cause, presumably because they are eternally pre-given as part of God’s essence itself—the “possibilities” are always already pluriform, the divine intellect passively receiving that itemized plurality in the form of ideas. But this again misses the force of the intellectual act. “Excogitare” in God means “concipere.” Ideas are in the conception; they are the secondary and Ibid., 83. 62 1050 Paul J. DeHart implicit termini of the one act of self-comprehension, not the result of some secondary act of passive reflection. God’s essence is not “statically” plurified, as Dewan’s account implies, but plurification “occurs” only in the dynamics of intellection. Aquinas’s causal language, though analogical, should not be robbed of its force; the plurality of ideas is inexplicable otherwise. Creatures as posterior effects naturally cannot be the cause of the plurification of ideas (though the former “denominate” the latter, which is not the same thing). But, contra Dewan, the object known (the divine essence) is utterly simple in itself, a potency supporting an indefinite infinity of possibility, not a grid of potential essences. The plurality is “made” by God’s eternal intellectual self-comparison; it is not simply “found” as a pre-given multitude.63 In a final step Dewan turns back to the article on omnipotence (ST I, q. 25, a. 3), misleadingly exaggerating Aquinas’s nominal stipulation that possibilities as “absolute” are not named in reference to any power in order so that, once again, he can isolate the specific forms of God’s imitability from any connection with divine potency.64 This runs counter to the plain language of the article, which stipulates that the possibility “in itself” that anything can be (i.e., its “absolute” possession of the ratio entis) is grounded in, and corresponds directly to, the active power of God springing from the divine essence as infinite act of being. There are further questions that could be raised, but this will suffice. The examples queried here are not intended to render any kind of final verdict on Dewan’s complex and suggestive reconstruction of Aquinas’s position, but they do raise the suspicion that it is at least partly leveraged upon some highly questionable readings of specific passages. This impression is reinforced when Dewan’s later article criticizing Ross is taken into account. Once again, little more can be done here than indicate what appear to be some problematic arguments. For example, he tries to read Aquinas’s discussion of God’s knowledge of infinites as if it clearly warranted his own demand for a divine apprehension of This is to express in a different way the essential point that, according to Lonergan, separates intellection as envisioned by Aquinas from the rival “conceptualist” scheme of Duns Scotus: “Scotus argues [against Aquinas’s position] that [the multiplicity of] the divine ideas cannot be accounted for by adding notional relations to the divine essence; for the object precedes the knowing, and relations that precede knowing are not notional but real. The argument does not touch Aquinas’s real position, which is that the object as known is not prior and that the relations pertain only to the object as known.” (Verbum, 19, n. 28 [italics added]). On “conceptualism,” see also ibid., 39, n. 126 and 163. 64 Dewan, “Thomas and possibles,” 83–84. 63 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1051 non-existents in discrete detail.65 But this is only convincing if one takes Aquinas’s denial that God does not know “per viam infinitatis” to amount to no more than a denial of a temporal succession of divine cognitive acts. Such a reading ignores the heart of Aquinas’s argument, where God’s epistemic achievement is not reducible simply to the “simultaneity” of his glance, but more centrally involves the infinite power of his intellectual species “encompassing” infinite creatures via their intensive finitude of being, thereby sidestepping a fruitless, indeed impossible, “itemizing” knowledge. Similarly, Dewan seems to me to argue against the grain when he detects in Aquinas the elevation of human rational analysis to a prime analogue of divine knowing.66 But “resolving” is a discursive procedure, and one needed only by a discursive intellect. It is superfluous to the divine mind, which, I have argued, has no need to decompose special objects in order to know fully (i.e., as fully as they can be known) the many-in-one. Only the will to create calls forth a partial “analytic” breakdown, the detachment of separate objects via worldly concretion. Lastly, Dewan lays great weight upon God’s “virtually practical” knowledge of non-existents, since God must thereby know everything about a possible creature needed to bring it into existence.67 But just how much “detail” does this involve? At issue here is arguably only the bare “existent” in that potential specification implied in God’s intellectual ability to “mask” or “hide” his infinite perfection from himself (“comparatio”). Aquinas’s claim that God knows about non-existents all that a human intellect could resolve in them68 (a key support for Dewan’s “analytic” reading of God’s cognition of non-existents) turns out, as Aquinas’s examples show, to involve only the “abstracta” already implicitly contained in the specific form (genus, difference, and “passiones,” i.e., proper accidents).69 In other words, nothing like the richness of Dewan, “Ross and exemplarism,” 230–231. Ibid., 226, 228. 67 Ibid., 226–229. 68 Cf. QDV q. 3, a. 3. 69 Aquinas speaks here of God knowing the possible thing not just properly in itself, but also according to all the “intentiones” that a human intellect could apprehend in it through analysis, i.e., according to the “intentional” being of those parts of it which can be abstracted mentally though they cannot exist in themselves. Since contingent accidents are not part of the intellect’s grasp of a thing’s identity, I take it that the whole passage makes the best sense when the parallel language of knowing the “passiones” of the merely possible is taken to refer to “passiones per se” or necessary properties of a given kind. On this use of 65 66 1052 Paul J. DeHart the actualized creature-in-its-world is at stake. So Dewan’s claim that God knows about the non-existent “all that pertains to its taking a place as a thing existing in its own being”70 is perfectly compatible with the minimalist reading that would follow from the position defended in this paper. It means God always implicitly knows, by knowing his own being, what could also take its own place as a deficient participant of that being (or, better, of its similitude). This need not approach the demands of concrete existence; even where creaturely essences are concerned, a human being, for example, is possible because a rational animal is possible, but no human being can actually exist at all without a determinate height and skin color, and such requisites do not seem to be at issue for Aquinas here. Whereas (to speak of non-existents), if all things that could bear the “ratio entis” are implicitly in God’s self-comprehension, then so too are implicitly present their respective ranges of possible distinguishing propria (none of which yet demands the “matching up” which resolves them into defined quiddities). Whatever the questions raised here, Dewan’s challenging articles give much food for thought to anyone sympathetic to a position like that of Ross. Hence, they also demonstrate just how difficult it is to reach any final decisions based on the scant evidence Aquinas provides. This is obscured by the highly assured stance conveyed by Dewan’s prose, especially when he is situating himself vis-a-vis Ross. It is not so much that in summarizing Aquinas’s arguments he adds his own vocabulary (e.g., “consideration” and “objective inspection”) which tip the weight in favor of his preferred reading; that is simply the role of interpretation, and the same tactic is obvious throughout my own discussion. It is rather that the sheer ambiguity of the Aquinas material on non-existents is papered over by Dewan’s vigorous assurances: Aquinas’s incompatibility with Ross’s reading is “perfectly clear”; Aquinas “is doing all he can” to rule such a reading out; and “[t]here can hardly be any doubt” of it, and hence Ross is going against “the evident intention” of Aquinas.71 If my arguments in the previous sections do not provide a decisive refutation of Dewan’s position, they hopefully amount at least to a flat refusal of his implication that Ross’s position is an obvious non-starter. And the considerations of the present section are designed to show that Dewan’s own account is neither as natural nor as inevitable as his energetic rhetoric would suggest. “passions,” see Aquinas, Sententia super Posteriora Analytica, bk. I, lectio 14. Dewan, “Ross and exemplarism,” 232. 71 Ibid., 222, 226, 231, 233. 70 What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1053 There is no time here to fully address Ross’s other critics, but I would submit that they add little that is of decisive significance to Dewan’s critique. John Wippel has written much that is insightful on ideas in Aquinas, but when he turns to the particular issue of ideas of non-existents, his account amounts to a more cautious and less speculative variant upon Dewan’s position (to whom he refers the reader for more detail).72 The fact that his Aquinas ends up on the question at issue in uncomfortably close proximity to Henry of Ghent might well be grounds for some disquiet. Aaron Martin’s essay, its title notwithstanding, disappointingly fails to engage Ross’s own arguments in detail. It relies instead upon a treatment of “virtually practical” knowledge in Aquinas that breaks no new ground, when it is not simply repeating Dewan and Wippel as if they had already settled the whole issue.73 Gregory Doolan’s article, in contrast, does indeed introduce a new element into the discussion, but it is a very contentious one. Joining in Dewan’s attempt to secure a logically prior zone of divine knowledge in which the infinity of different possible creatures are simply “given” in isolation from the creative will, he appeals to the kind of “two-stage” model of divine creation earlier developed by Cornelio Fabro and Louis Geiger, in which there is first constituted an unlimited field of fixed, discrete “essences” within the divine being, prior to the willed bestowal of “existence” upon a “select” subset.74 Accounts of creation in Aquinas along these lines were subjected to a searching and powerful critique by Rudi te Velde in the book that has been cited above, a critique which is not noticed in Doolan’s paper.75 Wippel, “Nonexisting possibles,” 734, n. 11, and 737, n. 16. Martin, “Reckoning with Ross,” 199. 74 Doolan, “Is Thomas’s doctrine Thomistic?,” 166–167. 75 Te Velde, Participation, 88–90, 95, 108–110, 146–147. Doolan does attempt a rather brief reply to Te Velde in Aquinas on the Divine Ideas, 238–241, continuing in the vein of an even hastier notice in John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 128–129. Neither response, it seems to me, is particularly effective. Wippel unhelpfully assimilates Te Velde to Geiger (whom Te Velde is criticizing) and mistakenly attributes to him the easily dismissed fear of a temporal priority of essence to existence. Doolan, in addition to endorsing Wippel’s reading, thinks he can obviate Te Velde’s critique by the assurance that “double participation” is not a problem because the first or “formal” participation presupposes no real recipient, which is hardly to the point. (Doolan also complains that Te Velde is unclear on what the two participations consist in, yet remarkably fails to cite the crucial pages from Te Velde’s book [87–91] where the matter is first discussed.) Neither author seems to have grasped Te Velde’s actual concern, which has nothing to do with the “priority” as such, whether logical 72 73 1054 Paul J. DeHart Summary Reflections Positions like that of Dewan cannot, it seems to me, satisfactorily account for Aquinas’s paradoxical affirmation of a divine cognition that is infinitely diverse yet utterly without composition: God somehow knows many in one without knowing a “set.” This paper has set out an alternative account in sympathy with that of James Ross, not through the kind of modal critique of the metaphysics of possibility and individuation which he brilliantly expounded, but through an exploration of what a more “voluntarist” reading of ideas in Aquinas might look like (thus providing what he complained had been missing in responses to his construal of that thinker).76 Nothing like a final adjudication is on offer here, nor is one likely forthcoming from any side, given the paucity of the direct evidence. It seems that all that Ross or Dewan (or I) can offer are cautious speculations, appealing to one’s broadest “feel” of the contours of Aquinas’s thought as a whole. The reason for this lies in Aquinas himself: he is just not all that interested in possibilities never to be realized.77 At best, possibility is a shadow of the actual, parasitic upon it for such determinacy as it may have. If something more profound is or temporal, of essence. The issue is the very notion of a logical independence within the creature of two distinct orders of limitation, one in the formal order constituting essences as “possibiles” known by the divine intellect, the other in the actual order whereby the divine will bestows “actuality” upon a selection of these pre-known possibles, such that an undifferentiated act of sheer existence is “contracted” by essences already themselves constituted in a logically distinct way. Te Velde’s worry that, thereby, the unity of the act of creation is disrupted seems well-grounded, both from God’s side (the divine intellect as exemplar cause is dissociated from the divine will as efficient cause) and the creature’s (rather than a single limitation defining at once essence and proper esse, there are limitations of essence and esse springing from logically distinct principles in order that the former limit can ground the latter). 76 For more detailed and wide-ranging accounts of Ross’s metaphysical position on possibility and actuality, with related criticisms of widespread assumptions within the analytic tradition, see James F. Ross, “The Crash of Modal Metaphysics,” The Review of Metaphysics 43 (December 1989): 251–280; and Ross, “The Fate of the Analysis: Aristotle’s Revenge,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 64 (1990), 51–74. For the neglect of voluntarism in the discussion see Ross, “Response,” 235. 77 A striking indication of this can be found in his casual and passing reference to the distinction between God’s “absolute” versus “ordained” power at ST I, q. 25, a. 5 ad 1. This is in strong contrast to the fascination of Scotus and the later scholastics in his wake, who leverage the question of what God could have done in order to open up an endless field of speculative determinations of “absolute” possibility. What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1055 at stake for us today in these questions, it is only because of those later philosophical developments wherein Avicenna’s “essences” experienced a spectacular inflation (enabled in various ways by Henry of Ghent, Duns Scotus and Francis Suarez) into the “possible worlds” of Leibniz and contemporary modal logic.78 Aquinas might well have had some intimation of the troubles lurking in non-existents, but he had the good sense to turn to other things, never bothering to rectify the ambiguous wording of those few passages where he allows the matter even to come up. Ross’s own amusing but apt imagery for characterizing the alternatives cannot be bettered. Must we, with Dewan, Wippel, and their supporters, construe God’s perfect foreknowledge of mere possibility as involving an itemized array of perfectly distinct and concrete ideas, like “tin soldiers spread out on a carpet”? Or is it rather more like the case of one who, having a good enough acquaintance with W.C. Fields, already has by that very fact an implicit grasp of every possible imitation of him?79 Both readings affirm God’s knowledge of infinites, but disagree on how best to construe that infinity. What has been laid out here sees God knowing every possible “thing,” albeit implicitly: to know the template existent (the divine essence) is at one and the same time to know every imitation qua imitation, and therefore every way the imitation can fail. But the infinite uncreated “things” existing solely in the divine power are too indefinite to support a full array of possible detail. The filaments of derived possibility that ramify out from created actualities, surrounding them with a penumbra of less and less defined alternatives, are in the case of these unreal things purely spectral. It is no credit to God’s foreknowledge to equip it with an empty infinity of iterated counterfactuality. I do not dispute, any more than Ross did, that language pointing in this latter direction can certainly be found in Aquinas. But I am also reassured that, in refusing to follow such indications, I am guided by the formidably informed instincts of many experts on Aquinas, not only Ross himself but also David Burrell, W. Norris Clarke, Rudi te Velde, Harm Goris and even, as I read him, Bernard Lonergan.80 This paper has tried to For a nice capsule description of this development, see Goris’s summary of comments by Simo Knuuttila in his Free Creatures of an Eternal God (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 259. 79 Ross, “Aquinas’s exemplarism,” 176. 80 Burrell scornfully dismisses the idea that God, in creating, “chooses” from a set of options “like a jury in an architectural contest,” and rightly stresses the exiguous and undefined status of non-created possibility (Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993], 110–111). 78 1056 Paul J. DeHart show that the resources for such an alternative imagining of Aquinas on this issue are indeed there to be found. In sum, the alternative runs like this: God eternally “sees” only actual creatures in their worldly causal matrix; non-existents he “simply understands” in their kinds as the infinitely diverse sectorizations of his potency in implied “comparison” with its essential plenitude. Only the will to create realizes this difference “outside” of the divine being itself, so to speak. In any case, God knows all things not through themselves but through himself, and there is no excess of “actuality” in the creatures that God “sees,” since the “more” of creation is, vis-à-vis the divine being, “less,” a proliferation of modifications and relations. Yet, as a whole, in the end intended by God of participation in himself as end, there is a unique, quite precisely intended reality, a splendidly ordered aggregation, a world. It is an augmentation not as another entity participating God’s maximal entity, but as the poetic artifact of the divine wisdom in its joyful superfluity. God’s knowing of it is at once practical and speculative. In knowing himself, God already “knows how” all things could be made, and in “knowing how,” he already knows all that is. The actualization of real things as a world unfolds an articulated mass of detail, but this “explicated” form need not be projected back into God as a kind of mental representation. Between the definite realities of Clarke strongly emphasizes the “inventive” or voluntarist dimension in God’s “excogitation” of the ideas, a conception in definite tension with the notion that God “discovers” (Wippel’s term) the ideas as always already “given” within himself (W. Norris Clarke, “What is Really Real?” in Progress in Philosophy: Philosophical Studies in Honor of Rev. Dr. Charles A. Hart, ed. J. A. McWilliams [Milwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing Co., 1955]), 85, n. 45; 88. Cf. Wippel, “Nonexisting Possibles,” 171, n. 19. Both Te Velde and Goris correctly discern the unacknowledged connection between positions like Wippel’s (“photo-exemplarist” ones in Ross’s terminology) and that dichotomous prioritization of finished and determinate essences over against an “additional” actualizing act of existence that characterizes thinkers like Avicenna and Henry of Ghent (i.e., “essentialism”) but that Aquinas decidedly transcended (Te Velde, Participation, 114, n. 46; Goris, Free Creatures, 273, n. 52). Finally, Lonergan, in a finely concentrated passage, describes how Aquinas’s doctrine of ideas, even though it cannot ground any demonstration of the generation of an intellectual word in God, appropriates “the Aristotelian theorem of knowledge by identity” and the dynamic of eminent containment as an essential component of intellection (“As we can understand multa per unum all the more so can God.”) in a way that obviates the “Platonist” assumption that God, in knowing his own possible creations, must “confront” them as distinct within himself (an assumption that forced Henry of Ghent and later scholastics to grant some kind of “esse obiectivum” to essences) (Verbum, 201–204). What Is Not, Was Not, and Will Never Be 1057 this world and their unimaginable contraction in his eternal foreknowing stands the poetic wisdom of God’s art in service to the free willing of one particular “by-way” to his own beatitude. The explicated form of worldly things is nothing but God’s “showing his math.” His knowledge of vision is akin to “going through the motions,” or conducting the slow student through the steps of the demonstration, though the master grasps at one stroke the conclusion (the world) as implicated in the premise (the simple understanding of his essence). As for the world’s realities themselves, they, like their ideas, can never be more than relations of reason. They “make no difference” to God (hence, the sheer gratuity of his love, as Julian of Norwich was shown81). Yet, to the world, they make all the difference in the world, because they are all the difference N&V that makes the world. Julian of Norwich, Showings, trans. and ed. Edmund Colledge, O.S.A. and James Walsh, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 130–132. 81 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1059–1091 1059 Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real Gregory T. Doolan Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. Following in the Platonic tradition , Thomas Aquinas posits a doctrine of Ideas as the immaterial, immutable, and eternal exemplars of sensible things. And following in the Neoplatonic tradition, he locates these Ideas in a divine mind—to be precise, in the mind of God.1 Yet, while Thomas’s doctrine of divine Ideas agrees with both Platonism and Neoplatonism on these basic respective points, it nevertheless differs from them in signficant ways. For example, unlike Plato, Thomas concludes that the Ideas cannot exist as subsistent Forms that are the essences of sensible things.2 And unlike Neoplatonists such as * For their help in reviewing earlier drafts of this paper and offering invaluable suggestions for corrections, I would like to thank Kelly Doolan, Cristina Ionescu, and Barry Jones. My thanks also go to Matthew Pietropaoli for his work as my research assistant on this project. 1 Thus, he also follows in the Augustinian tradition regarding the Ideas. For Augustine, see notably his De ideis, Quaestio 46 of his De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina [hereafter, CCSL] 50.1:70). In this paper, I will capitalize the initial letter of the term “Idea” to indicate the transcendent status both of Platonic-style subsistent Forms, and of divine Ideas within the mind of God. When referring to forms in the human intellect or intellectual forms in general, the initial letter of the term “idea” will remain uncapitalized. 2 Here, he not only follows Aristotle’s critique of the Platonic Forms as subsistent entities (see, e.g., Metaphysics I, c. 6), but also Augustine’s insistence that they must exist within the mind of God (De ideis, CCSL50.1:70–71:16–20), as well as Ps.-Dionysius’s position that the exemplars of beings pre-exist in God in a singular way (Divine Names V, par. 8, in Dionysiaca, ed. Philippe Chevallier 1060 Gregory T. Doolan Plotinus and Proclus, who posit a divine mind as the locus of the Ideas, Thomas holds that this mind cannot be an hypostasis subordinate to the first principle, but must be God himself.3 What, then, of the Platonic tradition that the Ideas possess a greater reality than the things that they exemplify: viz., that the Ideas are the “really real”?4 In this article, I will examine whether Thomas’s doctrine of divine Ideas departs from the tradition on this point or whether it is in agreement with it and, if so, how. In short, are the divine Ideas, in Thomas’s view, more real than sensible things? Does he consider the divine Idea of Man, for example, to be more real than the sensible, individual man Socrates? To answer these questions, my article will consist of four parts. (1) In the first part, I will consider what it might mean for Plato for something to be “real” and “really real,” by looking at various scholarly interpretations concerning Plato’s doctrine of degrees of reality doctrine. (2) In the second part, I will begin to address the same question for Thomas by looking at his general account of reality and the real. [Paris: Desclée, de Brouwer & Cie., 1937], vol. 1.22.359–360:S). For other fundamental differences between Thomas and Plato, see R.J. Henle, S.J., Saint Thomas and Platonism (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956). For an overview of Thomas’s doctrine of divine Ideas, see John F. Wippel, Thomas Aquinas on the Divine Ideas, The Etienne Gilson Series 16 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1993). For an in depth consideration of the topic, see Vivian Boland, Ideas in God According to Saint Thomas Aquinas (New York: E.J. Brill, 1996), as well as Gregory T. Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008). 3 Here, Thomas looks to Ps.-Dionysius (Divine Names V, par. 2 [Dionysiaca, vol. 1.21.326–327:S]). Thomas did not have access to the writings of Plotinus, having only a limited familiarity with his thought. Later in life, he did have direct knowledge of Proclus through Moerbeke’s 1268 translation of The Elements of Theology (Helmut Boese, ed. Proclus: Elementatio theologica, translata a Guillelmo de Morbecca, De Wulf-Mansion centre Ancient and Medieval Philosophy series 1, vol. 5 [Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1987]), which Thomas employed extensively in writing his commentary on the Liber de causis. On his use of Proclus, see Vincent A. Guagliardo, O.P., “Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas,” in Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Causes, trans. and ed. Vincent A. Guagliardo, Charles R. Hess, O.P., and Richard C. Taylor (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), ix–xxxv. 4 Norris Clarke offers an excellent overview of the history of this theme from Plato up through the nominalism of the fourteenth century. See his “The Problem of the Reality and Multiplicity of Divine Ideas in Christian Neoplatonism,” in Neoplatonism and Christian Thought, ed. Dominic J. O’Meara (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982), 109–127. Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1061 (3) In the third part, I will provide a textual analysis of key passages on the divine Ideas to see the sort of reality Thomas attributes to them. (4) Finally, in the fourth part of this paper I will return to the various interpretations of the term “real” identified by Platonic scholars, to discern whether Thomas considers the divine Ideas to be the “really real” in any sense of the phrase. As we will see, the answer to this question will not be a simple “yes” or “no,” but instead a sic et non—or more precisely, a set of such responses. Identifying these responses, along with the important distinctions they entail, will clarify for us not only the degree of reality that Thomas attributes to the divine Ideas, but more importantly it will shed further light on the fundamental role his doctrine of esse plays in his metaphysical account of reality. Platonism and the Really Real Plato’s doctrine of Ideas, or Forms, as the “really real” is presented in a number of his dialogues, but perhaps most strikingly in the Republic.5 In Book X, Plato contrasts the physical bed made by a carpenter with the Form of Bed. The physical one, we are told, is not “perfectly real,” but “a shadowy sort of thing by comparison with reality”—that is, by comparison with the Form.6 We are presented here with a paradox: although it is the physical bed that can be put in a bedroom, dressed with sheets, and slept in, Plato contends that, in fact, the Form of Bed is the “real” bed. Why does Plato hold this paradoxical position? What does it mean for him to refer to the Forms as the “really real”? To begin to answer these questions, we first need to consider what precisely the English phrase “really real” translates, namely, the Greek τὸ ὄντως ὄν. In this phrase, both ὄν and ὄντως are derived from the Greek verb “to be” (εἶναι)—the former derived term as the participial form and the latter as the adverbial. Thus ὄν can be translated into English with the participial form, “being.” As regards ὄντως, however, there is no corresponding English adverbial See, e.g., Republic 476a–479d, 509d–511d, and 596b–597d. See also Phaedrus 247c and Sophist 240b–248a. 6 Republic 597a, translation from Gregory Vlastos, “A Metaphysical Paradox,” in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 39 (1965–66): 5. In my discussion of Greek terminology in this paper, I will follow translations by Vlastos as presented in both “A Metaphysical Paradox,” 5–19 and “Degrees of Reality in Plato,” in New Essays on Plato and Aristotle, ed. Renford Bambrough (New York: The Humanities Press, 1965), 1–19. In particular, I will follow Vlastos’s morphological account of the phrase τὸ ὄντως ὄν (“Degrees of Reality,” 1–2). 5 1062 Gregory T. Doolan form of “to be.” We do not use the term “beingly.” Instead, ὄντως is typically translated as “really.” Similarly, we do not ordinarily speak of “beingness” in English, which would be a literal translation of the Greek noun οὐσία, also derived from εἶναι. As a parallel to the translation of ὄντως, therefore, οὐσία can be rendered into English as “reality.”7 As a further parallel, the participle ὄν can be translated alternatively as the adjective “real” and treated as a participial noun, thus functioning as a substantive adjective. Hence, the phrase τὸ ὄντως ὄν can be rendered into English in a number of ways, including “beingly being,” “real being,” “what really is,” and, of course, “really real.” Although this last translation, with which we are concerned, certainly captures Plato’s original expression, as Gregory Vlastos notes, “it makes less than obvious what leaps to the eye in the Greek: that ‘real’ and ‘reality’ are simply the adjectival and nominal forms of ‘to be,’ and that ‘is’ in turn represents the verbal form of ‘real’ and ‘reality.’”8 What is more obvious, however, from this morphological consideration of the phrase “really real” is that for Plato the notion of reality is tied to—indeed is an expression of—his doctrine of being. To say that the Forms, or Ideas, are the “really real” is to say that, in some sense, they exist more fully than the sensible things they exemplify. Why might this be? One explanation is that, for Plato, sensible things, unlike Forms, both are and are not: he tells us that they are intermediate between what fully is and what in no way is, participating in both.9 Sensible things are thus in a state of becoming (γένεσις), whereas Forms are in a state of being (οὐσία) and are constant and unchanging.10 Following from these positions, Plato concludes that Forms are the objects of knowledge, whereas sensible things are merely objects of opinion.11 This translation of οὐσία is by no means the only one. In the context of Aristotle’s writings, the term is commonly translated (for better or worse) as “substance.” Here, the English translation follows the medieval Latin rendering of οὐσία as substantia,which dates at least as far back as Augustine, but which was standardized through the influence of Boethius. Joseph Owens notably advocates translating οὐσία as “entity.” Regarding this rendering of οὐσία and the history of its translation, see his The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics, 3rd rev. ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies), 137–54. 8 Vlastos, “Degrees of Reality,” 1. 9 Republic 477a–478e. 10 See, e.g., Phaedo 78d–79a; Symposium 211; Republic 479a–d. Regarding the distinction between οὐσία and γένεσις in Plato, see, e.g., Robert Bolton, “Plato’s Distinction Between Being and Becoming,” The Review of Metaphysics 29 (1975): 66–95. 11 Republic 477a–480a. 7 Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1063 We find these Platonic views carried forward and recast in the Neoplatonic presentation of reality, for example in Plotinus’s account of Intellect (νοῦς). It is in this second hypostasis, beneath the One, that Plotinus locates the Platonic Ideas. More to the point, he identifies the Ideas with Intellect: Ideas, Being, and Intellect are one.12 For Plotinus, it is Intellect that is constant and unchanging and, hence, the really real.13 This Plotinian view is later echoed in Proclus’s hierarchic triad of principles beneath the One: Being (ὄν), Life (ζωή), and Intellect (νοῦς). Although the latter two proceed from the first as distinct principles, the higher is contained in the lower by participation; the lower, in turn, are contained in the higher as in a cause. Hence, Proclus tells us that, in Being, all things are really being (ὄντως ὄν)—really real—inasmuch as they are contained in the Form of Being.14 Identifying this link in the Platonic and Neoplatonic tradition between the notions of reality and being provides a helpful starting point to understand why this tradition considers the Ideas to be more real than sensible things. Still, it does not provide the full answer. For, as philosophers have acknowledged throughout the history of Western philosophy, “being” can be said in many ways—so, too, then with the notion of the “real.” A survey of Platonic scholarship reveals two fundamental readings of this term, “real”: (R1) an existential reading and (R2) a non-existential one. In light of the former reading, the Platonic doctrine of the really real has been interpreted as an existential doctrine. In light of the latter, it has been interpreted either as (R2a) an epistemic doctrine, (R2b) a doctrine of predication, or (R2c) an aesthetic-mystical doctrine. In what follows, I will briefly present each of these interpretations. My purpose in doing so is not to arbitrate between them in reading Plato, but rather simply both to see what it might mean to speak of the Platonic Ideas as the really real and also to consider whether, in any sense of the phrase, Thomas himself considers the divine Ideas to be such. Let us start simply by considering how the term “real” is used in ordinary English language. Scholars note that there are two distinct senses of the term, which can be made clear by way of example: R1. You, the reader, are real; by contrast, Harry Potter is not. R2. The U.S. dollars in my wallet are real; by contrast, Monopoly money and counterfeit bills are not. Ennead V 3.5; V 9.6–8 Plotinus, ed. A.H Armstrong, 7 vols., including Greek text of P. Henry and H.-R Schwyzer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966–1988). 13 Ennead VI 1.4. 14 Proclus, Elements of Theology, Prop. 103. 12 1064 Gregory T. Doolan The first sense of “real” (R1) is an existential sense contrasting the existent with the fictitious or imaginary, whereas the second sense is not existential, even if it presumes the existence of an object. Indeed, Monopoly money and counterfeit money can exist just as surely as the legal currency in my wallet. In calling the latter sort of bills “real money” what I am asserting is not that they exist but rather that they are genuine. It is this notion of the genuine that the second, non-existential sense of “real” (R2) denotes.15 What then of Plato? How does he use the Greek term for “real” (ὄν)? Some scholars read him as employing it according to the existential sense (R1). Thus, looking at Plato’s degrees of reality doctrine, R. C. Cross and A. D. Woozley note in their commentary on the Republic that “in what follows the expressions ‘exists,’ ‘is real,’ occur as synonyms.”16 If the term “real” is thus taken, then for Plato the Forms are the really real because they exist more so than do sensible things. Other scholars, however, see this reading as problematic. In their view, existence is a binary state of affairs: either something exists or it does not. Existence, they would argue, does not admit of degrees. Thus, in interpreting Plato’s degrees of reality doctrine, these scholars conclude that the existential sense of “real” has no relevance.17 Regarding the non-existential sense of “real” (R2), scholars tend to agree that it can admit of degrees, since one thing can be more genuine than another. Thus, we speak of a “real friend” and “real gold.” The term “real” can be used as a descriptor in these cases not merely to distinguish the genuine article from the impostor (the sincere friend from the false-friend; genuine gold from fool’s gold), but also to distinguish the perfect, complete, and unadulterated from the deficient. Thus, Vlastos, “Metaphysical Paradox,” 6–7. As Vlastos explains: “This non-existential sense of real has always been in common use and is recognized as such in the Oxford English Dictionary, immediately after the existential: ‘that which is actually and truly such as its name implies; possessing the essential qualities denoted by its name; hence genuine.’ But modern philosophers have ignored it all too often. Kant’s classical pronouncement on the hundred thalers makes no allusion to a hundred counterfeit ones. G.E. Moore, so eager to learn philosophy from language, missed the sense of real in his celebrated essay, ‘The Conception of Reality’ (1917).” Vlastos notes that it was not until after the Second World War that this second sense of “real” was recognized by J. L. Austin (ibid., 7). 16 R. C. Cross and A. D. Woozley, Plato’s Republic: A Philosophical Commentary (London: Macmillan, 1964), 145. 17 See, e.g., Vlastos, “Metaphysical Paradox,” 10 and Richard J. Ketchum, “Plato on Real Being,” American Philosophical Quarterly 17 (1980): 213–214. 15 Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1065 the person we identify as a “real friend” is, for example, fully loyal, in contrast to another sincere friend who is less so, and the gold we identify as “real gold” may be unadulterated, in contrast to genuine gold that has impurities. The loyal friend and the pure gold “realize” all of the characteristics that fulfill being those things. And again, in each of these examples, the claim is not that the contrasted item has no reality whatsoever as that kind of thing, but, instead, that it has a lesser reality.18 To put the matter in other terms, we call a friend a “real friend” and pure gold “real gold” because they are what they are in a truer sense. The “true friend” and “true gold” are those that fully realize the essential characteristics of what it is to be those things.19 Considering this non-existential sense of the “real” as the genuine or true (R2), Vlastos notes that, in Greek, as in English, the term “true” applies primarily to propositions. He grants that it also applies to the things described by propositions (such as people who are friends and metals that are gold), but only derivatively.20 In light of these considerations, he concludes that, when Plato speaks of the Forms both as “more real” than sensible things and as the “really real,” it is according to this non-existential sense of “real” (R2), since the Forms are what they are in a perfect, complete, and unadulterated way, unlike sensible things.21 Hence, the Form of Bed is more real than the physical bed that merely participates in it. Vlastos notes that, because these Forms are presented as necessary and eternally unchanging, the knowledge they provide is, for Plato, marked by an infallibility that provides logical certainty. In Vlastos’s terms, the Forms are “cognitively reliable,” unlike the sensible things that participate in them. Thus, the Forms are, for Plato, the objects of knowledge par excellence. For this reason, Vlastos concludes that Plato’s degrees of reality doctrine is properly an epistemological doctrine (R2a).22 In contrast to Vlastos, Richard J. Ketchum reads Plato’s degrees of reality as a semantic doctrine concerning predication (R2b). Ketchum agrees with Vlastos that Plato’s doctrine does not concern degrees of Vlastos, “Degrees of Reality,” 2–3. Not everything admits of such degrees, however. Vlastos notes that, whereas the category of “friend” admits of an intermediary between the real friend and the non-friend, diamonds, for example, do not. 19 Vlastos (“Degrees of Reality,” 2) notes that “‘True’ is a fairly common meaning of ‘real’ in spoken and written Greek.” 20 Ibid., 3. 21 Ibid., 6. 22 Ibid., 17; Vlastos, “Metaphysical Paradox,” 11–12. 18 1066 Gregory T. Doolan existence.23 Nevertheless, he takes issue with Vlastos’s translation of τὸ ὄν, insisting that it should not be translated in such a way as to obscure the close relationship between “being” (ὄν) and the verb “to be” (εἶναι). Thus, in Ketchum’s view, the phrase τὸ ὄντως ὄν should not be rendered as “that which is really real,” but instead as “that which really is.” As a result, he concludes that Plato does not hold a degrees of reality doctrine but instead a degrees of being doctrine.24 With this clarification in place, Ketchum explains that the question that needs answering is not why Plato holds that Forms alone are real; instead, the question is why Forms alone have the sort of being that really is—why Forms alone really are.25 Here, Ketchum takes the verb “to be” not in an existential sense, but simply in its role as the copula. Thus, in his view, the phrase “that which is” means the same as “that which is something or other.” If we follow this interpretation, Plato’s discussion of being is a discussion of affirmative predication.26 Hence, Ketchum concludes that Plato’s distinction between being and real being is a distinction between types of predication.27 To support this reading, Ketchum (like Vlastos before him) identifies Plato’s use of the term “real” with the term “true” in the sense of “genuine” and “authentic.” Granting Vlastos’s reading that the Forms are true as objects of knowledge, Ketchum nevertheless contends that the truth of such cognitive objects requires a semantic truth: “We can understand what it is to speak of objects as true in the semantic sense as follows: an object is true if and only if something true can be said of it.”28 According to this reading, the Forms are real being because each Form is the paradigm case of being that thing. They really are because they are what they are in an unqualified sense.29 This is not to say that sensible things, in Ketchum’s reading, simply are not.30 As he reminds us, Plato tells us that they both are and are not— in between pure being and absolute nonbeing, in a state of becoming. 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Ketchum, “Plato on Real Being,” 213–214. Ibid., 213. Ibid. According to Ketchum, “The only reason that reality need enter a discussion of the doctrine at all is due to Plato’s use of the adverb, ‘ὄντως,’ ‘really.’” Ibid. Ketchum calls the use of the copula without a grammatical completion “systematically elliptical use.” Ibid., 216. Ibid., 218. Ketchum grants, however, that Plato does not state his degrees of reality doctrine as a theory about language (ibid., 219). Ibid., 218. Ibid., 220. Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1067 Ketchum thus concludes that, for Plato, sensible things have what he terms mere truth, rather than the real truth of Forms. Hence, he explains, for sentences about sensible things to have truth value, the copula requires qualification. By contrast, for sentences with abstract substantives as subject terms to have truth value, the copula requires no qualifications.31 For the foregoing reasons, then, Ketchum concludes that Plato’s degrees of being doctrine is a semantic doctrine of predication (R2b). There is one final interpretation of Plato’s degrees of reality doctrine for us to consider, namely as an aesthetic-mystical one (R2c). Thus far, we have seen Vlastos present the doctrine as epistemological in character, but he also contends that it is more than that for Plato. Further considering the term “real,” Vlastos identifies another aspect of its non-existential sense. In addition to cognitive reliability, he explains, the term “real” can denote value. If we consider the example of gold again, unadulterated gold merits the name “real gold” not only because it provides cognitive reliability by revealing the essential properties of gold, but also because it has truer value than impure gold. In Vlastos’s terms, it is “reliably valuable.” And so too with the Platonic Forms: Plato presents them as reliably valuable relative to sensible things, as is evidenced by the fact that he treats them as divine, putting them in the place of gods. In pursuing them, the philosopher is presented not merely as a knower of Form, but also as a lover of Form, and ultimately of Beauty.32 We see, then, varying interpretations regarding Plato’s doctrine of the degrees of reality and the status of Forms, or Ideas. Again, it is not my intention to arbitrate between these interpretations. Rather, my intention is for the foregoing presentation to provide us with a frame of reference for interpreting Thomas’s attitude toward the degree of reality of the divine Ideas. With that in mind, let us sum up the various senses in which the phrase “really real” might be said of the Ideas (divine or otherwise): either (R1) existentially, indicating that the Ideas have more existence than the things they exemplify, or (R2) non-existentially, in the sense of the genuine. The latter could be read as (R2a) an epistemic doctrine concerning what Vlastos terms the “cognitively reliable,” (R2b) a semantic doctrine of predication, as outlined by Ketchum, or (R2c) an aesthetic-mystical doctrine regarding what Vlastos terms the “reliably valuable.” To discern which, if any, of these interpretations apply to Thomas’s doctrine of divine Ideas, we next need to consider his general account of reality and the “real.” Ibid., 219. Vlastos, “Metaphysical Paradox,” 12–19. 31 32 1068 Gregory T. Doolan Aquinas on the Real To begin with, we should recall that Thomas’s exposure to Plato’s thought was entirely, or almost entirely, second hand. Among these secondhand sources was Proclus’s Elements of Theology, translated into Latin by William of Moerbeke in 1268.33 Encountering the Platonic phrase τὸ ὄντως ὄν, Moerbeke renders it into Latin as enter ens.34 Thus, like the original Greek phrase, Moerbeke’s Latin translation consists of derivatives of the Latin infinitive “to be” (esse). But here the parallel ends. For, whereas the Greek participle ὄν can mean both “being” and “real,” the Latin participle ens admits only of the former meaning.35 Moreover, whereas ὄντως is a natural adverbial form of εἶναι, the Latin enter is not a natural adverbial form of esse. Hence, Thomas does not take Moerbeke’s awkward literal translation enter ens to mean “the really real,” but instead treats it as “beingly being.” This fact is evidenced in his commentary on the Liber de Causis, where he employs Proclus’s Elements of Theology to interpret (and critique) the Liber. In the course of commenting on Proposition 2 of the Latin Liber, Thomas references Proposition 88 of Proclus’s Elements as a source text, both quoting and clarifying his words: “Every beingly, or existingly (existenter), being is either before eternity, or in eternity, or participating In the thirteenth century, only three of Plato’s works were available to the Latin West: the Meno, Phaedo, and Timaeus in the partial translation of Calcidius. Although Thomas makes references to each of these three works in his own writings, it is almost certain that he never read either the Meno or the Phaedo, and there is debate about whether he even read the Timaeus (see Raymond Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition During the Middle Ages [London: The Warburg Institute, 1939; repr. with new prefaces and supplement, Millwood, NY: Kraus International Publications, 1982], 27–28 [page citations are to the reprint edition]; James A. Weisheipl, O.P., “Thomas’ Evaluation of Plato and Aristotle,” The New Scholasticism 48 (1974): 101–102; and R.J. Henle, S.J., Saint Thomas and Platonism [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956], xxi., n. 41). We do know with certainty, however, that, toward the end of his life, Thomas had access to Proclus’s commentary on the Timaeus which had been translated by William of Moerbeke in 1268. Weisheipl, Thomas’ Evaluation, 101–102. On the dating of Moerbeke’s translation, see Jean-Pierre Torrell’s Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and His Works, rev. ed., trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 222. 34 See, e.g., his translations of Props. 86, 88, and 89 in (Boese, Proclus: Elementatio theologica). 35 This is not to deny that in Latin or for Thomas there is any connection between being and the real, as will soon be discussed below. Rather, it is to point out the immediate denotation of the term ens. 33 Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1069 eternity.”36 Thomas’s addition here of the word existenter, with its root in the verb existere (to exist), indicates a clear existential reading of the adverb enter.37 He then offers further clarification, explaining that “beingly being is said in contrast to mobile being (mobiliter ens), just as to-be-firmly (esse stans) is said in contrast to to-be-moving (moveri).”38 Thus, Thomas does not take the Latin Procline phrase enter ens (τὸ ὄντως ὄν) to refer to the really real in the sense of the truly genuine; rather, he takes it to refer to immaterial being—the sort of being that is immobile. Moreover, Thomas never makes this Platonic style expression his own; it is only in the context of his commentary on the Liber that he employs either the term enter or the phrase enter ens. 39 Still, this does not mean that the notion of the “really real” is absent from his writings. For Thomas, it is not the term ens that immediately denotes the notion of the real, but instead realis, a term derived from the Latin res, meaning “thing.” For Thomas, res is a transcendental attribute of being (ens) and, so, is convertible with it: to be a thing is to be a being. As such, res, like ens, includes both essence and act of being (actus essendi). Nevertheless, the two names differ conceptually and are not mere synonyms. Thomas tells us that the name ens is taken from the act of being (actus essendi) and not from that thing to which this act belongs, viz., essence. By contrast, res is taken from the quiddity, or essence, of a being.40 In an All translations of Thomas are my own. The italicized text in the quotation above indicates Thomas’s own quoting of Proclus. See Sancti Thomae de Aquino Super Librum de causis expositio (hereafter, In Liber), ed. H. D. Saffrey (Fribourg-Louvain: Société Philosophique, 1954), Prop. 2, 13: “His igitur praemissis sciendum est quod haec propositio in libro Procli lxxxviii invenitur sub his verbis: Omne enter, vel existenter, ens aut ante aeternitatem est, aut in aeternitate, aut participans aeternitate.” Prop. 2 of the Liber itself states that “Omne esse superius aut est superius aeternitate et ante ipsam, aut est cum aeternitate, aut post aeternitatem et supra tempus” (Saffrey, In Liber, 10). 37 The adverb existenter is, itself, an awkward neologism, this time offered by Thomas himself. A search of the Index Thomisticus (http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/it/index.age) for the term reveals that this is the one and only occasion in his corpus where he employs it. 38 In Liber, Prop. 2: “Dicitur autem enter ens per oppositum ad mobiliter ens, sicut esse stans dicitur per oppositum ad moveri” (Saffrey, 13). Italics in original, again indicating Thomas’s quoting of Proclus. 39 A search of the Index Thomisticus shows that he employs the term enter only five times and the phrase enter ens only three times, all in the context of his commentary on the Liber de Causis. 40 Quaestiones disputatae de veritate (hereafter, De veritate) I, q.1, co. & ad s.c. 3 (in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 22.1, [Rome: Commissio Leonina, 36 1070 Gregory T. Doolan early text, Thomas provides a twofold etymology of the term. On one hand, the name can be taken from reor, reris (to think, regard, reckon), in which case it refers to that which is within the mind (anima). On the other hand, it can be taken from ratum, and then it refers to that which is outside of the mind; in this respect, “thing (res) is taken as something fixed and firm in nature.”41 Following this latter sense of res, he will use expressions such as in re and in rerum natura to indicate the extramental existence of something. And so it is, too, with his use of the adjective realis. With this sense of realis as the extramental, Thomas commonly contrasts the real with what is merely according to reason (secundum rationem tantum).42 We might be tempted to see Thomas as thus identifying the real with being (ens), but such a reading would not be entirely accurate. As he explains, ens can be taken in two respects: either as “being of reason” (ens rationis) or as “real being” (literally, “being of nature,”ens naturae). The former sense of being concerns the intentions discovered by reason, such as genus and species, that are not founded in reality (in rerum natura), but follow instead from a consideration of reason. Such being, we are told, is the proper subject of logic. By contrast, Thomas explains, the subject of metaphysics is ens naturae, what future scholastics would term ens reale.43 If real being, for Thomas, simply means extramental being, then it would seem that we already have an answer to the question of the reality of the divine Ideas: they cannot be the really real since they have 1972]). On this text, see John F. Wippel, “Truth and Essence,” in Metaphysical Themes II (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 101. 41 Super Sententiis I, d.25, q.1, a. 4 co. (ed. P. Mandonnet, vol. 1 [Paris: Lethielleux, 1929], 611–612): “. . . ideo nomen rei ad utrumque se habet: et ad id quod est in anima, prout ‘res’ dicitur a ‘reor reris’, et ad id quod est extra animam, prout ‘res’ dicitur quasi aliquid ratum et firmum in natura.” 42 For example, he offers this contrast in considering types of relations (Summa theologiae [hereafter, ST] Ia, q. 13, a. 7 co., in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 4 [Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1888]), as well as types of distinction (De veritate q. 1, a. 7 ad 2). 43 A search of the Index Thomisticus reveals that Thomas himself never employs the phrasing ens reale, instead using such phrases as ens extra animam, ens naturae, and ens in rerum natura (see, e.g., In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio [hereafter, In Metaphysicam] IV 4.574 [M.-R. Cathala and R. M. Spiazzi eds., (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1950)] ; ST IaIIae q. 8 a. 1, ad 3). Nevertheless, these phrases are clearly synonyms for ens reale. Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1071 no existence as Ideas apart from the divine mind.44 It should be noted, however, that, just as Thomas never made the phrase enter ens his own, he similarly never employed the phrasing realiter realis.45 Thus, he never asks, in so many words, the question: What is the “really real,” the divine Ideas or sensible things? Still, the absence of such phrasing does not mean that Thomas is unaware of the Platonic question regarding the really real. For him, this question is phrased in different terms. Here, it is helpful to recall one sense of “real” as identified by both Vlastos and Ketchum as the genuine and true (R2). When we view the topic of the really real from this perspective, we find that Thomas is indeed aware of the question. Presenting his understanding of Platonic thought, he tells us, “Plato held that the separate Man was the true man (verus homo), whereas a material man is man by participation.”46 Why? Because, Thomas explains, for Plato and the Platonists, an Idea is “more truly existing (magis vere existens) than a singular.”47 With this observation, we have the sense that, for Thomas, the distinction between the existential and the non-existential sense of the real may not be as clearly delineated as it is for the likes of contemporary scholars such as Vlastos and Ketchum; indeed, the two senses may be interrelated. And this would stand to reason, given Thomas’s position that being (ens) is convertible with the true (verum).48 It is with an eye to this relationship between truth and being that we find Thomas considering, in a number of places in his corpus, whether sensible things have esse more truly in themselves or in God as Ideas. Hence, we will now “. . . ideo non possumus ponere ideas esse extra Deum, sed in mente divina 44 tantum” (De veritate q. 3, a. 1 co. [100: 254–261]). It is also interesting to note that Thomas never employs the term realitas or its variants. Nevertheless, he clearly has a notion of reality, as is evident from his accounts of the real. Regarding the absences of these terms and phrases in Thomas’s writings, see the Index Thomisticus: http://www.corpusthomisticum. org/it/index.age. 46 “Plato posuit quod homo separatus erat verus homo, homo autem materialis est homo per participationem.” ST Ia, q. 18, a. 4, ad 3 co. 47 “Secunda quaestio est, supposito quod genera sint principia rerum, utrum principia sint universalia dicta de individuis, scilicet species specialissimae, quas genera appellat secundum Platonicorum consuetudinem, quia continent sub se plura individua, sicut genera plures species; aut magis sint principia prima generalissima, ut puta quid sit magis principium, utrum animal vel homo, qui est principium quoddam secundum Platonicos, et magis vere existens quam singulare” (In Metaphysicam III 3.356, 101–102). 48 See, e.g., De veritate q. 3, a. 1. 45 1072 Gregory T. Doolan turn to consider these texts and what they reveal for Thomas about the really real. Textual Analysis Super Sententiis I q. 36, a. 1, ad 3 (1252–1256)49 In Super Sententiis I q. 36, a. 1, ad 3, Thomas considers whether the things that are known by God are in God. In the corpus of the article, Thomas explains that all things known by God are indeed in him. Nevertheless, they are not in his essence as though subsisting in the divine nature or as identical with it; instead, they are in him as objects known are in a knower.50 In reply to the first objection, he offers further clarification, noting that creatures are in God through their likenesses, since the divine essence is the likeness of everything that is from God.51 In response to this reply, the second objection of the article counters that everything exists more truly (unaquaeque res verius est) where it is by its own essence than where it is by its likeness; for, in the latter case, something seems to be there only in a qualified sense (secundum quid). This second objection then concludes that, if things are in God only according to their likeness, it seems that they exist more truly in themselves than in God.52 In reply to this objection, Thomas considers what it means for something “to be more truly” (verius esse) by focusing on the esse of things. We are told that a creature’s being (esse) can be considered in four ways: (1) as it exists in its own nature; (2) as it exists in our understanding; (3) as it exists in God; and (4) taken commonly (communiter), abstracted from these other modes.53 Thomas explains that, whenever a comparison is made, it is made with regard to something common. Consequently, 49 50 51 52 53 Dating of Thomas’s texts follows Torrell’s Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and His Works. Super Sententiis I, q. 36, a. 1, ad 3 co. Ibid., ad 1. Ibid., obj. 2. This fourfold division develops a threefold division that Thomas takes from Avicenna regarding the consideration of a nature. The fourth item that is added by Thomas concerns the consideration of something as it is in God. For the original distinction in Avicenna, see Metaphysics V, chs. 1–2 (Avicenna Latinus: Liber de Philosophia Prima sive Scientia Divina I–IV, ed. S. Van Riet [Louvain/ Leiden: Peeters/Brill, 1980], 228–245). For Thomas’s application of the threefold Avicennian distinction to essence, see De ente, c. 3. For a similar presentation of the fourth item with which Thomas provides a fourfold consideration of a nature, see Quodlibet 8.1.1 (in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 25 [Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1996], 51–53). Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1073 when we say that a creature has esse more truly in God than it does in itself, we are comparing the first mode of esse and the third with regard to the fourth. In other words, this comparison of how the creature exists in its own nature with how it exists in God is drawn in light of the creature’s esse, insofar as that esse is considered commonly. Thomas next reminds us that everything that is in something is in it according to the mode of that in which it is. Hence, something that is in God exists in him according to an uncreated esse (per esse increatum). By contrast, the thing exists in itself according to created esse (per esse creatum), in which there exists less truth of being than exists in uncreated being.54 If we compare the first mode of being (the way a thing exists in its own nature) to the second mode (the way it exists in our understanding) with regard to the fourth (taken commonly), Thomas explains that the first two are found to be related as that which surpasses to that which is surpassed. Thus, since the esse that is present in a thing’s own nature is there substantially, it surpasses the accidental manner in which it is present in the mind (anima). However, Thomas notes, the mode of esse that is present in a thing’s own nature is itself surpassed, inasmuch as it is a material mode of esse (esse materiale), whereas that which is found in the mind is an intellectual mode (esse intellectuale) and, hence, by implication, immaterial. In light of the foregoing consideration, he concludes that sometimes a thing has esse more truly as it exists through its likeness than it does in itself.55 De vertitate q. 4, a. 6 (1256–1259) Thomas engages Plato more directly on this topic in De veritate. In question 4, article 6, he considers whether things exist more truly in the Word than in themselves. Referencing Ps.-Dionysius, Thomas begins his response with the observation that effects fall short of imitating those causes that are above them.56 Because of the distance between such causes and their effects, something can be predicated truly of the effect but not of the cause. To illustrate the truth of this principle, Thomas gives as an example the causality of the sun. Following the physics of his time, he explains that things may be called hot because of the heat they receive from the sun, but the term “hot” would not properly be predicated of the sun itself. And this is the case because of the sun’s superiority over Super Sententiis I, q. 36, a. 1.3, ad 2. Ibid. 56 See Divine Names IX.6–7 (Dionysiaca, vol. 1.31.470–472:S). 54 55 1074 Gregory T. Doolan those things that are called hot.57 In light of these observations, Thomas draws a distinction between what we might term the ontological truth of a thing (veritas rei) and its logical truth (veritas praedicationis). As regards its ontological truth, a thing exists more truly in the Word than it does in itself; but as regards its logical truth, the same thing exists more truly in itself than it does in the Word.58 In this article’s first objection, we find a counterargument similar to that offered in the text considered above from Super Sententiis. As before, the objector notes that something exists more truly where it is by its own essence than where it is by a likeness alone. Given the question at hand in this article from De veritate, this time the objector’s argument is phrased in terms of the presence of things in the Word, but the reasoning is the same: we are told that a thing exists in itself by its own essence, but in the Word only according to its likeness. Hence, the objector concludes, things exist more truly (verius esse) in themselves than in the Word.59 While the basic framework of the objection here is the same as in the earlier text, Thomas’s reply to it is not. In considering the phrase verius esse, he focuses his attention this time not on the term esse, but instead on the term verius. Looking at modes of truth here, Thomas employs the distinction made in the corpus of De veritate 4, a. 6 regarding the two senses of truth. He tells us that as regards logical truth, something exists more truly in its essence. As regards ontological truth, however, it exists more truly through the likeness that is its cause.60 In the third objection from the same article, it is observed that, in Thomas notes, furthermore, that all equivocal causes are superior to their effects. De veritate q. 4, a. 6 co. As Thomas explains, this conclusion regarding the truth of predication is not due to some shortcoming of the Word, but rather to its supereminence. In short, because of the supereminence of the Word, it is truer to call Socrates “a man” because of his individual nature. See also Thomas’s earlier discussion of truth in De veritate q. 1, a. 1–2. For commentary on these articles, see John F. Wippel, “Truth in Thomas Aquinas,” Review of Metaphysics 43 (1989/1990): esp. 307–321, and Jan Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and The Transcendentals (New York: E.J. Brill, 1996), 243–290. As Wippel notes, although the terms “ontological truth” and “logical truth” are not employed by Thomas himself, they have been adopted by later interpreters of scholastic philosophy. Wippel, “Truth in Aquinas,” 295, n. 1. On this point, see, e.g., R.J. McCall, “St. Thomas on Ontological Truth,” The New Scholasticism 12 (1938): 9–29, and J. Wande Wiele, “Le problème de la vérité ontologique dans la philosophie de saint Thomas,” Revue philosophique de Louvain 52 (1954): 521–571. 59 De veritate q. 4, a. 6, obj. 1. 60 Ibid., ad 1. 57 58 Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1075 itself, a thing exists in act, whereas in the Word it exists only in potency, just as the work of art exists in potency in the mind of the artisan. Thus, a thing exists more truly in itself than in the Word. In reply, Thomas explains that active potency is more perfect than an act that is its effect, and he notes that it is in this respect—viz., according to active potency— that creatures are said to exist according to potency in the Word.61 Implied here is the conclusion that, in this respect, they also exist more truly in the Word. In the fourth objection, we find a seemingly Aristotelian inspired argument. The objector notes that a thing’s operation is its ultimate perfection. It is inasmuch as things are existing in themselves that they have their proper operations—operations that do not exist in the Word. I take the objector’s point to be that a being such as Fido the dog can only perform dog activities (such as barking, chasing cats, and being a loyal companion) as he is in himself. By contrast, the likeness of Fido in the Word of God cannot do these things. Hence, the objector concludes that things exist more truly in themselves than in the Word. In reply, Thomas does not shrink from his original position. He grants that, in the Word, creatures do not have their proper operations, but he insists that there they have more noble operations. For in the Word, they are productive both of things (effectivae rerum) and of their operations.62 Thomas’s replies to the objections in De veritate q. 4, a. 6 appear to suggest, in a certain respect, an affinity between himself and Plato regarding what constitutes the really real. Nevertheless, as is frequently the case for Thomas, his stance in fact entails both sic et non. Although he offers a qualified Platonic sic in reply to these objections, the replies that he provides in response to the sed contra arguments from the same article offer an Aristotelian non. In sed contra 1, the authority of Anselm is cited with the observation that, in the Word, a creature is the creative essence. Since the uncreated is truer than what is created, it is argued that a thing thus has esse more truly in the Word than in itself.63 In reply, Thomas reminds us again of the distinction he had identified in the corpus of the article, that between the two senses of truth. As he explains, this argument in s.c. 1 proceeds regarding the ontological truth of the thing, rather than according to its logical truth.64 Left implied is Thomas’s position that, as 61 62 63 64 Ibid., ad 3. Ibid., ad 4. Ibid., s.c. 1. Ibid., ad s.c. 1. 1076 Gregory T. Doolan regards logical truth, a created being has esse more truly in itself. The second sed contra argument makes the connection with Platonism more explicit. There, it is noted that, just as Plato had posited Ideas of things existing outside of a divine mind, “we” hold that there are Ideas within a divine mind. Now, Plato held that the Separate Man is more truly man than is a material one, which is why he termed this separate Idea Per se Man. In the same way, (we are told) according to the position of the Faith, things exist more truly in the Word than in themselves.65 Thomas’s response to this line of reasoning is strongly worded: Plato’s position is blameworthy (reprehenditur) because it presumes that natural forms exist according to their own nature without matter, as though matter were accidentally related to natural species. If this position were true, then the term “natural things” (naturales) would be predicated more truly of things without matter. “But we,” he observes, “do not hold this [position]; hence there is no parallel comparison (simile).”66 In the third and final sed contra argument, it is noted that what is truest in any genus is the measure of all that is in the genus. Now, the likenesses of things that exist in the Word are measures of the truth in all things. For, something is said to be true inasmuch as it imitates its exemplar, which is the Word. Thus, we are told, things exist more truly in the Word than in themselves.67 In response to this argument, Thomas simply notes that his reply is the same as to the first sed contra. So, here again, he is indicating that, although a thing does exist more truly in the Word as regards ontological truth, as regards the logical truth of predication, it exists more truly in itself.68 If we compare the foregoing text from De veritate with the earlier text from Super Sententiis, we see that Thomas’s different approach to considering the question of whether a creature exists more truly in itself than in God results in a more nuanced answer. In addressing the question from the perspective of esse, the earlier Super Sententiis text emphasizes the greater ontological status of esse increatum relative to esse creatum. With that in mind, Thomas reaches the simple conclusion that, even though a creature exists in God only through its likeness, it nevertheless Ibid., s.c. 2. “Ad secundum dicendum quod Plato in hoc reprehenditur quod posuit formas naturales secundum propriam rationem esse praeter materiam ac si materia accidentaliter se haberet ad species naturales, et secundum hoc res naturales vere praedicari possent de his quae sunt sine materia; nos autem hoc non ponimus, et ideo non est simile” (ibid., ad s.c. 2 [22.1.134:108–115]). 67 Ibid., s.c. 3. 68 Ibid., ad s.c. 3. 65 66 Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1077 exists there more truly than it does in itself. The treatment of the same question phrased in terms of truth in the De veritate leads Thomas to a response that is both sic et non: yes, created beings exist more truly in God according to the ontological truth of a thing (veritas rei), but they do not exist more truly there according to the logical truth of predication (veritas praedicationis). Rather, in this latter respect, created beings exist more truly in themselves. Plato’s error in positing subsistent Ideas, we are told, was to attribute a greater truth to the Ideas according to the order of predication. And that is an error Thomas himself intends to avoid. Summa theologiae Ia, q. 18, a. 4 (1266–1268) Thomas addresses the issue again in Summa theologiae Ia in the context of considering whether all things in God are life (q. 18, a. 4). In the responsio of this article, he explains that, for God, to live is to understand; moreover, in God, intellect, what is understood, and the act of understanding are identical. Hence, whatever is in God as understood is there according to his very living or life (ipsum vivere vel vita). Thomas concludes that, since all things made by God are in him as understood, they are all present in him as the divine life itself.69 In the third objection, it is noted that, according to Augustine (De vera religione 29), a living substance is better than a non living one. Consequently, if things that are not in themselves living are life in God, it seems that they would exist more truly in him than in themselves. The objection then continues, however, by noting that this conclusion seems false, since in themselves things exist in act, whereas in God they exist only in potency.70 Thomas replies to this objection by granting that, if form alone, and not matter, belonged to the nature of natural things, they would exist in every respect according to a truer mode through their Ideas in the divine mind than they exist in themselves. And he repeats what he had noted in the earlier De veritate text, that this was the view of Plato, who held that the Separate Man was the true man, whereas a material one is only a man by participation. Rather than offering here an immediate rebuke of Plato, Thomas next presents an important distinction regarding two modes of existing for natural things. He tells us that, since matter does in fact belong to their nature, simply speaking, natural things have a truer esse in the divine mind than in themselves. Why? Because, in the divine mind, they have esse increatum, whereas in themselves they have esse creatum. Neverheless, Thomas notes, as regards this esse (esse hoc)— ST Ia, q. 18, a. 4 co. Ibid., obj. 3. 69 70 1078 Gregory T. Doolan such as a man or a horse—natural things have esse more truly in their own nature than in the divine mind. For, as he explains, it belongs to the truth of what man is to have esse in a material way (esse materiale), a mode of being that man does not have in the divine mind. Similarly, he observes, a house has a more noble mode of being in the mind of the artisan than it does in matter, and yet, Thomas insists, the house in matter is more truly said to be a house than the one that exists in the artisan’s mind because the latter is only a house in potency whereas the former is a house in act.71 If we compare this text from the Prima Pars with that from Super Sententiis, the considerations agree as regards the use of the distinction between esse increatum and esse creatum: natural things exist more truly in God because there they have an uncreated being. Nevertheless, the texts differ inasmuch as the Prima Pars consideration goes beyond the Super Sententiis to identify a way in which natural things can be said to have a truer esse in themselves—namely, as regards the determinate esse (esse hoc) that they have in their own nature.72 If, however, we compare this text from the Prima Pars with that from De veritate, the considerations differ inasmuch as the former is addressed in terms of esse whereas the latter is addressed in terms of truth. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the texts fundamentally agree if we recall that in De veritate Thomas concludes that a created being is said to exist more truly in itself according to the logical truth of predication. Now, viewing the same issues from the perspective of esse in the Prima Pars, he concludes that a material being such as a house or a natural thing exists more truly in itself than in an intellect (whether divine or human) because it has esse hoc, which is why the house in matter is more truly called a house than is the idea of a house, and by implication the same is the case mutatis mutandi for natural things: a man is more truly called a man than is the divine Idea of Man. In short, what Thomas terms esse hoc here is presented as the basis for the truth of predication. Conclusions From the foregoing survey of texts, we find that Thomas is willing, in a certain respect, to say that sensible things exist more truly in God than in 71 72 Ibid., ad 3. Regarding Thomas’s treatment of esse hoc as determinate mode of existence, see John E. Naus, The Nature of the Practical Intellect According to Saint Thomas Aquinas (Rome: Gregorian University, 1959), 98–99 and n. 164, and Robert O. Johann, “A Commentary on Secondary Causality,” The Modern Schoolman 25 (1947): 25. Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1079 themselves—namely, according to the ontological truth of the thing. In this respect, the esse creatures have in God is a nobler esse, namely, esse increatum. But what does it mean for a thing to exist in God in this way? Thomas tells us: “Things exist in God through their proper Ideas (proprias rationes), which, in God, are nothing other than the divine essence. Hence things as they exist in God are the divine essence.”73 In short, Thomas concludes that created things exist more truly in God according to ontological truth because, in God, their being is his being, which is a truer being, since God is esse by his very essence. Thomas’s observations from both the De veritate and the Summa theologiae regarding the manner in which things exist more truly in God can thus be reconciled. But what about his observations regarding the manner in which things exist more truly in themselves? Here, we need to consider more closely what was merely implied in the latter text, namely, the relationship between the ontological truth of a thing and its logical truth of predication. Thomas addresses this relationship in a number of texts, but notably in De veritate q. 1, a. 2, where he considers whether truth is principally found in the intellect or in things. In his responsio, Thomas begins by acknowledging the analogical character of truth, explaining that truth is said of many things by priority and posteriority. And, as with all analogical predication, the complete ratio is found in the primary sense of the term. Following Aristotle, he notes that this term, “truth,” signifies the order of things to the intellect. Although we do indeed call things outside the mind “true,” that is only the case insofar as they are adequated to the intellect. Hence, Thomas concludes that truth is indeed found in both the intellect and in things, but by priority in the intellect and by posteriority in things.74 He then notes that a thing is related to the practical intellect differently than it is to the speculative. As the cause of the things it knows, the practical intellect is the measure of them. By contrast, the speculative intellect receives its knowledge from the things it knows; thus it is, in a way, both moved and measured by them—as is the case with our knowledge of natural things. But those things are themselves measured “Creaturae in Deo esse dicuntur dupliciter. Uno modo, inquantum continentur et conservantur virtute divina. . . . Alio modo dicuntur res esse in Deo sicut in cognoscente. Et sic sunt in Deo per proprias rationes, quae non sunt aliud in Deo ab essentia divina. Unde res, prout sic in Deo sunt, sunt essentia divina.” (ST Ia, q. 18 a. 4, ad 1 [4: 229–230]). Emphasis added in translation. For Thomas’s use of the term ratio to signify a divine Idea, see Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas, 4–25. 74 De veritate q. 1, a. 2 co. 73 1080 Gregory T. Doolan by the divine intellect. For, all things are in the divine intellect, he tells us, as artifacts are in the mind of an artisan. In light of these distinctions, Thomas concludes the following: (1) the divine intellect is a measure that is not measured, whereas (2) natural things are both measures and measured, and (3) our intellect is measured and is not a measure of natural things, but only of artifacts.75 As regards the second class of items on this list—natural things— Thomas explains that they are both measures and measured because they are placed between two intellects: the human and the divine. Hence, they are said to be true in two respects, according to their adequation to each sort of intellect. In one respect, natural things are said to be true because they fulfill that to which they are ordered by the divine intellect. Thomas cites as support for this position the authority of both Anselm and Augustine, and in addition he quotes Avicenna’s definition of truth: “The truth of each thing is a property of its own esse that has been established for it.”76 Here, Thomas clearly has in mind an ontological truth that is present in the natural thing itself, and with his Avicennian quotation, we also see him clearly equating the basis for this truth with the thing’s own esse. As regards the second respect in which natural things are said to be true, Thomas explains that this occurs following the adequation of such things to the human intellect insofar as they produce in the intellect a true estimation of themselves.77 Here then, Thomas is referring to what he elsewhere terms the truth of predication. With all of the foregoing distinctions in place, Thomas ends his responsio with the conclusion that the ratio of truth is found in natural things by priority in the first sort of truth (ontological truth), and by posteriority in the second kind (logical truth). This is so because the comparison of natural things to the divine intellect is prior to their comparison to the human intellect. And he notes that, even if there were no human intellect to know natural things, they would still be true given their order to 75 76 77 Ibid. “Res ergo naturalis, inter duos intellectus constituta, secundum adaequationem ad utrumque vera dicitur: secundum enim adaequationem ad intellectum divinum dicitur vera in quantum implet hoc ad quod est ordinata per intellectum divinum, ut patet per Anselmum in libro De veritate et per Augustinum in libro De vera religione et per Avicennam in definitione inducta, scilicet ‘veritas cuiusque rei est proprietas sui esse quod stabilitum est ei’” (De veritate q. 1, a. 2 [ 22.1.9: 97–107]). And he notes, conversely, that things are said to be false when they are taken to be although in fact they are not, or when they are taken to have qualities that they do not in fact have (De veritate q. 1, a. 2 co. [ 22.1.9:107–113]). Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1081 the divine intellect, since the ratio of truth would remain (namely, the adequation of thing to intellect). To highlight this point, Thomas notes for the sake of argument that, if, per impossibile, there existed no intellect whatsoever—neither human nor divine—then natural things would not be understood at all and the ratio of truth would not remain in any way whatsoever.78 This text from De veritate sheds light on the question in the texts we have considered regarding whether things exist more truly in God or in themselves. First, it confirms the primacy of ontological truth over the truth of predication that we had seen Thomas discuss in both De veritate q. 4, a. 6 and ST Ia, q. 18, a. 4 by showing how the truth of predication is caused by and depends upon ontological truth. Second, it shows that ontological truth is something rooted in a natural thing’s own esse—i.e., in its actus essendi. Third, it reveals Thomas’s view that, even though ontological truth is rooted within a natural thing, this ontological truth is nevertheless dependent upon the adequation of that thing to the divine intellect. Thus, we see in De veritate q. 1, a. 2 the connection between ontological truth and the truth of predication. This connection is further brought out in reply to the third objection from the same article. There, Thomas makes clear that, even though truth in the human mind consists in the adequation of intellect to things, that truth does not follow simply from the mind’s estimation. Rather, truth in the human mind is caused by things, since such truth follows the existence of things (existentia rerum). As he explains, quoting Aristotle, “‘it is because a thing either is or is not that a statement is called either true or false,’ and so too is the [human] intellect.”79 Thus, the logical truth of a thing is caused by its inner ontological truth, which in turn is caused by the divine intellect. These causal connections are highlighted nicely in a terser passage from Contra gentiles I, c. 60, in which Thomas shows that God is Truth. In the fifth argument from that chapter, he begins by acknowledging Aristotle’s position that truth is in the mind and not in things. Nevertheless, Thomas notes that sometimes we do refer to a thing as true—namely, when it properly De veritate q. 1, a. 2 co. “veritas, quae est in anima causata a rebus, non sequitur aestimationem animae, sed existentiam rerum ‘quoniam eo quod res est vel non est, dicitur oratio vera vel falsa’, similiter et intellectus” (De veritate q. 1, a. 2 ad 3 [Leon. 22.1.10: 136–145]). See Aristotle, Categories 5 4b8. Regarding this causal relationship, see Aertsen, The Transcendentals, 251 ff. 78 79 1082 Gregory T. Doolan attains the act of its own proper nature. It is for this reason, he explains, that Avicenna says that ontological truth (veritas rei) “is a property of the esse of each thing, which is established for it.” Elaborating on this point, Thomas clarifies that such truth is a property of a thing for two reasons: (1) inasmuch as a thing produces a true estaimation of itself in the human mind; and (2) inasmuch as it imitates its own proper Idea (propria sui ratio) in the divine mind.80 Thus, even though we have seen Thomas conclude in various texts that a thing exists more truly in God according to ontological truth, he should not be read as saying that there is no ontological truth within created beings. Rather, such truth is in the thing itself to the extent that it imitates its proper divine Idea. And it is precisely because there is such ontological truth within the thing that there can be truth of predication. The term “man” can truly be predicated of Socrates because Socrates is in fact a man. Hence, when Thomas concludes in De veritate q. 4, a. 6 that a thing exists more truly in itself according to the logical truth of predication, he is not merely making a point about our understanding or speech about extramental things—he is making a claim about those things as they are in themselves.81 It is for this reason that Thomas maintains in ST Ia, q. 18, a. 4 that a natural thing has this being (esse hoc) more truly in its own nature than it does in its proper divine Idea because it belongs to the truth of what a man is to be material. By contrast, the esse of a divine Idea, ontologically considered, is nothing other than the immaterial, uncreated esse of God. The divine Idea of Man, therefore, cannot be called “a man” because the esse of a man is not that of God. In Avicennian terms, the esse of a man is “established” in the essence of a sensible, individual man such as Socrates; the esse of a divine Idea is not.82 80 81 82 Summa contra gentiles (hereafter, SCG) I, ch. 60, in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 13, (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1918), 173: “Licet verum proprie non sit in rebus sed in mente, secundum Philosophum, res tamen interdum vera dicitur, secundum quod proprie actum propriae naturae consequitur. Unde Avicenna dicit, in sua Metaphysica IV, ch. 1 [Van Riet, Avicenna Latinus, 184–193], quod veritas rei est proprietas esse uniuscuiusque rei quod stabilitum est ei, inquantum talis res nata est de se facere veram aestimationem, et inquantum propriam sui rationem quae est in mente divina, imitatur. Sed Deus est sua essentia. Ergo, sive de veritate intellectus loquamur sive de veritate rei, Deus est sua veritas.” Cf. ST Ia, q. 16, a. 1, and In Metaphysicam V 9.895. As Aertsen (The Transcendentals, 253) observes, “The disposition of a thing is ‘the foundation and cause’ of the truth of the intellect.” See SCG II, ch. 52, par. 2 where Thomas notes that the esse of a man is distinct Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1083 But what of the apparent contradiction between the texts from the De veritate and Summa theologiae regarding their accounts of how created beings exist in God according to potency? As we have seen, in De veritate q. 4, a. 6, Thomas argues that, since the active potency by which they exist in the Word is more perfect than the act by which they exist in themselves, creatures exist more truly in the Word. In ST Ia, q. 18, a. 4, however, we do not find this distinction between active potency and the act of the effect. Instead, Thomas simply states that, just as a material house is more truly said to be a house than the one that exists only in potency in the mind of the artisan, so too a natural thing exists more truly in itself according to esse hoc than it does in God. Implied in this conclusion is that a natural thing exists more truly there because in itself it is in act, whereas in God it is merely in potency. I would contend that the apparent contradiction between these two texts is resolved again through a consideration of the connection between what Thomas terms esse hoc and the truth of predication. Thomas’s analogy of the house is not meant to deny that natural things exist more truly in God according to ontological truth. According to ontological truth, things exist in God according to the active potency mentioned in the De veritate—an active potency that, considered in itself, is nothing other than the esse increatum mentioned in ST Ia, q. 18, a. 4. According to the logical truth of predication, however, things do not exist in God with esse hoc, but instead with the potential to have esse hoc—namely, as Ideas in the mind of God. Thus, according to esse hoc and the truth of predication, the divine Ideas have less reality than created things: the Idea of Socrates, unlike Socrates himself, is not essentially a man. Here it is necessary for us to note an important distinction that Thomas draws elsewhere between the divine essence taken simpliciter and taken as a divine Idea. The divine essence, he tells us, is not called an Idea inasmuch as it is that essence. Rather, it is called an Idea inasmuch as it is the likeness of this or that thing.83 Hence, Thomas notes that, according to its principal meaning, a divine Idea includes (conceptually) something more than the divine essence, viz., the relation of a creature from the esse of a stone because in each case esse is diversified by something other than itself, viz., the essence principle in which it is received. God’s esse, moreover, is distinct from both that of a man and a stone because it is a subsisting esse. Regarding Thomas’s position that God’s esse is not that of creatures, see SCG I, ch. 26, where he argues that God is not the formal esse of all things. 83 See, e.g., ST Ia, q. 15, a. 2 ad 1. To be precise, a divine Idea, for Thomas, is God’s knowledge of his essence as imitable. 1084 Gregory T. Doolan to that essence.84 We can thus distinguish between the ontological status of a divine Idea from its conceptual, or intentional, status. This distinction is further clarified by Thomas in the context of considering how a form is present in the intellect.85 As he explains, a form in an intellect, in fact, has two relationships. In one way, it is related to the thing whose form it is, i.e., the thing that is understood. This is the intentional status of an intellectual form, or idea. In another respect, an intellectual form is related to the very intellect in which it exists. This is the form’s ontological status. According to the first relationship, Thomas tells us that an intellectual form is not said to be “of a certain kind” (aliqualis), but rather “of a certain thing” (alicuius), because it is neither a material form for material things nor a sensible one for sensible things. As an example, we might give the intellectual form, or idea, of a dog in the human intellect. It is “of a certain thing” precisely because it is the form of this thing that we are understanding, the dog. Yet, inasmuch as this idea is in the intellect, it is neither material nor sensible, since it is an intentional similitude and not a Form that enters into matter. According to the second relationship that Thomas identifies, an intellectual form is said to be “of a certain kind” because it follows the mode of the thing in which it exists, namely, the intellect.86 To continue with our own example of the idea of dog as it is in the human intellect, we might add that it is “of a certain kind” according to the mode of that intellect. Thus, not only is it immaterial according to the immateriality of the human intellect, but it is also ontologically a quality that is really distinct from the intellect into which it is received.87 For Thomas, this distinction regarding the relationship of intellectual forms in the human mind applies, mutatis mutandi, regarding such forms in the divine mind. If we consider the ontological status of a divine Idea insofar as it is related to the divine mind, it is said to be “of a certain kind.” Thus taken, a divine Idea is present according to the mode of the divine intellect and, as such, is ontologically nothing other than the divine essence. For, the Ideas in God’s intellect (unlike those in a human 84 85 86 87 “Sed idea de suo principali intellectu habet aliquid aliud praeter essentiam, scilicet ipsam proportionem creaturae ad essentiam, in quo etiam completur formaliter ratio ideae, ratione cuius dicuntur plures ideae” (De veritate q. 3, a. 2 ad 2 [22.1.105:236–240]). Ibid., ad 5. Ibid. See, e.g., ST I, q. 84, a. 1–3, and Quaestiones disputatae de potentia dei (hereafter, De potentia) 8.1 co (in Quaestiones disputatae, ed. M. Pession [Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1949]). Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1085 intellect) are not really distinct from the divine essence. As we have seen, it is for this reason that Thomas attributes a greater ontological truth to a divine Idea than to the natural thing it exemplifies. If, however, we consider the intentional status of a divine Idea— namely insofar as it is related to the thing it exemplifies—that Idea is said to be “of a certain thing” and is taken as including (according to reason) the relation the natural thing has to the divine essence. As we have also seen, it is for this reason that Thomas attributes a greater logical truth to a natural thing than to the divine Idea that is its exemplar. And, as a result, that natural thing also has, in a certain respect, a greater ontological reality than its corresponding divine Idea. The situation is summed up nicely by Norris Clarke: What we are asserting here is what seems to us the absolutely primary condition of any thoroughgoing and fully conscious realism of being: that to be a pure esse intentionale, or object of thought, in any intellect, even the divine, confers no proper or intrinsic reality of its own whatsoever on the object. In other words, the “being” or “existence” of a thought object or “intentional being” is not a “to be” but a “to-be-thought,” not a “to-bereal” but a “to-be-really-thought by a real act of a real mind.” The reality resides entirely in the real act of the mind thinking, not in the object of this thought.88 88 Norris Clarke, “What is Really Real?” in Progress in Philosophy. Philosophical Studies in Honor of Rev. Doctor Charles A. Hart, ed. J. A. McWilliams (Milwaukee, 1955), 86. In this article, Clarke’s concern is to show that, although “real being,” for Thomas, has traditionally been interpreted by scholars as including possible being, this is a misreading. He contends that a proper, existentialist reading of Thomas shows that “real being” (which is the proper object of metaphysics) does not prescind from actual existence, and that possible being should be classified as purely intentional or mind-dependent being. On this point, I am in disagreement with Clarke and sympathetic with Wippel’s response to him. As Wippel shows, real being is not limited merely to the sort of possibility found in the passive potency of matter, but extends also to the active potency of an agent—most notably to the divine power. See John F. Wippel, “The Reality of Nonexisting Possibles According to Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Godfrey of Fontaines,” The Review of Metaphysics 34 (1981): 738–739. With Wippel’s distinction in mind, one can grant with Clarke that the divine Ideas as intentional similitudes do not have real being, but the possibility of the essences of which they are similitudes has real potential being rooted in the divine power. 1086 Gregory T. Doolan In other words, the true or real being of created things does not consist in their being known, but in their existing according to what Thomas terms esse hoc. The divine Idea that God has of me is not me. “It is true,” Clarke notes, “that my intelligibility, the intelligible content of the divine idea of me, exists in a higher, more perfect way in God than in me; but this is still not my true being, my esse.”89 What, then, can we conclude regarding the really real for Thomas? Phrasing the question in terms of “existing more truly” (verius esse), he clearly wishes to affirm that the divine Ideas have a greater reality than the things that they exemplify, namely inasmuch as the divine Ideas are ontologically identified with the divine essence. However, as the texts we have considered reveal, he does not view them as the really real in the manner that he understands Plato to have intended—namely, according to the logical truth of predication. In short, although Thomas’s doctrine of divine Ideas has Neoplatonic foundations, it nevertheless is structured by an Aristotelian appreciation for the reality of concrete sensible things.90 We thus see Thomas distancing himself from what he would take Platonism to mean by the phrase “really real,” but what of those interpretations offered by Platonic scholars? What relevance do they have for Thomas’s account of the reality of the divine Ideas? As we saw in Part I of this paper, scholars identify at least four possible interpretations of Plato’s degrees of reality doctrine: either as (R1) an existential doctrine, (R2a) an epistemological doctrine, (R2b) a semantic doctrine, or (R2c) an aesthetic and mystical doctrine. In concluding this paper, I will consider which, if any, of these senses of the degrees of reality doctrine is applicable to Thomas’s account of the divine Ideas. Aquinas and the Really Real Let us begin with (R1) the existential interpretation. In looking at the scholarship on Plato, we saw both Vlastos and Ketchum contend that to speak of “degrees of existence” is nonsensical. Hence, they insist that Plato could not possibly have considered the Ideas to “exist more than” sensible things. As before, I will not address here whether this interpretation of Plato is accurate. Suffice it to say that, for Thomas, the language of “degrees of existence” is by no means nonsenscial. Rather, it has meaningful grounding in his metaphysical doctrine of esse—hence his question of whether natural things “exist more truly” (esse verius) in Clarke, “Reality and Multiplicity of Divine Ideas,” 123–124. Boland, 226. 89 90 Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1087 God or in themselves. With that in mind, does Thomas consider the divine Ideas to be the really real in an existential sense? From what we have seen, the answer is yes and no. Here, I think it is important to acknowledge a distinction drawn by Thomistic scholars between the “act of existence” and the “fact of existence.”91 Although Thomas himself never identifies this distinction in so many words, it nevertheless seems to be implicit in his writings on esse. What is indeed explicit is his account of esse as the act of existence, as the actus essendi principle within a being—a principle that Thomas famously holds to be distinct from the essence principle in created beings but, in God, identical with his essence.92 Thomas identifies this act principle as most formal, giving actuality even to actualizing form.93 Hence, he considers the esse principle within beings to be the “actuality of all acts and consequently is the perfection of all perfections.”94 By contrast, what scholars term “the fact of existence” is not an act principle, but instead results from the act of existence as an effect.95 It is meant to signify a certain state of affairs—namely, that a thing is real in the sense of extramental: present outside of the mind. Regarding sensible things, we can judge the fact of their existence through a presence that we can experience in a sensory way.96 With that said, for Thomas, judgSee, e.g., Cornelio Fabro, “The Intensive Hermeneutics of Thomistic Philosophy: The Notion of Participation,” trans. B. M. Bonansea, The Review of Metaphysics 27 (1974): 470, and John F. Wippel, “Truth in Thomas Aquinas,” The Review of Metaphysics 43 (1990): 552 n. 20, reprinted in Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 99 n. 79. For Joseph Owens’ objections to this distinction, see Owens, “Aquinas on Knowing Existence,” The Review of Metaphysics 29 (1976): 670–690. For an excellent investigation of this distinction between act and fact of existence, along with a summary presentation of the views of the aforementioned authors, see Kevin White, “Act and Fact: On a Disputed Question in Recent Thomistic Metaphysics,” The Review of Metaphysics 68 (2014): 287–312. 92 See, e.g., ST Ia, q. 3, a. 4. 93 Quaestiones disputatae de anima 6 co.; ST Ia, q. 4, a. 1 ad 3; ibid., Ia, q. 8, a. 1 co. (in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 24.1 [Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1996], 51:229–240). 94 “Unde patet quod hoc quod dico esse est actualitas omnium actuum, and propter hoc est perfectio omnium perfectionum” (De potentia 7.2 ad 9 Quaestiones disputatae 2:192). 95 Fabro, “Intensive Hermeneutics,” 470. 96 As Fabro (Introduzione all’esistenzialismo in Opere Complete, vol. 7 [1943] [Segni, Italy: Editrice del Verbo Incarnato, 2005], 117) notes, “Clear is the ‘fact of existence’; one can even point one’s finger (‘It is him, take him!’).” Translation 91 1088 Gregory T. Doolan ing the fact of something’s existence is not dependent solely on sensory experience, since he also holds that we can judge that something exists (i.e., the fact of the matter) via a posteriori reasoning from effect to cause, as with his quia demonstrations of God’s existence.97 To have factual existence, then, is to be real both according to the existential sense of the term “real” identified by Vlastos and Ketchum and according to Thomas’s sense of the term realis as referring to the extramental.98 And here, I would argue, Thomas would be in agreement with these Platonic scholars: factual existence does not admit of degrees. In this respect, it is analogous to the illumination of an incandescent lightbulb that is either switched on or off. Similarly, a being either exists in the factual sense or it does not; there is no in between. Regarding this existential sense of “real” as referring to the fact of existence, then, I would argue that Thomas considers created things to be the really real, and not the divine Ideas. For, as we have seen, a created being such as Socrates has esse reale, and hence extramental existence, whereas his corresponding divine Idea has esse intentionale and no extramental existence. If, however, we consider the act of existence, we find a different account of the really real in Thomas’s writings. Here, he stands in stark contrast with the likes of Vlastos and Ketchum, since he presents the act of existence as no mere binary state of affairs. Rather, for Thomas, it admits of degrees. To return to our analogy of light bulbs, those with a higher wattage have a greater intensity of brightness than those with a lower one. In a similar way, Thomas considers the act of existence to admit of degrees inasmuch as it is determined by the various essence principles that receive and limit it, some less so and some more (as in an angel as opposed to a stone). And in God, who is subsisting esse, it is entirely unlimited and infinite in intensity.99 Now, regarding the act of existence, we have seen Thomas considers the divine Ideas to be ontologically nothing other than the divine essence itself and, as such, to have esse increatum. Thus, they have greater existential reality than the things 97 98 99 appears in Jason A. Mitchell, Being and Participation: The Method and Structure of Metaphysical Reflection according to Cornelio Fabro, vol. 1 (Rome: Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum, 2012), 345. See, e.g., ST Ia, q. 2, a. 2–3. At least, for Thomas, according to the primary sense of realis as realis in actu. Regarding grades of esse, see, e.g., Super Sententiis I, q. 36, a. 2.3, ad 2; SCG I, ch. 50, par. 7; ST Ia, q. 22, a. 4 co. On the axiom that unreceived act is unlimited, see John F. Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas and the Axiom that Unreceived Act is Unlimited,” Review of Metaphysics 51 (1998): 533–564. Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1089 they exemplify inasmuch as God himself does; as Thomas tells us, a creature compared to God is, as it were, nothing at all (quasi nihil).100 In this respect, the divine Ideas can be said to be the really real. Nevertheless, we have also seen Thomas note that as regards this esse (esse hoc)—such as a man or a horse—created things exist more truly in their own nature (propria natura) than in the divine mind. From this perspective, Thomas again presents creatures, and not the divine Ideas, as the really real. What of the position (R2a) that the degrees of reality doctrine is, for Plato, an epistemological one? Is this reading applicable to Thomas’s doctrine of divine Ideas? Recall that, according to Vlastos, Plato considers the Ideas to be the really real in the sense of what is most genuine because they are “cognitively reliable” as the proper objects of intellectual knowledge. Granting Vlastos’s interpretation of Plato, we find that the same reading is not applicable to Thomas. To the contrary, in his view, the proper objects of the human intellect are the quiddities of material things, which he tells us first fall under sense and imagination, since such essences are present in the material objects considered by the intellect.101 Thus, to know Socrates is to know a man, and not the Idea of Man (separate or divine). Indeed, Thomas goes so far as to tells us that we cannot know the divine Ideas in this lifetime, since in this lifetime we do not behold the essence of God.102 Thus for Thomas the divine Ideas are not the really real in the cognitive sense identified by Vlastos. What of Ketchum’s interpretation of the degrees of reality doctrine for Plato, namely, as (R2b) a semantic doctrine concerning predication? According to this reading, for sentences about sensible things to have truth value, the copula requires qualification, unlike sentences with abstract substantives (namely, the Ideas) as subject terms. If we grant this reading of the Platonic doctrine, we again find Thomas departing from Plato. As we have seen regarding the logical truth of predication, Thomas concludes that natural things exist more truly in themselves according to esse hoc than they do in the mind of God. For, it is a being such as Socrates who is properly called a man, not a divine Idea. According to the order of predication, then, we again find Thomas presenting De veritate q. 2, a. 3 ad 18. ST Ia, q. 85. a. 5–6. Thomas tells us that natural objects are thus inseparable from matter and motion both in their being (secundum esse) and as they are understood (secundum intellectum). See Super Boetium De Trinitate 5.1 co. (in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, vol. 50 [Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1992], 138:141–49). 102 ST Ia, q. 84, a. 5; Ia, q. 88, a. 3. 100 101 1090 Gregory T. Doolan created beings as the really real, rather than the divine Ideas. Finally, we should consider (R2c) Vlastos’s aesthetic-mystical interpretation. As we saw, he maintains that, for Plato, the Ideas are the really real, not merely because they are “cognitively reliable,” but also because they are “reliably valuable”. As such, they are the ultimate objects of human desire. Granting this interpretation of the really real, we again can ask its relevance for Thomas. Here again, I would argue, we need to draw the distinction between the intentional versus the ontological status of the divine ideas. Inasmuch as the divine Ideas are the intentional similitudes of created beings, they are not, for Thomas, the reliably valuable. Rather, the reliably valuable is God himself, who is the ultimate good and, as such, the ultimate end of human desire.103 Attainment of this end, Thomas tells us, is beatitude, which consists in the human intellect’s union with God, whereby it contemplates the divine essence itself.104 If, however, we consider the ontological status of the divine Ideas as identical with that divine essence, then I would argue that, from this perspective, they can, for Thomas, be viewed as the reliably valuable. As he explains, whatever is known is, in a way, in the knower. And he reminds us that it is for this reason that Aristotle says the human soul, in a way, is all things, because the mind can know all things (De anima III.8, 431b20). In this respect, Thomas explains, it is possible for the perfection of the whole universe to exist in one thing. Hence, he notes: According to the philosophers this is the ultimate perfection that the soul can attain: that the whole order of the universe, and its causes as well, be transcribed in it (describatur). And they held this also to be the ultimate end of man, which according to us consists in the vision of God. For as Gregory says, “What does he not see who sees Him Who sees all things?”105 See, e.g., ST I-II, q. 2, a. 8. ST I-II, q. 3, a, 8. 105 “Unde ut huic imperfectioni aliquod remedium esset invenitur alius modus perfectionis in rebus creatis secundum quod perfectio quae est propria unius rei in altera re invenitur: et haec est perfectio cognoscentis in quantum est cognoscens quia secundum hoc a cognoscente aliquid cognoscitur quod ipsum cognitum est aliquo modo apud cognoscentem; et ideo in III De anima dicitur ‘anima esse quodam modo omnia’ quia nata est omnia cognoscere; et secundum hunc modum possibile est ut in una re totius universi perfectio existat; unde haec est ultima perfectio ad quam anima potest pervenire secundum philosophos ut in ea describatur totus ordo universi et causarum eius, in quo etiam finem 103 104 Aquinas on the Divine Ideas and the Really Real 1091 For Thomas, then, in seeing God, who is himself the “reliably valuable,” the blessed see the divine Ideas, for it is only in seeing these Ideas in the mind of God that they can see all things. And, thus, in their very union with God, the blessed, in a sense, are also united with the Ideas. From all that we have seen in considering the really real, it is clear that, for Thomas, the different senses of the “real” debated by scholars of Plato are not mutually exclusive. Though these various senses are implicit in his writings, each is nevertheless present, and all presuppose his metaphysical doctrine of esse. As he shows, within his system, it is the act of existence that is the foundation of the real, providing created beings with a reality outside the mind that allows them not only to be, but also to be known and spoken of. Ultimately, however, the reality that created beings have due to their intrinsic act of existence is dependent upon another, extrinsic act. For, as Thomas indicates, God as esse subsistens is, by his very essence, the exemplar of reality for all that N&V is real.106 106 ultimum hominis posuerunt, quod secundum nos erit in visione Dei quia secundum Gregorium ‘quid est quod non videant qui videntem omnia vident?’” (De veritate q. 2, a. 2 co. [22.1.44:114–33]). ST Ia, q. 44, a. 3. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1093–1124 1093 The Second Vatican Council and the Theological Authority of Sacrosanctum Concilium as a Constitution Christian D. Washburn The Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity The University of Saint Thomas Saint Paul, Minnesota Recently a few historians and theologians have proposed a new theory concerning the interpretation of the SecondVatican Council, arguing that Sacrosanctum Concilium is a hermeneutical key for understanding the other documents of the Council, a proposal that is as intriguing as it is attractive.1 These authors seem to specify the way in which this is a key when they assert that Sacrosanctum Concilium is not only the chronological starting-point but also the theological starting-point.2 The difficulty with this new thesis is that its proponents are imprecise in identifying the exact way in which Sacrosanctum Concilium should be seen as being a key or as having theological priority. This essay will attempt to determine more precisely the ways in which Sacrosanctum Concilium should be seen as being a key or having theological priority. To this end, I will trace the development of the text of Sacrosanctum Concilium with respect to what the Council intended to accomplish with the liturgical constitution. The 1 2 Massimo Faggioli, “Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Meaning of Vatican II,” Theological Studies 71, no. 2 (2010): 437–452; Faggioli, Vatican II:The Battle for Meaning (New York: Paulist, 2012), 104; Faggioli, True Reform: Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum Concilium (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2012), 19; Gerald O’Collins, “Sacrosanctum Concilium as a Hermeneutical Key for Vatican II,” in The Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014), 57–88. O’Collins, “Hermeneutical Key,” 88; Faggioli, True Reform, 10. 1094 Christian D. Washburn “mind of the council,” as the Council itself suggested, “may be known either from the character of the documents,” from its “frequent repetition of the same doctrine,” from its “manner of speaking,” and from “the matter treated.”3 In the first part of this essay, I will attempt to determine the “mind of the council” with respect to Sacrosanctum Concilium as a constitution. I will examine the nature of a constitution as a magisterial document, the various types of constitutions, and the historical development of Sacrosanctum Concilium as a constitution. In the second part of this essay, I will examine some of those theological aspects of Sacrosanctum Concilium that advocates of this new proposal have put forth as the elements that give it the status of having a theological priority. Finally, I will offer a reflection on the ways in which the liturgical constitution can be understood to be a key, or to have theological priority. The Nature of a Constitution The Second Vatican Council promulgated four constitutions, designating two “dogmatic constitutions,” one a “pastoral constitution,” and the last simply a “constitution.” The use of the genre of constitution by the Council was hardly novel. The papacy used “apostolic constitutions” only for its most solemn acts dealing with either doctrinal or disciplinary matters,4 although some apostolic constitutions have more theological 3 4 Peter Hünermann, Helmut Hoping, Robert L. Fastiggi, Anne Englund Nash, and Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, 43rd edition (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012), 4149 (hereafter DH). The Council itself, in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (hereafter, LG), §25, laid out a basic principle for understanding documents of the ordinary papal magisterium, i.e., the pope’s mind and will in doctrinal matters. This is equally true not only for papal documents but also for all magisterial texts; therefore the mind of the Council can be known in part from the “character of the documents.” This was also made clear in the Notificatio concerning LG and Dei Verbum (hereafter, DV), which explains the theological authority of propositions asserted by the Council. On this occasion the Theological Commission made reference to its Declaration of March 6, 1964, the text of which we transcribe here: “Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of the present Council, the sacred Council defines as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it shall openly declare to be binding. The rest of the things which the sacred Council sets forth, inasmuch as they are the teaching of the Church’s supreme magisterium, ought to be accepted and embraced by each and every one of Christ’s faithful according to the mind of the sacred Council. The mind of the Council becomes known either from the matter treated or from its manner of speaking, in accordance with the norms of theological interpretation” (DH 4351). J. A. Forgac, “Apostolic Constitution,” New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1095 authority than others.5 Pius XII, for example, issued forty-nine apostolic constitutions.6 One of these, Munificentissimus Deus (1950), not only infallibly defined the assumption of Mary’s body and soul into heaven but also provided a number of scriptural, patristic, and papal arguments in favor of the dogma. Without invoking the charism of infallibility, Pius XII’s Sacramentum Ordinis (1948) resolved the debate over the nature of the matter of the sacrament of ordination. Pius XII also used apostolic constitutions for such important disciplinary matters as erecting dioceses, such as he did in his Chilapensis (1958), and for modifying the rules for papal elections, as seen in his Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (1945). In these juridical apostolic constitutions, Pius did not authoritatively assert any doctrinal claim, and they generally contain almost no theological argumentation. Ecumenical councils have issued constitutions for almost eight hundred years, and these, like papal apostolic constitutions, were only used for solemn acts of councils dealing with the great doctrinal and disciplinary issues of the day. The Fourth Lateran (1215), First Lyon (1245), Second 5 6 McGraw Hill Book Co., 1967), 1: 689; J. T. Catoir, “Documents, papal,” New Catholic Encyclopedia 4: 946; Claudia Carlen, Papal Pronouncements: A Guide: 1740–1978 (Ann Arbor, MI: Pierian Press, 1990), 1: xii. On the doctrinal authority of papal constitutions, see Lucien Choupin, Valeur des décisions doctrinales et disciplinaires du Saint-Siège, 3rd ed., revised and expanded (Paris: G. Beauchesne, 1928), 50–52. The 1917 code of canon law reads, “Can 1324. Satis non est haereticam pravitatem devitare, sed oportet illos quoque errores diligenter fugere, qui ad illam plus minusve accedunt; quare omnes debent etiam constitutiones et decreta servare quibus pravae huiusmodi opiniones a Sancta Sede proscriptae et prohibitae sunt” (CIC [1917], 1324). Pius XII stated, “Et quamquam hoc sacrum Magisterium, in rebus fidei et morum, cuilibet theologo proxima et universalis veritatis norma esse debet, utpote cui Christus Dominus totum depositum fidei—Sacras nempe Litteras ac divinam ‘traditionem’—et custodiendum et tuendum et interpretandum concredidit, attamen officium, quo fideles tenentur illos quoque fugere errores, qui ad haeresim plus minusve accedant, ideoque ‘etiam constitutiones et decreta servare, quibus pravae huiusmodi opiniones a Sancta Sede proscriptae et prohibitae sunt’” (Encyclical Letter Humani Generis, Promulgated August 12, 1950 [Washington, D.C., National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1950], §18). The First Vatican Council stated, “Quoniam vero satis non est, hæreticam pravitatem devitare, nisi ii quoque errores diligenter fugiantur, qui ad illam plus minusve accedunt; omnes officii monemus, servandi etiam Constitutiones et Decreta, quibus pravæ ejusmodi opiniones, quæ isthic diserte non enumerantur, ab hac Sancta Sede proscriptæ et prohibitæ sunt” (DH 3045). This is according to the Vatican website, at http://w2.vatican.va/content/piusxii/en/apost_constitutions.index.html#apost_constitutions. 1096 Christian D. Washburn Lyon (1272–1274), and Fifth Lateran (1512–1517) Councils all issued one or more constitutions;7 however, the immediate influence on the Second Vatican Council for understanding the theological authority of constitutions was the First Vatican Council.8 Vatican I had expected to deal with a wide range of issues and so prepared a large number of schemata of both simple constitutions and dogmatic constitutions. In fact, the Council prepared three dogmatic constitutions, twenty-eight disciplinary and juridical constitutions, eighteen constitutions dealing with religious life, one concerning Eastern rites, and one attending to the missions.9 Unfortunately, the First Vatican Council was not able to complete its task due to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war.10 The Council only had time to promulgate two “dogmatic constitutions”: Constitutio dogmatica de fide catholica, known by its incipit Dei Filius, and Constitutio dogmatica prima de ecclesia Christi, known by its incipit Pastor Aeternus.11 Nevertheless, it is useful to compare the proposed schema of the simple constitution, Schema constitutionis de episcopis, de synodis, et de vicariis generalibus (hereafter, 7 8 9 10 11 Norman Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (London: Sheed and Ward; Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 1990), 1: 230 (4th Lateran), 283 (1st Lyon), 309 (2nd Lyon), and 650 (5th Lateran). The Council of Trent, for example, issued a number of decrees, investing some with more theological authority than others. Thus, in the sixth session, the Council issued both the Decretum de iustificatione and the Decretum de residentia epsicoporum et aliorum inferiorum (Christian D. Washburn, “Transformative Power of Grace and Condign Merit at the Council of Trent,” forthcoming in the The Thomist [2015]). The former is clearly superior in theological authority than the latter, even though both are decrees. This is evident not just from material content, but also from the wording of the two decrees. In the case of the Decretum de iustificatione, the Council was clear that its teaching is binding for one’s salvation: “The council has strictly forbidden that henceforth anyone dare to believe, preach, or teach anything contrary to what is determined and declared in this present decree” (“districtius inhibendo, ne deinceps audeat quisquam aliter credere, praedicare autr docere, quam praesenti decreto statuitur ac declaratur”) (DH 1520). In contrast, the disciplinary decree on residence was merely intended “to restore ecclesiastical discipline,” warning those who have jurisdiction to “fulfil their proper ministry,” otherwise various penalties would be assessed (Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2: 681–682). Theodore Granderath, Geschichte des Vatikanischen konzils von seiner ersten ankündigung bis zu seiner vertagung (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1903), 1:431–433; Klaus Schatz, Vaticanum I, 1869–1870 (Paderborn: F. Schöningh, 1992). Cuthbert Butler and William Bernard Ullathorne, The Vatican Council: The Story from Inside in Bishop Ullathorne’s Letters (London: Longmans, Green, 1930), 2:166–167. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2:804, 811. The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1097 Schema de episcopis),12 to the schema of the dogmatic constitution, Schema constitutionis dogmaticae schematis de ecclesia Christi (hereafter, Schema de ecclesia). This comparison will help illustrate the theological priority a dogmatic constitution has over a simple constitution.13 Three important differences show this priority. First, the First Vatican Council intended to invest a dogmatic constitution with more theological and doctrinal authority by labeling a constitution “dogmatic.” By doing so, the Council was signaling not only that some of its content was dogmatic, but also that the label itself gave that constitution greater authority than simple constitutions. This is not to say, however, that all the content of a dogmatic constitution was understood to be necessarily dogmatic, in the proper sense, by virtue of being in a dogmatic constitution.14 Second, the First Vatican Council intended to invest dogmatic constitutions with more theological and doctrinal authority than simple constitutions by using language (i.e., its “manner of speaking”) in three distinct ways: (1) The theological authority of a document is signified by the language of the introductory material of the schemata. The Schema de ecclesia, for example, stated at the beginning that “the goal is to lead all men to the way that leads to eternal salvation” and to show to those who are “in error” the nature of the true Church. The schema continued on to say that the bishops consider it their duty “to present the most important points of the true Catholic doctrine on the nature, the properties, and the power of the Church, and to respond to errors opposed to this teaching, by the proclamation of the appropriate canons.”15 The introductory material in the Schema de episcopis, on the other hand, mentioned neither the salutary nature of its theological content nor an intention to teach doctrine. (2) There was a corresponding use of technical terms to signal that the Council was investing a particular doctrinal proposition 12 13 14 15 Giovan Domenico Mansi, (continued by J. B. Martin et L. Petit), Sacrorum conciliorum nova, et amplissima collectio: . . ., 53 vols. (Florence,Venice, Paris, and Leipzig: 1759-1927), 50:cols. 339–352 and 517–522. Mansi, 51:cols. 539–553 (Schema de ecclesia) and 50:cols. 339–352 (Schema de episcopis). Alfred Vacant, Études théologiques sur les constitutions du concile du Vatican: d’après les actes du concile (Paris: Delhomme et Briguet, 1895), 2:41–44; Theodor Granderath, Constitutiones dogmaticae sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani: ex ipsis eius actis explicatae (Friburgi Brisgoviae: Herder, 1892), 74. “Quare nostri muneris esse ducimus, potiora capita verae et catholicae doctrinae, de ecclesiae natura, proprietatibus, ac potestate exponere, et grassantes oppositos errores subiectis canonum articulis condemnare” (Mansi, 50:col. 539). 1098 Christian D. Washburn with more doctrinal authority than other propositions. This was typically accomplished through expressions such as “we teach” or “we declare.”16 The Schema de ecclesia, for example, used docemus nine times and declaramus seven times,17 while Schema de episcopis never used docemus, and used declaramus a mere three times.18 (3) The Council used canons to anathematize doctrinal errors. The Schema de ecclesia had twenty-one canons anathematizing various doctrinal errors, whereas the Schema de episcopis contained none. The third important difference between Schema de episcopis and Schema de ecclesia that demonstrates the priority of a dogmatic constitution over a simple constitution is that, when the First Vatican Council intended to invest a dogmatic constitution with more theological authority than a simple constitution, it typically also entailed a fundamental change in the “matter being treated.” The two types of constitutions have contents that are quite different. At the First Vatican Council, the schemata of dogmatic constitutions typically contained a significant number of theological 16 17 18 It is true, of course, that only those elements of a dogmatic constitution in which the Council makes a definitive definition of revealed truth (primary object of infallibility) or a definitive declaration of non-revealed truth (secondary object of infallibility) require either the assent of faith or to be “firmly accepted and held.” It is also true that the object of the definition does not include the style and order of the document in which the definition is contained, the introduction, the stated motivation for the definition, ideas incidental to the definition, arguments for the definition, or even explanations of the definition (Sixtus Cartechini, S.J., De valore notarum theologicarum et de criteriis adea dignoscendas [Rome: Gregorian University, 1951], 22). The only claim that approaches such an authoritative claim, as Yves Congar noted, is the statement on the sacramental nature of the episcopacy. Congar wrote that “the only passage of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church that could be considered a truly dogmatic declaration is the one that concerns the sacramentality of the episcopate (LG III, §21): in fact, it settles a question that until now had been freely disputed by theologians. At the same time it is proposed as a teaching on the same level as the others, without the use of the emphatic, repeated and solemn formulas that normally introduce a ‘definition.’ . . . The manner of expressing it is not that of a dogmatic definition, but the matter is so important, the place it occupies in the doctrine of the episcopate so decisive, that one can hardly see how on this point the council has not issued a definitive judgment. . . . This is not the same as a ‘definition,’ but it does suffice for the doctrine thus proposed to be binding as teaching on which the Catholic magisterium is in unanimous agreement” (cited in Francis A. Sullivan, Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium [New York: Paulist Press, 1996], 166–167). Mansi, 50:cols. 540, 541, 543, 544, 548, 549, 551. Ibid., 50:col. 342 [twice], 343. The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1099 arguments taken from Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, other local and ecumenical councils, and papal documents; whereas the schemata of simple constitutions rarely cited from such sources. Thus, the Schema de ecclesia referenced Scripture thirty-eight times, while the Schema de episcopis did so only once. The Schema de ecclesia referenced Fathers eight times, and de episcopis, once. The Schema de ecclesia referenced councils two times, both of which are doctrinal decrees; Schema de episcopis, on the other hand, cited the disciplinary decrees of ecumenical councils eighteen times.19 It should come as no surprise, then, that the Second Vatican Council, like its predecessor, from the initial schemata to the promulgation of its documents, maintained a similar distinction in its documents in which there was a difference in “the character of the documents,” its “manner of speaking,” and “the matter treated.” The Development of Constitutio de Sacra Liturgia On January 25, 1959 John XXIII announced to cardinals gathered at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls his intention to call an ecumenical council.20 Preparations for it were well underway by June, and the ante-preparatory commission gathered information on the liturgy and other areas.21 On Pentecost Sunday (June 5, 1960), Pope John issued his motu proprio, Superno Dei nutu, which ended the ante-preparatory period and began the preparatory period of the Council. With this motu proprio, the Pope also constituted two secretariats and ten commissions to begin a new stage of preparation. Amongst these ten commissions was the Commissio de Sacra Liturgia.22 On June 6, 1960, Pope John appointed Cardinal Gaetano Cicognani (1881–1962), Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, to be president of the liturgical commission. On July 11 he appointed Annibale Bugnini (1912–1982) as secretary.23 The liturgical 19 20 21 22 23 Ibid., 51:cols. 539–553 (Schema de ecclesia); 50:339–352 (Schema de episcopis). Acta et documenta Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano II apparando, Series prima (antepraeparatoria) (Roma: Typis Vaticanis, 1960), 1/1, 3–6 (hereafter ADA). The various letters (vota) of the bishops and the studia of the faculties of Catholic institutions are gathered in ADA 2/1–2/8. Pope John XXIII, Motu Proprio Superno Dei nutu, Promulgated June 5, 1960, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis (hereafter, AAS) 52 (1960): 433–437 and ADA, 1/1, 93–96; Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak, History of Vatican II (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995), 1:171. Angelo Lameri, La “Pontificia Commissio de Sacra Liturgia Praeparatoria Concilii Vaticani II”: documenti, testi, verbali (Rome: CLV-Edizioni liturgiche, 2013), 19; Lameri, “L’esordio dei lavori della ‘Pontificia Commissio de Sacra Liturgia praeparatoria Concilii Vaticani II,’” Cristianesimo nella storia 34 (2013): 131–159; Anni- 1100 Christian D. Washburn commission began its work on November 12, 1960 and produced three drafts.24 The commission voted on the final draft on January 13, 1962. Cicognani signed the document on February 1, 1962, just four days before his death.25 John XXIII then appointed Cardinal Arcadio Larraona, C.M.F. (1881–1973) as president.26 On March 26, 1962, the schema (Schema Constitutionis de Sacra Liturgia) was submitted to the Central Commission, which debated the document until April 2.27 This schema is notable for several reasons.28 Inserted into the text were declarations, explanatory notes, for each part of the schema. These declarationes help us to understand the Council’s intention with respect to the document at this point in its development. The first declaratio contains a number of important points that help us better understand the preface. First, the preface explicitly states that it is not the intention of the Council in this constitution to define anything dogmatically.29 The declaratio notes that this phrase was included in order to satisfy those who did not want the Council to define anything dogmatically. It also stressed that, while it was primarily practical, it could not completely avoid theological issues. After all, one can hardly expect spiritual, pastoral, and apostolic fruit in the life of the Church from practical decisions that are not explicitly based on doctrinal foundations. Nevertheless, it states: the intention of the Constitution is only to propose general norms and, as it were, to propose the highest practical principles. It is left to 24 25 26 27 28 29 bale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948–1975 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), 14. Pierre Jounel, “Genèse et théologie de la Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium,” Ho theologos 3 (1983): 5–22. Carlo Braga, “La Sacrosanctum Concilium nei lavori della Commissione Preparatoria,” in Constituzione liturgica “Sacrosanctum Concilium”: Studi, Biblioteca Ephemerides Liturgicae Subsidia 38, ed. Congregazione per il Culto Divino (Rome: CLV Edizioni Liturgiche, 1986), 25–68. Alberigo and Komonchak, History of Vatican II, 2:107. This schema can be found in Commissio Centralis Praeparatoria Concilii Vaticani II, Acta et documenta Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano II apparando. Series secunda (Rome: Typis polyglottisVaticanis, 1960), II/2/3, 26–45 (hereafter ADP). The structure of the preparatory commission on the liturgy can be found in Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948–1975, 15–16. Lameri, La “Pontificia Commissio de Sacra Liturgia Praeparatoria Concilii Vaticani II,” 54–55. “Quare Sacrosanctum Concilium, dum declarant se in praesenti Constitutione nihil velle dogmaticae definire, de fovenda tamen atque instauranda Liturgia quae sequuntur principia censet in mentem revocanda et practicas normas statuendas esse” (ADP II/2/3, 26). The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1101 the Holy See and to special commissions of experts selected from the entire world and established after the Council for this purpose, to put into action the individual specific elements.30 Chapter 1, entitled De principiis generalibus ads. liturgiam instaurandam atque fovendam, contains five parts. In the first part, entitled De natura sacrae liturgiae, the nature of the liturgy is described in four articles divided into eight paragraphs. It was Giulio Bevilacqua, C.O. (1881–1965) who suggested that an initial chapter be inserted that reflected on the mystery of the liturgy in the Church.31 The attached declaratio explains that the initial four articles do not intend to give a “complete doctrine of the Sacred Liturgy”; “only those elements” are proposed that illustrate its true nature and its place in the activity of the Church. The declaratio further notes that this constitution only gives principles from which general practical norms should be drawn for the renewal and promotion of the sacred liturgy.32 In the relatio that accompanied this schema, Cardinal Larraona explained that the writing of the constitution on the liturgy by the commission was guided by five criteria; of these five, only one is theological, which has as its aim to give a “theological foundation” for any change of practice.33 Concerning the first chapter of the constitution, the cardinal explained that, given the practical end (finem practicum) of the constitution (i.e., the renewal of the liturgy), only the “theological principles” that are common to all parts of the liturgy are given.34 He then refered to Pius XII’s Mediator Dei as a “theological summation” of all things liturgical, noting that it is precisely the principles contained in Mediator Dei and in subsequent magisterial documents that are “syntheti30 31 32 33 34 “Mens huius Constitutionis est solum normas generales et veluti summa principia practica exponere. Relinquitur vero Sanctae Sedi et specialibus Commissionibus peritorum ex universo orbe eligendorum, post Concilium ad hoc instituendis, singula concreta exsecutioni mandare” (ADP II/2/3, 27). Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948–1975, 17. “In praecedentibus non universa doctrina de sacra liturgia, sed ea tantum elementa proponuntur quae ipsius veram naturam illustrent et locum determinent sive in actuositate ecclesiae sive in vita fidelium. Sunt enim principia e quibus normae generales practicae deducuntur ad sacram liturgiam instaurandam et fovendam” (ADP II/2/3, 29). ADP II/2/3, 49. “Haec sollicitudo determinandi essentialia principia, evidentius apparet in capite I constitutionis quod finem practicum sibi proponit, idest: semel agere de illis rebus, ideis vel conceptibus quae communia sunt omnibus partibus sacrae liturgiae” (ADP II/2/3, 50). 1102 Christian D. Washburn cally and integrally” treated in the first chapter of the proposed schema.35 This is interesting for two reasons. First, the relatio showed that the text, as it was written, was understood to be in continuity with the teaching of Pius XII. This was made evident, for example, by the thirty-six references in the footnotes of chapter 1 to Pius XII’s works.36 Second, the relatio also confirmed that the text was not intended to give a comprehensive theological account of the liturgy in the way that Mediator Dei had done. The result of the discussion of the Central Preparatory Commission on the liturgical schema was that it required reworking.Thus, it was given to the sub-commission of the Central Commission for amendments. A revised schema was then prepared by the sub-commission and completed on May 9, 1962.37 For our purposes, this schema modified, in a number of important respects, the original draft produced by the liturgical commission. First, a note was printed on the title page which read, “The intention of this Constitution is only to propose general norms and the higher principles regarding the general liturgical renewal, leaving to the Holy See to arrange for the carrying out of specific elements.”38 Second, the sub-commission suppressed the explanatory declarationes.39 By the middle of the summer of 1962, only the first seven schemata were considered ready, and as a result of this assessment, on July 13, 1962, John XXIII decreed that these first seven schemata, including the Schema Constitutionis de Sacra Liturgia, should be sent to all the Council fathers.40 35 36 37 38 39 40 ADP II/2/3, 50. Ibid., 43–46. Cassian Folsom, O. S. B., “The Hermeneutics of Sacrosanctum Concilium: Development of a Method and its Application,” Antiphon 8.1 (2003): 3. “Huius Constitutionis mens est: tantum normas generales et ‘altiora principia, generalem liturgicam instaurationem respicientia’(cf. Joannes XXIII, Motu Proprio Rubricarum instructum diei 25 iulii 1960) proponere, reliquendo Sanctae Sedi singular exsecutioni demandare.” Francisco Gil Hellín misleadingly attached the note to the prooemium (Concilii Vaticani II synopsis in ordinem redigens schemata cum relationibus necnon patrum orationes atque animadversiones: Constitutio de sacra liturgia Sacrosanctum Concilium [Vatican City: Libreria editrice vaticana, 2003], 6; hereafter, Gil Hellín, Concili Vaticani II synopsis). Schemata constitutionum et decretorum de quibus disceptabitur in Concilii sessionibus, Series prima (Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1962), 157–201. Gil Hellín, Concili Vaticani II synopsis, column I (pp. 6–395). Schemata constitutionum et decretorum de quibus disceptabitur in Concilii sessionibus, Series prima, 5. The first seven schemata can be found in Schemata constitutionum et decretorum de quibus disceptabitur in Concilii sessionibus, Series prima, 269–271. This volume contains: 1. Schema Constitutionis dogmaticae de fontibus Revelationis; 2. Schema Constitutionis dogmaticae de deposito Fidei pure custodiendo; 3. Schema Constitutionis dogmaticae de ordine morali Christiano; 4. Schema Constitutionis dogmaticae de The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1103 These first seven schemata were accompanied by a letter that asked the fathers to send in their initial evaluations with the aim of helping to establish the order of treatment for the schemata.41 There were a number of incisive critiques from various bishops, including Cardinal Josef Frings (1877–1978), whose opinion was written by Joseph Ratzinger.42 The four dogmatic constitutions were found wanting by the French, German, and Dutch bishops;43 consequently, they could not be taken up immediately at the Council. Missionary bishops from the Netherlands decided that a commentary should be prepared, pointing out the weaknesses of the dogmatic constitutions. This commentary, composed by Edward Schillebeeckx (1914–2009), was eventually distributed to other Council fathers in mimeographed form.44 While highly critical of the dogmatic constitutions, the commentary called the liturgical constitution “an admirable piece of work.”45 As a result of the efforts of these Dutch bishops, a number of petitions were submitted to the Council presidency asking for a delay in the treatment of the dogmatic constitutions.46 We should at this point note some things about the “character” and “contents” of the Schema Constitutionis de Sacra Liturgia sent to the Council fathers. First, the liturgical constitution is designated a simple constitution, unlike a number of the other schemata. One should recall that of 41 42 43 44 45 46 castitate, matriomonio, familia, et virginitate; 5. Schema Constitutionis de Sacra Liturgia; 6. Schema Constitutionis de instrumentis communicationis socialis; 7. Schema Decreti de Ecclesiae unitate. Jared Wicks, S.J., “Pieter Smulders and Dei Verbum: 1. A Consultation on the Eve of Vatican II,” Gregorianum 82 (2001): 251–255. 174 letters commenting on the first schema are contained in the appendix of Acta synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II (Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970) (hereafter AS). Jared Wicks, S.J., “Six Texts by Prof. Joseph Ratzinger as peritus Before and During Vatican Council II,” Gregorianum 89, no. 2 (2007): 240–241. Alberigo and Komonchak, History of Vatican II, 1:423–426. Jared Wicks, S.J., “Still More Light on Vatican Council II,” Catholic Historical Review 98 (2012): 495. This commentary is now in print in Volume 2 of Sebastian Tromp’s (1889–1975) secretary’s diary (Sebastian Tromp, S.J., Konzilstagebuch mit Erlauterungen und Akten aus der Arbeit der Kommission für Glauben und Sitten, II.Vatikanisches Konzil, ed. and annotated by Alexandra von Teuffenbach, 2/2 [1962–1963] [Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz, 2011], 986. Jan A. Brouwers, “Vatican II: Derniers Préparatifs et Première Session Activitiés Conciliaires en Coulisses,” in Étienne Fouilloux, Vatican II Commence. . . . : Approches Francophones [Leuven: Bibliotheek van de Faculteit der godgeleerdheid, 1993]), 353–368. Ralph M. Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber: The Unknown Council (New York City: Hawthorn Books, 1967), 24. 1104 Christian D. Washburn the first seven schemata, the first four were designated “dogmatic constitutions,” while two of the remaining three were designated as constitutions, and the last a decree on Christian unity.47 Later in 1962, John XXIII authorized the distribution of other schemata to the Council fathers, including the two doctrinal constitutions, Schema constitutionis doctrinalis de ordine sociali and the Schema constitutionis doctrinalis de communitate gentium. By 1963, the Council had dropped the category of “doctrinal constitutions.”48 So from the very beginning the Council intended to distinguish, quite clearly, the theological function of the various schemata. Second, the content of the Schema Constitutionis de Sacra Liturgia is unlike that of the other “dogmatic constitutions.” The text does not attempt to offer a comprehensive explanation of the liturgy and in this way is unlike Pius XII’s Mediator Dei,49 a point confirmed by the relatio. Due to the defects of the more theological schemata, the Council presidents decided, with the approbation of John XXIII, to take up first the Schema Constitutionis de Sacra Liturgia, which was announced in the second general congregation on October 16, 1962.50 This decision to take up the question of the liturgy before the other more controversial theological topics was later described by Benedict XVI as “an act of Providence.”51 The new president of the Liturgical Commission, Cardinal Larraona, presented a new, slightly modified text in the Council hall during the fourth general congregation on October 22, 1962.52 This was then examined by the Council fathers until the eighteenth general congregation on November 13, with 328 oral interventions by Council fathers.53 The document was generally approved on November 14, 1962 by a vote of 2,162 affirmatives, 46 negatives, and 7 void.54 Clearly, the Council fathers did not have fundamental problems with the direction of the liturgical renewal. Although the Council fathers had generally approved the document, 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 Folsom, “The Hermeneutics of Sacrosanctum Concilium,” 3. Schemata constitutionum et decretorum de quibus disceptabitur in Concilii sessionibus, Series tertia (Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1962), 283. Aidan Nichols, O.P., “A Tale of Two Documents: Sacrosanctum Concilium and Mediator Dei,” Antiphon 5 (2000): 24. AS I/1, 214. Benedict XVI, “To the Council with Enthusiasm and Hope,” L’Osservatore Romano, English edition, February 20, 2013, p. 9. The text can be found in AS I/1, 262–303. Gil Hellín, Concili Vaticani II synopsis, col. II (pp. 6–305). Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948–1975, 31. AS I/3, 55. The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1105 they thought that minor improvements were still needed. As a result of the fathers’ input, the text was emended and then brought before them one chapter at a time, usually with an accompanying relatio. On November 19, 1962, an emended text of the preface was presented to the Council. The preface no longer included an affirmation that the liturgical constitution did not intend to define new doctrine.55 The reason given for this omission was that the matter was sufficiently clear from the nature of the document itself, and therefore such a declaration was “superfluous.”56 This is not a small point. The danger of almost all magisterial reflections on theological matters is that they often have a type of “creeping infallibility”; however, in this case the Council did not even think such a consideration was worthy of a single explanatory sentence. This lack of concern for how the liturgical constitution would be interpreted doctrinally is in striking contrast to the development of the Constitutio Dogmatica de Ecclesia, known by its incipit Lumen Gentium. The Council fathers were repeatedly concerned with the authoritative status of the contents of the two dogmatic constitutions. The third schema on the constitution on the Church, sent to the fathers in July 1964, removed the term “dogmatic” as a modifier of “constitution” in the title.57 Despite the fact that the term dogmatic was removed from the title, the relatio generalis that accompanied this third schema on September 15, 1964 explained the difference between a dogmatic constitution, such as that on the Church, and a simple constitution, such as that on the sacred liturgy. This relatio clarified that the constitution on the liturgy is concerned with “practical applications” and is “rarely concerned with the exposition of doctrine,” whereas dogmatic constitutions are concerned with doctrinal synthesis. This difference, the relatio noted, entails that greater care must be given to the wording of dogmatic constitutions. It was suggested, for example, that a new procedure be adopted for Lumen Gentium so that the proper care could be devoted to doctrinal issues, requiring votes on particular formulations, even in some cases single sentences.58 Calling this 55 56 57 58 Ibid., 114–115. Ibid., 120; Gil Hellín, Constitutio de sacra liturgia, Sacrosanctum concilium, 14. AS III, 3/1, 158; AS, Indices 76; Francisco Gil Hellín, Constitutio dogmatica de ecclesia: Concilii Vaticani II synopsis in ordinem redigens schemata cum relationibus necnon patrum orationes atque animadversiones (Vatican City: Libr. Ed. Vaticana, 1995), 3. (Gil Hellín, Constitutio dogmatica de ecclesia, Lumen gentium.) “Attendere autem velitis, venerabiles Patres, ad differentiam, quo intercedit inter dogmaticam constitutionem de Ecclesia et constitutiones quae, uti constitutio de Sacra Liturgia, ad practicas applicationes, ceterum in luce doctrinae, venire 1106 Christian D. Washburn constitution dogmatic, given that it contained no definitive declarations of revealed truth, caused some difficulty for a number of Council fathers. Therefore, in the 123rd general congregation on November 16, 1964, a notificatio was issued explaining that only those things that were expressly intended as infallible were infallible. The notification was clear that everything else Lumen Gentium proposes “as the teaching of the supreme magisterium of the Church” is to be acknowledged and accepted by each and every member of the faithful according to the mind of the Council.59 The term dogmatic, however, was reinserted into the title and it was promulgated as Constitutio Dogmatica de Ecclesia in the 3rd session on November 21, 1964.60 On November 29, 1962, an emended text of the liturgical constitution’s chapter 1 was presented to the fathers. The relatio, given by Joseph Albertus Martin (1931–1990), the bishop of Québec, Canada, noted that the views of the fathers were quite diverse on the number of modifications they thought necessary. One father claimed that “it would be difficult to produce better,” while others found it lacking in its doctrinal explanations, desiring that the doctrinal expressions of Pius XII’s Mediator Dei be adopted. Martin stated that the necessary doctrinal corrections would be made, but he rejected any notion that the text should be fundamentally altered. He then went on to explain that Mediator Dei and the liturgical constitution were simply two different genres: in an encyclical letter one would find a complete doctrinal exposition, while in a conciliar constitution one should expect to find doctrinal matters explained concisely.61 The practical orientation of Sacrosanctum Concilium was confirmed by an article written by Cipriano Vagaggini, O.S.B. (1909–1999), which appeared in L’Osservatore Romano at the end of the first session in 1962. Vagaggini, a consultor to the preparatory liturgical commission and then peritus to the Council,62 summarized the work accomplished in the first session on the Schema Constitutionis de Sacra Liturgia and asserted that intendunt. Hucusque revera votationes propositae sunt, saltem generatim, circa concretas et summe practicas decisiones, rarius circa ipsam doctrinae expositionem. Ubi autem de nostra schemate de ecclesia agitur, in quaestione versantur doctrinales syntheses, quae aegre ac non sine incommodis dividerentur” (AS III/1, 180). 59 AS III/8, 10. 60 AS III/8, 784. Gil Hellín, Constitutio dogmatica de ecclesia, Lumen gentium, 3. 61 AS I/3, 702. 62 A. Lameri, La “Pontificia Commissio de Sacra Liturgia Praeparatoria Concilii Vaticani II,” 54. AS Indices, 949. The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1107 this schema is neither a theological nor a pastoral treatise on the liturgy. Instead, its purpose is to establish general principles in order to renew and foster the liturgy, and any theological or pastoral issues are only discussed in order to frame the practical nature of the document.63 Vagaggini makes clear that the liturgical constitution was a largely practical document designed to “translate” the liturgical renewal “into the practical life of the Church.”64 This is precisely the genius of Sacrosanctum Concilium, as it ultimately applies to the concrete historical reality of the Church a series of applications that flow from general principles. In the time between the first and second period of the Council, Pope John XXIII died and Pope Paul VI was elected. The new Pope opened the second period of the Council on September 29, 1963 with a remarkable and beautiful address lasting sixty-two minutes.65 Pope Paul’s primary concern for the second session was ecclesiological, not liturgical. He identified four “principal aims” of the Council: (1) Developing the notion of the Church, (2) Renewing the Church, (3) Restoring unity, and (4) Promoting the Church’s dialogue with the world.66 Paul was therefore quite clear that: the main theme of this second session of the Ecumenical Council will be the Church. A thorough investigation must be made into her inner nature, with a view to defining this in human terms, as far as possible. It must be a definition that will give a deeper understanding of the Church’s actual, fundamental constitution, and show more clearly her diversified, salvific mission.67 63 64 65 66 67 Cipriano Vagaggini, O. S. B., “I principi generali della riforma liturgica approvati dal Concilio,” L’Osservatore Romano, December 8, 1962, p. 3. Ibid., 5. Immediately after the Council, Vagaggini reconfirmed the basic “practical” aim of the liturgical constitution and made it clear that the constitution did not wish “at all, either in fact or merely in resume, a complete theology of the liturgy.” It is important to note that he affirmed that the constitution did not attempt to do this even in “resume” (Vagaggini, “Fundamental Ideas of the Constitution,” in The Liturgy of Vatican II: A Symposium, ed. Guilherme Barauna, English edition ed. Jovian Lang [Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1966], 97–98). For the length of the speech, see National Catholic Welfare Conference and Floyd Anderson, Council Daybook, Vatican II, Session 1 & 2 (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1965), 141. AS II/1,188–189. “Putamus hoc auspicato fore, ut Spiritus veritatis in hoc Oecumenico Concilio sacris Ordinibus Ecclesiae docentis radiantiorem lucem afferat, et evidentiorem proponat doctrinam de eiusdem Ecclesiae natura; atque perinde contingat, ut quasi Sponsa Christi in Ipso imaginem suam inquirat, et in Ipso, flagrantissimo 1108 Christian D. Washburn He continued for two-and-a-half pages to discuss the proposed Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. In contrast, Pope Paul VI only mentioned the liturgical constitution twice in passing. Both instances occur in his discussion of “the renewal of the Church,” thereby clearly indicating that the liturgical constitution was seen as only part of a much wider concern for this renewal of the Church. In the first instance, Paul noted that the rejuvenation of “the regulations by which her . . . liturgical forms are governed” is evidence of “a new spring” in the Church.68 In the second instance, the Pope hoped that the discussion on the liturgy would be brought to a successful end.69 What is remarkable is that there was no discussion of any of those themes that are of such concern to the proponents of the new view of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Indeed, when the renewed importance of “the study of divine truth” was mentioned, it was not in connection to the liturgical constitution.70 The Pope then returned to the ecclesiological theme of the restoration of Christian unity. This is hardly evidence for the deep theological nature of Sacrosanctum Concilium, at least relative to the future Lumen Gentium. In the second period, the treatment of the liturgical constitution reopened on October 8, 1963, in the 43rd congregation, with voting on the emendations to chapter two.71 After resolving the final issues, the Council promulgated the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy in the third public session on December 4, 1963. Cardinal Pericle Felici (1911– 1982), the secretary of the Council, instructed the fathers on the voting procedure, and after the vote he announced the tally: 2,147 affirmatives and 4 negatives.72 This document received a nearly unanimous consent, accepted even by the more conservative prelates, such as Archbishop mota amore, studeat propriam detegere formam, pulchritudinem scilicet, quam Ipse vult in Ecclesia sua elucentem. “Hanc ob rem argumentum princeps, quod in hac altera sessione Oecumenici Concilii proponetur, ad Ecclesiam ipsam spectabit. Cuius propterea intima natura penitus indagabitur, ut, pro humana fandi facultate, eius definitio idcirco exhibeatur, ut vera et primaria constitutio Ecclesiae altius ediscatur et eius multiplex salvificumque mandatum clarius patescat” (AS II/1, 190. English translation found in The Pope Speaks 9 [1963]: 132). 68 AS II/1, 192. 69 Ibid., 193. 70 Ibid., 192. 71 AS II/2, 275. 72 AS II/6, 407. The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1109 Marcel Lefebvre (1905–1991).73 Cardinal Felici then explained that the norms promulgated in the new constitution would not have the force of law until the first Sunday of Lent (Quadragesima), February 16, 1964.74 Pope Paul VI solemnly approved and promulgated the constitution. This was “greeted by endlessly prolonged applause.”75 After the promulgation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, now better known by its incipit, Sacrosanctum Concilium, Pope Paul VI delivered an address to the Council fathers in which he thanked them for their work and summed up the results of the second period. The portion of this summary dedicated to the liturgical constitution consisted of a mere four paragraphs, expressing a pastoral concern for the revision of the liturgy.76 It is striking that in this address is not a single word about any of the most salient theological themes of Sacrosanctum Concilium, usually identified as being: the Paschal Mystery, active participation of the laity, an expanded use of Scripture, inculturation, and balancing the conservation of Tradition and legitimate progress. The only two aspects mentioned in this regard were the simplification of rites and the use of the vernacular. Nor was there a discussion of any of the themes proposed by the new theory on Sacrosanctum Concilium about the theological priority of the liturgical constitution: Eucharistic ecclesiology, the centrality of Scripture, Ressourcement, or collegiality of bishops. This is not to argue that these elements are not present, but it is safe to say that they were not viewed as an important contribution made by the liturgical constitution as such. Toward the end of his address, Paul VI spent almost as much time discussing the question of the episcopacy77 as he did the liturgical constitution itself. Nor did he indicate that Sacrosanctum Concilium contributed to this question. Moreover, if one contrasts this address with his address after the promulgation of Lumen Gentium in the third period, then one immediately sees their relative theological importance.78 There, Paul VI reflected 73 74 75 76 77 78 Ottaviani, Browne and Archbishop Lefebvre, for example, voted for Sacrosantum Concilium (AS II/6, 441, 441, 443). At this time, Lefebvre also clearly recognized the need for the reform of the liturgy (Marcel Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics [Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 1987], 106). On Lefebvre, also see Aime Georges Martimore, “But What is the Mass of Pius V?” L’Osservatore Romano, September 16, 1976, p. 11. AS II/6, 408. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948–1975, 37. AS II/6, 409. AS II/6, 565–566. Ibid., 567. AS III/8, 910–917. It is interesting to compare this to Pope Paul VI’s remarkable allocution after the promulgation of Lumen Gentium, where he specifically talked 1110 Christian D. Washburn on the theological insights of Lumen Gentium for seven pages, identifying many of the salient points in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: the Church as mystery, the biblical nature of the Church’s doctrine, and episcopal collegiality. The Promulgated Text of Constitutio de Sacra Liturgia As stated earlier, the Second Vatican Council adopted an approach similar to its immediate predecessor, the First Vatican Council, in distinguishing between different types of constitutions.79 The Council chose wisely and purposely to make Sacrosanctum Concilium a constitution that was to deal with “the renewal and fostering of the liturgy.”80 The Council did three significant things to show that the two dogmatic constitutions have more theological weight than the other two constitutions. First, the Council deliberately gave less theological authority to Sacrosanctum Concilium by assigning it the status of a simple constitution, in contrast to Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum, which it made “dogmatic 79 80 about the theology of Lumen Gentium. Paul VI stated, “Augetur autem laetitia nostra si extremo hoc tempore Concilii Sessionis, cuius finem facturi sumus, obiter in memoriam revocamus argumenta, de quibus est disceptatum ac denique constitutum: pertractata est enim doctrina de Eclessia atque exposita: ita opus Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani primi est completum, quod pertinent ad doctrinam; exploratum est mysterium Ecclesiae et consilium divinum de primariis eius institutis.” Shortly after the close of Vatican Council II, Umberto Betti argued that, concerning Lumen Gentium, “Avant tout, il s’agit d’une Constitution dogmatique. Ce qui importe, ce n’est pas la denomination de Constitution—qui aurait pu aussi bien être remplacée par d’autres, comme Décret, Bulle, etc., mais la qualification de ‘dogmatique’. Celle-ci indique que le magistère universel a pour tâche comme tel de proposer la doctrine contenue dans la Constitution” (“Qualification théologique de la Constitution,” in L’Église de Vatican II [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967], 2:214–15). Ratzinger argued that Betti had raised “most of the Council’s declarations practically (though not technically) to the status of dogmas” (“Announcements and Prefatory Notes of Explanation,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. H. Vorgrimler [New York: Herder and Herder, 1967], 1:2990). Sacrosanctum Concilium (hereafter, SC), §1. There have been a number of translations of “instaurandam et fovendam,” such as, “reform and promotion of the liturgy.” A number of these translations are misleading, as pointed out by Pamela Jackson (“Theology of the Liturgy,” in Matthew L. Lamb and Matthew Levering, Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 120). SC never used the terms “reformatio” or “reformare”; instead, the Council used various forms of instaurare eighteen times (http://www.vatican.va/archive/ hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm). The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1111 constitutions.” This concern to distinguish between constitutions was maintained through all four periods, beginning in the preparatory period and continuing with frequent deliberation over the titles of all four constitutions throughout the discussion period.81 This distinction received final approbation when the Council promulgated all four constitutions, including their titles: Constitutio Dogmatica de Ecclesia, Constitutio Dogmatica de Divina Revelation, Constitutio Pastoralis de Ecclesia in Mundo Huius Temporis, and Constitutio de Sacra Liturgia. Sacrosanctum Concilium remained at the level of a constitution. One suspects that the reason some theologians and historians fail to recognize the constitutions’s relative theological authority is the current habit of calling the constitutions not by their proper titles, but by their incipits. Second, in Sacrosanctum Concilium the Council refrained from employing a “manner of speaking” that would invest its particular theological claims with an increased theological authority. The Council nowhere used terms such as docemus/docet or declaramus/declarat with respect to its theological claims.82 The dogmatic or doctrinal character of Sacrosanctum Concilium is not primarily derived from the Council itself, but rather from the authority of other councils that are cited, such as Trent. This is in contrast to the two dogmatic constitutions, in which such language is repeatedly employed. Thus, Lumen Gentium, on five occasions, states that it “teaches” certain doctrines. The Council, for example, stated that “this Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches (docet) that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation.”83 In perhaps its most significant doctrinal teaching, the Council finally resolved the issue of whether episcopal consecration was an ordination when it declared: “The Sacred Council teaches that by episcopal 81 82 83 Christian D. Washburn, “The Theological Priority of Lumen gentium and Dei Verbum for the Interpretation of the Second Vatican Council,” The Thomist 78 (2014): 107–134. The Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes used this language only once. “Sacra Synodus, recolens ea quae Concilium Vaticanum Primum docuit, declarat ‘duplicem esse ordinem cognitionis’ distinctum, nempe fidei et rationis, nec sane Ecclesiam vetare ne ‘humanarum artium et disciplinarum culturae... in suo quaeque ambitu propriis utantur principiis et propria methodo’; quare ‘iustam hanc libertatem agnoscens’, cultus humani et praesertim scientiarum legitimam autonomiam affirmat” (§59). LG, §14. See also §§18, 20, 21, and 67. 1112 Christian D. Washburn consecration the fullness of the sacrament of Orders is conferred.”84 Third, the varying theological weight of the constitutions is also evident in a difference, both qualitative and quantitative, between the “subject matter treated”—the contents—of the various constitutions. Of course, in texts that are more theological or doctrinal, one would expect to see a greater treatment of theological sources. With respect to quantity, in Lumen Gentium there are 304 references to Scripture, Sacrosanctum Concilium has only 33, Gaudium et Spes has 157, and Dei Verbum has 15. Lumen Gentium has 62 references to the Fathers, whereas Sacrosanctum Concilium has 8, Gaudium et Spes has 8, and Dei Verbum has 13. Lumen Gentium has 110 references to papal documents; Sacrosanctum Concilium has zero; Gaudium et Spes has 133; and Dei Verbum has 11. Lumen Gentium has 31 references to ecumenical councils; Sacrosanctum Concilium has 4; Gaudium et Spes has 24; and Dei Verbum has 10. While Dei Verbum does not seem to compare favorably, it must be remembered that it is less than half the length of Sacrosanctum Concilium and about one-sixth the length of the other two constitutions.85 With respect to the qualitative difference, we may note that Sacrosanctum Concilium only references the Council of Trent, 3 of which references are from doctrinal decrees and 1 from a disciplinary decree; in Dei Verbum, all 7 references to councils are from the dogmatic constitution Dei Filius of Vatican I. Of Gaudium et Spes’s 24 references to councils, 20 are to other documents of Vatican II, of which 17 come from the dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium. Moreover, the contents are different in a qualitative respect. The two dogmatic constitutions give relatively full theological expositions. In contrast, Gaudium et Spes and Sacrosanctum Concilium do not offer sustained theological reflections. It must be remembered that the Council did not intend, in the pastoral constitution, to treat its matters technically 84 85 LG, §21. Jean Galot has written that this is “the most significant advance in the doctrinal teaching of Vatican II” in his The Theology of the Priesthood (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984), 183. See also Aidan Nichols, O.P., Holy Order: Apostolic Priesthood from the New Testament to the Second Vatican Council (Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1991), 132, and Christian D. Washburn, “St. Robert Bellarmine’s Theology of the Sacrament of Ordination,” Josephinum Journal of Theology 19 (2012): 1–18. On other significant doctrinal developments at the Council, see Jared Wicks, S.J., “Vatican II in 1964: Major Doctrinal Advances, But Also Fissures on Addressing the Modern World,” Josephinum Journal of Theology 20 (2013): 4–19. LG has 25,509 words; DV has 3,374; SC has 8,066; and Gaudium et Spes has 24,030. These word counts are to the Latin text and are not inclusive of title, notes, or signatures. The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1113 or comprehensively, since the audience was “the whole of humanity” and its contents had to be understood even by non-believers.86 Likewise, Sacrosanctum Concilium, as noted above, was intended to give only general theological principles as support for practical directives. This is made clear in the introduction of Sacrosanctum Concilium, where the Council specifies its purpose. It does not claim to be the theological key to understanding the other conciliar documents. Its stated aim is important but modest: the “renewal and fostering of the liturgy.”87 The liturgical constitution does not intend to give a comprehensive account of the liturgy, as repeatedly explained in the various relationes; rather, it gives sound but brief theological principles on which the practical norms for the renewal of the liturgy could depend. While these reforms are to be conducted in conformity with “sound tradition,” it is not the task of the liturgical constitution to restate the contents of this sound tradition.88 This is why most of the text is devoted to matters of the prudential or disciplinary order. This is in contrast to the initial articles of Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum, both of which assert at the beginning that they intend to give true doctrine in accord with previous councils. Thus the Council states in Lumen Gentium that it intends “to unfold more fully” the nature and mission of the Church, “following faithfully the teaching of previous councils.”89 In Dei Verbum the Council states that it intends “to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on,” following “the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council.”90 So the Council sees the two dogmatic constitutions as teaching authentic doctrine in a way that is in continuity with previous dogmatic decrees and constitutions. 86 87 88 89 90 AS III/5, 146; Gaudium et Spes, §2. SC, §1. Ibid., §4. “Cum autem Ecclesia sit in Christo veluti sacramentum seu signum et instrumentum intimae cum Deo unionis totiusque generis humani unitatis, naturam missionemque suam universalem, praecedentium Conciliorum argumento instans, pressius fidelibus suis et mundo universo declarare intendit. Condiciones huius temporis huic Ecclesiae officio urgentiorem vim addunt, ut nempe homines cuncti, variis hodie vinculis socialibus, technicis, culturalibus arctius coniuncti, plenam etiam unitatem in Christo consequantur” (LG, §1). “Propterea, Conciliorum Tridentini et Vaticani I inhaerens vestigiis, genuinam de divina revelatione ac de eius transmissione doctrinam proponere intendit, ut salutis praeconio mundus universus audiendo credat, credendo speret, sperando amet” (DV, §1). 1114 Christian D. Washburn Chapter 1 part 1 of Sacrosanctum Concilium is the most theological part of the text. When one compares this part to the rest of Sacrosanctum Concilium, one notices a striking difference in the theological content. There are twenty-four references to Scripture in these eight articles (5–12), while there are a mere nine references to Scripture in the other 125 articles combined. There are two references to the Fathers in these eight articles, while there are a mere six references to Fathers in the other 125 articles combined.There are two references to councils in these eight articles, while there are a mere two references to councils in the other 125 articles combined. So, clearly, these initial articles are more theological compared to the others. Chapter 2, on the Eucharist, contains only three articles (47, 48, 49) which are theological. Again, the Council does not employ terms such as docemus or declaramus to assert an increased theological authority of a particular proposition, and there are no citations from Scripture and only two references to the Fathers. One would have expected, at least in a dogmatic constitution, citations from loci classici, such as the Last Supper narratives or John 6, as well as citations from the main doctrinal elements, such as the Council of Trent, but these, too, are absent. Instead of extensive theological argumentation, there is a relatively simple explication of the Eucharist. Articles 50–58 largely contain directives guiding the liturgical renewal of the Mass. In this section there is one citation from Scripture and a reference to Trent, but here we are simply told that “the dogmatic principles” on communion laid down by Trent “remain intact.”91 Moreover, although this section flows from the basic theological principles set forth by the Council for the renewal of the liturgy, it remains on the level of mere directives. Thus the Council has simple directives such as: “The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly” and “In Masses which are celebrated with the people, a suitable place may be allotted to their mother tongue.” As I have shown elsewhere, the remaining chapters show a similar pattern.92 It must be stated 91 92 SC, §54. Christian D. Washburn, “The Theological Priority of Lumen gentium and Dei Verbum for the Interpretation of the Second Vatican Council,” The Thomist 78 (2014): 128–129. This becomes even more obvious when one quantifies this proportion: 2,025 words in the Latin text are devoted to the theology of the liturgy, while 5,664 words are devoted to a consideration of the renewal of the liturgy, which means that only 26% of the text is devoted to a theological discussion of the liturgy. One could object here that no Christian theologian would allow the same argument to be made about the New Testament in relation to the Hebrew Bible, or of the Gospels to the rest of the New Testament. This is not The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1115 that this is not a criticism of Sacrosanctum Concilium; rather, the point is that the Council knew precisely what it wanted and therefore chose judiciously the genre of a simple constitution over a dogmatic constitution in order to obtain its goals. Sacrosanctum Concilium’s Eucharistic and Juridical Ecclesiology One of the central arguments about the importance of Sacrosanctum Concilium is that it is the “ecclesiological core”93 of the Council and that its “profound Eucharistic ecclesiology” is a good balance to Lumen Gentium’s juridical ecclesiology.94 This type of argument is necessary for the proponents of the new theory, since they have to justify why the liturgical constitution has a theological priority. There are two basic problems with this claim. First, it is difficult to see how Sacrosanctum Concilium represents the ecclesiological core of the Council. No doubt there are a number of important ecclesiological themes in Sacrosanctum Concilium, such as Eucharistic ecclesiology, the participation of the laity in the life of the Church, or the decentralization of decision-making concerning liturgical renewal. With respect to its material object, the theology of the liturgical constitution is deep, since the themes it develops are in themselves great mysteries; but if what is intended is the formal treatment of these theological themes, then Sacrosanctum Concilium is not deep. Moreover, its Eucharistic ecclesiology is really an implicit ecclesiology, not a formal treatment of it. In chapter 1, the Council makes the famous statement, “the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed.”95 This is a statement about all liturgical acts, not simply about 93 94 95 a good objection for the following reasons. First, there is a profound difference between SC and the Bible. In the case of the Scripture, all of Scripture is inspired by God, whereas no part of a council’s texts is inspired unless it is quoting from Scripture. Second, documents of the Church often have of necessity to deal with matters that are merely contingent. Faggioli, True Reform, 73; O’Collins, “Hermeneutical Key,” 71; Faggioli, The Legacy of Vatican II (New York: Paulist Press, 2015); Giuseppe Dossetti, Per una “chiesa eucaristica”: Rilettura della portata dottrinale della Costituzione liturgica del Vaticano I; Lezioni del 1965, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and Giuseppe Ruggieri (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002). Faggioli, “Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Meaning of Vatican II,” 450, 452; Faggioli, True Reform, 6, 15, 17, 85, 86 (Faggioli’s thesis is indebted to Dossetti’s Per una “chiesa eucaristica”). Alberto Melloni, ed., Giuseppe Dossetti: Studies on an Italian Catholic Reformer (Zurich: LIT, 2008). O’Collins does not appear to follow this aspect of Faggioli’s thesis (“Hermeneutical Key,” 88). SC, §10. 1116 Christian D. Washburn the Eucharist. Later in chapter 1, the liturgical constitution notes that the liturgical life of the diocese is “centered around the bishop” and that “the pre-eminent manifestation of the Church consists in the full active participation of all God’s holy people in these liturgical celebrations, especially in the same Eucharist, in a single prayer, at one altar, at which there presides the bishop surrounded by his college of priests and by his ministers.”96 In chapter 2’s treatment of the Eucharist, precisely where one would expect to encounter this Eucharistic ecclesiology, there is almost no reference to the Church. The text states only that Christ “entrusted to his church a memorial of his death and resurrection.”97 The rest of the chapter is devoted to the issue of the renewal of the liturgy. Elsewhere in Sacrosanctum Concilium, one does find hints of a Eucharistic ecclesiology, but given this rather limited formal treatment, it would be a stretch to call the document’s Eucharistic ecclesiology either ‘profound’ (with respect to its formal treatment) or the adequate grounds for constructing a Eucharistic ecclesiology. Instead, Sacrosanctum Concilium’s Eucharistic ecclesiology should be seen as indicating a general direction which would be taken up in Lumen Gentium. In contrast, it is Lumen Gentium that develops more fully this theme that was first taken up in the liturgical constitution.98 Thus, the importance of the Eucharist is brought out clearly in the dogmatic constitution. Whereas the liturgical constitution calls the “liturgy” the summit, Lumen Gentium explicitly affirms that the Eucharistic sacrifice is “the source and summit of the Christian life.”99 Moreover, the Council was able to offer a rich explanation of one of the ways in which the Eucharist as such helps to build the Church: By communicating His Spirit, Christ made His brothers, called together from all nations, mystically the components of His own Body. In that Body the life of Christ is poured into the believers who, through the sacraments, are united in a hidden and real way to Christ who suffered and was glorified. Through Baptism we are formed in the likeness of Christ: “For in one Spirit we were all 96 97 98 99 Ibid., §41. Ibid., §47. The relative importance of LG and SC for a Eucharistic ecclesiology is confirmed by John Paul II’s Encyclical on the Eucharist in its relationship to the Church Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Promulgated April 17, 2003 (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2003). LG is mentioned fifteen times, while SC is mentioned twice. LG, §11. The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1117 baptized into one body.” In this sacred rite a oneness with Christ’s death and resurrection is both symbolized and brought about: “For we were buried with Him by means of Baptism into death”; and if “we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall be so in the likeness of His resurrection also.” Really partaking of the body of the Lord in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread, we are taken up into communion with Him and with one another. “Because the bread is one, we though many, are one body, all of us who partake of the one bread.” In this way all of us are made members of His Body, “but severally members one of another.”100 The Council later affirmed that “especially in the Eucharist, which he [the bishop] offers or causes to be offered” is that “by which the Church continually lives and grows.”101 Perhaps most importantly, Lumen Gentium also situates this Eucharistic ecclesiology more clearly in relation to and interwoven with other important ecclesiological elements such as the People of God, the Body of Christ, and a communion ecclesiology. Nevertheless, O’Collins is correct that even in Lumen Gentium a Eucharistic ecclesiology is hardly emphasized.102 The second problem with this particular argument for the new theory is that it is difficult to see how Lumen Gentium can be characterized as a “juridical ecclesiology.” It is true that the original draft of the constitution on the Church was exceedingly juridical, and as such was repeatedly criticized by the Council fathers; however, Gérard Philips (1899–1972) helped formulate subsequent drafts that situated the more theologically juridical elements within the broader theological context. As Wicks writes, “Philips saw his drafting work as the promotion at a fundamental level of an ecclesiology of communio, while moderating the presence of juridical elementsthat are, however, necessary for affirming a real episcopal authority in the Church and for combining episcopal collegiality with the legacy of Vatican Council I on papal primacy.”103 This movement away from a more juridical ecclesiology is confirmed by an important structural change in the draft of the constitution on the Church. On July 4, 1963, Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens (1904–1996) presented to the meet100 101 102 103 Ibid., §7. Ibid., §26. O’Collins, “Hermeneutical Key,” 71. Jared Wicks, S.J., “More Light on Vatican Council II,” 79. See also Maximilian Heinrich Heim, Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology: Fundamentals of Ecclesiology (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007), 62, 74, and 446. 1118 Christian D. Washburn ing of the Coordinating Commission the newly completed chapter 3 (De populo Dei, et speciatim de laicis) and chapter 4 (De vocatione ad sanctitatem in ecclesia).104 Suenens, at the suggestion of Albert Prignon made immediately prior to the July 4 meeting of the Coordinating Commission,105 also added a new chapter (De populo Dei in genere) between chapter 1 (De mysterio) and chapter 2 (De structura hierarchica). He proposed that the commission approve the new texts106 so that the draft could go out to the fathers for treatment in Period II.107 Cardinal Suenen’s proposal was crucial for the development of the document, since it reflected a structural change to the schema in the direction of a broader ecclesiological consideration and not simply a series of textual changes within the same framework. The success of Philips’s and others’ efforts is confirmed by a brief examination of the flow and content of the final schema of Lumen Gentium. Chapter 1 does not begin with a juridical ecclesiology. Rather, it begins with a profound and extended discussion of the Trinitarian nature of the Church (articles 1–4). It then moves to a discussion of the mystery of the Church, drawing deeply on biblical images, such as a sheepfold, a field, a building, a vine, etc. Finally, chapter one culminates in article 8’s “powerful analogy” whereby the Church is compared to the Incarnate Word. Chapter 2 (“On the People of God”) then situates and subordinates the hierarchy within the context of the entire people of God. Chapter 3 takes up the issue of the hierarchy. While juridical in many parts, the chapter is introduced by the development of biblical themes concerning Our Lord’s founding and guiding of the hierarchy. Even the magisterium’s teaching authority is understood as part of the bishops’ duty as “heralds of the faith.” It would be equally difficult to argue that the remaining five chapters are primarily concerned with juridical considerations. When one compares Sacrosanctum Concilium to Lumen Gentium, one discovers just how juridical the liturgical constitution is.108 It is appro104 105 106 107 108 AS V/1, 574–92. Mathijs Lamberigts, “The Role of Cardinal Léon-Joseph Suenens at Vatican II,” in Doris Donnelly, The Belgian Contribution to the Second Vatican Council: International Research Conference at Mechelen, Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve (September 12–16, 2005) (Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 103. AS V/1, 594. Ibid., 635. If one takes the adjective “juridical” in its normal sense, “of or relating to judicial proceedings and the administration of the law,” then SC is far more concerned with the juridical than is LG; indeed, the liturgical constitution is often merely The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1119 priate here to make an important distinction between merely juridical considerations and juridical theology.109 The merely juridical is any matter pertaining to law that is not explained theologically, whereas any type of juridical theology, including ecclesiology, treats of any matter pertaining to law from a theological perspective, that is, of God, and of creatures insofar as they are related to God. One of the most striking things about Sacrosanctum Concilium is that much of the document has God neither as its formal object nor its material object, by reason of which it is not even a juridical theology but merely juridical. Sacrosanctum Concilium repeatedly has merely juridical directives, such as: “Translations from the Latin text into the mother tongue intended for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority.”110 Moreover, the liturgical constitution refers ten times to the necessity of the competent authority’s oversight of the liturgical renewal.111 The term “law” appears nineteen times in the text, and the term “regulation” appears five times, so it is difficult to argue that Sacrosanctum Concilium is not, at least in a significant way, a juridical text. A comparison of chapter 3 of Sacrosanctum Concilium to chapter 3 of Lumen Gentium clearly shows that the former is significantly more juridical than the latter. To be sure, there are a number of merely juridical elements in Lumen Gentium: for example, its call for the restoration of the 109 110 111 juridical, and not even a juridical theology. As long as law is taken seriously, of course, theology can never be without a juridical component. One should recall that the only two times that the term “church” appears in the Gospels is where Christ is giving to Peter and the apostles the juridical powers to bind and loose. Moreover, theologians should recall that Christ himself was a law-giver. See Trent: “Si quis dixerit, Christum Iesum a Deo homnibus datum fuisse ut redemptorem, cui fidant, non etiam ut legislatorem, cui odediant: anathema sit” (Tanner, 2:680). It is probably useful to be clear about what is intended by the term “theological.” While the material object of theology includes God and a multitude of creatures, the proper formal object of theology is God, and creatures, including ecclesiological ones, are included within the material object only in so far as they are related to God. In this vein, Ratzinger has written, “Right now I want to state my basic thesis: the Second Vatican Council clearly wanted to speak of the Church within the discourse on God, to subordinate the discourse on the Church to the discourse on God and to offer an ecclesiology that would be theological in a true sense” (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “The Ecclesiology of the Constitution on The Church, Vatican II, Lumen Gentium,” L’Osservatore Romano, September 19, 2001, p. 5). SC §34. Ibid., §§22.2, 36.3, 36.4, 39, 40.1, 44, 63.b, 77, 101.2, 120. 1120 Christian D. Washburn permanent diaconate.112 These merely juridical considerations, however, are rarely elaborated. One might object that Lumen Gentium engages in juridical ecclesiology when it treats of papal infallibility or papal supremacy; but, in both cases, these doctrines are situated in the broader ecclesiology of communio. Contrast this with Sacrosanctum Concilium’s chapter 3 (“On the Sacraments and Sacramentals”). The theological meat of the chapter lies in the first three articles (59–61), while the remaining nineteen are, for the most part, merely juridical considerations. Thus article 63 is a lengthy discussion on the use of the vernacular, which by itself is almost as long as the entire theological discussion of the chapter. The remaining articles are all concerned with the renewal of the individual rites of sacraments and sacramentals. The Council calls for a restoration of the catechumenate (64–65), a revision of baptism (66–70), the revision of the rite of confirmation (71), the revision of penance (72), the revision of extreme unction (73–75), the revision of the ordination rite (76), the revision of the marriage rite (77–78), the revision of sacraments and sacramentals (79), the revision of the rite of consecration of virgins (80), and a revision of funeral rites (81). These articles all suggest a theological claim, but it is left unexplored. In article 76, for example, we are simply instructed that: Both the ceremonies and texts of the ordination rites are to be revised. The address given by the bishop at the beginning of each ordination or consecration may be in the mother tongue. When a bishop is consecrated, the laying of hands may be done by all the bishops present. While these calls for the revision of the various rites are grounded in theological principles, in themselves they are not theological properly speaking. Finally, I do not think that to say that Sacrosanctum Concilium is merely juridical in many places is to criticize the liturgical constitution; it is simply to recognize the practical nature of a simple constitution. In fact, this was one of the strengths of the text: the Council prudently selected the type of document that was, in large part, juridical, so that the Church could undertake the important task of renewing the liturgy in an orderly way. 112 “It pertains to the competent territorial bodies of bishops, of one kind or another, with the approval of the Supreme Pontiff, to decide whether and where it is opportune for such deacons to be established for the care of souls” (LG, §29). The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1121 Sacrosanctum Concilium as a Key We are now in a position to reflect on the way, if any, in which the liturgical constitution can be said to be a key to the Council. The proponents of this new theory are often imprecise in identifying the exact way in which Sacrosanctum Concilium should be seen as key to understanding the Council as a whole. In what way can it be said to be “a key”?113 No one can doubt that in terms of understanding the Council, all the documents are in some respect a key. To be a key is to be, by analogy, something that unlocks something else. In this sense, Sacrosanctum Concilium is a key, since understanding it helps one to understand the Council better. But, of course, this is true of all sixteen documents of the Council in varying degrees. While Sacrosanctum Concilium cannot be said to be the key to the Council theologically, there are four important ways that Sacrosanctum Concilium can be said to be a key to both the Council and the reform of the Church. To this extent, the proponents of the new theory have quite correctly sensed the greatness of the liturgical constitution. First, Sacrosanctum Concilium is a key to the Council insofar as it is a constitution. The Council chose wisely and purposely to make it a constitution to deal with “the renewal and fostering of the liturgy.” This choice was natural, since constitutions are reserved for only the most important disciplinary acts of the Church, and there are few acts in the life of the Church that are as important as the renewal of the liturgy. Sacrosanctum Concilium is, then, a crucial key in understanding the decrees and declarations of the Council. This was a point affirmed in 1985, on the twentieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, by the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, which proposed six norms for the interpretation of the Council.114 Among these norms were the propositions that each Council document must be interpreted in the context of all the other Council documents,115 with the four constitutions as “the interpretative key” to the other twelve documents.116 113 114 115 116 Faggioli, True Reform, 19. For the 1985 Synod of Bishops, see Xavier Rynne, John Paul’s Extraordinary Synod: A Collegial Achievement (Wilmington, DE: M. Glazier, 1986); Giuseppe Alberigo, James H. Provost, and Marcus Lefébure, Synod 1985, An Evaluation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986); Peter Hebblethwaite, Synod Extraordinary: The Inside Story of the Rome Synod, November–December 1985 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986); and Johannes Baptist Metz, Edward Schillebeeckx, and Philip Hillyer, World Catechism or Inculturation? (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989). “The Final Report: Synod of Bishops,” Origins 15 (Dec. 19, 1985): 445; Avery Dulles, “Vatican II: The Myth and the Reality,” America 188, no. 6 (February 24, 2003): 7–11. Avery Dulles, “Vatican II: the Myth and the Reality,” 9. 1122 Christian D. Washburn Second, one of the main goals of the Council was the renewal of the life of the Church. As John Paul II has noted, “a very close and organic bond exists between the renewal of the liturgy and the renewal of the whole life of the Church. The Church not only acts but also expresses herself in the liturgy, lives by the liturgy and draws from the liturgy the strength for her life.”117 The Pope then concluded that Sacrosanctum Concilium is “in a certain sense, the measure and the condition for putting into effect the teaching of that Council which we wish to accept with profound faith, convinced as we are that by means of this Council the Holy Spirit ‘has spoken to the Church’ the truths and given the indications for carrying out her mission among the people of today and tomorrow.”118 So, one of the principal ways that one renews the life of the Church is through a liturgical renewal. Ultimately, Sacrosanctum Concilium becomes a key inasmuch as the renewal with which it is concerned touches the life of the faithful in the most important way. Third, in so far as Sacrosanctum Concilium deals with the renewal of the Church’s liturgy (an ad intra transformation), it is the prerequisite for entering into fruitful dialogue with the world (evangelization), the outward missionary life of the Church (an ad extra transformation). There can be no credible or effective dialogue, no invitation to fuller communion with Christ, without the witness of holiness. The inner renewal with which Sacrosanctum Concilium is concerned is the principle by which the Church’s very nature as “universal sacrament of salvation” may be realized. Fourth, as Cardinal Ratzinger has argued: “the fact that it [Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy] was placed at the beginning was basically due to pragmatic motives. But retrospectively, it must be said that it has a deeper meaning within the structure of the Council: adoration comes first. Therefore, God comes first. . . . As the second text of the Council, the Constitution on the Church should be considered as inwardly connected with the text on the liturgy. The Church is guided by prayer, by the mission of glorifying God. By its nature, ecclesiology is connected with the liturgy.”119 Indeed, the liturgy is the generative source of the 117 118 119 John Paul II, Letter Dominicae Cenae, February 24, 1980, §13, at https:// w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1980/documents/hf_jp-ii_ let_19800224_dominicae-cenae.html. Ibid. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “The Ecclesiology of the Constitution on the Church, Vatican II, Lumen Gentium,” L’Osservatore Romano, September 19, 2001, p. 5; Christopher Ruddy, “‘In the end is my beginning’: Lumen Gentium and the Priority of Doxology,” Irish Theological Quarterly 79 (2014): 144–64. The Second Vatican Council and Sacrosanctum Consilium 1123 very being of the Church as a mystical extension of Christ. The first and most proper activity of this Church, moreover, is prayer: adoration, the sacrifice of praise, and the sacrifice of thanksgiving are her specifically identifying actions. Conclusion If one asserts that Sacrosanctum Concilium is not only a key as the chronological starting-point but also a key as “the theological starting-point” for the teaching and reforms of Vatican II, then such a claim becomes deeply problematic. Of course, everyone would agree that it is the “chronological” starting-point, since it was the first document to be approved by the Council. But what does it mean to say that it is the “theological starting-point”? This is never quite explained by the proponents of this new theory. There are two ways in which Sacrosanctum Concilium could be said to be the theological starting-point. First, one could affirm such a starting-point in the sense that this was the first document of the Council to touch upon several theological themes that were important and reappeared in other documents. While the liturgical constitution anticipatorily touched upon the theme of Eucharistic ecclesiology, for example, this aspect of the constitution was theologically inchoate. One suspects, however, that the proponents of the new theory intend quite a bit more than this. Second, one could affirm that it is the theological starting-point in the sense that the matter treated by Sacrosanctum Concilium is weightier than that of other conciliar documents, and/ or that its treatment is of great developed profundity, and/or that it directly exercised a theological influence on the other documents. As we have shown, this does not seem to be the case for three reasons. First, although as a constitution it is weightier theologically than both the decrees and declarations of the Council, it is, nevertheless, less weighty theologically than the two dogmatic constitutions. The Council’s mind is clear from its deliberate designation of Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum as dogmatic constitutions, their use of more authoritative language, and their theological and doctrinal contents. Second, Sacrosanctum Concilium, as a simple constitution, was decidedly practical and only attempted to provide general theological principles that could direct a renewal of the liturgy. This cannot be considered a defect of the liturgical constitution; rather, the Council fathers understood correctly what was required for the liturgical reform: not another Mediator Dei that developed a rich and complete doctrine, but a constitution that would put the renewal into motion. Third, Sacrosanctum Concilium had little direct theological influ- 1124 Christian D. Washburn ence on subsequent documents for their theological themes. Therefore, the Council chose wisely and purposely to make it a constitution that was to deal with “the renewal and fostering of the liturgy.” This choice was natural, since constitutions are reserved for only the most important disciplinary acts of the Church, and there are few acts in the life of the N&V Church that are as important as the renewal of the liturgy. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1125–1148 1125 Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem Merit for Others and the Divine Plan in Thomistic Thought Aaron Matthew Weldon Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. In Her Official Teaching , the Catholic Church recognizes that persons who do not formally belong to the Church may receive the gift of salvation.1 At the same time, the Church understands herself to be necessary for salvation.2 This pair of theses has generated no little hardship for theologians who have attempted to grasp the two together, such as Jacques Dupuis.3 In this essay, I aim to make a short step toward an understanding of how the Church mediates salvation to non-Christians by considering merit and its application to others in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and a selection of his interpreters. An understandable strategy for grasping this problem is to look at the human person and the capacity of the human to aim for the good by way of reason, language, culture, and the like. In other words, one solution 1 2 3 Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium (hereafter, LG), in Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents, trans. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 1996 [1964]), §16. I do not include in this category those who explicitly intend to receive baptism, yet who are prevented from receiving this sacrament before death. LG, §14. See The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Notification on the book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, New York 1997) by Father Jacques Dupuis, S.J.,” at www.vatican.va/roman_ curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010124_dupuis_ en.html. 1126 Aaron Matthew Weldon seems to begin with theological anthropology. This kind of solution can take a number of forms. One might identify a basically Christological shape in the variety of ways that persons enact the good as they understand it. Or, one might talk about a natural desire to see God. These approaches begin with the nature of the human person. However, the point of this essay is to focus attention on salvation and justification as effects of the grace of God, that is, as moments in a divine motion in which the Church participates. In this sense, while I focus in this paper on Thomist accounts of merit for others, my end goal is to understand the mission of the Church. Within the framework of an account of merit that has developed in a significant strand of the Thomist tradition, the Church acts as an instrument of salvation by performing meritorious acts for others, thus participating in the divine plan to elevate a people to communion with God. In order to make a case for this understanding of the mission of the Church, I undertake a reading of the understanding of merit for others in the Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas Aquinas. This reading leads to Mariology, since merit for others belongs to the category of congruent merit, which the Blessed Mother exemplifies. Thus, by grasping the nature of the merits of Mary, the prototype of the Church, a view of the Church as participating in the divine plan by performing meritorious acts for others, particularly by offering the sacrifice of the Mass, comes into view. Grace and the Divine Plan To Elevate a People Meritorious acts derive their significance from their place in the divine plan. God has ordained to create and sustain a universe that reflects his wisdom and love, and then to elevate a people to participation in supernatural life. While all Christian theologians recognize God as the Creator of all that exists, St. Thomas places particular emphasis on this aspect of God.4 For example, the well-known five ways of demonstrating the 4 Brian Davies claims that to understand God in Thomas, one must understand how Thomas understands God as Creator (Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil [New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011], 39). Rudi te Velde makes a similar point, arguing that Aquinas’s understanding of God as Creator structures much of his entire account of anthropology, God, and metaphysics (Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiæ [Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006], 123–125). Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1127 existence of God presume God as Creator.5 Although the created order reflects the wisdom of the Creator, it also subsists as radically distinct from God.6 In other words, God is not an “item in the universe.”7 Because God is the source of all that exists, God exists as completely other than the created order. In fact, the intimacy of God to with the created order derives from this fundamental distinction. This understanding of the radical distinction between God and creation, between the supernatural order and the natural order, provides the framework in which one can understand grace, as well as merit. God wills to elevate a people to the supernatural order and to participation in the divine life itself. In the Thomistic scheme, individuals in the natural order of being cannot attain to the supernatural unless they are elevated by a supernatural agent. In other words, it does not lie in the power of creatures to elevate themselves above the natural order.8 So, while God desires that creatures share in the life of the Trinity, creatures are incapable of reaching this end on their own. Herein lies the fundamental meaning of grace. Grace is the gift of God by which he elevates creatures to a share in the divine life. From this basic sketch, it begins to become apparent that only God can initiate the movement of grace. Human agents cannot elevate themselves, so the movement to participation in the divine life begins with God. 9 Thus, God grants creatures a share in the divine life, and this act of giving is what grace is. Thomas makes this point clear in a way that is especially significant for a discussion on merit, because he argues that the first grace (primam gratium)— 5 6 7 8 9 One can see the contrast here with the Anselmian ontological argument, which would simply prove the existence of God from the concept of God itself. Arguments for the existence of God do not simply prove that God exists; they say something about who God is. The understanding of God that issues from the Proslogion would tend to put less emphasis on God as Creator because it makes an a priori claim, that is, it does not say anything positive about the relationship of God as Creator to creation. The distinction between creation and Creator receives treatment in any adequate treatment of God. It is singled out for particular attention by Robert Sokolowski in The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982). See Herbert McCabe, O.P., “The Involvement of God,” in God Matters (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1987), 42. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ (Matriti : Editorial Catolica, 1955), Ia-IIæ, q. 112, a. 1 resp: “Respondeo dicendum quod nulla res agere potest ultra suam speciem: quia semper oportet quod causa potior sit effectu.” Hereafter, ST. William Lynn, S.J., Christ’s Redemptive Merit: The Nature of Its Causality According to St. Thomas (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1962), 146–147. 1128 Aaron Matthew Weldon that is, the initiation into life according to the order of grace—cannot be merited by a human agent.10 So, primam gratiam identifies the initial gift by which God moves the person to faith informed by charity. In this sense, the first grace is the grace according to which God justifies the person, initiating that person into the life through which she will proceed until she arrives at the fullness of her supernatural end.Thus, the teaching of St. Thomas on grace works with the distinction between nature and supernature. Human beings exist and act within the natural order, and they can only enter the supernatural order by the agency of God. Grace moves the person to participation in the divine life.11 By its very nature, then, grace is a gift from God, and it has as its end the elevation of nature to its supernatural end.12 Thomas and his interpreters make distinctions between types of grace, although they keep the end of grace firmly in mind when they do so. Thomas distinguishes between gratia gratum faciens and gratia gratis data—that is, the grace that makes one pleasing to God, more commonly called sanctifying grace, and the grace freely given.13 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange also makes a distinction between internal and external grace; sanctifying grace belongs to internal grace, because it directs the human agent to God, whereas grace gratis data belongs to external grace, because the one who receives it becomes an agent through whom God directs others to communion with God by means of external signs.14 In other words, sanctifying grace is the gift of grace that works in the human agent to draw that person deeper into the current of grace. When the justified person enters more fully into the divine life through increase in faith and charity within that person, it is sanctifying grace that is working to effect this development. Another key distinction is that between “habitual grace” and auxilium Dei. These two gifts of God refer to different aspects of the life of grace. Habitual grace derives from the 10 11 12 13 14 See ST, Ia-IIæ, q. 114, a. 5. Joseph P. Wawrykow, God’s Grace & Human Action: ‘Merit’ in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 164–67. So, Domingo Bañez, O.P.: “In primis ordo gratiae praesupponit ordinem naturae et perficit ipsum. Quapropter totus ordo gratiae adjunctus ordini naturae potest dici auxilium Dei elevantis et perficientis naturam praexistentem ad operationem supernaturalem et ad supernaturalem finem tendentem” (Comentarios Inéditos a la Prima Secundae de Santo Tomás, Tomo III: De Gratia Dei, [qq. 109–114], edición preparada por Vicente Beltrán de Heredia [Madrid: 1948], 374). ST, Ia-IIæ, q. 110, a. 4 resp. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Grace: Commentary on the Summa Theologíca of St.Thomas, Ia IIæ, q. 109–114, trans. Dominican Nuns of Corpus Christi Monastery (Menlo Park, CA: B. Herder Book Co., 1952), 150–151. Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1129 understanding that St. Thomas develops on habit, which he describes as a disposition to act in a certain way. Grace is a gift from God to act at the supernatural level, and so habitual grace involves a gift in which God moves the human agent to be disposed to act toward the ends proper to the supernatural order. God infuses habitual grace to incline the agent to act toward the goods of divine life. Thus, as Joseph Wawrykow explains, the theological virtues “flow from” this grace: faith heals the intellect, while love and hope heal the will. In this sense, habitual grace helps to restore what is lost by sin.15 Auxilium, help, is given even after God has infused habitual grace. The justified person might “be drawn back to sin” after justification, because “the transformation entailed in justification is never so complete in this life that the individual can no longer sin.” 16 So, although the justified person generally is disposed toward the good, she needs the help of God in order to achieve her true end. For this reason, God gives help not only to act, but to act in accord with the good. Operative and Cooperative Grace The distinction that helps bring the final pieces of the puzzle into place is the one between operative and cooperative grace. This distinction involves the issue of how an agent wills both the means and the end of an act. One can name the end of one’s action by answering the question, “what are you doing?”17 The means for attaining the end is the object of the act. So, for example, one might ask me at this very moment, “what are you doing?” I would respond, “writing a paper on merit for others,” or, “trying to understand the priestly activity of the Church,” or “preparing an article to submit to Nova et Vetera.” Any of these answers would identify a legitimate end. I would not say, “lifting and lowering my fingers above a keyboard,” or “typing sentences,” or “authoring a text in English.” Of course, all of those latter actions are true, but they represent the means by which I achieve an end. For actions in which God moves the agent toward an end, while the human agent wills the means to that end, cooperative grace is at work. Here, the human person cooperates with God through her act of will. However, in acts where God moves 15 16 17 Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 169–170. Ibid., 171–172. See G.E.M. Anscombe, Intention, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), §23. Alasdair MacIntyre makes a similar point when he discusses the necessity of narrative for an account of human action (After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed., [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984], 206–208). 1130 Aaron Matthew Weldon the human agent at every step, so to speak, operative grace is at work.18 Thus, operative grace is that grace by which God moves the creature to will both the means and the end. These distinctions merit attention in the current discussion because they clarify what kind of action is meritorious. The typical meritorious act proceeds from cooperative, habitual grace.19 In other words, meritorious acts belong to the category of acts performed from cooperative grace, because God has infused grace into the soul of the human person—that is, they follow from the reception of habitual grace—empowering the person to pursue proper ends, but the human agent selects the means to the ends by her free will.20 Thus, meritorious acts proceed from human agents who have been moved by grace to act in the supernatural order in accordance with the divine ordinance. The focus on election and the divine ordinance provides the context for understanding meritorious acts, including acts that merit grace for others, because teaching on merit takes its place in teaching on grace, which is the divine gift according to which the triune God draws creatures into the divine life. Excursus on Gratia Gratis Data It is worth providing a brief description of gratia gratis data in order to clarify the question that this study seeks to answer. Sanctifying grace consists of those gifts that God gives to the believer over the course of her life in order to draw that person into closer communion with God. On the other hand, the graces gratis data refer to gifts given to a person for the purpose of bringing others into communion. These graces do not necessarily bring one into closer fellowship with God. In fact, an enemy of God could be given one of these graces, and it would simply mean that God used the person to fulfill the divine plan, even if that person were not elected to salvation. The grace would not have the effect of bringing about sanctification in the agent, but would rather aim to bring others into the Church.21 St. Paul identifies these gifts in his First Letter to the Corinthians, and he includes gifts of healing, prophecy, and the like (see 1 Cor 12). Some translators of St. Thomas refer to these graces as the “charismatic graces,”22 since they are associated with the classical charisms 18 19 20 21 22 Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 173–175. Ibid., 176–177. Ibid, 172. Garrigou-Lagrange, Grace, 157, 162. So, T.C. O’Brien in Summa Theologiæ, Volume 7 (Ia. 33–43): Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 215–219; c.f. ST, Ia, q. 43 a. 3. Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1131 by which the Church is built up. The Church performs a mission to the world with the help of these graces, but these are not the graces that I am discussing, particularly since they are distinct from sanctifying grace. Cooperative grace, to which merit properly belongs, is a species of sanctifying grace. The activity that these gifts bring about is distinct from the activity that I am seeking to describe insofar as the ministries that issue from the graces gratis data involve the explicit proclamation of the Gospel or the external activity that elicits a response from the unjustified. However, the work that I am seeking to understand may involve works that the unbeliever never sees. Thus, one might say that I am seeking to describe those activities wherein the person participates in the elicitation of faith in a remote way. Merit and Participation in Christ According to St. Thomas, human persons can perform acts that deserve reward because they truly are acts that belong to the human agent. This is the upshot of the division of grace into operative and cooperative: when the human will cooperates with divine grace, that human merits reward from God. However, merit must be rightly understood here, and so this section sketches the basic distinction between merits de condigno and merits de congruo. The sketch not only clarifies how merit functions in the Thomistic framework, but it also shows how merit, rather than functioning primarily as a kind of accounting concept, actually involves participation in Christ. Condign and Congruent Merit A meritorious act gives the agent a right to a reward.23 However, merit is credited to the agent in one of two ways. First, there is condign merit, which is merit according to justice. In other words, there is a sense in which God owes reward to the agent, although the term “owe” does not indicate that justice is set over against God. Rather, God acts in accord with the divine wisdom and promise, and so, in this sense, God does not act under a kind extra-divine compulsion. There are two principle kinds of condign merit. First, acts of Christ are meritorious in the strict sense of de condigno. As the perfect and holy Son of God, his sacrificial self-offering obtains merit in accordance with justice strictly speaking. Second, the justified earn condign merits also, although in a qualified sense. To be sure, they do not merit initiation 23 See Garrigou-Lagrange, Grace, 363. See also Lynn, Christ’s Redemptive Merit, 166. 1132 Aaron Matthew Weldon into the supernatural life because of the disproportion between supernature and nature, as well as because of the state of sin, which prevents the human agent from performing an act that deserves justice in itself.24 However, meritorious acts are condignly meritorious when viewed from the side of grace, because the Holy Spirit enables the human agent to act with charity, thus transforming the agent.25 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange provides a helpful summary: the condign merit of Christ is merit in the strictest sense of justice, and so the reward for the act and the merit are equal; for the justified, reward is proportionate to merit.26 Domingo Bañez sums up this understanding of grace, merit, and proportionality nicely: “[O]pera procedentia ex gratia habent omnis requisita ad meritum de condigno, quia sunt proportionate intrinsece fini ultimo quod est praemium, et facta sunt cum directione ad illius consecutionem referente caritate.”27 Wawrykow identifies a development in Thomas’ thinking on merit and justice, and seeing this development clarifies his teaching. In his earlier discussions of merit, meritorious acts receive reward in accordance with distributive justice. However, in his later work, Thomas seems to discuss merit in terms of commutative justice. It is commutative because it involves commerce between God and those who have been elevated to spiritual fellowship with God.28 In other words, in the earlier work, the nature-supernature distinction prohibited from understanding acts for and gifts from God in terms of exchange. In his development, he maintains the proper distinction between creature and Creator, while emphasizing the effect of grace as participation in the divine life. Thus, Wawrykow argues that Thomas came to locate merit in a more profound way within the whole of the divine economy. Since human persons enter into communion with the Triune God by being made like the Son,29 one can say that the justified gain merits by virtue of their 24 25 26 27 28 29 See ST, Ia-IIæ, q. 114, a. 2: “Vita autem æterna est quoddam bonum excedens proportionem naturæ creatæ . . . [N]ullus in stati peccati existens potest vitam æternam mereri, nisi prius Deo reconciletur, dimisso peccato, quod fit per gratiam. Peccatori enim non debetur vita, sed mors: secundum illud Rom. 6:23: Stipendi peccati mors.” Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 193–197. Garrigou-Lagrange, Grace, 367. Bañez, Comentarios, 323. Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 207–209. See Gilles Emery, O.P., The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Francesca Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 204–209. On the activity of the Holy Spirit in making creatures like the Son, that is, conforming persons to the Son, see Gilles Emery, O.P., “The Personal Mode of Trinitarian Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1133 communion with Christ. In this sense, God truly owes reward to the justified for good works. Merit is not limited to reward in accordance with justice. The second type of merit is merit de congruo. Congruently meritorious acts receive reward from God because of a certain kind of fittingness. Persons can obtain congruent merit in two ways. Garrigou-Lagrange identifies the first kind of congruent merit as congruent merit in the proper sense, the second in the improper sense. Congruent merit, properly speaking, derives from friendship with God. In this sense, God grants reward to certain persons on account of the love that comes from shared life with those persons, not because God owes the person reward for action. In this sense, as Garrigou-Lagrange explains, only the justified can obtain this kind of merit, for only the justified participate in the supernatural life and thus are capable of friendship with God.30 When one merits for another, the act is congruently meritorious because it does not belong to the order of justice to grant a reward to a person who has not personally performed the meritorious act. At the same time, it is fitting that God would reward the meritorious actions of friends who impetrate God on behalf of the unjustified. So, a Christian can merit condignly for herself and congruously for others. Garrigou-Lagrange also mentions the merit that derives strictly from the mercy of God, which he calls improper merit. In this case, God gives in a way that coheres strictly with mercy. Thus, God may count the act of an unredeemed sinner as meritorious, but the merit derives neither from justice nor from friendship. Now, God is both just and merciful, and so this kind of merit is fitting in the light of God’s mercy, but it is not fitting in the proper sense of the term. Merit and Participation in Christ While the notion of merit might seem, prima facie, like a kind of mere accounting system, the picture that emerges from Aquinas and others reveals a profoundly participationist understanding of the Christian life. The justified obtain merit precisely insofar as they act, as free agents themselves, in accord with the divine will and wisdom. Wawrykow makes this point when he discusses the issue of reward. The motion of grace moves creatures to a supernatural end in order to fulfill the divine 30 Action in St. Thomas Aquinas” in Trinity, Church, and the Human Person:Thomistic Essays (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007). The Mother of the Saviour and Our Interior Life, trans. Bernard J. Kelly, C.S.Sp. (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Company, 1959), 180–181. 1134 Aaron Matthew Weldon plan. Acts within this motion merit reward because they are acts that move in synch with the movement of the triune God. When one avoids sin and pursues the good, one acts in harmony with the supernatural ends of human being, and thus, one merits reward.31 In a similar way, Michael Root emphasizes the teleological dimension of merit, noting that Thomas’ teaching on merit indicates a fittingness between redeemed persons and their end.32 Persons merit reward from God because they are acting in the order of grace and thus moving toward fuller participation in the divine life. One might say that the reward for performing meritorious acts is that the agent gains momentum in the motion of grace. Or, one could compare it to different currents in a river; meritorious acts allow the human agent to get closer to the swift-moving water, and as one gets closer, the pull of the water becomes stronger. Thomas agrees with the Augustinian notion of God crowning his own gifts.33 In this sense, God does not really give a reward to an other so much as rewards himself, yet this act of giving reward draws the human agent closer to God. Hence, the human, not God, benefits from meritorious acts.34 Merit brings about an increase in grace for the justified, because a meritorious act draws the person closer to God, who gives out of utter gratuity.35 In this sense, meritorious acts are acts in which the person participates in the divine plan. Thomas gives this discussion on participation and merit a Christological focus in his commentary on Colossians, in which the Apostle states that he completes what is lacking of Christ’s suffering (Col 1:24). According to Thomas, “we could say that Paul was completing the sufferings that were lacking in his own flesh. For what was lacking was that . . . Christ should also suffer in Paul, his member, and in similar ways, 31 32 33 34 35 See Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 184. See “Aquinas, Merit, and Reformation Theology after the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” in Aquinas in Dialogue: Thomas for the Twenty-First Century, eds. Jim Fodor and Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 8–9. Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 203. Ibid., 181. ST, Ia-IIæ, q. 114, a. 8 resp: “Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut supra (a.3.6.7.) dictum est, illud cadit sub merito condigni, ad quod motio gratiae se extendit. Motio autem alicuius moventis non solum se extendit ad ultimum terminum motus, sed etiam ad totum progressum in motu. Terminus autem motus gratiae est vita aeterna: progressus autem in hoc motu est secundum augmentum caritatis vel gratiae, secundum illiud Prof. 4, 18: Iustorum semita quasi lux splendens procedit, et crescit usque ad perfectum diem, qui est dies gloriae. Sic igitur augmentum gratiae cadit sub merito condigni.” Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1135 in others.”36 He goes on to note that, “in the same way all the saints suffer for the Church.” The Church continues to suffer until her treasure house of merits is full, until the end of the world.37 So, the justified obtain merits in Christ because “Christ and the Church are one mystical person.”38 This short statement makes the connection between merit and participation in Christ clear; the Church and her members accrue merit because the Church is the body of Christ. Romanus Cessario raises this issue in an analogous way when he discusses satisfaction.39 He makes the point that members of the body of Christ can offer satisfaction for others, but the acts offered up for others derive their worth from the meritorious self-offering of the God-man.40 Jesus Christ, as divine and human, has merited salvation for the entire world.41 At the same time, he is the head of a body, and so the members of his body can act in a way that is coextensive with his act on the cross.42 According to William Lynn, Christ is the meritorious, final, instrumental, and efficient cause of justification for all who are justified.43 It would follow from this understanding of causality that, if a human person who is not Jesus were to act meritoriously for another—that is, cause, in some sense, the justification of another—then that person could only have done so to the extent that that one participates in Christ.44 Thus, merit, both for oneself and for others, involves entering more deeply into the person and work of Christ through the Holy Spirit as a member of his Body. Congruent Merit, Participation, and Prima Gratia With this sketch of creation, grace, merit, and participation in the work of Christ, the position that Thomas Aquinas takes on meriting the first 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Colossians, trans. Fabian Larcher, (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2006), §61 (Larcher, 36–37). Ibid., (Larcher, 37). Ibid., (Larcher, 36). Satisfaction and merit name different, yet similar, kinds of exchanges. Satisfaction involves the payment of a debt that is owed, while merit consists of a reward for a work. See Garrigou-Lagrange, Grace, 371 and 378, and Mother of the Saviour, 179. Romanus Cessario, O.P., Christian Satisfaction in Aquinas: Towards a Personalist Understanding (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982), 165. Lynn, Christ’s Redemptive Merit, 157. See Ibid., 147–148. Ibid., 155. Lynn also states that Christ contains within himself “whatever gifts of grace are upon creatures,” and so Christians, as members of Christ’s body, participate in the fullness of Christ’s grace (ibid., 153–154). 1136 Aaron Matthew Weldon grace for others begins to come into focus. To be sure, the notion of meriting for another sounds rather strange, since merit itself seems to be strictly personal. That is, the actions of one person “cannot directly affect the soul of another.”45 A person cannot merit the first grace for another condignly, but a person can obtain congruent merit for the first grace for another.46 A person could not merit condignly for another, in part, because it would not be just to reward one person for another’s work, and in part, for the same reason that one could not merit for oneself. Bañez summarizes the point well: quia offensa contra Deus habet rationem infinitatis propter infinitam majestam Dei offensi; et ideo requiritur ex parte satisfacientis infinitam dignitatem personæ.47 It would be impossible to obtain merit for the first grace in accordance with justice because the offense of sin against God is greater than a human person could possibly satisfy. Therefore, only Christ, the God-man, can merit condignly for others. Although the justified person cannot obtain condign merit for another, the baptized Christian does have access to the treasury of the Church and participates in the redeeming work of Christ. This person also enjoys friendship with God, and God will respond to the impetratory prayers of the justified secundum amicitiæ proportionem. In other words, God would grant grace in proportion to the friendship between God and the one seeking merit for another. This would be fitting, and it is interesting to consider why it would be fitting. For example, consider that I, assuming that I am in a state of grace, give alms and pray to God to apply my meritorious act to a family member who is not a Christian, and then God moves that person to freely enter into communion with the Catholic Church. On the one hand, my act merited salvation for that person. On the other hand, my act simply participated in the divine action that elected and moved my family member. So, it is fitting that God would reward my act because my act would be congruent with the divine will. At the same time, there is a sense in which the reward for my act would simply be its participation in the election of my family member by God. That is, I have been given the privilege, which comes with friendship, of joining my action to the action of God. This is the 45 46 47 Ibid., 1–2. ST, Ia-IIæ, q. 114, a. 6 resp: “Sed merito congrui potest aliquis alteri mereri primam gratiam. Quia enim homo in gratia constitutes implet Dei voluntatem, congruum est, secundum amicitiæ proportionem, ut in salvation alterius: licet quandoque possit habere impedimentum ex parte illius cuius aliquis sanctus iustificationem desiderat.” Bañez, Comentarios, 334. Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1137 point that Charles Journet makes. Although he does not discuss the issue of merit for another at great length or detail, he does mention that when a person in a state of grace prays effectually for the salvation of those whom God elects, then that person enters more deeply into friendship with God, because the will of the justified aligns with the will of God.48 In a meritorious act for another that proves to be efficacious, the Christian loves what God loves, and in this sense, meritorious acts for others flow from charity, from a will healed by the Holy Spirit. The act draws its power from the one condign meritorious act for others; it applies the merits of the loving act of Christ on the Cross. Suffering and Congruent Merit A question that St. Thomas does not address in article 6 of the question on merit comes quite naturally: what sorts of acts would merit the first grace for another? In his commentary on this article, Bañez discusses issues concerning the efficacy of offering the sacrifice of the Mass for others, given different ways that those others may “block,” so to speak, the grace offered by the means of this meritorious act. To engage the text on this particular question would take my paper afield, since Bañez is dealing with objections to meriting for others that are concerned with clerical abuse. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that he assumes that offering the sacrifice of the Mass would be an act that one could perform on behalf of another. In fact, he spends approximately half of his commentary on the article discussing problems with how the merits from the sacrifice could be applied to others.49 At the same time, as a reflection on the work of Mary in the divine economy reveals, there is an intimate connection with suffering and sacrifice. Although this study has not put suffering in the foreground up to this point, it has laid the groundwork for beginning to see how Christian suffering might obtain merit for others.50 The notion of vicarious suffering has roots in the Thomistic tradition. For example, according to Cessario, punishments may render satisfaction for sin by removing the stain of sin from the sinner.51 Thus, the goal of punishment is to restore the sinner to the order of divine justice.52 In 48 49 50 51 52 Charles Journet, The Meaning of Grace, trans. A.V. Littledale, (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1962), 61. See Bañez, Comentarios, 334–336. See Thomas Joseph White, O.P., “Redeemable Suffering? St. Thomas Aquinas on the Meaning of Human Suffering and the Passion of Christ,” Nova et Vetera (English) 9, no. 3 (2011): 558. Cessario, Satisfaction in Aquinas, 146. Ibid., 148. 1138 Aaron Matthew Weldon this sense, punishment may be remedial. The punishment achieves its restorative aim when the punished person undertakes the satisfactory act with charity.53 However, not all punishment is remedial, for a person can take on punishment for the sins of another, and so the one who undergoes punishment does not need remediation. The satisfactory act will be efficacious to this other person deserving of punishment when the two persons are united in love.54 So, a person can obtain satisfaction for another, although the other does not receive the effect unless she joins her will to the one who represented her. This gives a sense of how consent on the part of the represented would be necessary. That is, it begins to suggest that salvation does not just happen to people because the Church prays for it; the other must consent in some way to receiving what the justified person has obtained. The Merits of the Mother of God The Blessed Mother provides the most striking example of suffering and sacrifice that obtains merit for others. Only the suffering of Christ condignly merits for others, because he suffers as the Son of God, and so his suffering is of infinite worth. Moreover, as the one whom the Father has sent into the world in order to redeem the world, it belongs to the mission of Christ to obtain merit de condigno for others. That is, since if God has willed from eternity to elevate creatures to the divine life, then the Son whom the Father sends to obtain merit for the sake of redeeming and elevating the elect obtains those merits in accordance with strict justice, that is, in complete, rather than proportionate, accordance with the divine plan. The Blessed Mother’s merit is congruent merit in the proper sense, and thus her work exemplifies meritorious action for others. Matthias Scheeben considers the merits of Mary at great length. With her meritorious works, she participates in the saving mission of her son, Jesus Christ. Mary, through her piety and desire for the coming of the Messiah, obtained the sending of the Son by congruent merit.55 He notes that her fiat mihi provides an excellent example of a work that obtains merit and is chosen freely. And yet, God chose her freely, not because of her merits; God elected her to bear the Incarnate Word, and the plan of God could not have been frustrated. Her free decision coincides with the divine decision, and so, by consenting to participate in the redemp53 54 55 Ibid., 147. Ibid., 149. Matthias Joseph Scheeben, Mariology, vol. 2, trans. T.L.M.J. Geukers (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book, 1948), 211–214. Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1139 tive plan of God, Mary shows herself to be a friend of God.56 As friend of God, she obtains congruent merit in the proper sense, and thus, she procures grace for all those whom God justifies. Hence, Scheeben discusses Mary as the mother of the redeemed. Now, mother can be understood in two ways here. On the one hand, one might understand her ministry and place in the Church as one who nurtures like a mother. In other words, Mary acts maternally to the redeemed. On the other hand, Mary continues to impetrate God, obtaining grace for others,57 and so she gives birth to the redeemed.58 That is, she effects spiritual re-birth.59 Or, as Garrigou-Lagrange puts it, Mary acts as a cause in God’s act of giving the first grace to sinners.60 So, she participates in the movement in which God moves the human agent in intellect and will toward faith informed by charity. In other words, all those whom God saves owe, in a sense, the grace that has saved them to the merits of Mary. She is mother not only in the sense that she nurtures the faith of the redeemed, but also in that she gives birth to the redeemed through her meritorious work and through her efficacious impetration. In contemporary popular Catholic piety, the work of Mary seems to be primarily associated with her role in the Incarnation and her current activity of intercession on behalf of the Church. However, there is another strand of tradition that associates her with the Crucifixion, arguing that Mary obtains merit through participation in the immolation of her Son. Garrigou-Lagrange discusses this aspect of Mariology in his study of the Mother of God. Mary participates in the sacrifice of her son because she offers him on Calvary. She shares his suffering in her mourning the sins of humanity, but perhaps most significantly, stabat juxta crucem: she stood by the cross. So, while Jesus offers himself, the charity of Mary comes into view as she stands next to the cross, offering up her son for the salvation of the world. In a somewhat astonishing statement, Garrigou-Lagrange says that Mary represents a kind of priest, although she does not participate formally in the priesthood, because she does not confect the Eucharist or absolve sins.61 She participates in the sacrifice that merits satisfaction for the world. Our Lady also suffers with our Lord. It is worth noting here, as Matthew Levering has noted, that 56 57 58 59 60 61 See also Garrigou-Lagrange, Mother of the Saviour, 180–181. Scheeben, Mariology, 254. See Ibid., 249. Ibid., 245. Garrigou-Lagrange, Mother of the Saviour, 177. Ibid., 194. 1140 Aaron Matthew Weldon Jesus suffers in part because he knows the great chasm between God and humanity that occasions his crucifixion.62 In other words, his suffering involves more than physical suffering. In a similar way, Mary undergoes great sorrow, not only because she sees her son die, but because she mourns the wickedness that separates humanity from God. In this sense, the work of redemption and the sin of the world cause Mary to suffer.63 Thus, Mary participates in a preeminent way in the sufferings of Christ. So, her suffering and offering unites her in a special way to the suffering and offering of her son, and in this sense, she mediates salvation to the world, deserving the title Mediatrix of All Graces.64 Scheeben makes claims similar to the ones that Garrigou-Lagrange makes about Mary and the Cross, although he extends the reflection to the whole life of Christ. Before offering Christ on the Cross, Mary offers Christ in the Temple. Furthermore, because she gave Christ his flesh, she, in a sense, also offered up the body of Christ when she consented to bear Jesus. So, when she stands beneath the Cross offering her son, who offers himself up for the salvation of the world, this event functions as the culmination of all of her other acts. In other words, if the Incarnation leads to the sacrifice at Calvary, then Scheeben makes the move of saying that the acts of Mary, which are intimately involved in the mission of the Incarnation, are ordered to a participation in the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Thus, her cooperation in the sacrifice of her son reaches its climax when she stands underneath the cross.65 In this sacrifice, Christ obtains condign merit, since he is the God-man whose acts possess infinite worth, while Mary obtains congruent merit, since she participates in a most intimate way in every one of these acts. Mary, the Mother of the Redeemed, continues to obtain merit for the faithful. Gary Anderson has argued that, in patristic teaching, a poor person who receives alms is like an altar, giving the almsgiver a direct connection to the supernatural order. Thus, by putting money on this altar, the Christian funds a heavenly treasury.66 In a similar way, Scheeben refers to Mary as an altar that communicates the effects of the one sacrifice of Christ, 67 and so through her, there is a communication of 62 63 64 65 66 67 Matthew Levering, Sacrifice and Community: Jewish Offering and Christian Eucharist (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 78. See Garrigou-Lagrange, Mother of the Saviour, 187–189 Ibid., 190–191. Scheeben, Mariology, 220–221. Gary Anderson, Sin: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 140. Scheeben, Mariology, 226. Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1141 the effects of Christ. Like the Church, she represents a deposit of merit.68 Through her participation in the work of the Savior, Mary has obtained a treasury from which she may draw in order to bring about the conferral of grace onto humanity.69 Two elements in particular stand out from this venture into Mariology. First, Mary achieves merit by offering Jesus on the Cross. Christ offers himself, and so he is the priest and victim of this sacrifice Yet, at the same time, his mother participates in his priestly activity when she stands at the Cross. She has so thoroughly associated her own work with the work of her son that, when she offers up her son, she also offers up herself.70 Second, Mary obtains congruent merit through her suffering. This element follows from the first. It seems important to note here that it is not any suffering that makes this achievement, but rather, it is that suffering which comes to her by way of her participation in the divine plan to bring redemption to the world. She participates in the divine plan in all of those acts that she performs, which culminate in her offering of her son. This culminating act coincides with her suffering. She suffers as she does because of her special friendship with God. Through this suffering, she attains merit that may apply to the entire human race. St. Stephen the Martyr Bañez mentions an additional saint who obtains merit for another: St. Stephen. Bañez points out the work of Stephen in his conclusion to the commentary on the question utrum homo possit alteri mereri primam gratiam. Like the Angelic Doctor himself, he is brief. Nevertheless, reading him in light of those who share in his tradition allows one to draw some conclusions about the significance of his commentary. He states that 68 69 70 See ibid., 215. Ibid., 239. This basic argument for Mary as mediatrix of all graces by virtue of her participation in the work of her son has been taken up in the teaching of the Church. So, Pope St. Pius X: “Ex hac autem Mariam inter et Christum communione dolorum ac voluntatis ‘promeruit’ illa, ‘ut reparatrix perditi orbis dignissime fieret’ (Eadmeri Mon. De Excellentia Virg. Mariae, c. 9), atque ideo universorum munerum dispensatrix, quae nobis Iesus nece et sanguine comparavit” (Encyclical Letter on the Jubilee of the Immaculate Conception Ad diem illum laetissimum, Promulgated February 2, 1904 [Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 1999], §12).The Holy Father further notes that, through her association with the work of her son, she merits for others de congruo what Christ merits de condigno (§14). Garrigou-Lagrange, Mother of the Saviour, 193. 1142 Aaron Matthew Weldon the martyrdom of Stephen merits the conversion of Saul.71 Bañez draws attention to important features of this meritorious act. Stephen prays for the forgiveness of those who stone him, and Scripture mentions that Saul stands there (Acts 7:60–8:1). However, as Bañez notes, Scripture does not reveal that the others received grace as a result of Stephen’s prayer. Conversion comes only to Saul. Therefore, Bañez claims that a meritorious act can only be efficaciously applied to another if God has ordained to move the one for whom the act is offered. In other words, Stephen merited the conversion of Saul, but he did so because God had elected to move Saul to conversion. The passion of Stephen the proto-martyr clearly echoes the Passion of the Lord. Thus, martyrdom, for Christianity, works within the framework of the Christ who suffered death on the Cross. That is, while other religions, such as Judaism and Islam, have people who bear witness to their faith, the Christian faith is unique in that its martyrs, in death, emulate and thus point to their head. So, the suffering of Stephen is joined to the suffering of Christ, and just as the suffering of Mary joined with the work of Christ to obtain merit, so the suffering of Stephen also obtains merit by virtue of the merits of Christ. With his meritorious suffering, which efficaciously obtains grace for Saul, Stephen acts as a cause in the conversion of Saul. In accordance with the divine plan, God acts as the primary cause, moving Saul, who freely assents. One can see here a parallel with the account of Mary that Scheeben provides. Although Scheeben is explicit in his affirmation of the freedom that Mary possesses when she says fiat mihi, he still claims that Mary had been ordained to play a particular role, and nothing can frustrate the will of God. In a similar way, God had elected Saul to serve as an apostle, and nothing would frustrate the will of God. Thus, Stephen, by performing this work, participates in the divine plan to redeem the world by playing a role in the salvation of the Apostle. Stephen serves as an instrument in the Apostle’s salvation. 71 Bañez, Comentarios, 336: “Nec ex parte operantis bonum opus factum ex gratia ea intentione, ut Deus convertat peccatorem, habet aliam proportionem, nisi ex ordinatione speciali Dei, qui misercorditer vult illam petitionem sui amici ordinare ad conversionem alicujus peccatoris; atque ita ordinavit de facto orationem protomartyris Stephani ad conversionem Sauli, et non ordinavit ad conversionem quorumdam aliorum lapidantium. Itaque in assecutione effectus meriti de congruo non est alia infallibilitas nisi ordinatio divinae misericordae.” Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1143 Congruent Merit as Ecclesial Participation in the Divine Plan Through their meritorious suffering for others, both Stephen and Mary exemplify the mission of the Church, which is the sign and instrument of communion with God and between people.72 Stephen acts as a sign of the salvific act of God insofar as his martyrdom quite clearly recapitulates the redemptive suffering of Jesus in his Passion. At the same time, in his meritorious suffering, he is not merely a sign; he is an instrument. In a similar way, the Blessed Virgin shows how the sacrifice and suffering of the Church is instrumental in the salvation of the world. Scheeben discusses Mary as a prototype of the Church,73 making the interesting point that she represents the Church at the Cross, because St. Peter was absent.74 Thus, Mary, the one who bears the Incarnate Word and offers the immolation of the Son of God, serves the whole world as the Mediatrix of All Graces, and hence an instrument of salvation for the world. Scheeben makes a strong connection between Mary and the Church. Likewise, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church from the Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium) associates the work of Mary with the ministry of the Church. The Council Fathers refer to Mary as Mediatrix,75 who cooperates with the work of her son,76 but only because of the superabundance of his merits.77 Mary can be referred to as source of the Church, since she cooperates in the mediation of the merits of 72 73 74 75 76 77 LG, §1. Although my discussion of Mary and the Church relies primarily on conciliar texts, Gary Culpepper also mentions a line of thinking on Mary that could be fruitful for this study. He notes in an article on the prophecy of Simeon, which concerns the suffering of Mary, that “modern exegesis underscores that the character of Mary in the Gospel of Luke has both literal and symbolic significance, and can refer both to the historical mother of Jesus and to the anawim or pious remnant of Israel” (“‘A Sword Will Pierce through Your Own Soul Also’: The Sanctification, Conversion, and Exemplary Witness of the Blessed Mary,” Pro Ecclesia 19, no. 1 [Winter 2010]: 29–30). This point could also illuminate the Catholic understanding of Mary as a type of the Church, the people of God. Scheeben, Mariology, 240–241. LG, §62. Ibid., §57. LG, §61 puts it well: “She conceived, gave birth to, and nourished Christ, she presented him to the Father in the temple, shared his sufferings as he died on the cross. Thus, in a very special way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the work of the Savior in restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason she is a mother to us in the order of grace.” LG, §§53 and 60: “[All the Blessed Virgin’s salutary influence on men and women] flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it.” 1144 Aaron Matthew Weldon Christ to humanity, while at the same time, the pilgrim Church looks to Mary as the apex of cooperative activity with the God-man.78 Scheeben discusses Mary as intimate with the Lord through her discipleship, and then, because of her unique intimacy with her son, she participates in the work of redemption. Like Mary, and like Stephen, the Church acts as an instrument of salvation when she obtains merit for others. Her principle means of obtaining merit for others is her associating herself with the self-offering for others of Christ on the Cross, which she achieves when she offers the sacrifice of the Mass for the whole world. Thus, in Eucharistic prayer number three, the priest beseeches God, “Haec Hostia nostrae reconciliationis proficiant, quaesumus, Domine, ad totius mundi pacem atque salutem.”79 The examples of Mary and Stephen suggest a relationship between the offering of the Mass and suffering for the salvation of others. The sacrifice of the Mass and martyrdom are both forms of participation in the meritorious suffering of Jesus Christ. The Body of Christ, the Church, is joined to Christ in these acts, and this meritorious suffering operates within the divine plan to elevate a people to the supernatural order. In this way, by her participation in the suffering of Christ, which obtains the merits that are proper to friendship with God, the Church, like Mary and Stephen, participates in the salvation of the world. **** These reflections on the nature of the role of the Church in the salvation of others carry with them implications for how the Church undertakes her mission. As an example, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) criticizes the Second Anglican/Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC II) statement on salvation and the Church for suggesting that the Church primarily communicates grace to the extent that she bears witness to the works of Christ, although she herself does not make those works “efficaciously . . . present.”80 In other words, according to the CDF, while it is true that ministries of explicit witness and making the mysteries visible are important, the Church also acts as an instrumental cause of salvation through her sacramental ministry. 78 79 80 Ibid., §65: “But while in the most Blessed Virgin the church has already reached that perfection whereby she exists without spot or wrinkle (see Eph 5:27), the faithful still strive to conquer sin and grow in holiness.” One could read this essay as an attempt to understand how the Church can pray such a prayer. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Observations on ‘Salvation and the Church,’” Origins, December 15, 1988, p. 433. Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1145 Certainly, this understanding of causality is clear in terms of the way that the sacraments of the Church communicate grace to members of the Church. But, is there also an aspect of mission in which the Church is a secondary cause of salvation for persons outside the Church by her meritorious actions, particularly the offering of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrifice of the Mass? In fact, the very issue that raises the concerns of the CDF is the lack of reference to Eucharistic sacrifice in the statement that it is criticizing. Practically, then, it seems that, in the Churchas-witness view, the Church only performs real work for others when she does work whose results are empirically verifiable. Such a Church would certainly put time and treasure into missionaries, but would she support the ministry of monastics, whose whole way of life involves a kind of self-gift on behalf of others, a self-gift that, perhaps, only God sees? The view of merit for others that appears in the writings of St. Thomas and a selection of his interpreters would suggest that the Church brings the world into communion with God through her cultic, as well as her explicitly ad extra, activities. In this sense, acts of witness and worship both have participation in the divine plan as their common end. As a martyr, St. Stephen certainly witnesses to faith in Jesus Christ. Even so, the biblical narrative does not claim that Saul is moved by the semiotic accomplishment of Stephen. Rather, according to the strand of Catholic theology that I have been studying, God moves Saul because Stephen offers himself up as a living sacrifice (see Rom 12:1), and so the latter serves as an instrumental cause by virtue of his merit. In an analogous way, the sacrifice of the Mass acts as a cause by which God elevates persons to the supernatural life, and in this sense, this meritorious act participates in the salvation of the world. I have reflected on the priestly dimension of the mission of the Church by looking at congruent merit for others, which led to an account of Mary and suffering. To focus the study, I have considered St. Thomas Aquinas and some of his influential interpreters. My selection of Thomists has given a predestinarian flavor to the reflection. Even if one were to move away from this theology, the Bañezian interpretation of Thomas draws attention to four elements of what one might call a priestly missiology that should be carried over to a theology of ecclesial mediation of salvation to non-Christians. First, the idea of offering is crucial. This idea connects very strongly with Eucharistic sacrifice, and this act is distinct from intercessory prayer. What Matthew Levering calls Eucharistic idealism—that is, an overemphasis on “presence” alone—seems to denature the Eucharistic framework necessary for a priestly mission to 1146 Aaron Matthew Weldon others.81 That is, certainly the Eucharist serves as a means of encounter with Christ for the faithful, but the sacrificial dimension also allows for an account of Church mission in which the faithful offer up the body and blood of Christ on behalf of their neighborhoods, cities, and nations. Second, suffering and martyrdom do bear witness to something of the truth of the Christian faith, but they are not limited to the proclamatory dimension of ministry. When Christians suffer, they may offer up the merits of their sufferings for others, including their persecutors. Thus, martyrdom may be an efficacious act for the conversion of persecutors, apart from the semiotic value of the act. Third, congruent merit is based on friendship with God, for God acts in accordance with his love for the one who offers for another. There is an objective dimension to merit, but merit involves a subjective dimension as well. Attention to the affective dimension should complement, rather than contradict, the objective dimension of merit. For example, lovelessly and thoughtlessly dropping dollars in the poor box may bear little resemblance to acts of friendship with God. At the same time, giving alms counts for something, and perhaps a Christian who mechanistically does so finds himself drawn to a deeper relationship with God over time. In other words, external, objective meritorious acts may prove to be means of grace by which God moves the inner person, and interior love for divine things should lead to acts that participate in life of the body of Christ. Fourth, not only does God act out of love for a friend, but suffering on behalf of others also accrues merit for the justified because the justified is a member of the body of Christ. That is, the suffering is meritorious because it is joined to the suffering of Christ on the cross. In this sense, merit for another draws one into closer communion with the God who acts to save the lost. Finally, this essay has brought to the fore the significance of meritorious suffering as an aspect of the ecclesial mediation of salvation. I see two major lacunae that will need to be addressed to carry this inquiry forward. First, what makes suffering meritorious?82 Does the sufferer have to intend the act that leads to suffering, and must the object of that intended act be good? This is the kind of point that John Howard Yoder has frequently raised. To bear the Cross is not identical with any suffering, but with suffering for the sake of the kingdom of God. Offering the sacrifice of the Mass obtains merit. Does that offering commit the believer to a way of life that entails suffering? Further development 81 82 See Levering, Sacrifice and Community, ch. 1. Garrigou-Lagrange also states that a meritorious act that is painful is satisfactory (Mother of the Saviour, 186). Ad Totius Mundi Pacem atque Salutem 1147 on suffering will be necessary. Second, what does the first movement of grace entail? The discussion here has assumed that God moves some persons, in accord with congruent merits accrued by the justified, to an explicit faith. This discussion has not taken up the issue of the possibility of implicit faith. Journet makes an interesting distinction between grace of contact and grace at a distance. It may be the case that those who are distant from the hierarchy of the Church and the fullness of sacramental life may, in varying degrees, come to be moved by God to desire, in an inchoate way, that life.83 In this sense, it is proper to say that these “uncovenented graces” develop a rudimentary Church in the life of those peoples and that the Church may come into full flowering should the grace of contact become available to them. Every theologian that I have covered assumes that if merit for another is efficacious, then God moves the other in an explicit way, that is, presumably, to baptism, or at least to the desire for baptism. For example, Bañez states the following: “[S]icut meritum de condigno non infallibilter assequitur semper suum effectum, propter impedimentum peccati sequentis, usque ad mortem, ita neque meritum de congruo consequitur suum effectum propter impedimentum illius pro quo justus orat, vel bene et pie operator.”84 This statement would seem to imply that if the one pro quo justus orat is not moved to conversion to the Church, then that one does not receive salvation. Perhaps the understanding of “conversion to the Church” can be understood in different ways, but clearly my essay has not argued that the world is saved by virtue of impetratory prayer apart from consent of those for whom the Church prays.85 However, might it be possible that, for those people whom the gospel never explicitly reaches, a justified person could obtain merit? This 83 84 85 Journet, Meaning of Grace, 118–119. Bañez, Comentarios, 336. In an essay from early in his theological career, Joseph Ratzinger discusses vicarious representation. See “Vicarious Representation,” trans. Jared Wicks, in Letter & Spirit, vol. 7, The Bible and the Church Fathers: The Liturgical Context of Patristic Exegesis, ed. Scott Hahn, (Steubenville: Emmaus Road, 2012). Ratzinger argues that vicarious representation plays a significant role in the faith of Israel, as well as ancient religious practice in general. For example, some Hebrew prophets, such as Moses and Jeremiah, understand themselves to represent the people of Israel and to suffer on their behalf before God. However, Israel differs from her Near Eastern counterparts in that, for Israel, the one who serves as the vicarious representative does not identify with the entity that he represents in a purely objective or “magical” way. In this sense, “Israelite piety was even in its cultic expressions thoroughly personalistic” (210). In other words, a person can suffer on behalf of the people of God, but the people must somehow participate in the transaction; they do not stand justified before God without coming to conversion. 1148 Aaron Matthew Weldon question opens up a difficult territory, and the way forward will take its bearings from a robust account of ecclesial mediation. An understanding N&V of Mary’s congruent merits takes a step in this direction. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1149–1184 1149 The Right to Religious Freedom: Thomistic Principles of Nature and Grace Thomas Joseph White, O.P. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D.C. “We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis. The split in the world is less terrible than the similarity of the disease plaguing its main sections. . . . Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life and society’s activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?” —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Harvard Commencement Address, June 8, 1978 Introducing the Problem: Religious Freedom as a Subject of Natural Law and Divine Right Ironic as it might seem to some, modern Catholic insistence on the right to religious freedom codified in Dignitatis Humanae (1965) at the Second Vatican Council has its unambiguous origins in the decree on papal primacy Pastor Aeternus (1870) articulated at the First Vatican Council. Pastor Aeternus defines as a dogma a number of truths with respect to the papacy. First, the Petrine office was intentionally instituted by Christ himself. Second, the Bishop of Rome enjoys a primacy of jurisdiction with respect to the whole Church that is plenary and immediate. Third, 1150 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. when the pope speaks definitively on matters of content with respect to divine revelation and morals, whether by means of a conciliar definition or the extraordinary pronouncement of a teaching ex cathedra, he does so infallibly. How are such affirmations the proximate origin of the subsequent development in Dignitatis Humanae? The latter teaching stems implicitly from the second of these three doctrinal affirmations. The First Vatican Council affirmed that the pope has a plenary jurisdiction over the whole of the body of the visible Church so as to emphasize that the modern secular state does not have legitimate jurisdiction over the decisions of ecclesiastical government that are made internal to the Church. The Third Republic, for example, does not have the right to determine for the pope who the bishops of the Catholic Church in France are to be, nor to suppress the presence and activity of Catholic schools that may teach freely the Catholic faith. What is crucial to understand here is the corollary to this affirmation.1 Not only was the First Vatican Council seeking to assure the political rights of the Church within the context of the political life of the modern state; it was also taking leave of the classical appeal to a corollary power of the Church to introduce and promote her teachings through the direct action of the state.The Church-state relation in classical medieval Christianity (and often in modernity) was reciprocal and twofold: the state granted an establishment privilege to the Church and the Church allowed the state to introduce means by which it might regulate the affairs of the Church from within (not least by allowing ministers of the state to determine the assignment of bishops and clerics to various ecclesiastical posts). But if the first of these privileges was delimited at Vatican I, then most certainly the second of them was upended as well, in what amounted to an alteration of the normative paradigm governing Churchstate relations. After the social revolutions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Church—in declaring the universal primacy— was making normative the practice of a kind of mutual separation of jurisdictional powers. The Church is not recognized as established by the state (through state-induced measures) and the state does not attempt to determine the internal workings of the Church with regard to her plenary right to evangelize. I am greatly indebted to Russell Hittinger for this line of argumentation, which echoes ideas he presented in a public lecture, “The Catholic Magisterium and Religious Freedom,” on Sept. 21, 2012 in New York, sponsored by the Thomistic Institute. The essay is forthcoming in Nova et Vetera. 1 The Right to Religious Freedom 1151 What, then, preserves the freedom of the exercise of the Catholic religion in the midst of the modern, secular state? In the absence of “established” forms of mutual support, a theoretical basis needed to be developed by explicit appeal to the right to religious liberty. And so it was normal that soon after the First Vatican Council, already in the pontificate of Leo XIII in his encyclical Immortale Dei (1885), the Pope should set out to articulate a natural law argument for the right to religious freedom that engages with the political climate of the modern nationstate, arguing directly for the Church’s religious freedom in the modern world.2 This is the view codified and expanded at Vatican II in Dignitatis Humanae as a consequence of these precedent teachings. It stems from them in homogeneous continuity. It is true that the teaching of Vatican II did constitute a new stage of development in Church teaching. It took time for the Church fully to recognize and articulate that the freedom of the Church entailed a corollary freedom of religious conscience for the individual. It is for this reason that Dignitatis Humanae appeared to many to be a new teaching. The doctrine of the Council, however, is not based on the introduction of new principles regarding religious freedom, but is only a further elucidation and prudential application of those principles in a given historical setting. Although Dignitatis Humanae does contain an explicit body of philosophical, natural law argumentation, it contains distinctively theological argumentation as well. Any adequate treatment of the document needs to take into account this twofold set of ideas and the way they interrelate. The philosophical argumentation in the document is grounded in principles of reason pertaining to God as the natural end of man, the metaphysical irreducibility of free human actions, the inalienable rights of the moral conscience, and the hierarchy of social goods. The theological argumentation is based upon an appeal to the supernatural responsibilities of the Church with regard to the lives of baptized Christians, and a corresponding insistence on the importance of the free embrace of the Catholic faith. It is grounded in principles of revelation regarding the supernatural end of man, the dignity of the human person, the free embrace of the gift of supernatural faith, and the nature of the Church. The Church has a divinely mandated authority from God to preach the Gospel. In proposing the truth of divine revelation, she may act directly upon the consciences of all human persons. In turn, the Church may also See Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter on the Christian Constitution of States Immortale Dei, Promulgated November 1, 1885 (New York: America Press, 1936), §§3, 10, 16, 23–34, 39. 2 1152 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. act indirectly upon the actions and liberties of civil society and the state. She does so principally through the free, conscientious acceptance of her teachings by citizens, who in turn promote these teachings in the public square and translate them into public policy and action. In this essay I would like to consider the interplay between these two foundations of the Church’s doctrine of religious freedom. I wish to include under this notion of religious freedom both sets of principles aforementioned and to consider their interrelation. That is to say: how should we understand the philosophical, natural law defense of the rights of religious belief and practice in the modern secular state, and how is this defense related to the traditional theological understanding of the Church’s civic freedom and her accompanying right of appeal to the consciences of all civic agents? I will consider first the natural law argumentation and then the theological argumentation, and finally compare the two. I will not pretend here to offer a comprehensive presentation of the doctrinal teaching of the Church on this matter. I will, however, seek to interpret and defend the intelligibility of elements of this doctrine by recourse to principles articulated by Aquinas or by the Thomistic school. In other words, what follows claims only to be one potential form of theological interpretation of aspects of the Church’s official teaching. The basic claim of the essay is the following: the Church’s teaching on religious freedom invites us to clarify the relation between the supernatural and natural final ends of man, seeing them in a non-competitive, hierarchical way. Any argumentation from natural reason presupposes that we can make some form of public appeal to a religious, final end to human action. According to the argument of reason itself, there is an intrinsic openness to or possibility of the superior manifestation of the supernatural. The appeal to the supernatural end, meanwhile, plays a fundamental role in the Church’s traditional claims regarding her theologically sanctioned right to religious freedom with respect to the state. This appeal must be cast, however, in such a way as to respect sufficiently the natural ends of man and their hierarchical nature. It is precisely because the grace of Jesus Christ can so respect the human structure of nature without destroying the hierarchy of goods that it can assimilate to itself an architectonic influence over all lesser entities, including (in theory) all the natural practices of the temporal state. The Right to Religious Freedom 1153 Religious Freedom and the Secular State: Natural Law and Natural Ends The Second Vatican Council document Dignitatis Humanae makes the following affirmation of natural reason regarding the religious freedom of human beings: It is in accord with their dignity that all men, because they are persons, that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore bearing personal responsibility, are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth. . . . Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective attitude of the individual but in his very nature.3 If we approach this affirmation from a Thomistic point of view, we might note first that Aquinas offers arguments in the prima pars of the Summa theologiae for the metaphysical reality of human freedom and its spiritual character. I will not rehearse the arguments in detail.4 He first studies the intentional character of human reason (our conceptual form of thinking) and the universal character of our human intentionality. Human beings are capable of thinking in conceptual terms by abstracting from material individuals to obtain to the common essence shared by multiple singulars.5 We do not know only Peter, Rebecca, or Andrew, but also, the human nature that is common to them all. Based upon the abstract character of human cognition (which attains to the essences of Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae, in Vatican Council II, vol. 1, ed. Austin Flannery (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 1996), §2. Unless otherwise specified, translations from the Second Vatican Council documents are taken from this edition. 4 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (hereafter, ST) I, q. 75, which presents a complex set of arguments regarding the human soul. I take it that the key arguments regarding the spirituality and incorruptibility of the human soul are given in aa. 2, 5, and 6. All translations of the Summa Theologiae are taken from the English Dominican Province Translation of 1920, found in Summa Theologica (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947). See also Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles (hereafter, SCG) II, trans. J. F. Anderson (New York: Doubleday, 1956), chs. 49–51. 5 ST I, q. 75, a. 2. See the helpful analysis of Aquinas’ treatment of this subject by Edward Feser, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2009), 151–162. 3 1154 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. realities, grasped in a universal mode), Aquinas argues for the necessary immateriality of elements of human thought. Abstraction entails the capacity to grasp what is essential in a given substance in distinction from its material individuality. But this means human intellectual knowledge attains to, and in a sense assimilates intentionally, the forms of the things we know. But we do not become the things we know. For instance, one may know what fire is essentially in its very being, and therefore refrain rationally from putting one’s hand in a fire. Of course in doing so, the mind does not become fire ontologically while thinking about the topic, but attains knowledge of what the reality is in itself in a purely conceptual way. A material substance can only assimilate a new form by becoming that thing essentially (like wood catching fire). We, however, are capable of becoming that reality intentionally without being the form of the thing we know. Consequently, our manner of knowing other things is immaterial.6 Intellectual knowledge, meanwhile, also serves as the premise of free will, since rational perception of the good permits rational appetite or rational desire to emerge.7 The latter is evoked through a series of acts that follow upon human knowledge and that characterize human volition. What we know can in turn become the object of our desire, intention, consent, choice, free engagement, and spiritual enjoyment.8 The human being, then, is characterized by a capacity for free self-determination that takes place through rational self-orientation toward the good. Man is inevitably, intrinsically marked metaphysically by spiritual freedom that persists at the core of his being, whether he should wish it or not. He desires the good and cannot fail to seek happiness in and through all his free acts.9 And as a consequence, Aquinas says, free contingency characterizes his actions.10 That is to say, human behavior is not marked either by an intrinsically inclined necessity (nature forcing us to choose this or 6 7 8 9 10 See the argument to this effect in ST I, q. 75, a. 5; Thomas Aquinas, In de Anima III, lec. 7, n. 680–81 (translated as Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, by K. Foster and S. Humphries [South Bend: Dumb Ox, 1994]); and Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Anima, a. 14 (translated as The Soul by J. Rowan [St. Louis & London: B. Herder Book Co., 1949]). ST I, q. 82, aa. 3–4. ST I, q. 83, aa. 1–3; I-II, qq. 11–16. See the study of Aquinas’ treatment of human freedom in Michael Sherwin, By Knowledge and By Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology of St.Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.:The Catholic University of America Press, 2005). ST I, q. 82, a. 1. ST I, q. 82, a. 2; q. 19, a. 8; I-II, q. 10. The Right to Religious Freedom 1155 that good) or an extrinsic necessity of imposition or coercion (someone choosing the good for us). This free form of contingent self-determination for the good, through rational intention, consent and choice, is not unnatural to man or somehow above his nature, but perfectly and intrinsically natural, insofar as man is rational. What concerns us especially about this vision of human freedom, however, is the important role Aquinas accords in this process to the final end of the human person. Human volition is characterized, for St. Thomas, by inevitable first principles and also by inevitable final ends. These in turn give a kind of structure to the free human act that cannot be evaded, or that is normative for every human person, due to his or her rational nature. The first principles of human volition stem from the fact that the human being who advances to the age of reason inevitably begins to perceive intellectually the goodness of various realities, and this elicits a rational appetite for the good.11 Human beings from an early age express voluntary desires and begin to make rational discernments and choices about their desires for diverse goods (for better or worse). Thus complex, practical deliberation about the good is born and habits of choosing are formed. Undergirding this process of ongoing deliberation from the beginning is a fundamental, prevenient inclination. This is the overarching desire for happiness. No matter what particular goods a person chooses and no matter what choices he or she makes, the person inevitably, always, and everywhere wills to attain some form of happiness. It is simply not possible for the human being to avoid this basic inclination of the rational will, and consequently, the first principle of practical reason is “that the good is to be chosen and evil avoided.”12 Such is the case independently of whatever real or apparent goods a human person (or community of persons for that matter) might eventually settle on as intended goods for him or their selves. In other words, this inevitable first starting point does not exclude diversity of opinion about what is in fact good or best, or the possibility of grave moral error and wrong-doing, whether individual or collective.13 On the contrary, the search for happiness stands at the front of not only the possibility of virtue but of vice as well. 11 12 13 ST I, q. 79, a. 12; Thomas Aquinas, Truth (De Veritate), eds. Robert W. Mulligan, James V. McGlynn, and Robert W. Schmidt, 3 vols. (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994), q. 16, aa. 1–2, (hereafter, De Ver.) ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2. ST I-II, q. 94, aa. 4 and 6. 1156 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. The inevitability of the final end is of a very different kind and the analysis Aquinas provides of it presupposes a sustained and elevated degree of philosophical reasoning. He affirms that the human will is naturally inclined toward the good. Good realities are multiple, however, and there are inherent limitations to the diverse goods the human being encounters in the world. Moreover, each of these goods when viewed ontologically exhibits intrinsic dependence upon others for its very continuance in being, and this pattern of causal derivation in the order of existence points us in an indirect but real fashion to the existence of an uncreated first cause.14 That cause is the primal origin of the goodness of all secondary realities and therefore must possess goodness in a primal, derivative way.15 The goods we come to know and love, then, are “participated” goods, manifestations that partially disclose (but also veil from us) the unparticipated, sovereign goodness of the first cause. (His is a goodness that is utterly transcendent of but also immanent to the created world.) It can be affirmed to exist with certitude according to demonstrations of human reason, but also remains essentially incomprehensible to our natural human understanding. Such goodness, while real, is veiled for us in darkness.16 This is one way of indicating what human beings refer to (however imperfectly) when they speak of God.17 The human intellect is capable of attaining to truth not only of finite things, but also of the transcendent reality of God (albeit quite imperfectly), and therefore the human being is capable of aspiring to the knowledge of God.18 And the human being is capable of acknowledging 14 15 16 17 18 De Ver. q. 21, a. 5; ST I, q. 47, aa. 1–2. ST I, q. 6, a. 3. ST I, q. 12, a. 12. Aquinas refers, in SCG III, ch. 38, to the knowledge of God commonly possessed by all human beings, which is awakened through ordinary experience and by a kind of imperfect inference. Human beings can typically grasp from the temporal and contingent, yet ordered character of all the realities we experience that there must be an eternal, primary cause of the world who can govern reality providentially. In ST I, q. 13, a. 5, Aquinas examines in a more technical sense what it might mean to call God “good” by analogy, based on our ordinary experiences of realities that are imperfectly good. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Boethius’ De Trinitate, in Faith, Reason and Theology, trans. A. Mauer (Toronto: PIMS, 1987), q. 1, a. 2. This view has been affirmed doctrinally in the subsequent Magisterium of the Catholic Church: “Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from the things that were created through the natural light of reason, for ‘ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature . . . has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made’ The Right to Religious Freedom 1157 God’s presence, providence, and goodness through acts pertaining to the virtue of religion.19 That is to say, the human being is naturally capable of a genuine religious aspiration toward the knowledge of God and the service of God in the form of religious thought and behavior.20 For our purposes the particularities of this argument are not of central importance. What is of essential consideration is that Aquinas thinks that the human will, precisely because it is a spiritual appetite for the good that follows upon human reason, is inherently inclined to the universal good, who is in fact God, and who alone is the “objective” final true end of man.21 But this means that the human person is structurally inclined toward God as his or her ultimate final end (whether he or she wishes it or not), and bears within an ineffaceable natural capacity for the knowledge and love of God.22 The capacity is ineffaceable because it is inscribed 19 20 21 22 (Rom 1:20).” (First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, ch. 1, in Heinrich Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, 43rd ed., ed. P. Hünermann, R. Fastiggi and A. Nash [San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012], hereafter, DH), §3004. See likewise Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, §3: “God, who creates and conserves all things by his Word (Jn 1:3), provides men with constant evidence of himself in created realities (Rom 1:19–20).” ST II-II, q. 81, aa. 2 and 5. Aquinas qualifies this affirmation in ST I-II, q. 109, a. 3. Although the human being is naturally capable of religious actions and is naturally inclined to the preferential love of God above all things, he or she is wounded by the effects of original sin in such a way that it is impossible (without grace, and in the fallen state) to love God effectively above all things with a natural religious love. This does not alter the fact that man is naturally inclined to be religious.The effects of sin do not eradicate the root natural tendencies of the soul toward God (ST I-II, q. 85, a. 1). However, they do hinder the right exercise of man’s religious capacities, so that human religiosity is in many ways conflicted and ambiguous. The Second Vatican Council (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, §13) restates the idea as a truth of natural reason, one best understood in conjunction with the teaching of Dei Filius cited just above: “Examining his heart, man finds that he has inclinations toward evil too, and is engulfed by manifold ills which cannot come from his good Creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his beginning, man has disrupted also his proper relationship to his own ultimate goal as well as his whole relationship toward himself and others and all created things.” References to Gaudium et Spes are taken from Denzinger, 43rd edition. ST I, q. 104, a. 2; ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7; q. 2, a. 8; q. 3, aa. 1, 3, and 6. ST I, q. 93, a. 4: “Since man is said to be the image of God by reason of his intellectual nature, he is the most perfectly like God according to that in which he can best imitate God in his intellectual nature. Now the intellectual nature imitates God chiefly in this, that God understands and loves Himself. Where- 1158 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. into the very potencies of the spiritual faculties of the person that tend ontologically toward given forms of perfection. It is true that human beings can remain religiously indifferent or err gravely with regard to the true knowledge and love of God. Human beings can sin by failing culpably to acknowledge God as their final end. Theologically speaking, they can even damn themselves to eternal separation from God. They cannot, however, eradicate from themselves this structural orientation of the human spirit toward God as the sovereign good and final end of all things. However frustrated or even tormenting the orientation becomes (even eternally tormenting), it remains inherent to the spiritual nature of man.23 It may seem like this medieval vision of the final end of the human person is utterly irrelevant to the modern nation-state. After all, we might object, most people in the modern world do not attain to or even entertain this form of speculative reflection on human freedom, much less seek to practice a form of religious life that reflects such metaphysical convictions. In fact, however, this is beside the point. Aquinas himself presupposes that most people remain philosophically unaware of this highest outcome of human rational aspiration. Rather, they often muddle through their decisions about the goodness of created things by knowledge and love of finite creatures that give them a certain imperfect but real happiness through life in this world. What is of essential importance is that people do inevitably seek happiness in even their most basic free human actions, and these actions are inevitably open to the objective structure of the good. This structure itself has a transcendent horizon, such that the free rational agent cannot delimit its freedom merely to the immanent sphere of temporal or created things, no matter how sublime that sphere may seem. Consequently, every human being remains in the use of his or her freedom necessarily and inextricably open to the possibility of religious self-orientation to the transcendent God. It follows from this that even in the non-religious or religiously misguided person, the capacity to know and choose has a dignity not reducible to the immanent sphere of empirical things alone, and so the person possesses a deeper dignity 23 fore we see that the image of God is in man in three ways. First, inasmuch as man possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to all men. Secondly, inasmuch as man actually and habitually knows and loves God, though imperfectly; and this image consists in the conformity of grace. Thirdly, inasmuch as man knows and loves God perfectly; and this image consists in the likeness of glory” (emphasis added). ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7, ad 1; SCG IV, ch. 95. The Right to Religious Freedom 1159 grounded in the nature of the spiritual life as such that cannot be merely subsumed into the world of temporal affairs. We can conclude from this that when a government seeks to delimit the range of free behavior so that religious beliefs and practices regarding God are excluded or suppressed, the state necessarily acts against the very structure of deliberative human freedom itself, with respect to both its deepest initial inclinations and its ultimate transcendent horizon. Such behavior is, therefore, violent in a uniquely interior way. This truth was underscored by both Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei (1885) and Pope John Paul II in Redemptor Hominis (1979).24 Each pointed his readers toward a common idea: in the face of modern absolutist conceptions of statehood and its function, respect for human religious freedom serves as one of the most profound foundations for all the rights of human freedom in general. For the right of the full exercise of freedom can only be respected if the final natural term or end of freedom is acknowledged, at least in the form of a civic right or permission, and if that end is distinctively religious in kind. Only if the exercise of freedom is respected in its complete arc and with regard to its plenary extension is it in turn truly respected in every lesser instantiation. Otherwise, the lesser instantiations are in fact always blunted from taking on their full flowering in view of, and subordination to, the final end of man. Furthermore, if the final end, the sovereign good, can be excluded by the state from the free deliberative action of the individual, then it follows necessarily that any inferior, merely created good can be excluded as well, in principle. For whoever can exclude the eternal, transcendent, and utterly superior can also exclude the temporal, immanent, and inferior. Setting the state up over and against God sets an ominous precedent, as it prepares the way for the state to set itself up over and against the dignity and rights of 24 Compare Immortale Dei, §§17, 30, 24–27, and 38 with Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter on the Redeemer of Man Redemptor Hominis (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1979) §17. The points of emphasis are distinct (the rights of the Church vis-à-vis the state, as distinct from the religious rights of each human person, respectively). However, as regards the dignity of the human person as made for the truth regarding God, the principles in the two documents are identical. Pope John Paul II comments upon Dignitatis Humanae in the following way, principally in response to atheist regimes: “Certainly the curtailment of the religious freedom of individuals and communities is not only a painful experience but it is above all an attack on man’s very dignity, independently of the religion professed or of the concept of the world which these individuals and communities have. The curtailment and violation of religious freedom are in contrast with man’s dignity and his objective rights.” 1160 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. the human person, the integrity of the human conscience in its search for the truth, and (if possible) the natural structure itself of human and non-human beings. Thus far we have argued that Aquinas’ teleological conception of freedom helps to safeguard an authentic sense of religious and civic rights of freedom. One question that should emerge, however, is whether the inverse is not the case as well. Can the philosophical articulation of God as the final end of man not be employed as an argument of public reason in view of the religious negation or denial of the importance and integrity of temporal goods? One way to respond to this question is to ask whether the final good should be seen as in some sense an exclusive good, or as in some way an inclusive good. That is to say, how does the knowledge and religious service of God affect one’s capacity to desire and actively pursue a wide array of created or temporal goods, including those that inevitably help constitute the common good of civic society? The answer should obviously be inclusivist. In fact, the notion of participated goodness invoked earlier is helpful when considering this question. For if the goodness of created things is that which indicates in the first place the reality of the sovereign good, hidden from full human comprehension, then the acknowledgement of the goodness of God need not, and in a sense cannot, mitigate against the more immediate acknowledgement of the goodness of created realities. Meanwhile, if all that is created by God participates in his goodness, then there is no rivalry possible between God and the world, for there is nothing in the creation that can add to the goodness of God, and the goodness of the creation is simply an expression of God’s inner and unseen goodness.25 As Dionysius the Areopagite states, in a sense, the transcendent God simply is the world, insofar as he is the cause of the world.26 Hierarchy and transcendence 25 26 ST I, q. 47, a. 1: “Hence we must say that the distinction and multitude of things come from the intention of the first agent, who is God. For he brought things into being in order that his goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them; and because his goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, he produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided and hence the whole universe together participates the divine goodness more perfectly, and represents it better than any single creature whatever.” Dionysius, The Divine Names, ch. 5, as discussed by Aquinas in ST I, q. 4, a. 2. (De Div. Nom. V, 9 [PG 3, 825].) The Right to Religious Freedom 1161 have to be maintained along with non-competition and participation. This metaphysical realism regarding the creation has practical consequences at the deepest levels of human behavior. What it implies is that human beings can choose lesser goods in ways that orient them toward more ultimate goods, just as they can choose lesser realities as relative ends that are also means in view of higher ends.27 In this way, without denying the necessary importance of lesser ends, practical reason can orchestrate all things architectonically toward a final end. A simple example is domestic: one can cook food simultaneously to nourish a family and to facilitate the affability of social interaction. Due to the primary good (God), however, these actions can be subject hierarchically and teleologically toward a transcendent end, in such a way as to enhance them from within with the perfection of religious acts. For it is naturally possible to cook, to nourish a family, and to enjoy human social interaction all for and under the aegis of divine life. Even if there is a hierarchy of goods in our social and civic life that is practically basic to all our behavior, there is also always the intrinsic capacity of human practical reason to orient all other goods toward the supreme good through the good of religion. This does not mean, however, that human beings cannot choose lesser goods in such a way as to do harm to greater goods. It is true that there are always diverse goods available to human deliberative choice that are incompatible with one another, and which are equally morally “permissible” without thereby being morally equivalent. One might study this or that subject, or live in this or that city, such that one decision excludes another. Or one might choose to become a journalist rather than a philosopher, something arguably less noble, but not inherently morally illicit. Sometimes, however, choices of lesser goods necessarily harm or destroy the integrity or possibility of the greater good.28 This is the case with regard to intrinsically evil acts.29 Adultery naturally aims at a certain 27 28 29 ST I-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3, and q. 13, a. 3 ad 2. See ST I-II, q. 75, a. 1 corp. and ad 3 on the disordered love of a mutable good as the cause of sin: “. . . the will in failing to apply the rule of reason or of the divine law, is the cause of sin. Now the fact of not applying the rule of reason or of the divine law has not in itself the nature of evil . . . before it is applied to the act. Wherefore, accordingly, evil [as mere privation] is not the cause of the first sin, but some good lacking some other good.” See also ST I-II, q. 18, a. 1 ad 1. On acts that are intrinsically evil due to their object, see ST I-II, q. 18, a. 2 and q. 19, a. 2. In the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 1994), §§1755–1756: “A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself (such as praying and 1162 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. set of goods pertaining to the senses, the affectivity, and sometimes the human spirit (friendship of a sort). Yet it does grave harm to a person’s spouse, marriage and children, as well as other important civic goods. The greater goods are harmed by the unreasonable preference for the lesser good, and so in actions of evil and good, vice and virtue, we see the emergence of an implicit hierarchy that human synderesis and ethical reasoning are capable of acknowledging at least in principle. For example, the well-being of one’s children is more important than the temporary pursuit of sensual pleasure. The failure to acknowledge such a truth (by any person deemed capable of ordinary rationality) cannot stem from mere innocence, but betrays a kind of affected ignorance, and is therefore morally culpable. When we speak of the rights of religious freedom, then, we should perceive clearly that one can employ the goods of created nature in ways that fail to acknowledge and serve not just any important created good, but the very uncreated goodness of God himself.30 For example, a culture that would oblige religious citizens to forgo religious instruction, or that would force its citizens to participate in the destruction of unborn human life, would be in some sense a profoundly unethical and 30 fasting ‘In order to be seen by men’).The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety. There are some concrete acts—such as fornication—that it is always wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil. It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.” See in particular the discussion of this point by Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter on the Splendor of Truth Veritatis Splendor (Boston: St Paul Books and Media, 1993), §§79–83. Veritatis Splendor, §79: “The primary and decisive element for moral judgment is the object of the human act, which establishes whether it is capable of being ordered to the good and to the ultimate end, which is God. This capability is grasped by reason in the very being of man, considered in his integral truth, and therefore in his natural inclinations, his motivations and his finalities, which always have a spiritual dimension as well. It is precisely these which are the contents of the natural law and hence that ordered complex of ‘personal goods’ which serve the ‘good of the person’: the good which is the person himself and his perfection. These are the goods safeguarded by the commandments, which, according to Saint Thomas, contain the whole natural law (Cf. ST I-II, q. 100, a. 1).” Vatican Website: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jpii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html#-3M. The Right to Religious Freedom 1163 antireligious society. Why is this the case? Because from the standpoint of mere natural reason, these are both deeply irrational, unethical, and irreligious actions. At the same time, there is the need to acknowledge the respect of goods not only in the ascending but also in the descending order. The freedom of religious practice is capable of assuming to itself a host of inferior but intrinsically important activities of the civic and domestic, intellectual and artistic life of human persons and cultures. Yet in their historical religious practices human beings have also shown themselves capable of grave disrespect of human dignity and of other important natural goods (such as scientific learning, private property and so on) stemming from religious motives. Aquinas terms such practices “superstition” insofar as they represent an irrational or unethical vitiation of the virtue of religion itself.31 An obvious example pertains to human sacrifice, which was widespread in a myriad of ancient cultures. Likewise we could think of practices that harm the common good and lives of individuals: anti-scientific obscurantism, religiously motivated racism, cult-like practices, violence or terrorism based upon religious motives, religiously motivated suicide. The conclusion of these reflections on the natural right to religious freedom should be twofold. First, the recognition of God in religious activity can orient human prudence with respect to the use of all secondary goods. Because it is inscribed in the very nature of human rationality and desire for happiness, religious behavior is an inevitable part of human culture (as long as human nature persists) and is a necessarily social reality, one that can justly have a public presence within the common life of society. The state or local community should be bound to recognize religious forms of social organization be they strictly for purposes of worship or ordered toward more proximate temporal ends (education or healthcare, for example) insofar as these ends aim ultimately to serve both the common good of the temporal society (out of religious motivations) and the final religious orientation of man.32 Second, however, due precisely to the integrity of the common good, the state or the local community 31 32 ST II-II, q. 92. Dignitatis Humanae, §4: “It comes within the meaning of religious freedom that religious communities should not be prohibited from freely undertaking to show the special value of their doctrine in what concerns the organization of society and the inspiration of the whole of human activity. . . . [T]he social nature of man and the very nature of religion afford the foundation of the right of men freely to hold meetings and to establish educational, cultural, charitable and social organizations, under the impulse of their own religious sense.” 1164 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. should in principle be able to ask religious persons and associations to respect the natural and civic order.33 This presupposes, of course, that the state is aware of the structure of the natural law, and does not wish to violate it. Conflicts arise when there is disagreement about the content of these two principles, that is to say, regarding what genuinely pertains to the order of religious organizations and their right of free exercise, and what genuinely pertains to the goods and prudential activities that the state must defend or promote. We can conclude by noting that a religiously inclusive conception of the hierarchy of goods needs to be maintained within any just form of societal common life. This inclusive hierarchy is ascending insofar as it makes way for the freedom of religious belief and practice. But it is descending as well, since it insists on a respect for temporal goods that are subject in a certain measure to the competence of the state as such. Just as respect for the freedom of religion should permit the human subject to orient the whole sphere of created life in society toward God, even in a public way, so also the religious orientation of life toward God should respect and promote the authentic goods of the temporal order, and the legitimate free exercise of the political life of a society. Seen in this light, human deliberations about temporal goods and the transcendent goodness of God are mutually complementary and not mutually exclusive. The transcendent and ineffable goodness of God is understood from the beginning as an end that is to be obtained in and through the pursuit of temporal goods and in and through a public life in society. The wisdom that stems from the public acknowledgement of God is architectonic with respect to the lesser sciences regarding all created goods. The prudence that governs our lives in view of God can assimilate respectfully the sane political prudence that governs our acts with respect to all temporal realities. 33 Ibid., §3: “The search for truth . . . must be carried out in a manner that is appropriate to the dignity of the human person and his social nature, namely, by free enquiry with the help of teaching or instruction, communication and dialogue. It is by these means that men share with each other the truth they have discovered, or think they have discovered, in such a way that they help one another in the search for truth. Moreover, it is by personal assent that men must adhere to the truth they have discovered.” The Right to Religious Freedom 1165 The Supernatural End and Ecclesial Freedom: Theological Considerations Traditional Catholic theology posits distinctively theological arguments in favor of the Church’s civic freedom to proclaim the Gospel. This is a kind of collective right of the Church as an institution of divine origin, one having its primary foundation in the express will of Christ and the apostles. An important dimension of this “right” pertains to the freedom of the Church to promote the Catholic religion in a public and institutional way. This freedom, however, is of a twofold kind, one with regard to the internal structure and governance of the polity of the Church, the other with respect to the external political order. As a consequence of the former, the Church proclaims a right of jurisdiction (exercised by the pope and the bishops) with regard to the internal temporal life of the Church and her institutions (as was emphasized at both the First and Second Vatican Councils).34 As a consequence of the latter, the Church proclaims a theological freedom for all citizens from religious coercion at the hands of the secular state.35 The Church also correspondingly proclaims a right of the non-baptized to freedom from coercion by the baptized.36 In a simpler fashion, one could say that the public life of society must respect both the theological rights of the baptized to practice the Christian religion and the theological rights of non-Christians to freely embrace or refuse baptism by their own deliberate choice. Since this order of reasoning is complex, we should seek to present it in a series of stages from within a Thomistic purview. In its theological treatment of the grounds for religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae §11 states: 34 35 36 First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, ch. 3. The teaching is strongly reiterated in Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, §§22–24. Dignitatis Humanae, §13: “Among those things that pertain to the good of the Church and indeed to the good of society here on earth, things which must everywhere and at all times be safeguarded and defended from all harm, the most outstanding surely is that the Church enjoy that freedom of action which her responsibility for the salvation of men requires. This is a sacred liberty with which the only-begotten Son of God endowed the Church which he purchased with his blood. Indeed it belongs so intimately to the Church that to attack it is to oppose the will of God.” This statement is virtually a citation of Leo XIII’s Encyclical on the Church in Bavaria Officio Sanctissimo, Promulgated December 22, 1887, §13, referred to in the Vatican II document. Dignitatis Humanae, §§2, 10. 1166 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. God calls men to serve him in spirit and in truth. Consequently they are bound to him in conscience but not coerced. God has regard for the dignity of the human person which he himself created; the human person is to be guided by his own judgment and to enjoy freedom. This fact received its fullest manifestation in Christ Jesus in whom God revealed himself and his ways in a perfect manner. We might summarize the claims being made here in a threefold way. First, God calls all human beings to a life of grace fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Second, the human person by virtue of his innate dignity is endowed with personal judgment and freedom. Third, this dignity reaches its greatest perfection in the service of Christ and his mystery. Aquinas articulates the vocation of the Christian life in terms of his teleological action theory discussed above. The human being can naturally know a diversity of goods and can freely order his or her choice-making prudently in view of a diversity of ends.37 It follows from this, then, that he or she can also structure human life around a given end as a final end.38 Correspondingly, then, if a human being is newly moved and inclined by grace to the knowledge and love of God revealed in Christ, then the human person can in turn also order his or her life toward the mystery of God as a unique final end.39 And this pursuit, even if it is supernatural, is not unnatural, for it presupposes and speaks to the human desire for happiness. The distinctively Christian life is ordered teleologically toward a most final and ultimate degree of happiness or beatitude, the happiness of the vision of God, or the beatific vision.40 In short, the Christian is called to aim in each and every action at the 37 38 39 40 ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7. ST I-II, q. 1, a. 6. ST I-II, q. 3, a. 8. In saying this I am not ignoring that Henri de Lubac and others have argued that the human being naturally desires the immediate vision of God. I will return to this topic below. Here, however, I am only presuming the following: if man can naturally desire the immediate knowledge of God, he does so through the medium of the formal objects of knowledge that are connatural to him. Based on indirect, natural knowledge of God, he can desire to see the first cause or Creator immediately, even while recognizing that he cannot realize this possibility by his own powers. However, this natural knowledge and desire are distinct from the supernatural knowledge of the Holy Trinity as such, and from the inspired hope to see God face to face by the grace of supernatural beatitude. Aquinas is categorical about the difference. See ST I-II, q. 62, aa. 1–3. It is to the latter inclination that I am referring in this discussion. The Right to Religious Freedom 1167 most happy of all lives, the plenary participation in the life of God. Aquinas is concerned to show that such a conception of human ethics is not unnatural, and that it does no violence to human nature. In his discussion of the natural love of angels for God, he makes the point that angels and men must be able to love God above all things according to the very structure of their nature (by way of a natural love of God distinct from the love of charity). Otherwise, the infused grace of charity, divine love, would be something so wholly alien to our nature as to remain purely extrinsic to our identity as persons. [S]ince God is the universal good, and under this good both man and angel and all creatures are comprised, because every creature in regard to its entire being naturally belongs to God, it follows that from natural love angel and man alike love God before themselves and with a greater love. Otherwise, if either of them loved self more than God, it would follow that natural love would be perverse, and that it would not be perfected but destroyed by charity.41 The point here is not that all human beings are religious. (Aquinas analyzes the human capacity for irreligiosity in some detail.)42 Rather, the claim being made pertains to the very essence or structure of human action, irrespective of its eventual historical exercise in any given person. Just because we are the kind of rational being that remains innately capable of knowing and loving God, due to our spiritual nature, the work of grace in us is not something wholly unnatural or intrinsically alien, however secularized our human behavior may be in concrete history prior to or outside of the workings of grace.43 Likewise, just as we are naturally capable of having God as a final end through the religious service of God, so the graces of infused faith, hope, and charity do no violence to the human being but elevate human persons into a 41 42 43 ST I, q. 60, a. 5. ST II-II, qq. 92–100. Analogously, consider Gaudium et Spes, §14: “Now, man is not wrong when he regards himself as superior to bodily concerns, and as more than a speck of nature or a nameless constituent of the city of man. For by his interior qualities he outstrips the whole sum of mere things. He plunges into the depths of reality whenever he enters into his own heart; God, Who probes the heart, awaits him there; there he discerns his proper destiny beneath the eyes of God. Thus, when he recognizes in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being mocked by a fantasy born only of physical or social influences, but is rather laying hold of the proper truth of the matter” (trans. DH). 1168 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. form of existence that allows them to be more fully and more perfectly themselves. Charity allows us to regain a kind of (previously thwarted) access to our innermost selves as beings destined for happiness in God.44 Catholic Christianity affirms, then, that the human being is capable of loving God above all things in the supernatural life of grace, and in a distinctively Christian way marked by the charity of Christ. This life is not contrary to human nature but in fact heals and elevates what is most profound and best in human nature.45 We should note that the vision being articulated thus far implies a necessary respect for the order of the hierarchy of goods previously discussed in the first section of this essay. We are capable, it was said, of choosing the ultimate good in a religious manner in such a way as to respect the temporal order of created goods (in descending perspective) and we are capable of appreciating created goods in such a way as to order them religiously in view of God as a final end (in an ascending perspective). This vision is preserved but also recapitulated within the order of grace that has now been introduced. Human society “under” grace is capable of ordering the world of temporal goods toward the mystery of God revealed in Christ without destroying the integrity of that natural, temporal, and political order.46 And likewise, political society is intrinsically open to the final good that is the Gospel, and can be “reanimated” from within, in view of specifically evangelical ends. The Gospel is not violent to human political society, and so, likewise, such society need not be inimical to the Gospel in order to preserve its own best integrity and natural practices. On the contrary, the openness of a person or a society to the life of grace serves as a gain to make it more fully itself and to invite into it a deeper form of flourishing and authentic 44 45 46 ST I-II, q. 109, a. 3. Cf. Gaudium et Spes, §21: “The Church holds that the recognition of God is in no way hostile to man’s dignity, since this dignity is rooted and perfected in God. For man was made an intelligent and free member of society by God who created him, but even more important, he is called as a son to commune with God and share in His happiness. She further teaches that a hope related to the end of time does not diminish the importance of intervening duties but rather undergirds the acquittal of them with fresh incentives. By contrast, when a divine instruction and the hope of life eternal are wanting, man’s dignity is most grievously lacerated, as current events often attest; riddles of life and death, of guilt and of grief go unsolved with the frequent result that men succumb to despair” (trans. DH). See likewise Gaudium et Spes, §§ 38 and 40. This idea is thematic in Gaudium et Spes, but it was already underscored forcefully by Leo XIII in Immortale Dei, especially §§13, 14 and 32. The Right to Religious Freedom 1169 happiness. A civilization without Christ is a naturally diminished civilization, even gravely so. Up to this point I have argued that the supernatural end of man invests the temporal order with a higher end, but not in such a way as to do violence to the natural integrity of the order of nature. In addition, however, Dignitatis Humanae suggests that this invitation to divine life not only ennobles human persons, but also reveals an inner core of human dignity understood uniquely in the more ultimate light of Christ. “The leaven of the Gospel has long been at work in the minds of men and has contributed greatly to a wider recognition by them in the course of time of their dignity as persons.”47 From a Thomistic point of view, how might this point be amplified? The human nature of every person is invested with an intrinsic capacity for the life of grace, and an inalienable dignity accrues to the person by virtue of this fact. Moreover, just as each human being is capable of orienting him- or herself toward divine life freely (presuming the prior initiatives of grace), so there is a dignity to the internal religious judgments and decisions of each human person that is in some way inviolable. No merely temporal or created (secular) authority can determine from itself what fundamental religious or areligious choices a human being should make.48 The state should respect the human freedom of each human person most ultimately because each person is capable of responding to the grace of Christ.49 47 48 49 Dignitatis Humanae, §12. This is why Aquinas argues (in quite a nuanced way) that a person may enter into religious life against his or her parents’ wishes without prejudice to the virtue of piety (ST II-II, q. 189, a. 6). Likewise, a person can offer his or her own life to Christ in martyrdom to bear witness to the truth, even if this seems to many (falsely) to threaten the collective good of the state (ST II-II, q. 124, a. 1). A point underscored forcefully by Pope John Paul II in Redemptor Hominis, §12: “Jesus Christ meets the man of every age, including our own, with the same words: ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ (Jn 8:32) These words contain both a fundamental requirement and a warning: the requirement of an honest relationship with regard to truth as a condition for authentic freedom, and the warning to avoid every kind of illusory freedom, every superficial unilateral freedom, every freedom that fails to enter into the whole truth about man and the world. Today also, even after two thousand years, we see Christ as the one who brings man freedom based on truth, frees man from what curtails, diminishes and as it were breaks off this freedom at its root, in man’s soul, his heart and his conscience. What a stupendous confirmation of this has been given and is still being given by those who, thanks to Christ and in Christ, have reached true freedom and have manifested it even in situations of external constraint!” 1170 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. A traditional teaching of the Catholic Church flows from this principle: the idea that non-baptized persons should not and may not be subject to compulsion or coercion by Christians with respect to matters of religion. Christianity can only be embraced freely, through the self-determination of individual and familial choices. “Although in the life of the people of God in its pilgrimage through the vicissitudes of human history there has at times appeared a form of behavior that was hardly in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel and was even opposed to it, it has always remained the teaching of the Church that no one is to be coerced into believing.”50 Aquinas bears witness to this principle in a series of articles in the Summa theologiae concerned with the civic respect of the non-baptized and the free embrace of the Catholic faith. In part II-II, question 10, article 8, for example, he asks if unbelievers (infideles) ought to be compelled to the faith. He argues that they should not “in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will.” In other words, coercion of the non-baptized would imply something like the necessary privation of faith considered as such. Aquinas does, in this article, defend the rights of the Christian polity to defend the free practice of the faith by Christians and is thinking here no doubt about the state-privileged establishment of the Catholic religion, as well as the armed defense of the Catholic religion by means of the state. But he does insist that even in these cases it is impermissible for faith to be compelled from any human person. Furthermore, in article 10 of the same question he goes further in asking whether Christians might themselves be subject to the legitimate authority of a non-believer. Aquinas is not concerned merely with hypothetical settings, or the pre-Christian past, or territories outside medieval Europe. For in his own time the emperor Frederick II (1194–1250) had publicly apostatized from the Christian faith, and yet kept his authority over much of Europe despite antagonism against the papacy. Interestingly, Aquinas affirms the possibility of a legitimate authority in such a case, because “the divine law which is the law of grace, does not do away with human law which is the law of natural reason. Wherefore the distinction between the faithful and unbelievers, considered in itself, does not do away with dominion and authority of unbelievers over the faithful.”51 He does recognize that such authority can readily be employed in ways that 50 51 Dignitatis Humanae, §12. In fact, the Catholic Church has perennially held that no sacrament can rightly be coerced either on the side of the minister or the recipient. ST II-II, q. 10, a. 10. The Right to Religious Freedom 1171 do harm to Christian culture, and he rightfully underscores the traditional teaching that ultimately the temporal order is subject to the order of grace. Consequently, the Church is not subject to temporal authority whenever the latter would seek to submit citizens to any practice that would oblige them to violate their obligations owed to God or neighbor on account of the law of God.52 In other words, Aquinas insists palpably on the rights of religious conscience and on complete freedom for the Gospel in the face of anti-Catholic forms of government. In part II-II, question 10, articles 11 and 12 of the Summa, Aquinas treats specifically the question of the Jewish people. In article 11 he asks whether the rites of unbelievers should be tolerated, and here enunciates a classical doctrine of the foundations for civic tolerance. Tolerance emerges naturally as a practice of the virtue of prudence, and is based on the idea that we should do well to sacrifice a lesser good if it will help us preserve a greater good. Likewise, lesser evils should be put up with so that we avoid greater evils. The case in point, here, has to do with non-Christian religious practices. The lesser evil is the civil tolerance shown to religious practices that are not in accord with the Catholic faith. The greater evil is the disregard for the dignity and respect of the human religious conscience even when it errs. Aquinas refers in a twofold way to the evil that would come from political coercion: “the scandal or disturbance that might ensue, or some hindrance to the salvation of those who if they were unmolested might gradually be converted to the faith.” In other words, if the Church were to employ force to suppress the religious practices of non-baptized persons, this would give rise to resentment and scandal at the institution of the Church. This could in turn do more to inhibit free conversion and eventual salvation than to encourage it. Speaking of the Jews here, however, Aquinas also mentions that their continued role in history alongside Christian persons has a positive function distinguishing them from members of other religions. Their practice bears witness to the antiquity of the revealed faith and their continued existence points toward the mystery of Christ’s eventual eschatological coming. In part II-II, question 10, article 12, Aquinas asks whether the children of Jews and other non-believers might be baptized despite their parents’ wishes, and answers that they cannot, for a reason of fundamental human justice. Children rightly are educated and cared for by their parents, and so to enter into the life of the family for religious motivations in such 52 Ibid. 1172 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. a way as to undermine familial unity and the prerogatives of parental education is to undermine the structure of the natural law.53 This argument is in fact quite consequential, for since the family is (in truth and in Aquinas’ thinking) the basis for any society and as family life requires the support of a larger society for its continuation and flourishing, so to acknowledge the rights of the non-Christian family to exist is to acknowledge in some basic way the rights of non-Christian society to exist in the midst of Christian society.54 The Jewish culture has a limited but real right of social exercise for Aquinas, even at the heart of medieval culture. Extrapolating from the principles he establishes, even at the heights of medieval Christendom, it is clear that he thinks that there exists for Jews and other non-Christian religious cultures a fairly robust form of the right to religious freedom. We might note that this last argument is based on natural law, and resembles the argument presented in the first section of this essay. It is significant, however, that Aquinas maintains such a principle at the heart of his treatment of the prerogatives of faith. In other words, to rephrase Aquinas’ point in the language of the Second Vatican Council: the dignity of the believer that stems from faith does not do away with, but should lead to a deeper appreciation of, the rights of religious conscience that stem from the natural law.55 I have referred above to Aquinas’ notion that the Church must possess the freedom to practice the faith, even in the midst of any non-Christian society. Dignitatis Humanae reiterates the idea in stark terms: “The freedom of the Church is the fundamental principle governing relations between the Church and public authorities and the whole civil order. . . . [T]he Church claims freedom for herself in human society and before every public authority.”56 When the modern Magisterium defends this principle, it tends to appeal overtly to the hierarchy of human ends. The natural order is subject to the supernatural order, just as all ends that are natural to man, no matter how exalted, are ultimately utterly 53 54 55 56 ST II-II, q. 10, a. 12: “It would be contrary to natural justice, if a child, before coming to the use of reason, were to be taken away from its parents’ custody, or anything done to it against its parents’ wishes. As soon, however, as it begins to have the use of its free-will, it begins to belong to itself, and is able to look after itself, in matters concerning the divine or the natural law, and then it should be induced, not by compulsion but by persuasion, to embrace the faith.” Aquinas follows Aristotle in thinking that the domestic household is the basic cell of political society. See his Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics, ed. Richard J. Regan (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2007), lec. 1, nn. 11–18. Dignitatis Humanae, §12. Ibid., §13. The Right to Religious Freedom 1173 subordinate to the supernatural end of divine life.57 Consequently, just as the pope must govern the Church in view of the salvation of human persons in grace, so he must be able to delineate when they may and may not cooperate with temporal government, insofar as the latter disposes them toward or hinders their attainment to eternal life. In the words of the Second Vatican Council, “[w]hen the principle of religious freedom is . . . implemented sincerely in practice, only then does the Church enjoy in law and in fact those stable conditions which give her the independence necessary for fulfilling her divine mission.”58 The positive restatement of the idea is found in the notion that the Church should possess the exercise of civic liberty not only to propose the Catholic faith, but also to enjoy the public expression of that faith in the form of institutions of Christian learning and charity (hospitals, schools, universities, religious orders).The public character of the Church is essential to her constitution and consequently must be admitted to any civil society that would rightly accept the complete exercise of evangelical religious liberty. This is the case in a twofold way. First it is necessary that the Church be able to govern her own internal affairs in accord with the demands of the Catholic religion in such a way that the state does not intrude unjustly into the determination of the norms and practices of the Catholic Church. Consequently, the Church has the plenary right to give the sacraments to those she deems rightly disposed, and to deny the sacraments to those who violate the basic tenets of the Gospel, whether in word or in deed. Concretely speaking, this means that all public citizens should have the natural, political right to convert to the Catholic faith, just as there is the divine right of the Church to welcome all those who wish to practice the Catholic faith. Likewise, the Church has the divine right and responsibility to excommunicate members of the Church for a just reason, to protect the common good of the larger ecclesial body, and to clarify the truth of the Church’s teaching when it is contested in a way that risks seriously to mislead others. By extension, the Church must have the freedom to govern all of her institutions founded according to principles of charity (hospitals, universities, schools) in light of all the principles and practices of the Catholic faith, barring none. Second, however, this teaching on the freedom of the Church also requires that the Church be permitted to influence the civic life of public 57 58 Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei is explicit about this in §§4–10. See likewise Pius XI, Firmissimam Constantiam, Promulgated March, 28, 1937, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 29 (1937), 196, as well as the teaching of Gaudium et Spes, §76. Dignitatis Humanae, §13. 1174 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. society in its ordinary ethical practices. This last affirmation may seem inherently problematic. After all, is the Church not supposed to respect the diversity of viewpoints present in the public domain, just as she asks non-Catholics to respect her temporal autonomy? That is to say, should the Church not divorce herself from the world of temporal affairs and the views and practices of those who are not Catholic Christians, as a sign of shared respect and mutual non-coercion? The objection fails to observe that the Church can seek to influence civic culture in ways that are in accord with the just norms of civic deliberation and dispute, and free legislative procedures. For in the first place, the Church proposes in the civic square, above all, the kinds of natural law arguments that are in principle accessible to all human persons independently of their stance with regard to supernatural divine revelation.59 Recalling and advocating for moral norms at the heart of the civic life of a society is not only permissible, but necessary and indeed at some level inevitable. Each civilization conducts disputes about the content of right ethical practices and the Church reserves the right to be fully engaged in that dispute, according to the norms of public natural reason. In addition, however, the Church can certainly advocate, especially in a society composed of a high percentage of Catholic Christians, for practices of the state that respect and even promote reasonably the practice of the Christian religion.60 A benign but symbolic example is the request of Bene59 60 See, in this regard, the 2002 Doctrinal Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on “The Participation of Catholics in Public Life,” §5, which warns against an ethical relativism in the public square: “. . . no Catholic can appeal to the principle of pluralism or to the autonomy of lay involvement in political life to support policies affecting the common good which compromise or undermine fundamental ethical requirements. This is not a question of ‘confessional values’ per se, because such ethical precepts are rooted in human nature itself and belong to the natural moral law. They do not require from those who defend them the profession of the Christian faith, although the Church’s teaching confirms and defends them always and everywhere as part of her service to the truth about man and about the common good of civil society. Moreover, it cannot be denied that politics must refer to principles of absolute value precisely because these are at the service of the dignity of the human person and of true human progress” (trans. Vatican Website: http://www.vatican.va/ roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_ politica_en.html#_ftnref10). See the nuanced statements in this regard in Gaudium et Spes, §76, and Pope John Paul II, Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World Christifideles laici, Promulgated December 30, 1988 (Ottawa: Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops, 1989), §42. The Right to Religious Freedom 1175 dict XVI in his 2012 apostolic visit to the historically Catholic country of Cuba that the communist government recognize Good Friday as a national holiday.61 Analogously, in countries where authentic democracy exists, a majority Catholic populace might promote ecclesial institutions such as schools, universities, and hospitals by means of state mechanisms, if they do so without any disrespect for the rights of religious freedom of non-Catholic or non-Christian minorities. The kind of influence being articulated in these last examples (by either advocacy for natural law or for the Catholic faith itself) is of an indirect nature. Directly, the Church appeals to the consciences of human beings in their deliberative prudence. She can appeal to all persons both through the natural law and by means of explicit appeals to divine revelation and to the Gospel. However, her influence on the institutions of civic government is thereby only indirect. It is because the subjects of the government, whether in positions of leadership or as voting members of a democratic polity, decide to act on the appeals made to their consciences that the Church acts in the civic sphere. Her action is mediated through the consciences and prudential deliberations of the agents who themselves enact governmental norms. It is possible in principle to have a Catholic democratic state, for example, where by constitutional charter, voting and governmental self-determination, the people freely subordinate the natural common life and its various goods and ends to the highest end of divine life. In principle, the Church and the modern nation state can co-exist quite irenically, according to the various metaphysical and ethical principles delineated by Dignitatis Humanae. At the same time, we should retain the realism underscored so powerfully by Leo XIII: in a fallen world, it is difficult for human persons and the societies composed of them to grasp the full range of conclusions that derive from the natural law, let alone to live in accord with its teachings. It is for this reason that a just and balanced establishment of the true religion by the state is preferable in principle.62 If administered humanely and according to Christian principles of justice and prudential tolerance, such a state would better initiate human persons to the right knowledge and recognition of the truths about human nature, moral virtues, and the care for the common good. 61 62 Similarly, the Cuban government made Christmas a national holiday following a request made by Pope John Paul II during his 1998 visit. See Immortale Dei, §§6–7 and 26–27. 1176 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. The Harmony of the Natural and Supernatural Ends: Toward a More Perfect Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae makes no overt appeal to a teleological conception of human action, let alone to the particular conception of human action that is articulated in the Thomistic moral tradition. Nevertheless, it is safe to presume that the Council Fathers considered Thomistic action theory one important form—perhaps even the most privileged form—of reflection on such matters in the Catholic philosophical tradition.63 Given that this is the case, it is legitimate to consider what implications the document might have for a Thomistic theory of the final end of man, and vice versa. How might a Thomistic conception of human final ends, both natural and supernatural, allow us to understand the internal harmony of the diverse arguments that have been elaborated above? In the last section of this essay, then, I would like to consider briefly not only the harmony but also the distinction between the natural and supernatural final ends that the arguments of Dignitatis Humanae would seem to presuppose. In a sense the document even theoretically requires such a distinction. Why is this the case? The basic claim I have made up to this point is the following: Dignitatis Humanae offers us two forms of argumentation in favor of the rights of religious liberty. One is based on the natural law and the other on revelation. Interpreted in a Thomistic perspective, the first argument appeals to the natural truth that human beings are capable of a religious final end that precedes all others. They can, in principle, seek God and recognize that he exists, contemplate God (however indirectly and imperfectly), serve him religiously, and even naturally desire to know God immediately, if possible.64 The second appeals to the supernatural truth that 63 64 See, for example, the Second Vatican Council’s appeal to Aquinas’ philosophical and theological teaching as normative for seminary training (Decree on Priestly Training Optatam Totius, §§15–16). Aquinas refers to the “imperfect beatitude” that human beings can naturally aspire to in many places. See, for example, ST I-II, q. 3, a. 6, and q. 62, aa. 1–3. As is well known, Henri de Lubac argued (Surnaturel: Études historiques [Paris: Aubier, 1946]) that Aquinas envisages only one ultimate final end for man, the immediate vision of God, which is supernatural. This interpretation has been defended by many renowned modern interpreters of Aquinas. I will not seek to clarify precisely how my reading of Aquinas converges with or differs from that of De Lubac. See, in this regard, Thomas Joseph White, “Imperfect Happiness and the Final End of Man: Thomas Aquinas and the Paradigm of Nature-Grace Orthodoxy,” The Thomist, 78 (2014): 247–89. For the purposes of the argument in this essay the following can simply be noted. I am presuming (1) that the The Right to Religious Freedom 1177 human beings are capable by grace of participating in the divine life of the Holy Trinity, and of seeing God face to face. Aquinas distinguishes, then, between the connatural end of man, and the supernatural end. The nature of the human person is incapable, by its own resources, of attaining either to knowledge or love of the supernatural end. For this, grace is necessary. The theological virtues direct man to supernatural happiness in the same way as by the natural inclination man is directed to his connatural end. Now the latter happens in respect of two things. First, in respect of the reason or intellect, in so far as it contains the first universal principles which are known to us by the natural light of the intellect, and which are reason’s starting-point, both in speculative and in practical matters. Secondly, through the rectitude of the will which tends naturally to good as defined by reason. But these two fall short of the order of supernatural happiness, according to 1 Cor. 2:9: “The eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.” Consequently in respect of both the above things man needed to receive in addition something supernatural to direct him to a supernatural end. First, as regards the human being possesses innate natural inclinations toward proportionate connatural objects of knowledge and love, and that the ultimate horizon of the natural human desire for the truth and for love of the good is God himself. This natural desire to know God is rendered consciously explicit or is awakened, according to Aquinas, through the natural knowledge of God. (2) Based on the imperfect beatitude that man is capable of by an indirect natural knowledge of the First Truth, he can desire naturally to know God immediately, by direct vision, if this were possible. This is what the Thomist commentators traditionally referred to as a “conditional, elicited desire” to see God (although Aquinas does not employ that terminology himself). According to St. Thomas, the rationality of this desire is philosophically defensible. Natural reason may demonstrate that man is capable of, and in a sense made for, the immediate knowledge of God. The principles of this argument do not stem from divine revelation as such. (3) This natural desire to see God is not identical in origin or aspiration to the supernaturally inspired inclination to know the Blessed Trinity, revealed in Christ. The latter aspiration is possible only by means of the infused theological virtues, which are not “anticipated” ontologically by any natural inclination of the human soul. It is only possible to aspire to the grace of the beatific vision (leading to immediate knowledge of the Trinity) by the prior initiative of God, which is supernatural. According to Aquinas this object of hope can be known only by means of divine revelation, and not by means of philosophical demonstration. 1178 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. intellect, man receives certain supernatural principles, which are held by means of a divine light: these are the articles of faith, about which is faith. Secondly, the will is directed to this end, both as to that end as something attainable—and this pertains to hope—and as to a certain spiritual union, whereby the will is, so to speak, transformed into that end—and this belongs to charity. For the appetite of a thing is moved and tends towards its connatural end naturally; and this movement is due to a certain conformity of the thing with its end.65 I have argued throughout this essay that the good of religion and natural temporal goods may be pursued in a non-competitive, hierarchical way. This is true already on a natural level, regarding the good of religion “philosophically” and considering it in relation to other rationally discernible goods. This order of ascending and descending hierarchy is preserved and recapitulated in the supernatural life of grace. Grace acts to orient human persons toward a supernatural final end in such a way that it does no intrinsic violence to what is authentically best and most ultimate in human government and in human religious practices.66 On the contrary, it works to purify and elevate such practices. It follows from these considerations, however, that there must exist in some real sense a philosophically identifiable natural final end of man that is religious (characterized by knowledge and love of God) and that is distinct both ontologically and logically from the supernatural end of man. The reason for this is the following. The formal object of supernatural faith and hope is supernatural beatitude (the immediate vision of the Holy Trinity). This is something known only through the medium of divine revelation.67 If there were a uniquely supernatural end of human existence, then it would be impossible to argue from the premises of natural law and philosophical reason to the conclusion that human beings have a natural possibility to orient themselves religiously toward a good 65 66 67 In ST I-II, q. 62, a. 3 (emphasis added). For an example of this principle in Aquinas, see ST II-II, q. 26, on the ordo caritatis, where he shows that the grace of charity preserves and elevates the order of natural loves that stem from the human family and society. As Aquinas teaches (ST I-II, q. 62, a. 3) and De Lubac agrees in his mature position (The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed, [New York: Herder and Herder, 1998], 208–209).This idea is also necessarily entailed by the teaching of Dei Filius, chs. 2–3, on the formally supernatural character of the mysteries of faith and their intrinsic inaccessibility to natural human reason. The Right to Religious Freedom 1179 that transcends the state, and indeed, the created order as such.68 The right to religious freedom is intelligible to human reason only on the precondition of the affirmation of such a natural end. Otherwise, one of two things would follow necessarily. Either we would be able to prove from principles of natural reason that there exists a supernatural final end (which is tantamount to a form of rationalist error officially condemned by Catholic teaching), or we would be unable to form any kind of natural law argument at all for the innately religious orientation of all human action. This, however, would stand in direct contradiction to Dignitatis Humanae.69 Consequently, the only reasonable option is to hold that we can affirm by the arguments of natural reason the inherent good of a religious form of life because religious action (by knowledge and service of God) forms a kind of natural end for the human person.70 It might be objected, understandably, that this kind of language seems very much to reflect a “two-story” theory of nature and grace, in which grace and the world of the supernatural are portrayed as something wholly extrinsic to a natural and political order that is already in some way complete without grace. This is a mischaracterization for two reasons. The first is because the argument offered above pertains to the structure of human actions, not their concrete historical exercise. Aquinas holds that the natural structure of the human person is such 68 69 70 For the sake of argument, we might concede that a diversity of interpretations of the “final end of man” would be compatible with Dignitatis Humanae on this point. One might argue, for example, that the immediate vision of God is the unique natural end of man, but that this can be known by a demonstration that is formally philosophical and rational in nature, and not uniquely through the medium of faith. For an argument of this sort (which I think differs in noteworthy ways from that of De Lubac), see Adriano Oliva in “La Contemplation des Philosophes selon Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques, 96 (2012): 585–662, esp. 631–641. In this case, one must distinguish the material object of the natural desire of man (the immediate knowledge of God) from the two distinct formal objects under which the person may aspire to this end: as known philosophically (mediately through creatures, very imperfectly) and as known theologically by means of divine revelation. Dignitatis Humanae, §9: “The declaration of this Vatican Council on the right of man to religious freedom has its foundation in the dignity of the person, whose exigencies have come to be fully known to human reason through centuries of experience.” See also §2. Nicholas Healy, Jr. offers an interpretation of De Lubac that seeks to preserve an adequate sense of natural teleology, overlapping in significant ways with the traditional Thomist position (“Henri de Lubac on Nature and Grace: A Note on Some Recent Contributions to the Debate,” Communio 35 [Winter, 2008]: 535–564). 1180 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. that the being of man is inherently ordered toward religious action. But this action can be distorted or disordered in many ways. As I have noted above, Aquinas argues that in the concrete historical order, the human person is incapable of loving God above all things, even naturally, without grace.71 Therefore, it is possible to argue even philosophically that human beings ought to be religious in some way (that religion is not unnatural), and yet it is not possible to procure religious acts that are truly virtuous in any unambiguous sense, without the work of the grace of Christ. Why, then, we might ask, ought one even to bother with rational, philosophical argumentation at all? The reasons are multiple, but one answer is that we should not reject one extreme so as to fall into the other. If human beings cannot be “successfully” religious without grace, that does not mean that without grace they simply become an abyss of irreligiosity. Fallen human beings are capable of being traversed by religious instincts and intuitions and may be open to the public arguments of religious persons, including arguments stemming from appeals to philosophical realism, and principles of the natural law. More to the point, the grace of Christ can also work precisely through and on the occasion of such arguments, calling human beings through reason to a life of grace, and through grace, to a life of reason. Grace invites the human person to an end that human nature cannot obtain by its own powers, but it also heals human nature even as it elevates. The second reason that a “two-story” theory of nature and grace is a mischaracterization is that philosophical argumentation regarding the natural end of man is not meant to exclude or render superfluous the appeal to the supernatural life as the final end of man. Paradoxical as it might seem, the natural end is in a certain sense the necessary foundation and presupposition for any theological appeal to an ultimate final end possible only through the work of grace.72 For only if the supernatural life of grace is not something wholly extrinsic to human natural desires is it in turn something that can fulfill and elevate human striving intrinsically, albeit gratuitously. When we speak of a natural final end of human beings that is religious, therefore, we need to add a qualification, drawn from Aquinas himself. Our desire for God insofar as it is natural, is a desire based upon mediate knowledge of God as the transcending cause 71 72 ST I-II, q. 109, a. 3. I argue in this vein at greater length in “Imperfect Happiness and the Final End of Man.” See also Reinhard Huetter, “Aquinas on the Natural Desire for the Vision of God: A Relecture of Summa Contra Gentiles III, c. 25, après Henri de Lubac,” in The Thomist 73, no. 4 (2009): 523–591. The Right to Religious Freedom 1181 of created existence and the providential guardian of human history.73 Human religiosity attempts, however misguidedly, to respond to the gift of created existence and to appeal to divine intervention in the midst of the travails of human life.74 But such mediate knowledge and such appeals are utterly impotent of themselves and have in themselves no sure foundation as to the perfect knowledge of God, or as to the acquired religious destiny of the human person and the human community.75 In our concrete fallen state, the effective exercise of the natural final end of man (the desire for perfect knowledge of God and loving service of God) is not only wounded or fragile (as noted above) but also inherently obscure and imperfect. We remain necessarily bound to seek for more than the political state can provide. But what it is that we seek remains also quite elusive, and a lucid understanding of the reality of God often utterly eludes us. Consequently, the more we appreciate the natural end of man and its imperfection, the more we see the fitting need for revelation. Contrary to the initial suspicion, then, the concern to safeguard a natural end that is religious is not meant to impede the appeal to God’s supernatural revelation of himself to human beings in Christ. Rather, a more exacting study of the structure of this natural desire shows its intrinsic openness or capacity to receive the supernatural mystery of Christ. Such a philosophical form of reflection shows that whatever the secularization or religious confusion of the human community throughout history, human persons remain structurally, innately made for the knowledge of God, and therefore open to conversion to Christ.76 One cannot demonstrate from natural reason that the Christian mystery is true. If it is true, however, and if a supernatural beatitude exists, then there exists a plausible rational coherence between the mystery of faith and the 73 74 75 76 See, in particular, SCG III, chs. 48–51, and ST I, q. 12, a. 1, where Aquinas explicitly appeals to an argument from philosophical reason for the natural character of the desire to see God immediately and its natural possibility. Meanwhile, Aquinas also insists that man has no natural power to attain this goal (SCG III, c. 52). ST II-II, q. 81, a. 1. ST I-II, q. 99, a. 3 corp. and ad 2, and q. 98, a. 5; II-II, q. 85, aa. 1 and 4, and q. 94, aa. 1–2. Aquinas even speaks of an “innate desire” to see God immediately that is awakened by a consideration of God based on his created effects. See De Virtutibus, q. 1, a. 10, corp (Disputed Question on the Virtues in General, trans. R. McInerny [South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999]). And yet, he is also clear that there is no natural inclination toward the formally supernatural object of faith as such (ST I-II, q. 62, aa. 1–3). And so our innate inclination toward God must be healed and elevated by grace to a yet higher object than that to which it might attain naturally. 1182 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. natural religious inclinations of the human person. For the human person is inherently inclined by the desire for the good toward a transcendent end that is religious, but one that the human intellect only perceives (if at all) very imperfectly and in a mediated fashion. Consequently, the grace of supernatural beatitude comes to awaken, rectify, and elevate this natural inclination both gratuitously and intrinsically, accomplishing what nature by its own powers could aspire to only ineffectively and through a kind of moral velleity. The supernatural end of man, therefore, makes demands upon the natural teleological orientation of man. However, in keeping with the argument elaborated above, we should note that the demands work the other way as well. The supernatural end must speak to the aspirations of the natural end, and be able thereby to complete all human longing for the good. Insofar as grace intersects with the structure of human nature, however, it also must fulfill and elevate the whole teleological edifice of human behavior with respect to the hierarchy of goods. That is to say, the life of grace must respect the aforementioned structure of nature and the ordered diversity of goods that falls under the consideration of the natural law.77 Appeals to supernatural revelation that would seek to violate the natural order are not rationally defensible. Forms of religious behavior that lay claim to the mystery of revelation, of Christ or of grace, but which do violence to human life, human civilization, human psychological or moral health: these are all incompatible with a right understanding of the Catholic faith.78 We can think here again of Aquinas’ affirmation that Jewish children cannot be baptized by force. What presupposition lies behind this teaching that is found in the heart of his treatise on the faith? It is a presupposition of the natural law. It is in fact problematic to seek to understand the dignity of the supernatural vocation without a corresponding reflection on natural justice and the final end of man, 77 78 Gaudium et Spes strongly suggests this point of view in §§74, 79 and 89, all of which insist on the distinction but inter-connection between promotion of the proclamation of the Gospel, the natural law, and the common good. Benedict XVI underscored this point in his Encyclical Letter on Charity in Truth Caritas in Veritate (Washington, D.C.: United States Council of Catholic Bishops, 2009), §29: “Today, in fact, people frequently kill in the holy name of God, as both my predecessor John Paul II and I myself have often publicly acknowledged and lamented. Violence puts the brakes on authentic development and impedes the evolution of peoples towards greater socio-economic and spiritual well-being. This applies especially to terrorism motivated by fundamentalism, which generates grief, destruction and death, obstructs dialogue between nations and diverts extensive resources from their peaceful and civil uses.” The Right to Religious Freedom 1183 for without such a reflection, we might not only fail to promote natural justice, but also defame or render obscure the integrity of the Christian mystery itself. What follows from these reflections is a twofold warning. In the absence of a robust concept of the natural final end of man as a religious end, one of two difficulties might emerge for theology. On the one hand, there is the danger that we might lose all manner of articulating in the public square the rational basis for the right to religious freedom. Consequently, theology will make appeal only to a private right of conscience that differs for public reason in no sufficiently discernible way from the appeal to a preferred aesthetic, recreation, diet, or popular entertainment. In a world where there is increasingly little if any concerted thought given to the nature of human religious capacities, it is important for Christian philosophers and theologians to pay special attention to the articulation of the metaphysical and natural law foundations for religious freedom and the rational integrity of religious practice. Denial of a natural end of the human person decidedly puts theology in peril on this important front. Second, in a world in which religious practices are often decidedly irrational, violent, and cult-like, there is the danger that all normative religious practices might be seen as intrinsically alienating to reason. Consequently, the attentiveness to the distinction and interplay of the natural and supernatural dimensions of religious practice is important so as to protect and advance a traditional, rational, and just form of religious belief and practice. That is to say, a form of religious practice that takes responsibility for the common good, for the dignity of human learning in the arts and sciences, for the rights of human conscience, and for the respect of religious freedom. To have an adequate theological articulation of these values, sacred theology must make use of an adequately realistic philosophical understanding of the religious character of human persons and of human culture. Conclusion The thoughts offered above may seem to be utopian. In fact, we know that religious liberty (particularly that of Christians) is far from secure in many parts of the world. Human beings labor under the consequences of sin, such that far from entertaining the philosophical merits of any religious orientation toward God, they often neglect such an idea altogether. The consideration of the structural truth about the human person and the nature of religious freedom is imperative, however. For only 1184 Thomas Joseph White, O.P. when we can see clearly what health is, are we able to understand the characteristics of the disease, and the nature of the cure. Dignitatis Humanae gives us important clues as to what constitutes genuine health for human religious culture in the twenty-first century. If we would be cured from the sickness of religious alienation and indifference in the world today, we would do well to heed its teachings. It is the truth of Christ, and the true religion of Christ, that genuinely manifest in depth N&V the dignity of man. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1185–1207 1185 Abortion Shame, Abortion Shaming, and the Reintegrative Mercy of God (Evangelium Vitae §99) Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. Providence College Providence, RI Introduction The “1 in 3” campaign is a grassroots movement that is trying to “end the stigma and shame women are made to feel about abortion” by encouraging the one in three women who will have an abortion in her lifetime in the United States to tell their abortion stories, “on our own terms.”1 The organizers of the movement wish “to harness the power of storytelling to engage and inspire action and strengthen support for abortion access” that will “help create a more enabling cultural environment for the policy and legal work of the abortion rights movement.” The campaign website highlights numerous abortion stories in both English and Spanish, including the story of sixty-year-old Mari, who aborted two of her seven pregnancies, and that of Sherry, who had her abortion so that she could go to college. Sherry ends her narrative by echoing the mantra of the “1 in 3” campaign: “The stigma that shrouds abortion and the shame and embarrassment that women are forced to endure needs to stop. Abortion must remain a safe and legal part of every woman’s medical resources.”2 How should pro-lifers, especially pro-lifers who have religious faith, respond to the “1 in 3” campaign and other contemporary movements 1 2 For details, see their website: http://www.1in3campaign.org/about. “Written Stories,” The 1 in 3 campaign, http://www.1in3campaign.org/written-stories/2970. 1186 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. that are trying to destigmatize abortion? To begin to answer this question, this essay will open with descriptions of the psychology of shame as a “self-conscious” emotion, and of the sociology of shaming as a form of social control and punishment. We will then turn to a discussion of the morality of shame and of shaming by comparing four philosophical accounts of these phenomena: the classical accounts of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas and the more contemporary narratives of John Rawls and Marta Nussbaum. Next, we will move specifically to abortion shame and abortion shaming. What do the empirical studies reveal about how post-abortive women in the United States deal with both? Finally, we will conclude by comparing the responses to abortion shame proposed by the pro-abortion movement represented by the “1 in 3” campaign and the contrasting paradigm best found in Pope St. John Paul II’s great encyclical on the gospel of life, Evangelium Vitae, whose twentieth anniversary we are celebrating this year. In Evangelium Vitae §99, in my view, the most important paragraph of the papal letter, Pope St. John Paul II addresses women who have had an abortion and addresses their shame. He reveals that only the reintegrative mercy of God can heal the wounds of the post-abortive heart. The Psychology of Shame In contemporary psychology, shame is understood to be a “self-conscious emotion” that is often defined by distinguishing it from guilt; the former emotion engages one’s sense of self, while the latter does not.3 In an influential account that has been supported by much empirical work in psychology, Helen Block Lewis made the distinction between shame and guilt as follows: The experience of shame is directly about the self, which is the focus of evaluation. In guilt, the self is not the central object of negative evaluation, but rather the thing done or undone is the focus. In guilt, the self is negatively evaluated in connection with something but is not itself the focus of the experience.4 3 4 For discussion and extensive citations of the relevant primary literature, see the following reviews: June Price Tangney, “How Does Guilt Differ from Shame?” in Guilt and Children, ed. Jane Bybee (San Diego: Academic Press, 1998), 1–17; Nancy Eisenberg, “Emotion, Regulation, and Moral Development,” Annual Review of Psychology 51 (2000): 665–697; and June Price Tangney, Jeff Stuewig, and Debra J. Mashek, “Moral Emotions and Moral Behavior,” Annual Review of Psychology 58 (2007): 345–372. Helen Block Lewis, Shame and Guilt in Neurosis (New York: International Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1187 Shame involves a critical judgment of oneself (“I am a bad person”), while guilt involves a critical judgment of one’s actions (“I did something bad”). Not surprisingly, according to Lewis, these two emotions are experienced differently. Shame is an intensely painful emotion that is accompanied by a sense of worthlessness and powerlessness. The shamed individual feels small, exposed, vulnerable, and self-consciously concerned that others will discover that he is inferior, defective, and inadequate. He is disgusted with himself. Shame often motivates a defensive reaction where the individual wants to escape, hide, deny responsibility, or blame others. In contrast, guilt is relatively less painful because, here, the primary concern is with one’s behavior rather than with one’s identity. It is accompanied by a sense of remorse, regret, and anxiety regarding what one has done. Here, the guilt-ridden individual becomes preoccupied with his specific transgression and is concerned about how he could possibly undo his deed and any untoward effects that it may have caused to himself or to others. Guilt often motivates reparative action as the individual tries to repair the damage he has done. Several psychologists have noted that shame appears to be a human universal because it leads to postural signs of deference and self-concealment—head tilted downward with slumped shoulders—that appear to be cross-cultural and innate.5 Even athletes who have been blind since birth manifest nonverbal shame display, such as hiding of the face and narrowing of the chest, when they are defeated.6 Thus, psychologists have proposed that shame is an evolved adaptive response in our species for at least two reasons. First, they suggest that shame serves as a social signal of appeasement that benefits the group. When individuals violate social norms, they risk unpleasant and evenly potentially dangerous reactions from their peers, including anger and retaliation. However, these 5 6 Universities Press, 1971), 30. For a comprehensive overview of the empirical research that has supported Lewis’s thesis, see J.P. Tangney and R. Dearing, Shame and Guilt (New York: Guilford, 2002). More recently, Jessica L.Tracy and Richard W. Robins have proposed a reformulated account of the role of the self in the self-conscious emotions (“Putting the Self Into Self-Conscious Emotions: A Theoretical Model,” Psychological Inquiry 15 [2004]: 103–125). Jason P. Martens, Jessica L. Tracy, and Azim F. Shariff, “Status Signals: Adaptive Benefits of Displaying and Observing the Nonverbal Expressions of Pride and Shame,” Cognition and Emotion 26 (2012): 390–406. J.L. Tracy and D. Matsumoto, “The Spontaneous Expression of Pride and Shame: Evidence for Biologically Innate Nonverbal Displays,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105 (2008): 11655–11660. 1188 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. social transgressors can minimize the severity of these negative responses by signaling, via shame display, that they recognize and regret their behavior. In support of this adaptionist explanation, one study revealed that a defendant who showed embarrassment and shame in one mock trial received two-thirds of the prison sentence and was nominated for parole more than a year earlier than he was in other mock trials where he manifested neutral behavior or contempt.7 Next, psychologists propose that shame, or at least the fear of it, facilitates group dynamics. In another study, undergraduate participants who were threatened with being shamed were more willing to cooperate with others in anonymous six-player public goods experiments than those who did not face the same threat.8 In toto, these empirical results suggest that shame benefits the social collective by preserving the long-term survival not only of individuals but also of the interpersonal relationships that anchor human communities.9 Strikingly, however, there is also data that suggests that shame can be detrimental to the shamed individual. Shame-prone individuals are more likely to experience intense anger and to express that anger in destructive ways, including physical, verbal, and symbolic aggression, both directly and indirectly.10 Feelings of shame have also been linked to behaviors that disrupt the individual’s ability to form empathic connections with others.11 This is not surprising, since shame inherently moves the individual to focus on self rather than on neighbor. Significantly, people who experience shame frequently are also more vulnerable to other psycho7 8 9 10 11 For details, see Dacher Keltner, Randall C. Young, and Brenda N. Buswell, “Appeasement in Human Emotion, Social Practice, and Personality,” Aggressive Behavior 23 (1997): 359–374. Jennifer Jacquet, Christopher Hauert, Arne Traulsen, and Manfred Milinski, “Shame and Honor Drive Cooperation,” Biology Letters 7 (2011): 899–901. Klaus Jaffe, “Evolution of Shame as an Adaptation to Social Punishment and its Contribution to Social Cohesiveness,” Complexity 14 (2008): 46–52. Bernice Andrews, Chris R. Brewin, Suzanna Rose, and Marilyn Kirk, “Predicting PTSD Symptoms in Victims of Violent Crime: The Role of Shame, Anger, and Childhood Abuse,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 109 (2000): 69–73; Felicity W.K. Harper and Ileana Arias, “The Role of Shame in Predicting Adult Anger and Depressive Symptoms Among Victims of Child Psychological Maltreatment,” Journal of Family Violence 19 (2004): 359–367; David S. Bennett, Margaret W. Sullivan, and Michael Lewis, “Young Children’s Adjustment as a Function of Maltreatment, Shame, and Anger,” Child Maltreatment 10 (2005): 311–323. Karen P. Leith and Roy F. Baumeister, “Empathy, Shame, Guilt, and Narratives of Interpersonal Conflicts: Guilt-Prone People are Better at Perspective Taking,” Journal of Personality 66 (1998): 1–37. Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1189 logical stresses, and proneness to shame is linked to a wide variety of psychological pathologies, including low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicidal ideation.12 Finally, it is important to acknowledge that the empirical findings that link shame to poor mental health outcomes may only represent the experience of subjects raised in an individualistic (i.e., Western) culture, rather than in a collectivistic (i.e., Eastern) one, and as such, may be culturally biased.13 The Sociology of Shaming Where shame is often defined by contrasting it with guilt, shaming can be understood best by distinguishing it from blaming. Blaming involves telling someone that he has done something bad, while shaming involves telling someone, directly or indirectly, that he is bad, often in a public and humiliating manner, because he has violated some social norm. Shaming is constituted by intentional acts that aim at disgracing or dishonoring another person. Shaming has been used since time immemorial as a means of social control and punishment. Crucifixion, for example, was arguably the most shameful way to die in the Roman Empire. Similarly, recusant Catholic priests were publicly hanged in Elizabethan England in front of large crowds of onlookers to shame them and to discourage others from following in their footsteps. However, as Michel Foucault narrates in his Discipline and Punish:The Birth of the Prison, public-shaming punishments, including public floggings, brandings, and executions, gradually disappeared in the West during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.14 Nonetheless, judges in the United States continue to hand out 12 13 14 For details and citations of the literature, see Tangney and Dearing, Shame and Guilt, 134–137; Tangney, Stuewig, and Mashek, “Moral Emotions and Moral Behavior,” 352–354; and Sally S. Dickerson, Tara L. Gruenewald, and Margaret E. Kemeny, “When the Social Self is Threatened: Shame, Physiology, and Health,” Journal of Physiology 72 (2004): 1191–1216. Ying Wong and Jeanne Tsai, “Cultural Models of Shame and Guilt,” in The Self-Conscious Emotions: Theory and Research, ed. Jessica L. Tracy, Richard W. Robins, and June Price Tangney (New York: Guilford Press, 2007), 209–223. My own anecdotal experience as a Filipino-American would suggest that shame is not as detrimental to the mental health of individuals within collectivistic cultures, not only because these societies have a more buffered sense of self that does not involve a “naked” individual, but also because they have numerous practices involving family and friends that allow the shamed person to regain “face” after he has transgressed social norms. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish:The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977). 1190 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. public-shaming sentences for low-level offenders, including one judge in Ohio who ordered a woman who drove on a sidewalk to avoid a school bus to wear a sign saying, “Only an idiot drives on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.”15 Contemporary sociologists distinguish two types of shaming first described by John Braithwaite.16 Disintegrative shaming occurs when the wrongdoer is punished in such a way that he, as a person, is stigmatized, rejected, or ostracized from his community. Hester Prynne, the protagonist in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, experienced this kind of shaming in her Puritan town. However, these shame punishments create the risk of a rebellious reaction and the perpetuation of illicit behavior. As Braithwaite explains it, “stigmatization by the family, the school, and other sources of social control increases the attraction of outcasts to subcultural groups which provide social support for crime, and weakens control by the former against criminal activities.”17 Consider the behavior of juvenile offenders who join gangs of other disenfranchised youths when they perceive that they have been ostracized from society. In contrast, reintegrative shaming involves expressions of community disapproval of the social transgression that are accompanied by social indications of forgiveness and reacceptance. In this second type of shaming, the emphasis is placed upon the condemnation of the act, rather than the condemnation of the perpetrator. Note that reintegrative shaming is not and cannot be a simple whitewashing that covers up the misdemeanor, fault, or error. The transgression is still acknowledged for the transgression that it is, but the transgressor is not labeled by his transgression, so as to mitigate the impact of shaming on the individual. As the cliché goes, one is called to hate the sin but to love the sinner. As I will discuss below, only reintegrative shaming can be reconciled with the gospel of life. Lastly, we need to acknowledge the reappearance in recent years of public shaming in a new incarnation, this time as the anonymous public shaming on the Internet that has destroyed the reputations of many a naïve individual.18 Shaming of this sort, especially shaming via social For examples, see Matt Berman, “The 7 Craziest Public-Shaming Sentences Given by U.S. Judges,” National Journal, September 9, 2013, http://www.nationaljournal.com/pictures-video/the-7-craziest-public-shaming-sentences-givenby-u-s-judges-20130909. 16 John Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 17 Ibid., 68. 18 For details, see the blog post by Kristi Iannelli, “Public Shaming on the Inter15 Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1191 media, has been condemned by some as one form of cyber-bullying. Nonetheless, it is striking that there have been recent calls to use public shaming as a nonviolent form of resistance to challenge institutions, corporations, and governments to change their policies and behaviors.19 The Morality of Shame and Shaming The moral status of shame as a psychological trait has been debated for centuries. To illuminate the contours of the discussion, we consider here the philosophical analysis of two classical and two contemporary thinkers before concluding with a summary account that seeks to bring together the truest insights of each. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines a sense of shame as “a certain fear of disrepute.”20 Elsewhere in the text, he acknowledges that this sense has a proper role in the life of the virtuous individual because it restrains him from doing things that are disgraceful: “For some things, one even ought to fear, and it is noble to do so and shameful not to—for example, disrepute, since he who fears this is decent and bashful, whereas he who does not is shameless.”21 However, though shame is praiseworthy, it is a passion that does not presuppose reasoned choice, and as such, falls short of being a virtue: “For a sense of shame is not a virtue, but he who is bashful is praised.”22 Significantly, however, there are also texts in Aristotle where he suggests that shame is not a quality associated with the virtuous, because it is a response to a dishonorable action that is not befitting of a person of character. For example, at one point, he explains: Shame does not belong to a decent person either, since it occurs in connection with base things (for one must not do such things). And whether these are shameful truly or shameful according to 19 20 21 22 net,” Huffington Post, March 11, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lindsay-hoffman/public-shaming-on-the-internet_b_6849036.html. Also see the New York Times bestseller by Jon Ronson, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (New York: Riverhead Books, 2015). As an instance of this, see the thought-provoking book by Jennifer Jacquet: Is Shame Necessary? (New York: Pantheon Books, 2015). Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (hereafter, NE) iv 9.1128b11, trans. Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), 88. NE iii 6.1115a12–15 (Bartlett and Collins, 55). NE ii 7.1108a32 (Bartlett and Collins, 38: As the translators acknowledge in note 24, the word they translated as “bashful” shares the same root as the word translated as “sense of shame”). 1192 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. opinion makes no difference, for neither is to be done; as a result, one should not feel shame. And to be the sort of person to do anything shameful is the mark of someone base.23 To reconcile these texts, we can propose that Aristotle is considering two different conceptions of shame in his writings.24 There is a positive account of shame that sees it as a disposition that moves one to flee from a disgraceful act, what I will call “shame-before-the-act,” and then there is a negative account in which shame is the feeling that one experiences after one has performed a dishonorable act, what I will call “shame-afterthe-act.” The former is laudable while the latter, which is the psychological reality that better corresponds to our contemporary psychological understanding of shame described above, is not. St. Thomas Aquinas agrees with Aristotle when he defines shame (verecundia) as a praiseworthy passion whose object is fear of something dishonorable or disgraceful.25 This conforms to Aristotle’s positive account of shame-before-the-act, which focuses upon the virtuous person’s interior experience before he ever performs a dishonorable act. Again, however, like Aristotle, Aquinas does acknowledge a second notion of shame-after-the-act that is a character trait that cannot be praised as a virtue is praised, because it presupposes a dishonorable act that does not befit a virtuous man.26 Nonetheless, he does affirm that shame-after-theact remains praiseworthy as a passion. Also in the Summa theologiae, St. Thomas will expand upon Aristotle’s positive account of shame when he lists it as one of the integral parts of temperance, which is the cardinal virtue that regulates the human agent’s sensual appetites so that they are ordered according to right reason. (The 23 24 25 26 NE iv 9.1128b22–27 (Bartlett and Collins, 88). For a similar reading of these Aristotelian texts, see Kristen Inglis, “Philosophical Virtue: In Defense of the Grand End,” in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Roland Polansky (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 263–287, at 278–281. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (hereafter, ST) I-II.24.4. ST II-II.144.1: “Anything that is repugnant to perfection, even if it is good, falls short of the notion of virtue. Now shame is repugnant to perfection because it is the fear of something dishonorable, namely that which is disgraceful. . . . But one who is perfect according to virtue does not apprehend that which is disgraceful or dishonorable to do as being possible or arduous, i.e., as something difficult for him to avoid, nor does he actually do anything dishonorable, so as to fear disgrace. Thus, shame, properly speaking, is not a virtue for it falls short of the perfection of virtue.” Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1193 integral parts of a virtue are those things that need to come together well to realize a perfect act of that virtue in the same way that the integral parts of a house—a wall, a roof, and foundations—need to come together well to build a perfect house.)27 According to Aquinas, the temperate man needs to have a healthy sensitivity to shame, what psychologists today would call a healthy shame-proneness, because this would repel him from base or dishonorable acts. Why is shame an integral part of temperance and not of the other virtues? Because in St. Thomas’s view, intemperate acts are the most base and disgraceful—and thus the most likely to shame us—since they make us most like the irrational brutes that we are not, and least like the thinking persons that we should be.28 With regards to a phenomenology of shame, in his response to the question of whether shame is about disgraceful action, Aquinas comments that there are two kinds of shame experience.29 He distinguishes the shame that one feels when one refrains from disordered acts from the shame that comes while one is actually performing such acts. Citing St. Gregory of Nyssa, he then attributes “blushing” (erubescentiam) to the former, and “being shamed” (verecundia) to the latter. Since the evolutionarily conserved shame response described by psychologists follows rather than precedes the shameful act, it appears that it would correspond better to the latter shame experience than to the former. Lastly, St. Thomas considers the role of other observers in the shame experience. He notes that observers who are perceived to be reputable are more effective at shaming for two reasons.30 First, there are observers who are reputable because of their rectitude of judgment of the shamed as it is perceived by others, as in the case of wise and virtuous individuals. Second, there are observers who are reputable on account of their perceived expert knowledge of the relevant circumstances of the shamed person and his actions. Not surprisingly, therefore, Aquinas observes that we are more likely to be shamed by persons connected with us, since they are better acquainted with our deeds. Shaming is most effective when it is done by those whom we most respect as moral and social exemplars and those who know us best. Importantly, though St. Thomas never explicitly says this, it is clear from his writings that he believes that one of the responsibilities of the wise and virtuous man is to make those moral judgments that may shame others, so that they too will strive for 27 28 29 30 Cf. ST II-II.48.1 ST II-II.144.1 ad 2; cf. ST II-II.142.4. ST II-II.144.2. ST II-II.144.3. 1194 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. virtue. Shame may not be virtuous for Aquinas, but shaming certainly is. Moving forward eight hundred years, the twentieth century moral and political philosopher, John Rawls, characterizes shame “as the feeling that someone has when he experiences an injury to his self-respect or suffers a blow to his self-esteem.”31 According to Rawls, it is painful since it involves the loss of a prized good, self-respect, which he considers perhaps a person’s most important primary good for two reasons. First, it “includes his sense of his own value, his secure conviction that his conception of his good, his plan of life, is worth carrying out.”32 Second, it “implies a confidence in one’s ability, so far as it is within one’s power, to fulfill one’s intentions.”33 Rawls proposes that there are two varieties of shame.34 Natural shame involves an injury to our sense of self-esteem arising from a failure to exercise a certain excellence. A person’s plan of life determines those excellences that will cause him natural shame. Thus, for Rawls, a person who decided to develop his musical talent would feel natural shame if he failed to do so, while his neighbor with no musical ability who does not strive to be a musician would feel no shame if he were never able to sing or to play a musical instrument. In contrast, moral shame is experienced when we fail to attain those moral virtues that his plan of life requires and is framed to encourage. Significantly, for Rawls, these are often virtues that the individual regards as characteristics that both he and his associates want and expect in him. Actions and traits that reveal the absence of these characteristics and the awareness of this absence would likely occasion moral shame. Notice that, for Rawls, shame is good because both natural and moral shame are linked to the pursuit and achievement of human excellence. It motivates the citizen to do the good by preventing him from acting rashly or behaving stupidly. Finally, in contrast to Rawls’ somewhat optimistic view, Martha Nussbaum is much more critical of shame, and particularly of its use as a form of social control. She defines shame as “a painful emotion responding to a sense of failure to attain some ideal state.”35 For Nussbaum, shame is always about defect: “In shame, one feels inadequate, lacking some desired 31 32 33 34 35 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999), 388. Ibid., 386. Ibid. Ibid., 389–391. Marta C. Nussbaum, Hiding from Humanity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 184. Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1195 type of completeness or perfection.”36 It is an emotion that is derivative of a society’s account of what is normal for its citizens. She writes: “Each person in a society looks out at the world from the perspective of its norm of normalcy. And if what he or she sees when looking in the mirror does not conform to that norm, shame is the likely result.”37 It is social abnormality, rather than dishonor, that is the object of shame, according to Nussbaum, though of course, there is a close association between honor and acceptable social norms of behavior. However, it is also important to note that she believes that shame has its roots in the earliest experiences of infants who discover their inadequacies. This primitive shame is experienced even before the child discovers that society has “norms of normalcy.” It is “connected primarily to the more primitive longing for wholeness and the sense that one ought rightly to be whole.”38 So, is shame good or evil according to Nussbaum? She is clearly against the shaming of children: “My analysis suggests that any appeal to shame in connection with the child’s human weaknesses, whether bodily or mental, would be a very dangerous and potentially debilitating strategy.”39 Or again, she states: “Where children are concerned, aspirational shame seems very dangerous, especially when the invitation to shame is issued by the parent.”40 However, Nussbaum still thinks that shame may be good in children in a limited context: “If a child has a habit of being inattentive to the needs of others and persistently behaves in a grandiose, insensitive, or manipulative manner, guilt may not be enough. Shame, focused on a trait or pattern of behavior, seems morally appropriate.”41 In the same way, she affirms the value of shame in some adults: “Shame over laziness, lack of dedication, and other failure to pursue valuable personal ideals? For adults, such aspirational shame may be constructive, although it seems most appropriate that the invitation to feel shame come from oneself.”42 Once again, however, she is adamantly against the shaming of others: “Strangers have no business telling a person that he or she is not living up to some personal ideal, where that ideal is not part of the political culture.”43 In the end, Nussbaum is critical of shaming because of the grave damage it risks for the vulnerable individual: “The 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Ibid. Ibid., 217. Ibid., 186. Ibid., 214. Ibid., 215. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. 1196 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. vulnerability to shame is part of the exposure of self that is involved in intimacy. . . . [T]his shows why it is so problematic to invite another to feel shame: there is great exposure and vulnerability in intimacy, and the potential for damage is very great.”44 To conclude, let us consider the similarities and differences of these four somewhat disparate philosophical accounts. What do they reveal about shame and shaming? First, regarding their nature, there is a consensus that shame is the painful emotion that is experienced when we perceive that we have been disgraced or dishonored, and that shaming involves the actions of others that cause this painful emotion. However, there is some disagreement on the proper causal explanation for shame. The classical accounts discussed earlier focus on one’s actions as the primary cause of one’s shame as bringing about honor or dishonor to oneself, and shaming as the response of others to those shameful actions. This is certainly true because there are many times when we do things that bring shame to ourselves.45 However, these classical accounts can also imply that we are always the primary cause of our shame, since it is our actions that trigger the shame response in ourselves and the shaming response in others. This is certainly not true. As the contemporary narratives rightly acknowledge, there are also times when individuals experience shame not about their actions, past, present, or future, but about their identities, as fat, short, black, gay, or even American or Christian. In fact, as Nussbaum emphasizes, the individual can be shamed without his doing anything truly dishonorable. Instead, this shame is triggered by the actions of others who want to make the person feel that he has failed to live up to some social expectation or ideal. Shame is caused not only by our own actions, but also by the independent actions of others. Second, regarding their moral status the classical accounts contend that shame and shaming are good when they promote and protect virtue.This is a reasonable claim. However, in a way that the ancients do not, I stress that shame and shaming are good only when they are ordered towards an authentic good. Consider both the shaming that happens in a gang so that members commit murder, and the shaming that occurs when 44 45 Ibid., 216. Notice that the classical view presupposes that the same action can cause both guilt and shame in the individual, a scenario that is not often considered today because contemporary psychologists make the strong distinction, discussed above, between guilt as sorrow for acts and shame as sorrow for one’s self. As I suggest below, in my pastoral experience, post-abortive women often experience both abortion guilt and abortion shame simultaneously. Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1197 defenders of marriage are labeled as bigoted homophobes so that they will change their views. These are occasions when shame and shaming are evil because they are being used to manipulate persons so that they either acquire vice or shun virtue. Neither kind of scenario is considered by the ancients, probably because they presuppose that honor is always ordered towards the good. In contrast, as the gang and defenders of marriage examples reveal, “honor” is sometimes associated with socially imposed norms that may actually be evil. In a manner not really imagined by the ancients, there are occasions when shame and shaming are used to promote vice and to discourage virtue. Therefore, like Nussbaum, I conclude that shame and shaming are not always praiseworthy. At times, they can in fact be shameful, and should therefore be condemned. The Experience of Abortion Shame and Abortion Shaming in the United States Several empirical studies have shown that many women in the United States experience shame after an abortion.46 In a study of 442 women who were followed for two years after their abortions, Brenda Major and Richard Gramzow discovered that 47 percent of their patients believed that they would be looked down upon by others if people knew about their abortion, and that 45 percent thought that they needed to keep the abortion a secret from family and friends.47 In a study exploring the views of single women who had had an unintended pregnancy, Marcia Ellison reported that all the women in the study who had had an abortion reported enduring social stigma.48 They feared that they would be 46 47 48 Though this essay will focus on the experience of post-abortive women in the United States, the following empirical studies, among others, show that abortion shame is transcultural and transnational: Meimanat Hosseini-Chavoshi, Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Diana Glazebrook, and Peter McDonald, “Social and Psychological Consequences of Abortion in Iran,” International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics 118 (2012): S172–S177; Kristen M. Shellenberg, Lella Hessini, and Brooke A. Levandowski, “Developing a Scale to Measure Stigmatizing Attitudes and Beliefs About Women Who Have Abortions: Results from Ghana and Zambia,” Women & Health 54 (2014): 599–616; and Carrie Purcell, Shona Hilton, and Lisa McDaid, “The Stigmatisation of Abortion: a Qualitative Analysis of Print Media in Great Britain in 2010,” Culture, Health & Sexuality 16 (2014): 1141–1155. Brenda Major and Richard H. Gramzow, “Abortion as Stigma: Cognitive and Emotional Implications of Concealment,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (1999): 735–754. Marcia A. Ellison, “Authoritative Knowledge and Single Women’s Unintentional Pregnancies, Abortions, Adoption, and Single Motherhood: Social Stigma and 1198 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. judged as having made a selfish decision, especially by their parents and by their daughters. More recently, Littman et al. reported that all twenty-two participants in their pilot abortion stigma intervention program believed that the judgmental and negative attitudes of others were hurtful to women who have had abortions.49 Finally, in a large study with 9,493 respondents who had had an abortion in the United Sates, Shellenberg and Tsui report that two-thirds of the women believed that people would look down on them if they knew about the abortion, and more than half thought that they needed to keep their abortion a secret from family and friends.50 Interestingly, 17 percent of the respondents believed that their regular healthcare provider would treat them differently if he or she knew about the abortion. The four characteristics found to consistently predict stigma across ethnic groups in this national sample were the following: region of residence (women living in the Southern, Western, or Midwestern regions of the United States experienced more abortion shame than those living in the Northeast), number of previous abortions (the fewer the abortions, the more intense the shame), not having one’s mind made up about the abortion at the time of making the appointment, and not informing the man involved with the pregnancy about the abortion. As indicated above, a significant number of women who have had an abortion in the Unites States rarely talk about their abortions. This secrecy has often led to a vicious cycle where thought intrusion and suppression led to further psychological distress.51 Not surprisingly, therefore, there is data that suggests that some post-abortive women experience psychological distress after their abortions.52 However, social 49 50 51 52 Structural Violence,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 17 (2003): 322–347. Lisa L. Littman, Christina Zarcadoolas, and Adam R. Jacobs, “Introducing Abortion Patients to a Culture of Support: A Pilot Study,” Archives of Women’s Mental Health 12 (2009): 419–431. Kristen M. Shellenberg and Amy O. Tsui, “Correlates of perceived and internalized Stigma among Abortion Patients in the USA: An Exploration by Race and Hispanic Ethnicity,” International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 118 (2012): S152–S159. Major and Gramzow, “Abortion as stigma,” 736. Also see Brenda Major, Josephine M. Zubek, M. Lynne Cooper, Catherine Cozzarelli, and Caroline Richards, “Mixed Messages: Implications of Social Conflict and Social Support within Close Relationships for Adjustment to a Stressful Life Event,” Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 72 (1997): 1349–1363. For discussion and citations of the literature, see Allyson Lipp, “Termination of Pregnancy: A Review of Psychological Effects on Women,” Nursing Times 105 (2009): 26–29. Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1199 support that women receive from the immediate social networks, particularly from their partners, can mitigate the effects of abortion shame, and women who perceive that their community has supported their right to an abortion are less likely to feel shame about their choice.53 Lastly, it is important to point out that the experience of abortion shame varies depending upon the individual woman’s religious beliefs, cultural values, and economic status, and can be transitory or episodic, re-emerging throughout the life of a woman whenever she confronts anti-abortion rhetoric or whenever she is asked for her reproductive history by a health care provider.54 In contrast to the growing number of studies that have identified and characterized abortion shame in patients in the United States, there have only been a few reports that have explored the etiology of this shame experience. Most substantially, in a conceptual paper, Alison Norris and others discuss five primary reasons for why they think abortion is stigmatized, including the violation of female ideals of sexuality and motherhood, technological developments like the 3D ultrasound that have facilitated the attribution of personhood to the fetus, legal restrictions that reinforce the perception that abortion is morally wrong, the belief that abortion is dirty or unhealthy,55 and the successful use of stigma as a tool for anti-abortion advocacy.56 Drawing on interviews with thirty-four American women who had had an abortion, Kate Cockrill and 53 54 55 56 Anuradha Kumar, Leila Hessini, and Ellen M.H. Mitchell, “Conceptualizing Abortion Stigma,” Culture, Health & Sexuality 11 (2009): 625–639. Alison Norris, Danielle Bessett, Julia R. Steinberg, Megan L. Kavanaugh, Silvia De Zordo, and Davida Becker, “Abortion Stigma: A Reconceptualization of Constituents, Causes, and Consequences,” Women’s Health Issues 21-3S (2011): S49–S54, at S50. It is incredible to me that this study, which highlights the prevalence of abortion stigma and shame in contemporary society, is dismissive of proposals that some post-abortive women undergo psychological distress akin to post-traumatic stress syndrome. The authors write: “Seven states have integrated groundless claims about the psychological effects of abortion (such as so-called post-abortion syndrome) into regulations. These institutional practices deny the normalcy of abortion as technique and as medical care and reinforce stigmatizing ideas that abortion is unhealthy” (S52). Is it not reasonable to think that the psychological distress experienced by some post-abortive women is actually linked to, caused by, and exacerbated by the abortion stigma they describe? My experience as a Project Rachel priest certainly confirms this proposal. Norris, et al., “Abortion Stigma,” S49–S54.It should be noted that Norris et al. echo earlier proposals by Kumar, Hessini, and Mitchell (“Conceptualizing Abortion Stigma,” 629–633). 1200 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. Adina Nack have confirmed this conceptual analysis by describing a social-psychological framework for understanding abortion stigma and identifying the individual stigma management strategies women use to mitigate negative intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences of abortion shame.57 Norris and her fellow researchers also identify secondary causes of abortion stigma. One surprising source is the abortion clinic itself. Often set apart from other health care facilities and surrounded by protesters, the clinic’s institutional framework appears to validate the stigma that abortion is unlike other “normal” and “noncontroversial” medical procedures. It should not be surprising therefore that a recent abortion clinic with natural wood floors and plush upholstery has opened up in Washington, D.C. that describes itself as an abortion “spa,” in attempt to de-stigmatize the procedure.58 Its slogan: “Abortion. Yeah, we do that.” Finally, I would like to make three anecdotal comments about abortion shame and abortion shaming gleaned from my pastoral experience as a Project Rachel priest. Project Rachel is the Catholic Church’s outreach to women and men who struggle with grief and the other aftereffects of abortion.59 First, several of the Project Rachel women I have counseled have indicated to me that they are struggling not only with abortion shame but also with abortion guilt.Yes, they feel shame that they could be the kind of woman who would take the life of her child, but they also feel guilty that they actually did take the life of their child. These are women who are seeking not only relief from shame but also forgiveness for their act. It is striking, but not surprising to me, that the published medical literature that describes abortion shame never considers the possibility that women could also be dealing with abortion guilt. For the health care providers who conduct and publish these studies, abortion is a necessary good that should never warrant feelings of guilt. In response, it will be important to initiate empirical studies to investigate the extent of abortion guilt and abortion regret in women who have had abortions to challenge 57 58 59 Kate Cockrill and Adina Nack, “‘I’m Not That Type of Person’: Managing the Stigma of Having an Abortion,” Deviant Behavior 34 (2013): 973–990. Sandhya Somashekhar, “New Spa-Like Abortion Clinic is Part of a Trend to De-Stigmatize the Procedure,” Washington Post, March 30, 2015, http:// www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-fluffy-robe-a-cup-of-tea-and-an-abortion/2015/03/29/0c55f17c-cbe7-11e4-8c54-ffb5ba6f2f69_story.html. For information on Project Rachel, see their website: http://hopeafterabortion. com. Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1201 the medical profession to address this dimension of the post-abortive experience. Second, several of the Project Rachel women have observed that one of the sources of abortion shame and guilt not identified by the published studies is the mothering experience that comes with any “intended” or “wanted” pregnancy that follows the abortion. The authors of the studies described above fault developments in technology for facilitating the attribution of personhood to the fetus. As the Project Rachel women have acknowledged to me, however, the experience of a wanted pregnancy does the same. One woman described it this way: When your husband begins to speak to your fetal child and addresses her by name, and when both of you play Beethoven symphonies to her using pregnancy headphones that can attach to your baby bump, and then conclude that she obviously loved the music because she started to kick, it is natural to attribute personhood to this “other” in utero. But doing so immediately challenges one’s self-imposed belief that one’s previous pregnancy that ended in abortion did not involve a fetal person. This leads to cognitive dissonance that is uncomfortable, distressing, and painful. Abortion shame is triggered by motherhood regardless of whether or not one thinks it is just an idealized social construct. Third, at least one of the published studies that looked at abortion stigma is asking for more comparative work to understand how abortion shame is similar to or different from cancer shame or gay shame.60 As Norris correctly points out, American society has substantially de-stigmatized cancer and homosexuality in recent decades, and they would like to adopt and to apply the best practices that worked with these social movements to the destigmatization of abortion. As several Project Rachel women explained to me, however, abortion is a very different reality from either cancer or homosexuality, because it involves the termination of a human life. Their experience is that for many, if not most, Americans, abortion is understood to be a necessary evil that has to be tolerated in a pluralistic society, especially because of the existence of perceived ambiguous cases like abortion after rape or incest.61 In contrast, the vast majority of supporters of compassionate cancer care and same-sex marriage do 60 61 Norris et al., “Abortion Stigma,” 552. A Pew Research survey has revealed that nearly 50 percent of Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong, while only 15 percent think that it is morally acceptable. See “Abortion Viewed in Moral Terms: Fewer See Stem Cell Research and IVF as Moral Issues,” http://www.pewforum.org/2013/08/15/ abortion-viewed-in-moral-terms. 1202 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. not see their advocacy as promoting tolerance for a necessary evil. In fact, advocates see compassionate cancer care and marriage equality as necessary goods that must be embraced by an authentically liberal society. This distinction will make it much more difficult to de-stigmatize abortion. To accomplish their goal, pro-abortion advocates will have to convince society that abortion is a necessary good that does not involve the killing of a fetal person.62 As I explained above, however, this is a claim that is counter to the lived experience of the women and men who speak to, sing to, and play with their fetal child in utero during a wanted pregnancy that is brought to term. Responding to Abortion Shame: The Pro-Abortion Paradigm As I described in the opening paragraphs of this essay, there is a growing movement in the United States to de-stigmatize abortion.63 In addition to the “1 in 3” campaign, other pro-abortion organizations like Faith Aloud64 and Abortion Care Network65 are working to eliminate abortion stigma and abortion shame. From their websites and the published medical literature, their paradigm includes three elements that are targeted to post-abortive women. First, these organizations are asking women to talk about their abortion experiences. There is empirical data that suggests that private conversations about abortion in a group setting can mitigate abortion stigma.66 These groups also hope that the public telling of abortion stories will address the public misconception that abortion is uncommon.67 Second, these organizations are creating support groups 62 63 64 65 66 67 As a recent example of an argument that proposes that abortion is a necessary good for society because it promotes the welfare of women, see Katha Pollitt, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (New York: Picador, 2014). For a description of the agenda for a program to de-stigmatize abortion, see Leila Hessini, “A Learning Agenda for Abortion Stigma: Recommendations from the Bellagio Expert Group Meeting,” Women & Health 54 (2014): 617–621. Faith Aloud is an organization of people of diverse religious beliefs and from different religious traditions that is trying to eliminate the religious stigma of abortion. For details, see their website: http://www.faithaloud.org. Abortion Care Network is a network of independent abortion providers, allies, and individuals who provide quality care for women. Its activities include “We are Good Women” videos, support for those considering abortion, efforts to de-stigmatize abortion, and ongoing training for quality abortion care. For details, see their website: http://abortioncarenetwork.org. Stephanie Herold, Katrina Kimport, and Kate Cockrill, “Women’s Private Conversations about Abortion: A Qualitative Study,” Women & Health 18 (2015): 1–17. Cornelia Dean, “Telling the Stories Behind the Abortions,” New York Times, November 6, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/health/06abor.html. Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1203 of abortion patients and abortion allies. Pilot studies suggest that these can help women deal with abortion shame.68 Finally, they are providing supportive counseling to women who struggle with abortion stigma. For example, the EXHALE program has a free national talkline that provides emotional support, resources, and information to women who have had abortions.69 EXHALE is committed to creating an environment where “each person’s unique experience with abortion is supported, respected, and free from stigma.”70 To understand the telos of the pro-abortion movement’s program to de-stigmatize abortion, consider one vision of a society without abortion stigma.71 First, it imagines a world where the absence of abortion stigma and shame allows persons to speak freely about their abortion experiences: We can imagine a world in which abortion stigma and shame do not taint the relationships of people with abortion experiences or abortion providers. People might talk regularly about their abortion experiences with co-workers, friends, and family members in the way they share their birth stories, adoption stories, and experiences with infertility and/or pregnancy loss. Abortion providers would freely discuss their work without fear of reproach or discomfort from family, friends, and/or society at large.72 Next, it imagines a world where abortion is visible without negative repercussions: Diverse stories featuring experiences with abortion would appear on regularly scripted and reality television, representing the complexity of abortion in reproduction and family life. . . . Finally, in-person interactions in book clubs, sororities, and religious communities would include conversations about abortion, allowing people without experience in abortion to hear the stories of their friends and neighbors.73 68 69 70 71 72 73 Littman, Zarcadoolas, and Jacobs, “Introducing Abortion Patients.” “After Abortion Talkline,” Exhale, https://exhaleprovoice.org/after-abortion-talkline. “Mission & Culture,” Exhale, https://exhaleprovoice.org/mission-culture. Kate Cockrill, “Commentary: Imagine a World Without Abortion Stigma,” Women & Health 54 (2014): 662–665. Ibid., 663. Ibid. 1204 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. Third, it imagines a society where abortion is integrated into the health care systems as just another normal medical intervention: We will know that abortion is destigmatized when abortion care is fully integrated into the health care systems globally. This integration would include the presence of strong referral networks that enable women to make health decisions, the inclusion of abortion services into broader reproductive health care, and implementation of laws that reduce emotional harm and facilitate positive health outcomes for women. In a world without abortion stigma, the distinction between health care providers and “abortion providers” would have clinical but not social relevance.74 Lastly, it imagines a world where disagreement over abortion is accepted as just part of the human condition: A world without abortion stigma is one in which we neither ignore nor give authority to conflicting beliefs about abortion. Instead, we must build our capacity to accept conflict over abortion as normal and engage in conflict constructively and productively. When we treat our differences—and one another—with a degree of wonder, respect, and humility, we reduce stigma.75 In the end, it is a vision of a culture where abortion is valued, not as a necessary evil, but as a necessary good that is embedded into the fabric of liberal society. Though there is evidence that some of these strategies can mitigate shame among some post-abortive women,76 my experience as a Project Rachel priest suggests that they will not be able to realize the complete vision of the pro-abortion movement summarized above for at least two reasons. First, as I explained earlier, the witness of Project Rachel women reveals that the experience of subsequent motherhood challenges the abortion-is-a-necessary-good narrative because it undermines the post-abortive woman’s conviction that abortion does not involve the taking of the life of at least a “potential” son or daughter. This trigger for cognitive dissonance will always be present regardless of all the pro-abortion messaging that is targeted to a post-abortive woman. 74 75 76 Ibid. Ibid., 664. For example, see Littman et al., “Introducing Abortion Patients,” 426–427. Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1205 Next, any strategy that includes the telling of abortion stories will also promote the rendering of the stories of women with abortion regret. These include the stories of women who were coerced into having their abortions by others, the stories of women who did not give themselves the chance to really think through their choice because they were overwhelmed at the time with the circumstances of their unwanted pregnancy, and the stories of women who have had a conversion of heart regarding what they had done. These are women who are prone to abortion regret, and as such are also most prone to the realization that abortion involves the taking of an innocent human life. The existence and experience of this group of post-abortive women will always be a strong rebuttal to this claim that abortion is good. Their personal narratives will always undermine the work of any social movement that seeks to replace abortion shame with abortion pride rather than with abortion healing. Responding to Abortion Shame: The Pro-Life Paradigm of Evangelium Vitae §99 How, then, should pro-life advocates, especially pro-life advocates of faith, respond to these recent efforts to de-stigmatize abortion like the “1 in 3” campaign? First, given the known negative effects of shame on the health and wellbeing of people described above, I propose that we should acknowledge that it is a great good to help post-abortive women move beyond and through their chronic shame. However, as I have begun to do in this essay, I also think that it is important that we point out the limitations of the strategies put forward by the pro-abortion movement. These approaches will not bring about the profound healing that many post-abortive women are seeking. Instead, we have to advance the paradigm for the merciful approach of reintegrative shaming that can be found in Evangelium Vitae §99, which I consider to be the most important paragraph of Pope St. John Paul II’s great encyclical on the gospel of life, whose twentieth anniversary we are celebrating this year. Recall that disintegrative shaming occurs when the wrongdoer is devalued, criticized, and punished in such a way that she is left feeling stigmatized, rejected, or ostracized from her community.This was the way associated with the Pharisees, who were quick to ostracize the woman caught in adultery (cf. Jn 8:1–11). In contrast, reintegrative shaming involves expressions of community disapproval of the social transgression, accompanied by social indications of forgiveness and reacceptance of the wrongdoer. This is the way of Jesus Christ, who acknowledged the sin that is adultery while reaffirming the dignity of the woman 1206 Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P. herself, whom He would not condemn: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again” (Jn 8:11, RSV). It is the way of the Lord who acknowledged that his persecutors were doing evil things that called out for forgiveness, but who immediately sought to mitigate their culpability: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34). In Evangelium Vitae §99, Pope St. John Paul II concludes this seminal paragraph with “a special word to women who have had an abortion.” 77 First, in this special word, he is clear that abortion remains a grave moral evil. The Pope writes: “Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong.” However, the Holy Father also acknowledges the great struggle and angst that often accompanies this tragic choice: “The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision.” It is acknowledgement that a post-abortive woman’s culpability may have been diminished by the circumstances of her choice. Like the Lord’s persecutors, she may not have known what she was doing! The Pope then reminds post-abortive women of their great dignity by reminding them that they are still loved by a God, who is the Father of Mercies and who invites them to experience the forgiveness that only He can give: “The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. . . . But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.” Finally, John Paul II offers post-abortive women an opportunity to redeem themselves by giving them a specific apostolic task to promote the gospel of life: As a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life. In the end, the approach of appealing to God’s reintegrative mercy to heal abortion shame is superior to the strategies of the “1 in 3” campaign 77 For the official English translation of this great papal encyclical, see the Vatican website: http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/ hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html. Abortion Shame and the Reintegrative Mercy of God 1207 and other pro-abortion movements like it because it acknowledges that abortion shame is linked—not always but often enough in some women—with abortion guilt. Abortion guilt can only be truly healed by forgiveness, while abortion shame can only be redeemed by conversion and mission. Lastly, in a recent letter anticipating the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis acknowledged the tragic burden carried by women who have had abortions.78 Strikingly, the Pope ends his letter with an invitation to priests to welcome post-abortive women during the Jubilee year using the approach of Evangelium Vitae §99: “May priests fulfill this great task by expressing words of genuine welcome combined with a reflection that explains the gravity of the sin committed, besides indicating a path of authentic conversion by which to obtain the true and generous forgiveness of the Father who renews all with his presence.” Conclusion Finally, I close with a word to my brother Catholic priests: Empirical studies have shown that abortion shame and abortion guilt are more common among women who hold religious beliefs than among the general population.79 As such, I strongly recommend that every homily on abortion be always accompanied with an explicit acknowledgment of the dignity that all post-abortive women have because they remain daughters of the Father of Mercies. Every abortion homily should also include an explicit recognition, as Pope St. John Paul II himself included in Evangelium Vitae, that the tragic choice that is an abortion is often made under circumstances that can mitigate culpability. Every abortion homily should always end with a gentle invitation to approach the Sacrament of Mercy. In this way, homilies will be instruments not of disintegrative but of reintegrative shame. Post-abortive women are wounded persons whose shame and guilt are calling out for redemption and healing. They should not be condemned further because they have N&V suffered enough. Pope Francis, “Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis According to which an Indulgence Is Granted to the Faithful on The Occasion of The Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy,” September 1, 2015. Available at http://w2.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en/letters/2015/documents/papa-francesco_20150901_lettera-indulgenza-giubileo-misericordia.html. 79 Kate Cockrill, Ushma D. Upadhyay, Janet Turan, and Diana Greene Foster, “The Stigma of Having an Abortion: Development of a Scale and Characteristics of Women Experiencing Abortion Stigma,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 45 (2013): 79–88. 78 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1209–1228 1209 Evangelium Vitae, the Rhetoric of Freedom, and Roe v. Wade’s Totalitarian Implications David S. Crawford John Paul II Institute Washington, D.C. I. This year marks not only the twentieth anniversary of Evange- lium Vitae,1 but also the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s final session (along with the release of some of its most momentous documents, including Gaudium et Spes2) and the tenth anniversary of Saint John Paul II’s death. The alignment of these important anniversaries suggests placing the encyclical in its larger, historical context. Not only did the Council present the Church with a mandate to engage critically but openly with modernity and modern forms of thought,3 but the implementation of this mandate also constituted the driving center of John Paul’s pontificate.4 Here, of course, I cannot offer such a panoramic view. However, I will address a small but important part of it by putting the encyclical into dialogue with American juridical-political culture, John Paul II, Encyclical Letter on the Gospel of Life Evangelium Vitae (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1995), hereafter cited as EV. 2 Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes (December 7, 1965), in Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents: Constitutions, decrees, declarations, ed. Austin Flannery (Northport, NY: Cotello, 1996), hereafter, GS. 3 See, e.g., John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Convoking the Second Vatican Council Humanae Salutis (December 25, 1961) (Latin text in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 54 [1962]): the Council will “bring the modern world into contact with the vivifying and perennial energies of the Gospel” (§3). 4 Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter on the Redeemer of Man Redemptor Hominis (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1979), §2. 1 1210 David S. Crawford which remains so impervious to the Church’s gestures, particularly with respect to the so-called “life issues.” I will attempt to do so by drawing on another epochal document, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade (1973).5 More specifically, as the title suggests, I would like to explore the sense in which we can say, along with the late Pope, that our political and legal institutions are becoming “tyrannical” (Evangelium Vitae, §70 [hereafter, EV]; cf. §20) and, even more emphatically, that “democracy, contradicting its own principles, [is] effectively mov[ing] towards a form of totalitarianism [substantialis totalitarismi]” (§20). These are strong words, and they seem to clash with our cultural narrative. They may appear to be more polemical and hyperbolic than an accurate view of Western, liberal societies. Indeed, the primary rhetoric of the American political and juridical world seems to be almost entirely about “freedom” (or “choice”). Alasdair MacIntyre famously said that asking someone to die for the modern state absent poetic images would be like asking him to die for the telephone company.6 Perhaps this is why we typically tell ourselves that we deploy troops around the world to defend our “freedom.” We rarely, if ever, speak in this context of fighting for “God and country” or “home” or “wife and children,”7 let alone for “the Fatherland.” The invocation we do make, of course, amounts to a terrible abstraction; yet its grip on the American psyche, both popular and sophisticated, is tight.That we do invoke the idea of freedom in these quasi-religious terms is significant. One question that springs to mind is why we jump so readily to this particular way of expressing our patriotism. Perhaps our readiness to do so confirms the gist of MacIntyre’s witticism. Yet, for freedom to be more than an abstraction, it needs to have a context and an internal order. If it is to be a genuine good, and therefore something worth dying for, it must be a genuinely personal good. This raises the question of how freedom, as we conceive it, relates to actual persons. Whatever our answers to these questions, it will no doubt seem paradoxical that the American self-image expressed by our invocation of “freedom” might harbor a form of “totalitarianism.” II. Like other writings of the late Pope, the 1995 encyclical begins with a lengthy discussion of anthropology and culture. This starting point Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). Alasdair MacIntyre, “Poetry as Political Philosophy: Notes on Burke and Yeats,” in Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays, vol. 2 (New York: Cambridge, 2006), 163. 7 Nor “husband and children” in our “gender-inclusive” military. 5 6 Evangelium Vitae and the Rhetoric of Freedom 1211 would seem to represent the necessary foundation for properly understanding its formal doctrinal statements concerning the deliberate killing of innocents, abortion, and euthanasia, as well as its treatment of capital punishment. Often, it would seem, these anthropological reflections— both in Evangelium Vitae and in John Paul’s other writings—are treated as window dressing. Understandably, discussion tends to track the most obviously controversial elements. Much of the commentary and debate following Evangelium Vitae centered, for example, on its invocation of the “ordinary and universal Magisterium” and Lumen Gentium §25 (EV, 57, 62, 65). Evangelium Vitae’s reformulation of the teaching concerning capital punishment also received considerable attention. There was also significant discussion of the encyclical’s political and juridical passages in which John Paul calls for democratic institutions to be rooted in the truth of the human person. And then, of course, the pair “culture of life” and “culture of death” made their way into the lexicon of American politics. But little of this discussion elaborated John Paul’s anthropological starting point in a truly sustained way. The anthropological and cultural dimensions of the encyclical (and John Paul’s other writings) have, nevertheless, become all the more important as the years and decades have rolled on. Far from fading away, the so-called “life issues” addressed by Evangelium Vitae have only become more complex and pervasive in their implications, as they have become yet more intertwined with other, related cultural developments. For example, the intervening years have brought us “gay marriage.” Certainly, the question of embryonic life—its value, its meaning, its anthropological significance—has been magnified in complexity by this development, which relies on the claim of an essential equivalency between the man-woman couple and gay pairings. Logically and inevitably, the claim for equivalency goes hand in glove with the complete normalization of various types of assisted reproductive techniques, along with their instrumentalist and eugenic implications. By giving prominence to the anthropological context necessary for understanding the life issues, John Paul was indicating that these issues, at their root, are not only moral, ecclesiological, political, or juridical in nature. He was suggesting that treating them as a problem arising only in one of these areas is to truncate the issues at stake, and therefore to miss the challenge they present; indeed, it implies radically underestimating their significance. Here we touch on what is perhaps one of the most characteristic insights of John Paul’s teaching. He understood, as few others have, that the roots of the “hot button” issues of the day are above 1212 David S. Crawford all else anthropological. For this reason, what is at stake in these issues is nothing less than what we understand the human person to be. And because this is so, their resolution for good or for ill will inevitably and willy-nilly shape how we understand not only the person but all things human: especially the nature of the marital, familial, ecclesial, and civil communities, the public order, and, in fact, our relationship to reality as a whole. Pertinently, our answers to these questions will also give shape to what we take law to be, its task in society, its content and limits, and its foundations. The life issues are a perfect example of why this is so. The moral and legal questions of whether it is ever—or under what circumstances it might be—permissible to kill directly an innocent person seem compact and amenable to analytical dissection. But these questions have not been the center of the dispute, at least in the American political and legal scene. Rather, the dispute has been about personal autonomy, rights, self-determination, legitimate forms of public reason—in a word, about “freedom”—as over and against the legal and ontological status of embryos and fetuses. Let’s not forget: Roe v. Wade essentially granted that, if the embryo or fetus is a “person” or perhaps a “human life” in the full legal-ontological senses of these terms, then Texas would have had not only the authority but also the duty to grant it all of the protections of law.8 This is why the Roe court, in part, attempted to sidestep the issue by instead holding that government cannot select one theory of life over others.9 Since Texas had effectively done this, the court suggested, its abortion law depended on a publically and legally arbitrary judgment. III. Evangelium Vitae’s most fundamental anthropological point would seem to be theological. It is that the “Gospel of Life” is not simply a part or additional implication of the whole Gospel message: in a real way it is the Gospel.10 “The Gospel of Life is something concrete and personal,” John Paul tells us, “for it consists in the proclamation of the very person of Jesus” (§29). Jesus is “the ‘Word of life,’” in whom “God’s eternal life is proclaimed and given” (§30). Or, as the Gospel of John puts it, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10, quoted at EV, §1). 8 9 10 Roe, 410 U.S. at 156–167. Ibid. at 162. The encyclical explains that while the phrase “Gospel of Life” is not found in Sacred Scripture,” it nevertheless describes “an essential dimension of the biblical message” (EV, §2, n. 1). Evangelium Vitae and the Rhetoric of Freedom 1213 The key to the encyclical’s argument lies in recognizing how the “Gospel of Life,” now situated at the centermost point of Christian faith, understands life in this world as prior to and transcendent of our own free acts. In a sense, our lives are “bigger” than we are, as they extend in their origins and destiny beyond our grasp. Of its very nature life can only be received and never be fully possessed as one’s own. Just as importantly, our lives are received not, strictly speaking, from our parents, but from a source radically prior to their free acts, albeit in and through those acts, which were themselves always already ordered by human nature as mediated through the sexual dimorphism of man and woman, husband and wife. Human generation is, in fact, a “continuation of Creation” in which God directly intercedes in the creation of a new spiritual soul in his own image (EV, §43).11 We procreate; we never create. Indeed, the child is therefore already implicit, prior to any specific choice to have a child, in what is proper to the parents’ love as husband and wife. Where this understanding holds sway, it profoundly shapes the way we perceive and treat life, as well as the way we understand freedom. Given such a starting point, the maturing child him- or herself, the parents, the larger family, and society as a whole are aware, however implicitly, that the child’s very existence has a source greater and earlier than any human person’s or community’s acts of will. According to the encyclical, only this realization can secure the true dignity and value of personal existence. At the other end of life, no one gives himself his own destiny; we can only achieve it through a personal fiat. If our lives are “bigger” than we are, they are nevertheless nothing other than we are. They are our own beings, and therefore they cannot be separated from us as something other than us.12 Just as the human person, insofar as he has being,13 is simply good, so, too, our lives can only be goods in themselves. Because they are what we are, they are, in one sense, our highest good, rather than a conditional or subordinate good. The human end is to be fully alive, just as a sparrow’s end is to flourish as a sparrow. In this way, we might say, life in its “earthly phase” is both absolutized 11 12 13 See also John Paul II, Apostolic Letter to Families Gratissimam Sane (Washington, D.C. : Office for Pub. and Promotion Services, United States Catholic Conference, 1994), §9; Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Humani Generis (Washington, D.C., National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1950), §36; and Thomas Aquinas, De Pontentia, q. 3, a. 9. Robert Spaemann, “Is Brain Death the Death of a Human Person?,” Communio: International Catholic Review 38 (Summer, 2011): 326–340, 326. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 18, a. 1. 1214 David S. Crawford and relativized (cf. EV, §2). It is absolutized as the seed of eternal life, and is therefore owed absolute respect. It is also absolutized because it is the image of God’s own life, and because it cannot be given by man, but only by God. To disrespect life, or to attempt to take it into our own hands, is to reject God’s fatherhood and creative act. On the other hand, life in its earthly phase is also relativized to its fulfillment or complete realization in eternal life. Earthly life is only the seed and not the fullness. The martyr lays down only his earthly life for the Faith, but in doing so realizes true life. Now following John Paul’s logic, we might also say that contemporary secular culture also tends to “absolutize” and “relativize” life, but does so in an inverse manner. This inversion follows, as he observes, from the fact that many now live “as if God did not exist” (EV, §22), that the cultural and social “eclipse of the sense of God and of man inevitably leads to a practical materialism, which breeds individualism, utilitarianism and hedonism” (§23). For the late Pope, these developments amount to a “structure of sin” (§§12, 24, 59)—that is to say, a cultural or social pattern of sinful acts that tends to perpetuate itself. Because of this pattern of practical atheism, life in this world is absolutized precisely because it is not treated as rooted in a prior givenness or a transcendent order. If it is all that is, then it must be protected at all costs. We see this not only in certain tendencies in medicine and in the biotechnological drive to extend life indefinitely,14 but also in more mundane developments, such as our current public obsession with health and safety. On the other hand, our culture increasingly relativizes our lives to our experiences and ability to “enjoy” our existence. Life seems no longer to be a good in itself, but rather is subordinated and instrumentalized to those enjoyments and experiences.15 In this sense, it seems that life can even be sacrificed when it appears no longer to provide the sorts of experiences we value. These reflections seem crucial for John Paul’s larger argument. He suggests that, where practical memory of the creational framework is 14 15 E.g., Ray Kurzweil, quoted in Amy Willis, “Immortality Only Twenty Years Away, Says Scientist,” The Telegraph, August14, 2012; Caspar Llewellyn Smith, “Aubrey de Grey: We don’t have to get sick as we get older,” The Observer, July 31, 2010. As put by H. Kuhse, “life is not a good in itself, but a means to something else—for example, to reach pleasant states of consciousness” (The Sanctity of Life Doctrine in Medicine: A Critique [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987], 213), quoted in Martin Rhonheimer, “Fundamental Rights, Moral Law, and the Legal Defense of Life in a Constitutional Democracy: A Constitutionalist Approach to the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae,” American Journal of Jurisprudence 43 (1998): 175. Evangelium Vitae and the Rhetoric of Freedom 1215 missing, the child will not be seen as “given,” as originating within an antecedent created and natural order preceding the free acts of the parents, and destined for an existence that transcends this world. Where this antecedent order and destiny are missing, the unborn child is subtly subordinated to the parents’ acts of will, and particularly those of the mother. In effect, the child is treated as a product of the mother’s act of will or choice. The developing child then tends to be treated as property or chattel until it attains a minimal level of “independence,” first signified (at least under Roe) by the concept of “viability,” and then more definitively by birth.16 That prenatal life is treated as property and is manifest in everyday practices ranging from abortion and the cryopreservation of embryos to the exchange of embryonic tissues. That we are later treated as our own property is demonstrated by developments ranging from so-called “gender reassignment surgery” to “physician-assisted suicide.” Even the current tattoo fad, at a deep level, may express this appetite for claiming ownership of oneself by creatively overwriting the merely “given” of the body. IV. Perhaps John Paul’s presentation of his case in terms of a “Gospel of Life” seems odd, given the larger context of engagement with a secular order that has carefully quarantined “religious arguments” or “theological doctrine” from public reason. And yet, the very societies that have done so have also set aside more generally the “given” altogether, whether understood from a specifically religious standpoint or not. These very same societies tend to deny not only the relevance or reality of creation, but also nature itself. In effect, our liberal legal, political, and cultural ethos tends to present the human person as a chooser before he is anything else. Because we increasingly reject any claim that we are something before our acts of choice, the idea that we have a nature preceding and ordering our free acts can be only seen as an assault on liberty and dignity. It is therefore clear, whatever the rhetoric, that the violence of these societies’ opposition to the Church’s proposals is no longer truly aimed at “religious” proposals qua religious. Strictly as religious talk, what Catholics and other Christians might say is relatively “harmless” because it has been, by and large, politically neutered. Rather, the violence is aimed at any hint of a natural order antecedent to and radically shaping human 16 There has also, of course, been pressure to push this subordination well past birth, based on the infant’s relative lack of self-possession and independence, e.g., Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1980), 151–154. 1216 David S. Crawford freedom. That this violence is often nominally aimed at “religion,” especially at the Catholic faith, is simply because only here do we find a philosophical tradition antecedently nourished by the sometimes tacit framework of creation and therefore likely to sustain and nourish a realist account of nature. In framing his argument in terms of a Gospel of Life, then, John Paul clearly believes, as Gaudium et Spes itself had suggested, that openness even to the idea of nature will, practically speaking, depend on a recollection of creatureliness and the Creator.17 As he puts it, “when the sense of God is lost there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity, of his life” (EV, §21).18 In fact, John Paul presupposes that this loss of a sense of God leads simultaneously to a loss of faith in reason itself.19 In our day and age, he implies, perhaps only “Christian philosophy” stands a chance of making “nature” seem to matter or to be believable or at least to not be a subtle form of oppression.20 V. Our cultural, juridical and political rejection of nature is supposed to leave us free to make our own determinations concerning human good and happiness. Nature, it would seem, is another word for tyranny (cf. EV, §70). And yet, some sort of framework must be given for individual acts of will. If law cannot draw on a pre-legal natural order, then all that is left is a positivistically grounded social order provided by law itself. Hence the correlate of the individual “sovereign” will is legal positivism. In fact, as we shall see, the result over time of our will-based anthropology is not the proliferation of unfettered individual will acts, but rather more law. This brings us back to Roe. The court’s holding that the state could Cf. Benedict XVI, On Conscience (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 37. This is a paraphrase of GS, which he then goes on to quote: “Without the Creator the creature would disappear. . . . But when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible” (GS, §36, quoted in EV, §22). 19 See John Paul II, Encyclical Letter on the Relationship of Faith and Reason Fides et Ratio (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998), §§17, 45, and 56 (hereafter, FR). 20 John Paul explains Christian philosophy thus: “Revelation clearly proposes certain truths which might never have been discovered by reason unaided, although they are not of themselves inaccessible to reason. Among these truths is the notion of a free and personal God who is the Creator of the world, a truth which has been so crucial for the development of philosophical thinking, especially the philosophy of being. . . . In speculating on these questions, philosophers have not become theologians, since they have not sought to understand and expound the truths of faith on the basis of Revelation” (FR, §76). 17 18 Evangelium Vitae and the Rhetoric of Freedom 1217 not impose one theory of life over others is supposed to reserve such a decision to the mother, maximizing her freedom for autonomous self-determination. It is deeply ironic, then, that the court adopted just such a particular theory. It held as a matter of constitutional law that personal life begins only at the moment of birth. Setting aside for present purposes the question of justice to the unborn, imposing this theory of the beginning of life over that of Texas does not actually create more liberty. Rather, it imposes a theory of embryonic and fetal life, hence also of human life as whole, since, as we saw, our conception of life and its meaning is dependent radically on the question of whether it is a product of an act of will—or a “choice,” as we like to put it—or is already implicit within an antecedently given order. To see how this point plays out, it should be remembered that Texas offered two arguments in defense of its abortion regulation. First, it argued that prenatal lives must be protected as “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court dismissed this argument as lacking a basis in the language and history of interpretation of the amendment, wherein “person” had always seemed to imply postnatal individuals (congressmen and other officials, for example).21 This response, of course, relies on an entirely positivistic—and, we might say, “originalist”—reading of the amendment.22 However, the second argument was that, regardless of whether prenatal lives are “persons” under the amendment (i.e., “legal” or “constitutional persons”), Texas still had the authority to protect them. After all, the states actively legislated to protect “human life,” for example, in outlawing murder, long before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. It is important to consider carefully the burden of this second argument. When Texas speaks of human life here, it clearly does not simply mean life in its “biological” or empirical sense. In other words, Texas is not referring to the facts that, say, the embryo or fetus is “biologically” an individual member of the human species, or that a geneticist could distinguish a human embryo from a rat or chimpanzee embryo, or even that a biologist could determine that a particular embryo or fetus is undergoing normal or relatively normal cell division or metabolic processes and is therefore “alive.”23 These empirically based 21 22 23 Roe, 410 U.S. at 156–157. Rhonheimer, “Fundamental Rights,” 162. The question of “personhood” is not answerable on empirical grounds. The category’s source is in the theological, metaphysical, and legal domains (see, e.g., Joseph Ratzinger, “Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology,” Communio: International Catholic Review 17.3 [Fall, 1990]: 439–454). Something similar can 1218 David S. Crawford truths about prenatal life are not in dispute, and so would simply beg the question. Hence, the court takes for granted that Texas essentially means by “human life” a “person” in a natural or metaphysical sense. In other words, Texas is claiming that its authority to protect “natural persons,” and not merely “constitutional” or “legal” persons, precedes the Fourteenth Amendment and, by implication, any other specific provision of the Constitution, since the states’ traditional protection of life predates the Constitution altogether. Indeed, a basic function of any political regime is the protection of life. Importantly, in making this very fundamental appeal, Texas is also claiming that it can look beyond merely legal definitions to nature in deciding what constitutes a legal person. It is this final point that the court specifically rejects. The distinction between Texas’ two arguments is therefore highly significant: in rejecting the second argument, the court effectively eliminates the possibility of appeal to nature for understanding what an embryo or fetus is, metaphysically speaking. In effect, it has eliminated the possibility of appealing to a realist philosophical account. It redirects such considerations to the first argument, which is based solely on a positivistic reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. In effect, then, it implies that “person” is a purely legal category, without roots in nature, or at least without roots that could have legal bearing.24 Nevertheless, there is a largely implicit metaphysical judgment in the court’s reasoning. In replacing Texas’ theory of life with its own positivistic one, the court strongly suggests that personal existence rests on a certain degree of autonomy and independence inconsistent with the dependency of prenatal life on the mother. A person in the fullest sense— that is to say, the sense encompassed by the Fourteenth Amendment—is 24 be said of “human life.” While the empirical sciences can point to signs of life, such as respiration or metabolic processes, life itself is unavoidably a metaphysical question (cf. Spaemann, “Is Brain Death the Death of a Human Person?,” 326–327: “Death and life are not primarily objects of science. . . . Life is the being of the living. Vivere viventibus est ens, says Aristotle. . . . Being, however, is never an object of natural science”; as wells as Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology [Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001]). It is important to recall that the Roe court felt it could simply wave off the arguments of Texas rehearsing “at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development” (Roe, 410 U.S.). As the New York Court of Appeals put it shortly before Roe was decided, “The point is that it is a policy determination whether legal personality should attach and not a question of biological or ‘natural’ correspondence.” (Byrn v. New York City Health & Hospital Corp., 286 N.E.2d 887 [1972], at 889). Evangelium Vitae and the Rhetoric of Freedom 1219 one who has the “independence” that birth initiates and toward which the threshold of “viability” suggests an intermediate stage during which further regulation might be warranted (although not constitutionally demanded). Or, as Justice Stevens suggests, human life gains value and interest for the state as it increasingly possesses at least some minimal level of consciousness or sentience,25 that is to say, as it grows toward the sort of self-awareness and autonomous self-direction that correlates with bearers of rights and interests.26 In other words, the moment of personhood or of the fullness of legally significant “life” coincides with the moment at which the child gains a minimal level of independence from his or her mother, foreshadowing future independent acts of will. Yet, these judgments concerning the minimal conditions for personhood or “life” are metaphysical through and through. We have therefore stumbled upon a paradox here. The essentially procedural and positivistic language of the court is more metaphysically robust than it lets on. The court implies that the one irreducible good is independent self-possession in acts of will. From here it sets a standard by which governmental action can be gauged and limited. Insofar as this is the basic assumption ingredient in our cultural narrative, embryos, fetuses, the severely handicapped or ill, and often the elderly, simply cannot be persons in the full sense. This is also the implication of Locke’s understanding of the person,27 which has been so influential in these debates.28 What is so fascinating here is that Roe’s strict legal positivism results— indeed, necessarily results—in a tacit metaphysical judgment about the “nature” or constitution of the person. It is also interesting to note, there25 26 27 28 Justice John Paul Stevens, concurring in part and dissenting in part. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490, 569 (1989). Ronald Dworkin, Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom (New York: Vintage, 1994), 16: “It makes no sense to suppose that something has interests of its own . . . unless it has, or has had, some form of consciousness: some mental as well as physical life.” In the end, this leads to a tautology: “What is a legal person is for the law, including, of course, the Constitution, to say, which simply means that upon according legal personality to a thing the law affords it the rights and privileges of a legal person. The process is, indeed, circular, because it is definitional” (Byrn, at 889, citations omitted). For a discussion of legal personality as founded on legal rights and duties, see, e.g., Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1949), 93ff; Bryant Smith, “Legal Personality,” Yale Law Journal 37, no. 3 (January, 1928): 283–299. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. 2, ch. 27, sec. 9. E.g., Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Singer, Practical Ethics; Justice John Paul Stevens’ opinion in Webster, sup. 1220 David S. Crawford fore, that while Roe seeks to set aside nature, with its defining capacity and its implicit shaping of freedom, the court’s opinion essentially defines persons, and in so doing, as we shall see, shapes and, indeed, channels freedom. In effect, law replaces nature by first presupposing, so to speak, a metaphysical judgment in favor of a non-natural, will-based “nature” or anthropology. To put the point yet another way, if the correlate to a willbased anthropology is legal positivism, the correlate of legal positivism is likewise a will-based anthropology. The inability to see pre-legal realities other than acts of will is not confined to the “liberal” wing of the court. We can see this also in the responses of the conservative justices, who treat abortion as though the issue could be decided not on the basis of what is substantially at stake, but according to democratic or federalist principles. Hence, the response of a Justice Scalia or Thomas to the overreach of a Justice Blackmun or Kennedy is to declare that the latter have effectively deprived democratic majorities of their freedom of self-governance.29 According to this logic, the Constitution’s lack of a position on abortion—and therefore on the status of prenatal life—implies a permissive stance concerning legislation. In other words, the conservative justices, like their liberal colleagues, have settled on the liberal wing’s “originalist” reading of the Fourteenth Amendment’s use of the term “person.” The difference from their colleagues, then, is in their belief that states have authority to legislate according to principles such as those expressed under the second prong of Texas’ argument. Yet an ambiguity remains. The conservative justices would argue that, in addition to being the correct interpretation of the Constitution, their jurisprudence would at least allow society to express an opinion concerning the nature of prenatal life via the democratic process. Indeed, democratic majorities and their representatives could adopt regulations intended to protect life in all of its phases, motivated, for example, by natural law principles. It therefore should fall to those who believe in such things to garner at least 51 percent of the vote. 29 Needless to say, my purpose here is not to wade into the debate over judicial review or its meaning and limits under our Constitution. Like many others, I believe that the work of Justice Kennedy in Obergefell, Windsor, or Casey, and the work of Blackmun in Roe (as well as the work of a great many other justices and judges in a large number of cases) is an astonishing and promiscuously irresponsible and dangerous use of “raw judicial power” (Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 [1973], at 222 [Justice White, dissenting]). However, my present point attempts to “get behind” this issue, which remains limited to the question of the correct interpretation of the positive law that is our Constitution. Evangelium Vitae and the Rhetoric of Freedom 1221 It is important to recognize that, in effect, both sets of justices (in their capacity as judges) are “pro-choice”; it is just that they differ on who should make that choice. If we follow the logic of both sides, it would seem that the current range of Constitutional interpretations offers only variations on “pro-choice.” Like the liberal wing, in accepting that the status of embryos or fetuses—unlike, for example, healthy five-year-olds—places them outside the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment on positivistic/originalist grounds, the conservatives also imply a will-based anthropology. They have already decided that there are no pre-legal realities that would dictate what the Constitution must mean or what interpretation must be the correct one or, finally, whether a given “law” is legitimate or a perversion of law (EV, §72).30 Indeed, the conservative position is only the flipside of the liberal one. One position seeks to protect self-rule over and against a majority of self-rulers, while the other seeks to protect that same majority’s democratic self-rule. In either case, we have a basic displacement of nature with the sort of abstract notion of freedom criticized by Evangelium Vitae. It is notable in this regard that between these two iconic positions in American jurisprudence, neither is able to make, as a matter of Constitutional interpretation, a reference to what is, in this case to what an embryo or fetus is. Rather, they both respond only to differing sides of the clamor of wills, individual on the one side and collectively expressed in the democratic process on the other. Our sense of law is such that we simply cannot conceive of its being truly rooted in what is, which of course would first require the ability to say what is, which in its turn would require a realist philosophical outlook.31 At this point we should recall that Evangelium Vitae’s primary political-legal argument is explicitly aimed at democracies that have not guaranteed the protection of life at all stages in their basic law (EV, §68ff). Essentially, John Paul criticizes positivistic forms of democracy, that is to say, democracy that is not juridically guided by antecedent, pre-legal truths concerning the nature of the person, life, and communities such 30 31 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 95, a. 2. Leo Strauss, for example, has highlighted modernity’s basic rejection of the intelligibility of things in themselves, as seen in the classical liberalism of Hobbes and Locke (Natural Right and History [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950], 174–775). Henry B.Veatch has made a similar claim concerning analytical philosophy (Two Logics: The Conflict Between Classical and Neo-Analytic Philosophy [Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969]). 1222 David S. Crawford as marriage, family, and the Church, but is rather guided by a non-natural, will-based anthropology, such as that implied by Roe. To follow John Paul’s logic a step further, it would seem that even if the “right” legal result were produced from a merely positivistic form of democracy as just defined, we would still be faced with a problematic basis for law and an inadequate understanding of the person, even if we might rejoice for a time in the particular result. Indeed, the late Pope speaks of the inadequacy of entrusting underlying human and moral truths to “provisional and changeable ‘majority’ opinions” (§70). He argues that “no individual, no majority, and no state can ever create, modify or destroy, but must acknowledge, respect and promote” these human truths (§71). And he laments the idea of democracy as “a mere mechanism for regulating different and opposing interests on a purely empirical basis” (§70). We would rejoice over such a result, then, in a way analogous to the way we would rejoice if, under the current legal regime, a woman we know were to “choose” not to have an abortion—or even if all women universally were to “choose” not to have abortions. We would be left with concerns about the implications of framing the “choice” as the exercise of a “right.” We would be left with concerns, as well, about the implications of the ostensible “right” for how we legally, and therefore socio-culturally, understand the natures of motherhood, childhood, the family community, and so forth, even if each woman as an individual happened to have a perfectly wholesome view of these. The political and legal framework given to the choice would, in itself, express an unwholesome view. Analogously, we should be concerned regarding the merely correct democratic outcome, because it would effectively treat the question of abortion as one of policy rather than principle, of a majority’s “right” of self-governance rather than of truth and nature. Of course, John Paul does not mean to imply that society and culture cannot make up for, and even suppress or hide for a time, the many potential ills implied by positivistic democracy. It is one thing to live under such a system when a cultural consensus exists concerning basic human realities, and it is quite another to live under such a system when that consensus has been eroded. The question, however, would be whether, over time, democracy so conceived is not itself an agent of that erosion. Insofar as the state and law conceive democracy positivistically, will this view not also be communicated and eventually enforced, as we are seeing with increasing regularity today? A deeper question is whether liberal political and legal thought, even in their most benign forms, rooted perhaps in a Lockean conception of rights (as opposed to Evangelium Vitae and the Rhetoric of Freedom 1223 Thomistic natural law, which is itself rooted in a robust anthropology of inclination toward perfection32), will not possess an inner dynamic toward the sort of positivistic approach we have been discussing. This result is suggested insofar as even the most benign forms of liberalism claim not to address the deepest, most metaphysically saturated human realities, owing to their inherent goal of prescinding from the good. It is precisely this positivistic foundation that would be communicated, then, by a conservative victory on the bench, and subsequent state legislation would take its form from within it. And, while legislative determinations might represent important cultural beliefs, elevating the question of unborn life to a higher level than questions of tax policy or public works, such determinations would, nevertheless, be rooted in the prior determination that embryos and fetuses lack the constitutional and, indeed, ontological standing of healthy five-year-olds. Hence, the Constitutional posture of the issue would still suggest the will-based anthropology implicit in the actual outcome of Roe. Legislation would therefore begin from the supposition that prenatal life lacks the sort of legal-metaphysical weight that might place it beyond the quotidian policy determinations of democratic rule. In short, the conservative position essentially leaves us in much the same anthropological position as the liberal one had. Each of these legal positions tacitly makes some assumptions about what a person is, and these assumptions begin with the central concepts of independence and will. VI. Claims that law is capable of only maximizing freedom, without expressing a position concerning what is, disregard ancient wisdom. This is the knowledge that law is inherently and inescapably pedagogical.33 This pedagogy occurs not only in the sense that legislation concerning abortion will teach us that abortion is good or bad, but also at the deeper level of legal structures. Everyone knows this implicitly. That is why the battles over the life issues so often turn on the cultural and symbolic value of legal measures. That the Constitution requires legislation for the protection of fiveyear-olds, but that the same Constitution is permissive (either with regard to the individual woman or to state legislatures) with respect to killing 32 33 Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 94, a. 2. E.g. Socrates’ characterization of law as “wishing” to be “the discovery of what is,” in Minos; or On Law, trans. Thomas Pangle, in The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 36 (315a). 1224 David S. Crawford fetuses and embryos, tacitly presupposes and teaches, as we have seen, a truth-claim about what a human being really is. If law presupposes anthropology, however tacitly, that anthropology is effectively codified. As such, it is also broadly mediated to society in innumerable ways. Without our normally even being fully aware of it, law radically informs our sense of what is true about human reality, even when it claims to do no such thing.34 Of course, it goes both ways. Law expresses cultural movement, but it also makes what was previously inchoate socially real. What, more specifically, can we then learn from Roe’s theory of life? First, despite the purpose and seeming ability of the sort of liberalism represented in Roe to maximize such “values” as freedom, choice, independence, and self-definition, in fact, by failing to root personal being in nature, it exposes persons to manipulation and control. Roe implies that the only foundation for human life is the dialectic of individual wills and law’s mediation, itself understood as an expression of will(s). This, in turn, implies a multiplication of “rights,” which are increasingly specified and particularized to treat in ever-greater detail the infinite number of ways in which interests and goals can come into conflict. But this multiplication of rights in the interests of freedom and equality requires, in direct proportion, ever-increasing legal definition and mediation. In other words, it implies not the limitation of law, but the multiplication of laws. Hence, if Roe and its “progeny” seem, with one hand, to give the mother absolute power over the life of her unborn child, this is only because prenatal life is treated as not yet capable of bearing rights and interests. But this very same logic, with the other hand, invites a multiplication of regulations of the mother’s relationship with her child once it is born. Indeed, without a pre-legal foundation, the mother-child relationship can only be seen as rooted primitively in law, as essentially a legal relationship. In fact, a reading of the case law reveals that the mother-child relationship, like all familial relationships, is increasingly treated as a combination of legal, “biological,” and affective relations. But these 34 This is rather paradoxically confirmed in Casey, when on the one hand the joint opinion tells us that “[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” and that these “attributes of personhood” must not be “defined” or “formed under compulsion of the State” (Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 851 [1992]), while explaining elsewhere that Roe could not be overturned because an entire generation had “ordered their thinking and living around that case” and had “organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion” (ibid, at 856). Evangelium Vitae and the Rhetoric of Freedom 1225 latter two can only become rational and socially real through the work of the first. Indeed, “biological” and affective relations are but the most enfeebled remainder of “nature,” once a positivistic outlook has taken hold.35 Hence biological, affective and legal relations or communities, whether considered separately or together, can never constitute a natural relationship or community.36 That only the legal relationship counts is demonstrated by the heedless abandon with which the courts have given their imprimatur to the implication of “gay marriage’s” so-called “equivalency” (viz. that the “biological” relationships of fatherhood and motherhood can be severed without the slightest anxiety in such practices as sperm donation or surrogacy contracts).37 As to affective relationships, they are susceptible to all the vagaries of the human heart, until they are given rational order by law, for example, in the Courts’ blessing of the emerging “gender/sex-neutral” conception of “marriage.” Yet, if the family is not prior to civil law, then it can only be its creature and extension, as though parents on good behavior are the state’s deputies.38 At this point we are ready to recall our starting point: the question of totalitarianism. In itself, law’s displacement of natural relationships and communities implies a nearly invisible form of totalitarianism. It places in law a natureless defining and regulating power over human life and community, treating these as creatures of positive law and as extensions of the state. Even if we are treated as belonging to ourselves, as our own 35 36 37 38 See n. 21, sup. For a discussion of natural communities, see my “Gay Marriage, Public Reason, and the Common Good,” Communio: International Catholic Review 41, no. 2 (Summer, 2014): 380–437. See, for example, The Adoption of Tammy, 416 Mass. 205 (1993). The tendency to reduce natural relationships to law is nothing new for American Constitutional interpretation. For example, such a reduction is suggested by Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190 (1888), which holds that civil marriage is a legal “status,” and therefore entirely subject to legislative control. The Maynard court also suggests by analogy that the parent-child relationship might be viewed similarly. Of course, there would seem to be counter-examples, most famously Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), which in dicta said that the Fourteenth Amendment ensures the “right of the individual . . . to marry, establish a home and bring up children” (at 399), and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), which stated that “the child is not the mere creature of the State” and that “those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him” for life in society (at 535). For these two latter, the “pre-legal” status of family relations is put in terms of liberal rights as over and against the state, rather than as a pre-legal natural order. Hence, these cases only represent the counterpoint to Maynard within the larger clash of self-determining wills as we have described it. 1226 David S. Crawford “property,” our being so treated is underwritten, not by anything prior to the state, but by the laws of the state. In this case, while we may not see any obvious way in which the state is controlling our actions or determining our freedom, we are, nevertheless, living under a subtle form of totalitarianism, however invisible this fact may be to us. In making its determination concerning “life,” the court cannot but help also effectively to decide or give a certain unarticulated form to a host of other weighty human questions, such as: What is the meaning of motherhood? What is the meaning of childhood? What is the place or role of woman in society? What sort of relationship between the sexes is proper? What is the meaning and foundation of the familial and marital communities? For example, Roe suggests that dependency and vulnerability—as opposed to self-possession, force of will, and self-determination—imply a lack of personal integrity, indeed a lack of personal being or existence. It therefore also teaches that, insofar as pregnancy and motherhood themselves imply dependency and vulnerability, they too present at least a threat to personal integrity. This correlates with and reinforces the wider tendency toward a certain lack of respect for motherhood, as though what really counts in a woman’s life is her professional accomplishment, whereas a life given to mothering seems less than fully worthy or realized (see EV, §86).39 Hence, Roe does not provide for a woman’s freedom and self-definition in relation to motherhood, but defines motherhood for her and, in doing so, subtly negates its nobility and erodes the value of its free realization altogether (cf. EV, §59). Then again, with respect to the child and other familial relations, insofar as Roe implies viewing natural communities as radically based on acts of will, it invites viewing procreation as a form of production. This is the result Donum Vitae deplores, the implication in certain assisted reproductive techniques that the child is a product of technical activity. As John Paul puts it, “[n]ature itself, from being ‘mater’ (mother), is now reduced to being ‘matter,’ and is subjected to every kind of manipulation. This is the direction in which a certain technical and scientific way of thinking, prevalent in present-day culture, appears to be leading, when it rejects the very idea that there is a truth of creation which must be respected” (EV, §22). It would be naïve to deny the deep logical nexus between Roe and the growing legal and social acceptance of such practices as surrogacy 39 See also, John Paul II, “Welcome to Gertrude Mongella, Secretary General of the Fourth World Conference on Women” (May 26, 1995), in Pope John Paul II on The Genius of Women (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997), 39. Evangelium Vitae and the Rhetoric of Freedom 1227 contracts, both homologous and heterologous artificial insemination and IVF, and eugenic practices for children in utero. Perhaps the treatment of the person as a product is the most insidious and yet thoroughgoing denial of life’s antecedent origins and transcendent destiny. It is therefore the most thoroughgoing subordination of the person to another’s will and, hence, ultimately to law. One is ostensibly free, of course, to hold privately that the mother-child, the familial, and (pertinently) the marital communities are inalienably prior to will-acts, technological production, the state, and positive law. But the state’s mediating organs, its bureaucracies, its educational system, and its laws seem continually to provide an ever-shrinking space for such conceptualizations. Whispers of the thought may linger, but public realization in community and outward action will have narrowed to the slightest point on a plane with no dimensions. We see this development in professional, ethical, educational, and legal standards for psychologists, doctors, teachers, lawyers, and now even florists and bakers. These sorts of examples of Roe’s “teaching” could be expanded and multiplied endlessly.What all this suggests is that such apocalyptic-sounding phrases as Evangelium Vitae’s “a form of totalitarianism” and the “tyrant state” (§20, cf. §70), as well as Joseph Ratzinger’s “dictatorship of relativism,”40 are far from hyperbole. As John Paul saw, the non-natural, will-based anthropology implicit in decisions such as Roe claims relations and even the “person” as the state’s own creature, and in so doing it deeply determines people as it invisibly totalizes. To do so, it and similar public acts and works must generate an abstract notion of “freedom,” with an almost mystical and religious aura. In this way, they blaspheme freedom, which is an attribute of God, a sacred order of God’s creation, and, only on that basis, a human and personal good. **** Our example has been Roe, yet the flood of “life” issues has hardly begun. In fact, resistance to abortion is far easier to articulate within a liberal framework than the resistance to a host of developments that are beginning to emerge. In abortion, if we understand unborn life as having a personal existence, we can see a clear victim, a “someone” whose “rights” have been violated. But it is much more difficult to see whose rights are being violated by, for example, “gay marriage” on similar liberal grounds. Hence, it seems far-fetched to imagine that in forty-plus 40 Joseph Ratzinger, “Homily at the Mass for the Election of the Supreme Pontiff ” (St. Peter’s Basilica, April 18, 2005). 1228 David S. Crawford years there will be marches on the Supreme Court on the anniversary of Obergefell. And yet, just as much is at stake anthropologically in that august body’s latest travesty. It seems that the Catholic Church and other Christian groups are the last bulwark against this flood, because it is only here that a philosophical and theological tradition remains that is rich enough in intellectual resources to make genuine engagement with the larger culture possible. Yet even these seem sadly ill-prepared for what is to come. The most cynical and pervasive form of tyranny and totalitarianism is the one that continually presents itself as freedom. Evangelium Vitae recognizes that at the root of this act of violence there is a deep-seated pessimism and self-loathing. Hence, Western culture today, perhaps more than any culture in history, needs the good news of the Gospel. Herein N&V lies hope. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1229–1244 1229 Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist?: An Indication from Evangelium Vitae Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. University of Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland One observes a gap opening in the writing of Karol Wojtyła’s intellectual biography. While recent scholarship has duly illustrated Thomism’s impact on the late Pope’s philosophy, it leaves the question of other influences underexamined.1 Take French personalism, 1 For studies that examine the Thomistic character of Wojtyła’s personalism, see: Kenneth L. Schmitz, At the Center of the Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyła/Pope John Paul II (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1993); Jarosław Kupczak, O.P., Destined for Liberty: The Human Person in the Philosophy of Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2000); Thomas D. Williams, L.C., “What is Thomist Personalism?,” Alpha Omega 7, no. 2 (2004): 163–197; Michael S. Sherwin, O.P., “John Paul’s Theology of Freedom and Truth: A Dissident Phenomenology in a Thomistic Anthropology,” Nova et Vetera (English) 3, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 543–568; George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005); Pierre de Cointet, “À la racine du personnalisme de Karol Wojtyła,” Recherches philosophiques 5 (2009): 5–20; Jove Jim S. Aguas, “The Notions of the Human Person and Human Dignity in Aquinas and Wojtyła,” Kritike 3, no. 1 (June 2009): 40–60; Aude Suramy, La voie de l’amour. Une interprétation de Personne et Acte de Karol Wojtyła, lecteur de Thomas d’Aquin, Sentieri della Verità 10 (Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto Giovanni Paolo II per Studi su Matrimonio e Famiglia; Sienna: Edizioni Cantagalli, 2014); Michele M. Schumacher, “A Plea for the traditional family: Situating marriage within John Paul II’s realist, or personalist, perspective of human freedom,” The Linacre Quarterly 81, no. 4 (November 2014): 314–342; and Thomas Petri, O.P., Aquinas and the Theology of the Body: The Thomistic Foundations of John Paul II’s Anthropology (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, forthcoming). 1230 Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. for example. What influence did it have on Wojtyła, the student and the professor? Given his self-identification as a personalist, as well as the sway French personalist writers like Emmanuel Mounier and Jacques Maritain held in mid-century Catholic Europe, it seems important to ask whether Wojtyła turned to them or their collaborators for instruction. Current literature, however, reports little as to whether Wojtyła developed his “adequate anthropology” in league with, in reaction to, or in ignorance of French personalist doctrines.2 As Wojtyła’s intellectual history continues to be written, this gap in the narrative should be closed. The full telling of Wojtyła’s history requires some account of whether the Polish Pope cast his philosophy in the mold of the French personalists, or whether he sketched a theoretical picture of the human subject distinct from theirs. In what follows, we offer only a cursory glance at the question. I. To one historian writing in the early 1980s, Wojtyła’s personalism—in which so much of his own public persona was rooted—appeared in essence to be that of Mounier. In Emmanuel Mounier and the New Catholic Left, a monograph published shortly after Wojtyła’s election as Pope, John Hellman depicted the new pontiff as having adopted early in life Mounier’s unique ensemble of moral and intellectual qualities.3 According to Hellman’s telling, the young Wojtyła breathed the spirit of Mounier as it was swirling in post-war Poland and, like the French philosopher before him,4 became a reform-minded contemplative who was philosophically committed to personalism, pastorally engaged with youth, spiritually attracted to the Carmelite mystics, and politically skeptical of Anglo-American liberalism. The new Pope’s appropriation of Mounier’s disposition appeared so thorough to Hellman that he deemed Wojtyła’s election a global coup for Mounier’s personalist philosophy: “The election of Pope John Paul II, an intellectual who was an essayist and a poet in a milieu in Poland strongly influenced by Mounier, was an event that 2 3 4 For Wojtyła’s explanation of the term “adequate anthropology,” see the General Audience address he delivered on January 2, 1980 (“Creation as a Fundamental and Original Gift,” in John Paul II, The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan [Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1997], 57–60). John Hellman, Emmanuel Mounier and the New Catholic Left 1930–1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1981), 247. Mounier and Wojtyła were not quite contemporaries. Mounier, the bulk of whose personalist writings date from the 1930s, died in 1950 at the age of fortyfive, just when the thirty-year-old Wojtyła was beginning his academic career in Cracow. Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist? 1231 went beyond Mounier’s most grandiose hopes for the influence of his ideas in the Church.”5 Though brief, Hellman’s comment is suggestive. He expected Wojtyła, as Pope, to enshrine a personalism equivalent to Mounier’s in the public thinking of the Church, such that future generations looking back upon Wojtyła’s pontificate would naturally find an interpretive lens for his magisterium in Mounier’s writings. Hellman’s description of Wojtyła’s youth and as his predictions for Wojtyła’s pontificate await the assessment of his fellow historians. There is one thing he appears to have correctly foreseen, however. For nearly thirty years reigning as John Paul II, Wojtyła did place a discernable personalist stamp on his papal teaching. But is it Mounier’s personalism one finds impressed there? If it is as Hellman expected it would be, then, were the personalisms of the two men identical, both the praise and the criticism Mounier’s thought has received through the years would fall uniformly on Wojtyła’s. But do they? Case in point: Does Yves Simon’s identification of Mounier’s personalism with Enlightenment individualism perforce identify Wojtyła’s personalism as individualistic? The question—which centers on whether Wojtyła shared Mounier’s utilitarian notion of the common good—proves a useful test of Hellman’s thesis. It tests also one’s knowledge of Wojtyła’s philosophy generally. Ten years after Mounier’s untimely death, Simon alleged that the late philosopher’s brand of personalism, despite its promotion of man’s sociability, perpetuates the individualism of Enlightenment philosophies: The fortune of “personalism” in the ideologies of our time is clearly traceable to the promises held by the notion of person, as distinct from that of individual, in the working out of difficulties which, though of all times, have assumed extraordinary significance in the last generation. Indeed, the word personalism often stood for doctrines and attitudes that “individualism” would designate with equal or greater accuracy. . . . Many, who would have been satisfied with the language of individualism half a century ago, were necessitated by the spirit of the age to speak a personalistic language.6 According to Simon, personalism’s distinction between man as a spiritual person and man as a material individual renders the doctrine nothing more than individualism cloaked in a rhetoric of the generous 5 6 Hellman, Emmanuel Mounier, 247. Yves Simon, “Common Good and Common Action,” The Review of Politics 22, no. 2 (April 1960): 202–244, at 235. 1232 Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. person.7 This is because the distinction, by identifying the common good as a good of man’s material individuality,8 instrumentalizes the common good to the flourishing of man’s spiritual personality.9 Thus, rendering the common good of the individual useful to the particular good of the person, personalism reveals its tendency to individualism, which appears for Simon in its regard for man’s autonomy qua person as more dignifying of the individual than the common goods—that is, the family, the city, etc.—he qua individual helps to constitute.10 In this text Simon recapitulated, whether consciously or not, an argu7 8 9 10 For the personalist distinction between the spiritual person and the material individual, see Emmanuel Mounier’s A Personalist Manifesto, trans. the Monks of St. John’s Abbey (London: Longman, Green & Co., 1938), 70–73, at 71: “[T]he two marks of individuality are dispersion and avarice.The person on the contrary is characterized by self-possession and self-determination, by generosity. In their inner orientation the individual and the person are therefore opposite poles.” When describing personalism’s linking of social relations to man’s material individuality, Simon writes: “[W]hen the being which is an individual and a person is considered as member of a set . . . the concept of person restricts the character of part whereas the concept of individual expresses no such restriction. As a member of a set the individual is purely and simply a part. But because personality, in every possible connection, expresses a universe of reason and freedom, emphasis on the person implies emphasis on the privileges of this universe” (“Common Good,” 238). Simon (“Common Good,” 235–236) underscores what, for him, is the illogic of the personalists’ maintaining a utilitarian notion of the common good: “To treat the common good as a thing merely useful becomes the critical periods, but as soon as the possibility of a new organic period is strongly felt, to represent the common good as sheer utility without any dignity of its own is unbearably paradoxical. Only the pressures and appeals of a critical period can make men blind to the character of the common good as autonomous good, bonum honestum, and to the primacy that it enjoys as long as the common and the particular are contained within the same order. When such pressures and appeals have become things of the past, the sense for the eternal worth of the human individual is not necessarily weakened, but why should we keep the language and the ways of a philosophy committed to treating the common good as a thing with no excellence of its own?” Simon acknowledges that the critical-organic distinction he employs is Henri Saint-Simon’s. Simon, “Common Good,” 238–239: “[W]hen the individual man is precisely considered as a being possessed of integrity and rationality, when he is considered as an agent in control of his destiny, when he is considered as an agent which contains its own law not merely by way of natural constitution, but also and principally by way of understanding, voluntariness and freedom, the aspect brought forth is that of personality. On the level of individual existence, autonomy belongs to the person more properly than to the individual. Such greater propriety makes much difference both in terms of explanation and in terms of appeal.” Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist? 1233 ment that Charles De Koninck had made twenty years earlier. In his work The Primacy of the Common Good against the Personalists, De Koninck first drew the link Simon later identified between the personalists’ utilitarian notion of the common good and the individualism inherent to their notion of human dignity: By their false notion of the common good, the personalists are, at bottom, in agreement with those whose errors they pretend to combat. To individualism, they oppose and recommend the generosity of the person and fraternity outside any common good, as if the common good had its principle in the generosity of persons, as if it were not above all that for the sake of which persons ought to act.11 Since the personalists hold that the principle of man’s social interaction lies internally within the generosity of his spiritual personality, not externally within the wide diffusion of the common good as a final cause, De Koninck argues that the personalists’ view of human sociability remains necessarily individualistic. De Koninck explains that when the person is prompted from within to relate to others, he acts “outside of any common good” and thus for his own sake. Outside of any common good, the person has no choice but to love all things, including other persons and the communities they create, as if they served his particular good. For De Koninck, love that seeks all goods for the self is vicious— he notes that Aquinas calls such love tyrannical—for which the natural antidote is to love the common good as the better, diffusive good that it is. As a good that diffuses more widely than one’s particular good, the common good is to be loved according to its commonness.12 If we take Simon’s and De Koninck’s observations as legitimate criticisms of Mounier’s personalism, Hellman’s thesis prompts us to ask 11 12 Charles De Koninck, “The Primacy of the Common Good against the Personalists” in The Writings of Charles De Koninck, ed. and trans. Ralph McInerny (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2009), 2:63–163, at 105–106. De Koninck, Primacy of the Common Good, 80: “A society made up of persons who love their private good above the common good, or who identify the common good with the private good, is a society not of free men, but of tyrants—‘and thus the whole people become as it were one tyrant’—who would use force on one another and whose eventual chief would be the shrewdest and strongest of tyrants, his subjects being only frustrated tyrants.” For De Koninck’s citation of Aquinas, see De regno, bk. 1, ch. 1, in Opera Omnia, vol. 42 (Rome: Editori di San Tomasso, 1979), 450, lines 136–137. 1234 Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. whether they apply equally to Wojtyła’s personalism.13 To answer this question, one must study Wojtyła’s personalist writings to determine whether he, too, subordinates the common good to the person’s particular good, and therefore imagines that the person appears more dignified when he sits alone above the common good rather than when standing among others within it. An examination of Wojtyła’s philosophical essays, particularly those in which he expands on the themes he sets forth in Osoba i Czyn (The Acting Person),14 reveals that, from its earliest expressions, Wojtyła’s personalism distinguishes itself from Mounier’s.15 For the whole of his philosophical career, in fact, Wojtyła stood apart from Mounier and his school by guarding a Thomistic sense of the orientation of the person’s particular good to the common good. II. There is no denying, however, the passages in Wojtyła’s essays where he adopts not only a perspective but also a language very close to Mounier’s. For example, Wojtyła describes the “greatness,” or dignity, of the person in terms of Mounier’s person-individual distinction. For Wojtyła, the human creature qua person rises above not only his material individuality but also the whole of nature: The assertion that the human being is a person has profound theoretical significance. . . . In a sense, it marks out the position proper to the human being in the world. It speaks of the human being’s natural greatness. The human being holds a position superior to the whole of nature and stands above everything else in the visible world. This conviction is rooted in experience. . . . A being that continually transforms nature, raising it in some sense Perhaps we err in applying De Koninck’s criticism of personalism directly to Mounier’s thought. De Koninck himself, after all, declined to identify the personalists to whom he aimed his critique. Still, we agree with Sylvain Luquet that the critical net De Koninck cast in Primacy was wide enough to draw Mounier’s writings within it. See “Introduction,” in Oeuvres de Charles De Koninck, ed. Sylvian Luquet, Tome II, 2, La primauté du bien commun (Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2010), 1–104, esp. 7–14. 14 Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, trans. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Analecta Husserliana 10 (Boston: D. Reidel Pu. Co., 1979). Though controversy has attended this translation since its publication, a better one has yet to appear. 15 We refer to the papers collected in Karol Wojtyła, Person and Community: Selected Essays, trans. Theresa Sandok, O.S.M., Catholic Thought from Lublin 4 (New York: Peter Lang, 1993, 2008). 13 Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist? 1235 to that being’s own level, must feel higher than nature—and must be higher than it.16 Wojtyła extrapolates man’s metaphysical position in the world from the person’s experience of his artistic prowess: because man’s work gives him a sense of being higher than nature—man brings nature up “to his own level”—he is higher than nature. Apart from its suspicious logic—and its faint Marxist overtones—Wojtyła’s argument here raises an important question: Is there a sense in which Wojtyła believes the person—qua person—to constitute a part of visible nature? If not, Wojtyła’s notion of the person’s relation to the common good would be essentially Mounier’s. For, if man qua person sits higher than nature, not constituting one of its material parts, then de facto man qua person sits higher than the common good, too dignified—i.e., too naturally autonomous—to constitute a part of a common good with other persons.17 In another passage, where Wojtyła appears to turn decisively toward individualism, he describes the self as the end for which we desire and pursue the good: In human activity, or action, I turn toward a variety of ends, objects, and values. In turning toward those ends, objects, and values, however, I cannot help but also in my conscious activity turn toward myself as an end, for I cannot relate to different objects of activity and choose different values without thereby determining myself (thus becoming the primary object for myself as a subject) and my own value. The structure of human action is autoteleological in a special dimension.18 Again, Wojtyła speaks from the point of view of experience, from which he draws a metaphysical conclusion. This time the experience of 16 17 18 Wojtyła, “On the Dignity of the Human Person,” in Person and Community, 177–180, at 178. This question presupposes several elements of personalist doctrine, including the conviction, alluded to by Simon (see n. 8 above), that the notion of part, while proper to the material individual, is repulsive to the spiritual person. Jacques Maritain (Scholasticism and Politics [New York: MacMillan, 1940], 61–71) articulates this conviction better than Mounier. By speaking of the person’s superiority to nature, Wojtyła appears to share Mounier’s and Maritain’s aversion to calling the person a part of greater wholes. Wojtyła, “The Person: Subject and Community,” in Person and Community, 219–261, at 230. 1236 Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. “self-determination” leads him to deduce that the “structure of human action” is “autoteleological,”—that is, one becomes the “primary object” for himself as a subject. Once more, this raises an important question. If all human action is autoteleological, how does the person escape, among other things, the tyrannical love of the common good denounced by Aquinas? In other words, how does Wojtyła conceive, within the autoteleological framework of moral action he constructs, the person to love the common good without rendering this love self-referential? Can the autoteleological love of Wojtyła’s person love any good as greater than the person’s particular good? If not, then Wojtyła’s personalism would espouse an individualism similar to Mounier’s. Further, when Wojtyła describes his concept of participation (of personal subjects with other personal subjects, qua personal subjects), he notes that his idea carries within it a notion of the person’s priority over the community: The first meaning of participation refers not to [the] positive relation to another’s humanity, but to the property of the person by virtue of which human beings, while existing and acting together with others, are nevertheless capable of fulfilling themselves in this activity and existence. Such a formulation of the problem points to the irrevocable primacy of the personal subject in relation to the community, a primacy in both the metaphysical (and hence factual) and the methodological sense. This means not only that people de facto exist and act together as a multiplicity of personal subjects, but also that we can say nothing essential about this coexistence and cooperation in the personalistic sense—we can say nothing essential about this multiplicity as a community—unless we proceed from the human being as a personal subject.19 For a third time, subjective experience appears as the rule of metaphysical judgment. Here, Wojtyła sees the person’s capacity for social flourishing as assuming a real priority over society itself, such that the person’s capacity for the social good determines our understanding of the social good. As a result, appreciation of society is based on its utilitarian value, or how it serves the person. Accordingly, Wojtyła argues that because society is made up of persons, nothing “essential” about the “multiplicity” of persons can be said unless drawn from the perspective 19 Ibid., 237. Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist? 1237 of the person. Wojtyła appears to establish here, in league with Mounier and his personalist collaborators, a new starting point for social and political philosophy. He seems to eschew the classical regard for the common good as the principle of social life, preferring to locate the principle instead in the needs of the self. Had Simon or De Koninck lived to read the young Wojtyła—each died before Wojtyła published the bulk of his corpus—they would probably have scratched their temples in misgiving, wondering over the path French personalism had taken into the Polish academy. III. Alongside these texts, however, Simon and De Koninck would have found others treating the common good in ways they could applaud. For example, Wojtyła qualifies his argument in the last quotation above by recognizing the inherent value of the common good, a value he insists cannot be circumscribed by the person’s subjective worth: [The subjective starting point for social philosophy] in no way removes the need to investigate [the] community as an objective unity of a real multiplicity of personal subjects. Just as the personal subjectivity of the human being is an objective reality, so, too, is— in each given instance—the multiplicity of those subjects and their community or unity through the common good, primarily the relationships of the we type.20 Wojtyła clarifies elsewhere that the aim of philosophical reflection “proceeding from the human being as a personal subject” is not to undermine classical reflection on the person and the common good, but to reproduce its teaching from the viewpoint of the subject. For Wojtyła, therefore, classical metaphysics does not hinder personalist reflection, but rather serves as its foundation. “The Boethian definition,” he writes, “mainly marked out the ‘metaphysical terrain’—the dimension of being—in which personal human subjectivity is realized, creating, in a sense, a condition for ‘building upon’ this terrain on the basis of experience.”21 Evidence that Wojtyła builds his personalism on a strong classical sense of the common good can be found in his descriptions of the 20 21 Ibid., 261, n. 15. Wojtyła, “Subjectivity and the Irreducible in the Human Being,” in Person and Community, 209–217, at 211–212. 1238 Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. “relationships of the we type” mentioned above, which derive from and perfect more fundamental “I-thou” relationships. For Wojtyła, a “we” is a common good classically understood. Composed by the common activity of numerous persons, a “we” possesses a singular value as a whole whose parts are persons. If a we is many human I’s, or selves, then—like the I, or self—it may be conceived and understood through activity. A we is many human beings, many subjects, who in some way exist and act together. Acting “together” (i.e., “in common”) does not mean engaging in a number of activities that somehow go along side by side. Rather it means that these activities, along with the existence of those many I’s, are related to a single value, which, therefore, deserves to be called the common good.22 Later in the same text, Wojtyła explains that the common good of “we” communities, once established, takes precedence over the particular goods of their component “I’s.” This is because the common good constitutes a greater, more actualized proper good of persons than their particular goods: The privileged status of this good, the reason for its superiority in relation to individual goods, derives, as I said, from the fact that the good of each of the subjects of the community, which defines and experiences itself as a we on the basis of the common good, is more fully expressed and more fully actualized in that good. This also accounts for the fact of social community, the fact of the constitution of a we by many human I’s. In itself, this fact is essentially free from utilitarianism; it lies within the realm of the objective and authentically experienced truth of the good.23 As a better and more actualized proper good of individuals, the common good defies instrumentalization; Wojtyła says it is “essentially free from all utilitarianism.” As such, the common good is not a tool for the person’s pursuit of his particular good, but rather the principle of unity and communication among persons; it “accounts for the fact of the social community.” When moving from an “I-thou” to a “we” commu- 22 23 Wojtyła, “The Person: Subject and Community,” 247–248. Ibid., 251. Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist? 1239 nity, Wojtyła says, the “direction is determined by the common good.”24 Simon and De Koninck would recognize in these and other passages the Thomistic notion of the common good’s ontological excellence. Conscious of this excellence, which he admits to have learned from Aquinas, Wojtyła is careful not to exclude it from his consideration of the person’s subjective experience, for it is this excellence present outside the subject that draws him into the natural communities of family and city. Thus, the Thomistic appreciation for the common good within which Wojtyła develops his personalism gives his thought, unlike Mounier’s, a pronounced anti-individualist character. Thomistic personalism maintains that the individual good of persons should be by nature subordinate to the common good at which the collectivity, or society, aims—but this subordination may under no circumstances exclude and devalue the persons themselves. There are certain rights that every society must guarantee to persons for without these rights the life and development proper to persons is impossible. One of these basic rights is the right to freedom of conscience. This right is always violated by so-called objective totalitarianism, which holds that the human person should be completely subordinate to society in all things. In contrast,Thomistic personalism maintains that the person would be subordinate to society in all that is indispensable for the realization of the common good, but that the true common good never threatens the good of the person, even though it may demand considerable sacrifice of a person.25 Unlike Mounier and his collaborators, who elevated the person above the common good to defend him from totalitarian oppression, Wojtyła saw within St. Thomas’s doctrine of the common good, even with its notion of man as part, a better response to the totalitarian threat. IV. When we compare the two sets of texts above, however, Wojtyła’s claims for the primacy of the person in the first set appear to conflict with his claims for the primacy of the common good in the second. For example, how does Wojtyła’s assertion that all human action is autoteleological align with his affirmation of the common good’s priority over the partic24 25 Ibid., 248. Wojtyła, “Thomistic Personalism,” in Person and Community, 165–175, at 174. 1240 Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. ular good? There is a way to reconcile the two claims, to be sure, as St. Thomas illustrates when he identifies the common good as a bonum suum, a proper good of the person.26 But how does Wojtyła reconcile them? Is his argument Aquinas’s? If it is—and there is evidence it could be—then Wojtyła’s personalism, with its stress on the common good as a proper though not particular good of the person, might offer a way forward to re-presenting Aquinas’s doctrine to a post-modern audience.27 For thinkers fearful that the common goods of family and city—to say nothing of God’s common goodness—threaten personal autonomy, Wojtyła constructs an attractive argument: It might seem as though transcendence toward a common good would lead us away from ourselves, or, more precisely, would lead us all away from the human being. A thorough analysis of this good, however, shows that the human being is deeply inscribed in the true meaning of the common good—the human being not as conceived in the species definition, but the human being as a person and subject.28 De Koninck himself could not have said it better. He, however, restated Aquinas’s doctrine of the common good in opposition to personalist claims. By contrast, Wojtyła begins his restatement with them. Wojtyła’s method raises the question of how he understood his metaphysical claims to align with Aquinas’s metaphysical doctrines. The question is broad, but its answer remains fundamental to one’s acquiring a comprehensive grasp of Wojtyła’s philosophical anthropology. To respond to our more limited question regarding Wojtyła’s relation to French personalism, it remains for us to indicate that Wojtyła carried into his papal magisterium not only his personalist concern for human dignity but also his Thomistic sense of the common good. Examples abound in Wojtyła’s magisterial texts where he speaks of the common good in terms not, like Mounier and his collaborators, of its usefulness, but rather, like Aquinas and his commentators, of its excellence.Two texts suffice to illustrate this point. First, in his 1994 Letter to Families, Wojtyła explains that a classical notion of the common good supplies the interpretive key to understanding what the Council Fathers meant when, in 26 27 28 See Summa contra gentiles III, ch. 24. This text provides the foundation of De Koninck’s argument in Primacy of the Common Good. See Wojtyła, “The Person: Subject and Community,” 251. Ibid., 254. Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist? 1241 Gaudium et Spes §24, they identified the person’s “gift of self ” as the path to self-knowledge: There is a shortage of people with whom to create and share the common good; and yet that good, by its nature, demands to be created and shared with others: bonum est diffusivum sui: “good is diffusive of itself.” The more common the good, the more properly one’s own it will also be: mine—yours—ours. This is the logic behind living according to the good, living in truth and charity. If man is able to accept and follow this logic, his life truly becomes a “sincere gift.”29 Again, De Koninck himself could not have said this better. What is more, Wojtyła reveals—perhaps better here than in his earlier philosophical works—his sensitivity to the question raised above regarding the possibility of an autoteleological love for the common good: a common good that is ours, Wojtyła explains, is more mine than the particular good that is just for me.30 Far from his holding any utilitarian notion of the common good or an individualistic notion of human flourishing,Wojtyła locates the conciliar teaching regarding the gift of self squarely within the moral universe described by St. Thomas, where moral order—and thus human happiness—follows upon, not a grouping of powers in the subject or a self-expressive (and hence self-serving) self-donation, but upon a hierarchical ordering of goods increasingly excellent according to the expansion of their self-diffusion.31 The second text is Wojtyła’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, the subject of the current symposium. In this letter dedicated to the sacred- 29 30 31 Pope John Paul II, Letter to Families Gratissimam Sane (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994), §10. Russell Hittinger (“Toward an Adequate Anthropology: Aspects of Imago Dei in Catholic Theology,” in Imago Dei: Human Dignity in Ecumenical Perspective, ed. Thomas Albert Howard [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013], 39–78, at 72, n. 57) highlights the significance of this text for grasping the classical roots (in this case, the Dionysian roots) of Wojtyła’s personalism. That is, auto-teleological action need not be for a particular good only. In loving the common good, one loves a good that is for him, but not for him alone. Auto-teleological action can thus embrace a good in view of its very ability to be shared with others. See Letter to Families, §§10–11 for Wojtyla’s explicit discussion of the person— qua father, mother, and child—as constituting a part of the greater whole of the family. He also speaks of the human race—“man”—as a common good. 1242 Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. ness of life as a particular good, Wojtyła pays conspicuous attention to the common good of society.32 Nowhere is this more striking than in his discussion of the death penalty. Just before Wojtyła confirms, through the use of a solemn formula, the grave immorality of the “direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being”—which confirmation he applies specifically to abortion and euthanasia—the Pope is careful to exclude from the grave immorality of killing the legitimate use of the death penalty.33 His reasoning for this exclusion rests ultimately on Aquinas’s: the common good of the political community is more excellent than the particular good of the citizen, including the particular good of the citizen’s life, insofar as “every part is directed to the whole, as imperfect to perfect, wherefore every part is naturally for the sake of the whole.”34 Neither Aquinas nor Wojtyła claims that this excellence gives the political community itself, through its legitimate authority, absolute control over the life of every citizen, but it does place upon political authority, Wojtyła explains, the “grave duty” to exercise “legitimate defense” when protecting “another’s life, [or] the common good of the family or of the State.”35 “Unfortunately,” Wojtyła continues, “it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life.”36 It is nevertheless out of respect for the “value and inviolability of human life” that Wojtyła calls in Evangelium Vitae for the near abolition 32 33 34 35 36 Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter on the Gospel of Life Evangelium Vitae (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1995). See §§20, 92, and 101 for examples of the value the pope places on the common good for the promotion and defense of human life and human dignity. For his confirmations of the grave immorality of murder, abortion, and euthanasia, see §§57, 62, and 65. He discusses the death penalty in §§55–56. Summa theologiae (hereafter, ST) II-II, q. 64, a. 2 corp (all citations from ST are made from the edition Fathers of the English Dominican Province [New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1947]). Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, §55. The pope draws this quotation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993), §2265, which reads in full: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life. Preserving the common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. To this end, those holding legitimate authority have the right to repel by armed force aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their charge.” As the authoritative source for its teaching, the CCC cites ST II-II, q. 64, a. 7, in which Aquinas builds on his arguments in aa. 2 and 3, where he orients the particular good of the person to the common good of the whole. Ibid., §55. Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist? 1243 of the death penalty.37 We should not, however, misinterpret his appeal. Wojtyła’s personalist concern to value the person’s particular good does not override his Thomistic acknowledgment of the common good’s primacy. As Pope, Wojtyła does not argue that capital punishment in itself is gravely immoral (as is the case with abortion or euthanasia), or that political leaders lack the authority to mete out capital sentences.38 He urges, instead, the death penalty’s use be prudent and justified, which justification he believes in modern times to be rare. Allowing for cases of “absolute necessity,” Wojtyła observes that “steady improvements in the organization of the penal system” in most countries has rendered an authority’s need for the death penalty “very rare, if not practically non-existent.”39 It is important to note that, even as the Pope dissuades countries from employing the death penalty, he does not, for that fact, regard the common good as subject to the particular good of one’s life, but rather as a greater good in which the particular good of a person’s life flourishes, and to which the person’s life is subject should the person turn gravely vicious against it. We return, then, to our opening question: Was the Polish Pope a French Personalist? A selective but representative examination of Wojtyła’s writings indicates that he was not. Though Wojtyła shared many philosophical concerns with Mounier and his collaborators over the value of the human subject, his Thomistic sense of the primacy of the common good, which first emerges in his philosophical writings and then continues into his papal magisterium, distinguishes Wojtyła sufficiently from French personalist writers as to exclude him from their school. But what, then, is the nature of his personalism? Wojtyła himself tried to answer this question: The thinker seeking the ultimate philosophical truth about the human being no longer moves in a “purely metaphysical terrain,” 37 38 39 The phrase is taken from the encyclical’s title. Recent attempts have been made to declare capital punishment a malum in se. See Christopher O. Tollefsen, “God, Death, and Capital Punishment,” The Public Discourse (March 20, 2015), http://www.thepublicdiscourse. com/2015/03/14652/. For a response to Tollefsen in defense of the tradition, see Steven A. Long, “Intention, Death, and Doctrinal Mutation: Universal Tradition and the Death Penalty,” Thomistica (April 12, 2015), http://thomistica. net/commentary/2015/4/10/intention-death-and-doctrinal-mutation-universal-tradition-and-the-death-penalty. Long treated this topic earlier in “‘Evangelium Vitae,’ St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Death Penalty,” The Thomist 63, no. 4 (October 1999): 511–552. Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, §56. 1244 Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. but finds elements in abundance testifying to both the materiality and the spirituality of the human being, elements that bring both of these aspects into sharper relief. These elements then form the building blocks for further philosophical construction.40 As a philosopher, Wojtyła sought to integrate the subjective concerns of personalism with the “purely metaphysical” anthropology of classical thought. What personalist concerns Wojtyła brought to this project, and whether he succeeded in aligning the content of both systems, ought to figure into the next chapter of Wojtyła’s intellectual biography. N&V 40 Wojtyła, “Subjectivity and the Irreducible in the Human Being,” 216. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1245–1254 1245 Response to Wilken’s The First Thousand Years Gillian Clark University of Bristol Bristol, England A student in any branch of knowledge who is invited to set before a popular audience, within the space of four hours, the gist and upshot of his studies, may do well to submit himself to the discipline implied. He knows that the expert will frown upon some of his statements as questionable in content and dogmatic in tone, and will mark the omission of many things for which no room could be found. But it will do him good to sit back in his chair and look for the main outline, so often obscured by detail. Francis Cornford, author of the formidably titled From Religion to Philosophy: A study in the Origins of Western Speculation (1912), made this observation in the preface to Before and After Socrates (1932), which began as four invited lectures to the Workers Educational Association.1 Eight decades later, scholars are often invited, even expected, to set out their central concerns in a way that reaches beyond their specialist colleagues. Robert Wilken is particularly well placed to do this, for he is always a lucid writer, and he shares with Augustine of Hippo, whom he greatly admires, a commitment to explaining theology so that anyone who comes to listen can understand. But, like so much that does one good, sitting back and looking for the main outline is not an easy task, even when there are many more than four hours available for expounding The 1 F.M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation (London: Edward Arnold, 1912); Cornford Before and After Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932). 1246 Gillian Clark First Thousand Years. In one’s own field of expertise, the writing of every sentence prompts, “Do I in fact know that? How do I know?” Beyond that field, there is the question of when to rely on the judgement of a fellow scholar, and when to return to that scholar’s sources, if indeed one has the languages and the expertise to do so. No wonder The First Thousand Years was, as the publisher puts it, “ten years in the making and the result of a lifetime of study.” Even more challenging is the “popular audience.” Wilken writes for the elusive “general reader who may have little background in the history of Christianity.”2 The wider the envisaged audience, the less can be taken for granted and the more explanation is needed; but still without obscuring the main outline, overloading the text, and discouraging the reader. Thinking about this also does one good, but it is not easy to decide how much knowledge to assume. Many authors address this problem by envisaging the students they teach, and when writing the history of Christianity, they may also envisage the congregation they serve. But these contexts vary greatly. In my country, for example, universities are secular, departments of theology and religion are not confessional, and in all subjects there are many students who have no experience of any faith-community and have only basic information about the religions they are likely to encounter. Early Christian studies flourish in the context of late antiquity, especially among graduate students, but these students and their advisors are often located in classics or history; it does not follow that they have no interest in religion, but they read Augustine or the Cappadocians in relation to late antique philosophy and social history, not in relation to later theological debates. Church history and patristics are not absent from Theology and Religion, but these departments are changing their traditional Judaeo-Christian profile, so new appointments are likely to be in other faiths or in the sociology of religion. Only a few universities have Byzantinists, or offer teaching (even at graduate level) of relevant languages other than Greek and Latin. Publishers and series editors can make the audience question more manageable by setting limits and offering guidelines: you have so many thousand words, with perhaps a modest budget for illustrations; you must (or must not) give references, and must keep footnotes or endnotes to a minimum or leave them out altogether; you must give timelines and maps and guidance on further reading; you are writing, to take an example from my own experience, “in the first instance for students 2 Robert L. Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 6. Response to Wilkins The First Thousand Years 1247 and teachers of Classics and Ancient History.”3 The First Thousand Years is not part of a series. As befits Yale University Press, the book is beautifully produced, there is a generous range of colour illustrations, and the illustrations and maps are of high quality. But there could be more help for a “general reader” who wants to learn more about a topic when Wilken has shown how interesting it is. Only Bible quotations (and not all of them) are referenced, there are no footnotes or endnotes, and the index could be improved. There is a useful list of sources in translation, but the list of secondary “suggested readings” is in alphabetical order of author, not arranged by topic. Compare, for example, Philip Rousseau’s The Early Christian Centuries (2002), which ends each chapter with a brief discussion of starting-points for further reading and selects one for “where to begin,” or Morwenna Ludlow’s The Early Church (2009), which offers a bibliography of sources for each chapter, gives references, and provides notes on new or controversial material.4 Many wide-ranging books, designed to welcome the general reader, do offer references, endnotes, and guidance on bibliography. Recent examples include Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200–1000 (2013); Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (2009); and, with the longest time range, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009).5 Three thousand? Yes, for the “millennium of beginnings” starts in 1000 BC. Wilken aims to select, for a general reader, “the central developments in early Christian history with an eye to the form of Christianity that spread around the ancient world and endured into the Middle Ages.”6 His choices deserve attention, not only because they are the choices of a leading historian who has done so much for the study of early Christianity. They are concisely presented, but they have wide implications for the writing of history. 3 4 5 6 Gillian Clark, Christianity and Roman Society, Key Themes in Ancient History, eds. P. A. Cartledge and P. D. A. Garnsey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Philip Rousseau, The Early Christian Centuries (Harlow: Longman, 2002); Morwenna Ludlow, The Early Church, I. B. Tauris History of the Christian Church vol. 1 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009). Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200–1000, rev. ed. (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013); Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (London: Penguin, 2009); Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (London: Allen Lane, 2009). Wilken, 5. 1248 Gillian Clark The First Thousand Years begins with a quotation from a Lithuanian poet: “What power preserves what once was, if memory does not last?” Some readers will know that Lithuania, now a member of NATO and of the European Union, kept through the years of Nazi and Soviet occupation the memory of its Christian tradition and of its earlier independence from foreign rule. Some may also know that, in an earlier period of occupation by Russian imperial rulers, teaching or printing the Lithuanian language was banned after an uprising, but books were printed across the border and smuggled in. The close connection of language and Christianity is a theme of The First Thousand Years. Missionaries to Western Europe taught Latin; missionaries to eastern regions translated.7 The Scriptures were translated into Gothic, but without the books of Kings, because Goths needed no encouragement to war.8 (Why were they not translated into Punic? Augustine tried to find Punic-speaking clergy for country districts.)9 The learned monk Mashtots, a former imperial official who knew Greek, Syriac, and Persian, worked with a calligrapher to devise an Armenian alphabet for people who had previously managed on spoken translations of Bible readings in Greek or Syriac.10 For the Slavs, Cyril devised the Glagolitic script, then the followers of Cyril and his brother Methodius adapted the Greek alphabet to produce Cyrillic script.11 When Arabic became the dominant language of administration and of daily life, there were many Arabic-speaking Christians, but Coptic language and culture survived in Egypt, and Latin continued in Spain.12 Without memory, the past will vanish and the dead will be forgotten. That is why Christians preserved the memoria of a martyr, the shrine and relics, and retold the martyr’s story. Wilken wants also to remember missionaries and bishops, monks and monarchs, theologians who advanced understanding, and founders of enduring forms of life in community.13 Commemoration, “lest we forget,” has been a motive for historians ever since Herodotus set out the findings of his research (Historia) “so that what people did should not fade away with the passage of time, nor should great and marvellous deeds of Greeks and foreigners lack 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Ibid., 345. Ibid., 258. Ibid., 320; Eric Rebillard, “Punic” in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World, eds. G. W, Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 656–657. Wilken, 230. Ibid., 345–346. Ibid., Coptic: 211, Latin in Spain: 328. Ibid., 3. Response to Wilkins The First Thousand Years 1249 glory, especially the cause for which they fought each other.”14 Herodotus moved at once to the different accounts given by different people, and Wilken goes on to say that memory is selective: “Our knowledge of the past is not objective, but personal and participatory.”15 By “participatory” he means, I think, that memories are shaped by what matters to us as part of a community. The community in this book is not limited by denomination, but inclusive of all who have tried to be faithful Christians. The tone is characteristically benign and courteous. Wilken explains why Christians differed on the interpretation of Scripture and on the implications of belief statements. In tracing, with impressive clarity, the sequence of debate on the union of divine and human in Christ, he exemplifies how useful history can be as a way in to central theological questions. He acknowledges political factors, but makes few adverse judgements on behavior or character, preferring “the mood changed,” “the tide turned,” or the gently ominous “Things did not go well.” He recognizes difference, for example, in the celibacy requirement for clergy, in the response of other ancient churches when bishops of Rome claimed primacy, and in the veneration of icons.16 He also recognizes the importance of local tradition and practice in sustaining local Christian commitment. Much has been written (too much of it in a far less lucid style than Wilken’s) on cultural and collective memory and on its relation to identity and to history.17 Historians challenge memories: there is a difference between writing the history of what people remember and how they interpret their past, and asking what is the evidence for these memories and what has been forgotten or, deliberately or unconsciously, redacted. The Egyptologist Jan Assmann has invented the term “mnemohistory” for reception theory applied to history,18 and this concept is the starting point for another recent work. Josef Lössl begins The Early Church: History and Memory (2009) with a chapter called “What is the early church and why would we want to study it?” and follows this with a chapter on the history of such study, before addressing questions of origins and identities, literature and practice, doctrine and organisation.19 14 15 16 17 18 19 Herodotus, 1.1. Wilken, 1. Ibid., Clergy celibacy: 227–228, 299; claims to primacy: 165; icons: 297–306. For an introduction, see Josef Lössl, “Memory as History? Patristic Perspectives,” in Studia Patristica, vol. LXII, ed. Markus Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 169–183. Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). Josef Lössl, The Early Church: History and Memory (London: T&T Clark, 2009). 1250 Gillian Clark Wilken has chosen not to say more about the relationship of memory and history, or about his own “position in the story.” This phrase comes from Diarmaid MacCulloch, who briefly describes his own position because he thinks that the reader of a book on religion “has a right to know.”20 There is indeed a difference between historians who are sympathetic to religion and historians who think that religion is politics, or repression, or irrelevant except as a tribal rallying call. (Some years ago I was invited to submit a proposal, for the Oxford University Press series of Very Short Introductions, for a volume on Late Antiquity. One of the external assessors asked why there was so much about religion: surely that belongs in Theology?21) Historians of all subjects are sometimes urged, though not as often as they were in the 1970s and 1980s, to abandon the “impersonal omniscient” mode and to declare themselves. The difficulty comes in making such a declaration useful, or even understandable, to a reader who comes from a different tradition. Many historians prefer to outline the scope of their work and their approach to the material, leaving reviewers to identify the characteristics of a particular training. Wilken follows “Our knowledge of the past is not objective but personal and participatory” not with autobiography, but with the simple statement, “In writing the history of the first thousand years I have chosen to highlight those events and persons that, in my judgement, are worthy of remembrance at the beginning of the third millennium.”22 The choices outlined in his Introduction say something about, so to speak, academic cultural memory: that is, the topics which are important, in the early years of the third millennium, to the community of scholars who, from their various perspectives, work on early Christian history. The First Thousand Years (2012) almost coincided with the new edition (2013) of Peter Brown’s The Rise of Western Christendom. Brown observes in his Introduction that the book began, in 1996, as “a relatively short essay (virtually without footnotes),” part of a series on the Making of Europe.23 This was a theme of great interest in the 1990s, as Eastern Europe rejoined its neighbours and questions of history and culture and religion influenced European Union debates on the limits of expansion. The second edition (2002) was in effect a new, much bigger book. It took into account the many changes in scholarship, not only on the formation 20 21 22 23 MacCulloch, History of Christianity, 11. Gillian Clark, Late Antiquity: a Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Wilken, 1. Brown, Western Christendom, xi. Response to Wilkins The First Thousand Years 1251 of Europe in the “barbarian kingdoms” and the “Dark Ages” that followed the end of the Western Roman Empire, but also on the wider context of Christianity in both west and east, in relation to earlier religions and to the coming of Islam. Brown’s “Western Christendom” now covers almost the same geographical range as Wilken’s “global history,” which traces missions to Nubia, India, and China as well as the task (evidently heroic) of taking Christianity to the British Isles.24 In his Introduction to the 2013 edition, surveying a further decade of scholarship, Brown observes, “The reader should know that chapter thirteen, on the Christian communities under Islamic rule, was prepared and written before the tragic events of September 11, 2001.”25 I think this means that Brown’s assessment of the evidence was not influenced by these events; he does not suggest that in the light of these events, he would now change his assessment. But it is the case that, since 2001, the study of early Islam has become much more prominent. Wilken says, “I have made the rise and spread of Islam integral to the history,” and in his Afterword he observes that earlier textbook accounts of continuous Christian growth disregarded the impact of Muslim conquest, which led to the decline and sometimes the extinction of ancient Christian communities in the Middle East, North Africa, and eventually Asia Minor.26 The Islamic world was part of late antique and Byzantine studies for many years before 2001; the first volume of the series Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam appeared in 1992.27 But the practical difficulties were (and are) the problems of the sources and the shortage of Arabists, who are sought after by business and by government agencies, and until very recently were unlikely to find an academic post even if they wanted one. Peter Brown is unusually good at remembering how and why his perspective changed, and which people and books and events influenced his way of thinking. Many historians find that change has happened imperceptibly. It was not always evident that people include women, that culture includes material culture, that experience includes experience of time and space and the senses, or that Judaism and traditional Graeco-Roman religion continued to develop and to interact with early 24 25 26 27 “The daunting task of carrying Christianity to the peoples living north of the Alps and in the British Isles was carried out, in the main, by brave and hardy Latin-speaking monks and bishops” (Wilken, 269). Brown, Western Christendom, xix. Wilken, 3, 358–359. Averil Cameron and Laurence Conrad, eds., The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Problems in the Literary Sources, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, vol. 1, part I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 1252 Gillian Clark Christianity. It was also not always evident that the spatial boundaries of the late antique world did not coincide with those of the Roman Empire and its immediate neighbors, that its languages were many more than Latin and Greek, and that its boundaries in time did not end with the coming of Islam in the seventh century. These days there are many more references to Eurasia and to “global history,” that is, to the history of the world that was known in the relevant time period, and to the “long late antiquity” that integrates Byzantine with classical and Western Medieval Studies. Much more source material in languages other than Latin or Greek is being made accessible, and some graduate students choose to learn Syriac or Coptic before Latin or Greek. The transformation is exemplified in a book that appeared after Wilken’s: Garth Fowden, Before and After Muhammad: The First Millennium Refocused.28 Wilken ends with Jerusalem as the center of the Christian world, just as it was in the medieval Mappa Mundi. His narrative sequence ends in 988 with the baptism at Kiev of Vladimir prince of Rus; as Ukraine debates alliance with Europe or with Russia, it seems likely that Slavic medieval history will attract more academic interest. There is no decisive end date, but Wilken thinks that “only towards the end of the first millennium did the form Christianity took in history come fully into view. . . . By the year 1000 the map of the early Christian world was largely complete.”29 The First Thousand Years is a “global history” of Christianity in the sense that it covers the world to which Christianity spread in that time frame, including the regions that were subsequently conquered by Islamic rulers. “Map” is easier to interpret than “form,” which could mean “doctrine” or “structures” or, as Wilken emphasises, “culture.” He says that “the principal theme of this book is the slow building of a Christian civilization,” or “more accurately several new civilizations,” because so many languages and locations were involved.30 Culture “has to do with the pattern of inherited meanings and sensibilities embedded in rituals, institutions, laws, practices, images, and stories of a people.”31 Conversion typically begins with the decision of a monarch: it was “not a warming of the heart, but a change of public practice.”32 The theme of culture and public practice is also expressed in recurrent Garth Fowden, Before and After Muhammad: the First Millennium Refocused (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013). 29 Wilken, 1. 30 Ibid., 1–2. 31 Ibid., 2; cf. 54. 32 Ibid., 3. 28 Response to Wilkins The First Thousand Years 1253 comments on the relationship of “the Church” and “society.” It seems that “the Church” is the community of all who accept the beliefs and disciplines of the Christian Church as they know it. In many respects, these Christians are indistinguishable from the society of which they are part, but in other respects they differ because of their beliefs, their pattern of worship, and their moral standards; and, as is demonstrated by the strongly expressed view of their many bishops, they make a distinction between the proper concerns of the emperor and the proper concerns of the Church. In City of God, Augustine gave a rather different answer. Wilken gives Augustine a chapter to himself, quietly disregarding recent attempts to set him more firmly in his late antique context.33 Augustine himself might deprecate the first part of the judgement: “Augustine knew that he was a great man, a towering figure whose many writings would be quarried to support all sorts of opinion.”34 But he certainly knew that his writings would be quarried: he had often been the target, as well as the agent, of quoting selectively and out of context.35 One of the most widespread later misinterpretations is the equation of the Church with the city of God and secular government with the earthly city. For Augustine, the Church is the blessed company of all faithful people in all times and places: it is the part of the city of God that, for now, is away from its home in heaven. But citizenship depends not on membership of an institution, but on whether you are motivated by love of God or love of self. So Augustine said explicitly that some future citizens are not now members of the Church, and some who are now members and share in the sacraments are not future citizens.36 Wilken accepts diversity of belief and practice, but not to the extent of joining those who speak of “late ancient Christianities,” in the plural and belonging to a particular time period. This is a history of Christianity in which there are boundaries between Christians and non-Christians, especially between Christians and Muslims, and in which Islam is monolithic. Many recent historians are more inclined to see changing and contextual identities: that is, they see people who in some contexts call themselves Christian, but in other contexts are more concerned with 33 34 35 36 Notably, James J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Sinner and Saint. A New Biography (London: Profile Books, 2005). Wilken, 184. Caroline Humfress, “Controversialist: Augustine in Combat,” in A Companion to Augustine, ed. Mark Vessey (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell 2012), 323–335. Augustine, De Civitate Dei 1.35. 1254 Gillian Clark family and social relationships and do not agree with their bishops on the boundaries of acceptable behavior.37 But Wilken’s acknowledgement of diversity within Christianity does something important. Memories are central to identity; remembering differences and resentments can perpetuate an identity that depends on opposition. But history can remind all concerned that their particular tradition of belief and practice and organisation was not in fact accepted semper, ubique et ab omnibus. In this spirit, Peter Brown warns against claims about the “Christian roots of Europe,” which may slide into assumptions that Christianity is European; and Gillian Evans, as editor of a multi-volume History of the Christian Church, has the explicit purpose of challenging assumptions that Christians have always done things in one particular way.38 Remembrance can work for reconciliation, and Wilken sets an example of courteous and thoughtful N&V discussion. 37 38 E.g., Ėric Rebillard, “Religious Sociology: being Christian in the time of Augustine,” in A Companion to Augustine, ed. Mark Vessey (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 40–53. Brown, Western Christendom, preface to the Tenth Anniversary Revised Edition, xvi. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1255–1260 1255 The Undivided Church: Myth and History Andrew Hofer, O.P. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D.C. It is commonplace , even among some scholars and high-rank- ing Church officials, to refer to the time of the undivided Church. What is usually meant is a period before 1054, when—as historical surveys often state (although no medieval text does)—the Churches of Rome and Constantinople definitively severed communion with one another. Thus, the first millennium is a golden age of unity between Eastern and Western Christians. Moreover, that period in history also has usefulness for Western Christians, interested in ecumenism and internal reform, who want to see past the medieval papacies of Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII to an ideal time of simple Christian structure and life in the West. If only we could return to the time of the undivided Church! This dream of the past becomes a goal for the future. Such a mythical account of the undivided Church could be refuted by both faith and reason. For those subscribing to doctrinal truth claims, the unity of the Church is held as a distinguishing mark. The Church is always one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Therefore, a Christian reciting the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed professes, in so many words, that the Church was, is, and always will be undivided. However many opposed Christian communities there are, the Church cannot lose the gift of unity, which is derived from the unity of the Blessed Trinity. On one hand, to speak of the time of the undivided Church suggests that the Church, at some later point, lost an essential characteristic. On the other hand, a reasonable reading of early Christian history can also show how followers of Jesus were divided from the very beginning. Judas left the Last Supper early in order to betray Jesus. Acts 15 records how Christians were so divided that they disagreed on the matter of what was necessary 1256 Andrew Hofer, O.P. for salvation. Paul tells the fractious Corinthians: “there must be divisions among you” (1 Cor 11:19). Is it really, then, such a surprise that the fourth-century Epiphanius of Salamis, in his Panarion, takes note of eighty sects? If someone says that divisions in the first millennium were rather marginal and not as significant as what happened in the second millennium of Christianity, one wonders if such a person really understands Jerome’s phrase after the heretical Council of Ariminum: “The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian” (359). Does such a person appreciate how the phenomenon called Arianism (in its sundry forms) continued far past the Council of Constantinople I (381) to cover many lands of North Africa and Southern Europe for centuries? One wonders if such a person finds it insignificant that the Churches that did not accept the Council of Ephesus (431) and the Council of Chalcedon (451)—namely, the opposed ancient Church of the East and Oriental Churches—stretched from Ethiopia and Egypt over to China. The first thousand years of Christianity are far from fitting the pat description of the undivided Church. To begin chapter 4 of his book entitled The First Thousand Years, Robert Louis Wilken writes, It is tempting to romanticize the early Church and imagine a golden age of peace and harmony. In truth there was never a time, even in the first decades, that Christians had no differences. Because Christian faith holds that certain things are true (there is one God, creator of all that exists), controversy over what is to be believed as well as how the faith was to be practiced was present from the beginning. (37) As one of North America’s foremost scholars of early Christianity,Wilken knows more than a thing or two about history, and more than a thing or two about Christian faith and practice. His book of thirty-six brief chapters between the Introduction and an Afterword tells the amazing stories of Christianity’s growth and decline across a wide range of cultures on three continents, with Islam’s rise in the seventh century playing no small role in the diminishment, if not complete disappearance, of the Christian faith in several countries. Wilken’s history stops at the year 1000, less than one century before the ill-famed crusades began; it is a history steeped in early Christian facts more interesting than modern myths. While many will rightly extol Wilken’s achievements as a master storyteller of diversity and will stress the great differences within early The Undivided Church: Myth and Mystery 1257 Christianity, in reaction to the popular vision of early Christian peace and harmony, I want to concentrate in considering aspects of unity found in Wilken’s telling of Christianity’s first thousand years. After all, there is no diversity without a prior unity. One can “celebrate diversity” between apples and oranges, as both are fruit. But there is no celebration of diversity between apples and University of Virginia Wahoos.You need a common ground, something undivided, before any legitimate diversity is intelligible. The following engages in Wilken’s narrative through seven underlying unities that he, in so many words, identifies to support the global diversity of early Christianity: time, creed, intellectual creativity, sacramental practices, bishops, monasticism, and the rulers of the temporal state. Surely, other aspects of Christianity’s unity could be chosen, but there is warrant from this book to engage in discussion of these common features across the many lands, cultures, and peoples of the first Christian millennium. We begin with time.Wilken frequently gives insights into what Christianity is: “Christianity is a culture-forming religion” (2), “Christianity is transcultural and migratory” (4), “Christianity is inescapably social” (190, 358), “Christianity is a form of wisdom” (231), “Christianity is an affair of things” (303, cf. 45), “Christianity is an eastern religion” (359). Such sentences are more than writing in a vivid historical present about what Christianity was. They tell us, in Wilken’s sage commentary, what Christianity is. By narrating the various twists and turns of a thousand years of global diversity, Wilken provides a useful introduction to what Christianity is really all about. As such, he suggests a form of Christian unity that spans the ages to readers today. For example, if readers disagree with Wilken that “Christianity is an eastern religion,” then one can ask if the first thousand years of Christianity really were formative for what this religion is today or not. Wilken knows that some will disagree with him. He closes his study with this counsel: “Jerusalem welcomed people from both East and West, and if one keeps the holy city in mind, the global history of Christianity will not be forgotten” (359). This can make one think of the Psalmist’s prayer: “If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand wither” (Ps 137:5). The first underlying unity is that one can find a singular Christianity of the first thousand years; and moreover, that Christianity continues in the third millennium. And yet, this unity, like all the others, has a fragility that could be ignored or denied in the withering of history. Not every form of Christian community perdured to today, or will perdure tomorrow. During his earthly ministry, Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” 1258 Andrew Hofer, O.P. (Mk 8:29), and he expected a response. With Simon Peter, Christians are united by faith in Jesus Christ. Because Christianity is creedal, brief statements of faith, such as the Apostles’ Creed or the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, inform how Christians read the Scriptures, understand their traditions, motivate their worship, and contemplate their end. One cannot write a long historical account of communities that rejects the basics in the rule of faith, as such communities gradually disappeared. Wilken writes, “The Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople ensured that Christianity’s distinctive understanding of God would become a permanent and enduring part of Christian tradition” (98). Wilken also says, “From the beginning of the fourth century through the middle of the sixth century, more than 250 councils dealt with a wide range of topics” (90). By no means are all those councils counted as “orthodox” today.The sheer magnitude of councils gives some indication of the intellectual creativity undergirding the articulation of the Faith in solemn doctrinal form. It is no accident that some of the most brilliant contributors to civilization were Christians who thought deeply about the mysteries of the Faith as told in the Scriptures—people like Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Augustine. The Christian faith gets people to think, and to think widely, about the meaning of the world, its Creator, human life, and happiness. A unifying aspect of Christianity is precisely that freedom to pursue the truth. Wilken knows that sacramental practice holds a very high authority in uniting Christians—and in dividing them. When he considers the divisions found in the second century, such disagreements as whether Christ’s body was real or whether Christians ought to follow the Mosaic Law, Wilken writes, “But there were other controversies, and none more far-reaching and divisive than fixing the date on which the death and resurrection of Christ would be celebrated” (37). That division presupposes the unity of an annual Christian liturgical celebration of the Paschal Mystery. Christians, very early on, established their own calendar, marking Sunday as their weekly feast of the Resurrection and, later, also setting a time aside each year for that celebration. Moreover, the rhythm of celebrating such sacraments as Baptism (only once in a person’s life) and Eucharist (at least weekly, if not daily) united Christians in a way that marked them out from the world and united them to Jesus Christ in his saving mysteries. Beyond creeds, theologies, and sacramental liturgies, we can find institutions that make even more concrete the unity of the Christian faith. Wilken writes, The Undivided Church: Myth and Mystery 1259 In much writing on the early history of Christianity theological ideas play a major role, especially in accounts of the great controversies over the doctrine of the Trinity and the person of Christ. That is right and good. But institutions were vitally important, and the three that figure large were the office of the bishop, monasticism, and kingship (or imperial rule). (2) These three will now be considered singly. Going back to the beginning of the second century, Wilken alludes to this line from Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrnaeans: “Where the bishop appears, there let the multitude be; just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church” (cf. 356). Wilken calls Ignatius “prophetic,” and states, “There is no evidence for enduring Christian communities without the office of the bishop. Even in distant lands, when a king adopted the faith, one of the first actions was to send for bishops from more established regions” (357). As Ignatius noted, bishops are necessary for Christian unity. An idea propagated in nuce by the likes of Athanasius and Sulpicius Severus, and developed in modern surveys of early Christianity, has done a disservice to another aspect of unity in early Christianity. It is the story of “from martyr to monk.” As this history goes, Anthony of Egypt, Martin of Tours, and many others could not be martyrs, and so they settled for the monastic life, and thus the “white martyrdom” came into existence. This narrative makes the ascetic life a sort of secondary thought after “the age of martyrs.” Yet the history and the theology of asceticism are much deeper than that. Wilken aptly notes, “Christianity had an ascetic strain from the beginning” (99). Besides noting New Testament sources, Wilken adduces the second-century Greek physician and philosopher Galen as a witness to Christian men and women who never cohabited and who practiced self-control in matters of eating and drinking. He even states that monks were “no less important” than bishops in early Christianity (357). Finally, Christianity has always had a special relationship with temporal rulers.The First Letter to Timothy says, “First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity” (1 Tim 2:1–2). Wilken knows that there were no Christian emperors or kings in the first three hundred years. “Unlike Islam,” Wilken writes, “Christianity began as a community distinct from the body politic” (357). The conversion of kings undoubtedly aided the 1260 Andrew Hofer, O.P. spread of Christianity in several parts of the world. Yet, when rulers did come into the Christian faith, and the Church and society were one in their realms, “the Church retained its distinctive identity” (357). Throughout his magisterial book, Wilken rightly emphasizes the diversity of Christian change through time and space: “[E]ach interaction with a new people and language brought changes in how Christians practiced their faith.” Yet, it must be known that Wilken does not stop there. He continues, “At the same time, Christian rituals such as baptism and the Eucharist, the Bible, the Nicene Creed, the office of bishop, and monasticism bound Christians in a spiritual unity that transcended the deep cultural differences” (4). We owe Robert Louis Wilken a great debt for this book. Wilken’s exciting story of early Christianity’s diversity in its global history rests upon a spiritual unity. This approach provides an antidote to the unhealthy scholarship that so stresses fragmentation among Christian communities that no universality can be discerned. Moreover, for those wanting to extol the unity of Christianity’s first millennium, he gives a remarkable history more potent for ecumenism and internal reform today than the myth of the time of the undivided Church. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1261–1267 1261 Christianity’s First Millennium: Reflections on Robert Louis Wilken’s Magnum Opus C. Kavin Rowe Duke University Divinity School Durham, NC In the second letter to his pupil Lucilius, Seneca the Younger offered some advice about reading. Read only the good books, said Seneca, and read them over and over again. Reading, he thought, was writing on the soul. Why write on your soul with anything other than the best? Lay down lines worth following, Seneca counseled, and trace them again and again and again. There were fewer books back then than there are now, but the ranking of books is surely as old as the writing of the second book. And the task has always been hard. Even today university literature departments argue bitterly over what constitutes a good book. It would be difficult to contend that any of the learned volumes produced by academics would rank among the books worth reading repeatedly to write on our souls. But Robert Wilken’s book is about as good as the academic sort can be. To call it learned, however, is to point only to the remarkable erudition behind every page, not to the style. The style, in fact, is anything but the typical prose of the academic. Wilken writes briskly and with a sense for what a lively tale can do. Far too often professors kill their subject matter with their lack of style. Not so Robert Wilken. And for this he deserves full praise. If Christianity is anything at all like what Christians think it is, how could a millennium’s worth of its life be boring? An engagement with a book of this kind is, almost by definition, less interesting than the story the book itself tells. Still, for the purposes of this symposium at least, there are three features of Wilken’s work that invite further comment and reflection. Of all the things that I thought about 1262 C. Kavin Rowe while reading the book—and this would fill many pages—these three features are those that I see as education in the more significant sense of helping to shape our perception of what Christianity was and is (and may come to be). First, Christianity is memory. Insofar as we are able to say what the word “Christian” means we will have to remember its past use. “The past doesn’t vanish at once,” says Wilken, “it dies slowly.” But, “if remembered, the dead maintain their ground and live among us” (1). As general statements, such comments could sound banal, and in one sense we already do know this (or should).Yet I would wager—an educated wager, I hope, from both experience and study—that none of my colleagues at Duke or elsewhere will have gone through this book without startling new discoveries about Christian history, or, at the very least, without learning a surprising amount about people or places that have simply not been on our received intellectual maps (geographically expressed in maps 2 and 3 at the end of the book). More specifically, and perhaps most importantly in this regard, Wilken shows the truth of memory’s importance in an arresting way: we Western Christians have forgotten the East. “[F]rom the perspective of the West, Christianity in the East seems part of a vanished past” (359). Wilken’s point is not that we lack specialists in Syriac or the early Syrian church or St. Ephrem, nor is it the now wearisome point about Western imperialism (or imperialistic epistemology)—that it has tended to exclude non-Westerners. It is rather that the typical picture of the broad sweep of a millennium’s worth of Christian history has been fundamentally misshapen: we Westerners, Wilken implies, do not really know the story of our own faith. Even with all the various correctives in recent years to “colonialist” histories, we have been telling ourselves—at best—only some of what Christianity has been. And we have therefore distorted our sense of what it is. Our intellectual cartography has been radically deficient, as deficient as if we were to make a map of the world and leave off Asia and India and China. In Wilken’s reading of the first half of our history, Christianity has always been a global phenomenon.We now hear much talk of the globalization of the Christian faith, its move toward the southern hemisphere (and its corresponding decline in the northern), its emergence in China, and the like. While there are doubtless deep differences in both locale and substance between Christianity’s original reach and its current global shape, Wilken’s book would teach us that the current trends in world Christianity point toward a re-globalization rather than a first one. In other words, if Wilken is right about the shape of the first millennium of Reflections on Robert Louis Wilken’s Magnum Opus 1263 Christianity, and if the third millennium of its life is less about the North Atlantic West than elsewhere, then the time that is Western Christianity will look dramatically less like a remarkable achievement with staying power and more like an interlude in Christianity’s global development. Of course, no one knows how a thousand or more years of history from today will unfold. But the point remains that we are and have been fundamentally forgetful and that such forgetfulness imposes serious constrictions on our understanding of the Christian faith. Christianity, Wilken would forcefully remind us, was born a global faith. To conceive of “world Christianity” is not thereby to think of something northern and western with important new additions from elsewhere. It is to think, rather, of a movement beginning in an eastern part of the world and expanding from there to all corners of the earth. Conceptualizing the Christian faith in accordance with its historical shape, Wilken says, is a matter of keeping Jerusalem as the center of our interpretative map (see Warren Smith’s essay in this book symposium for further reflection on Jerusalem). Second, Christianity’s global history is not only a history of remarkable growth and civilization creation, but also one of dramatic decline and eventual eclipse. “The extraordinary success of Christianity in the first millennium,” says Wilken, “must be set alongside the dramatic rise of Islam and the decline of Christianity in historic Christian lands” (3–4). Christianity is rightly maligned for its crusades as a betrayal of the core of Christian conviction about the way God was in Christ, but what is often missed in such maligning is the fact that in a large part of its geographical reach Christianity was fading fast and becoming extinct during the latter part of the first millennium. Indeed, “in North Africa, Christianity disappeared and no indigenous Christians remain in countries such as Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria” (4). It is a sobering fact to think of Christian history as one of decline and disappearance. We do not normally think this way in the West, but were we to write the history of Christianity in vast parts of its former habitats, we would be forced to say something like this: it was here, and then began to disappear, and then went away—no Christian children to raise, none to teach, no pastors to shepherd their flocks or bury their dead. Only the Prophet Muhammad and his One God. “Set against the success of Islam and its staying power, the career of Christianity is marked as much by decline and attrition as it is by growth and triumph” (358). Sociologically speaking, in a wide area of the world Christianity was defeated by the rise of Islam. 1264 C. Kavin Rowe Anyone who pays attention to the decline of Christianity in Europe would do well to see from the growth of Islam that a decline in Christian communities does not have to end in renewal; it can go all the way to extinction. We are often theologically invested in the attempt to stem decline—and for many good reasons—but Wilken’s focus on the historical power of Islam reminds us that it is possible to fight a losing battle. Christians do not, I think, have a fundamental stake in self-preservation, especially if the cost of such preservation is violence—in which case we betray our very reason for staving off diminution and extinction. We trust in the resurrection of the dead in Christ, whether God chooses to prosper our communities in the here and now or to let them die and raise us at the end. Still, a world without Christianity as a global force is a world without the truth of all things in its midst in a palpable and public sense. Such a world may come to exist, but if so, I pity those who will have to live in it. If nothing else,Wilken’s description of Christianity’s decline helps us to think about the importance of Christian existence simpliciter. What is it that the world owes to the existence of Christianity? (For a good exploration of this question in our time, see David Bentley Hart’s Atheist Delusions: the Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009].) Such a question points further toward the importance of mission as a dynamic internal to the existence of Christianity as a form of life.Wilken repeatedly notes the missionary drive from the beginning of Christian existence. As long as there are Christians, there will be mission. Yet, as the Islamic case shows, it does not follow that as long as there is mission there will be Christians en masse. With around two billion Christians today it is admittedly hard to conceive—I do not mean hard to believe—but it is not impossible that over time we could, once again, be a very small group. Third, Christianity is a form of life that is inescapably structural in a very concrete sense. In an age in which many people look on structural religion with suspicion, mistrust, and disdain, it is worth remembering that without institutional patterning from beginning to end Christianity would not have been the phenomenon it has become. To put it slightly differently, if the story Wilken tells is anything like the phenomenon Christianity was, there is no such thing as Christianity in and through time without institutions that shape, hold, and carry its life. “Wherever Christianity was adopted a structure was put in place, through the person of the bishop, that provided continuity with the Christian past and spiritual unity with Christians in other parts of the world. . . . There is no evidence for enduring Christian communities without the office of the Reflections on Robert Louis Wilken’s Magnum Opus 1265 bishop” (356–7). The point Wilken makes is, of course, that of historical truth—it was this way in fact—but the lesson is of no less theological importance: Christianity is a religion in which authority is indispensable. All the preaching in the world about the priesthood of all believers and, in its modern French-revolution echo, “egalitarianism” cannot rid the past of the fact that the Christian faith flourished through authoritative structure and not apart from it. The ordered community of monastic life was no less important in the first millennium. Today, among many Western Protestants at least, it is inconceivable that human beings can go their entire lives without sex. In the older world, says Wilken, a “chaste community” was an indispensable part of the way Christianity maintained and/or established its existence. The monks and nuns witnessed to a new reality, to God’s work on earth through the form of life that practiced the awaiting of the final consummation (not a seeking of its earthly analogues). “By the end of the third century small groups of men or women lived chaste lives in community. . . . [Later] wherever Christianity was adopted, one found monks. In some cases, in the Syriac-speaking East, in the Slavic world, and in the Latin West, monks carried the gospel to new peoples” (357). So, too, from the first days of the earliest Church, Christianity was something to be learned and therefore to be taught (Acts 2–4). Christianity was always a religion of the book, implying at the least that it needed ways to train interpreters of Scripture and those who could communicate its truth to the faithful. Illiteracy was the norm in antiquity regardless of locale—though in terms of social groups it was lower among the Jews than among others—and Christians thus tried to establish educational means wherever they set up shop for any length of time. Intellectual life was always nourished, but it was not for curiosity’s sake as much as it was for the working out of the logic of the faith. The Christians knew that faithful thinking was not ultimately rooted in individual intellectual talent but in the truth that had been handed on from generation to generation. Their controversies showed their willingness to innovate and learn new things, but, as Wilken illustrates, what endured were the innovations that drew most deeply from the wells of tradition. The practice of thinking thus involved remembering, and this remembering required education. One had to learn what to remember, and what was remembered had to be passed on. “Wherever there were churches,” Wilken says, “Christians forged a learned tradition and handed on a cultural inheritance” (358). In short, according to Wilken, “Christianity came into the world as an ordered community and made its way as a corporate body with insti- 1266 C. Kavin Rowe tutions and offices, rituals and laws. Christianity is inescapably social. Its spread among new people had little to do with the conversion of individuals and everything to do with building a new society” (358).Wilken’s denial of the importance of individual conversion is overdone—why must we always have the dichotomy between communities and the people who make them up?—but the drift of his remarks is crucially important: Christianity was and is a total way of life. It is not only a matter of the heart—but it is this!—nor is it personal preference, such as the color of ink in which you prefer to write; it is a regula vitae, a rule of the lives we live from the broadest social dynamics down to the thoughts we think only to ourselves. This hardly means that on Wilken’s view Christianity lacked profound internal difference or avoided complicated contestation over its legitimate expressions. “The global outreach of Christianity in the early centuries is a testimony to its cultural adaptability and diversity. Christianity as practiced among the Armenians differed from the ways of the Greeks or Ethiopians. . . . [T]he differences in language, customs, liturgical practices, architecture, and art gave birth to distinctive spiritual and cultural forms of life across the Christian world” (356). But it does mean that there was enough of a “thing” called Christianity to see where, when, and what it was. And, Wilken’s book argues, the defining conditions of this thing were structural and institutional all the way down. In conclusion, let us say it out loud: there are only a handful of people with the erudition and stylistic gracefulness to write a book like this. Many would aspire and some have tried. But Wilken has written a readably elegant book that covers a millennium of Christian history without either dumbing it down or pretending to know things he does not. And he has taught us much. But it is just this achievement that makes one finish the book worried as much as satisfied. The worry is this: the habits of learning that Wilken’s scholarship presupposes are dying off. We specialize so rabidly now that we risk losing the educational conditions that could help to produce other Wilkens. Specialization is not, of course, a problem in itself; indeed, it can be a way we come to see something of the richness of God’s creation. The knowledges that specialization both requires and creates are a reflection of the unfathomable height and depth of our world. Finite creatures, after all, can see the grandeur of creation only in bits and pieces. But it is still true that academic culture cultivates research trajectories that over time reduce our capacity for seeing the larger pictures that contain the central stuff of our history. We will doubtless see volumes upon volumes on many of the things Wilken mentions throughout his Reflections on Robert Louis Wilken’s Magnum Opus 1267 book—and rightly so. But where are the scholars who can see something of a whole, get it into a readable story that neither ignores nor fixates upon the tangles of Christianity’s complex existence, and produce a book that shows us a millennium’s worth of humanity’s most significant form of life? Of course, in one sense it takes a whole career to get to the point where one can write this sort of book; but in another sense the habits of study and thought throughout that career are what give one the capacity for grander vision. I do not know Robert Wilken very well at all, so perhaps he would contradict my sense of how he has studied. But if so, his book would speak against him and for me. A thinking through of the necessary intellectual habits presupposed by such a book should be part of every younger scholar’s reaction to it. Hopefully such thought will lead to other books of this sort in the future. For now we can N&V read Wilken. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1269–1281 1269 “If I forget you, O Jerusalem”: Zion’s Place in Global Christianity J. Warren Smith Duke University Divinity School Durham, NC The Subtitle of Robert Wilken’s The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity reveals what is distinctive about this history of patristic and early medieval Christianity. No other general Church history volume that I know of has consciously presented Christianity as a world religion long before the great missional expansions from Europe and North America to Latin America in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries and to Africa, Asia, and Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the extent that The First Thousand Years does. The spread of Christian communities in the first thousand years, Wilken explains, had a leavening influence, not simply upon Latin and Greek culture, but upon Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Slavonic, Armenian, and Arabic speaking peoples—an influence that extended beyond personal religious conversion. The diffusion and adaptation of the beliefs and practices of early Christianity that refashioned—or in some cases created—the cultures of Europe, Asia, and Africa illustrate both Christianity’s cultural diversity and its catholicity. Cultures do not exist in the abstract, but rather in particular places, the geographic space and history of which influence the cultural consciousness and identity of their people. Because of his focus on the global character of the Church,Wilken is more concerned with place and geography than have been other histories that have preceded his. Geography does not function reductionistically to explain how or why Christianity developed as it did. Rather, it provides a structure to the narrative. In this sense, Wilken is following the approach of the first Church historian, Luke, who used Jesus’ words to the Apostles, “. . . and you shall 1270 J. Warren Smith be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8), to set the geographic framework for his narrative (diēgēsis). Indeed, the title of Wilken’s opening chapter, “Beginning in Jerusalem,” is lifted from Jesus’ words with which Luke concludes his gospel and gestures to the Acts of the Apostles, “. . . the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (arxamenoi apo Ierousalēm)” (Lk 24:47). Indeed, the third Evangelist uses Jerusalem and the Temple to bracket his gospel, beginning with the scene of Zechariah’s performing his Temple duties (1:5–23) and closing with the scene of the Apostles after Jesus’ ascension, “And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the Temple blessing God,” (24:52–3). So, too, Wilken, having begun with Jerusalem, concludes his narrative thus: “Jerusalem welcomed people from East and West, and if one keeps the holy city in mind, the global history of Christianity will not be forgotten” (359). Robert Wilken is both too careful a Church historian, thoroughly knowledgeable about the earliest histories of the Church beginning with the Christian Scriptures, and too artful a writer for this parallel to be a happy coincidence. He is also a churchman and historical theologian. History, therefore, is not an antiquarian project that is an end in itself. Rather, it is the source of knowledge for continually edifying the community of faith. To be sure, The First Thousand Years is a history of the Church, not a Christian philosophy of History with a capital H. Yet, framing this history of global Christianity with the image of Jerusalem, a place pregnant with significance, theological as well as historical, for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, gives Wilken’s narrative a surplus of meaning that reaches beyond the purely historical. The distinctiveness of Wilken’s treatment of Jerusalem is clear when we realize that Jerusalem, though an understandable starting point for a history of Christianity, is not a necessary one. Williston Walker begins his classic history (first published in 1918) by situating the Church geographically, but the Mediterranean, not Jerusalem or even Palestine, is the geographic context in which he understands the rise and spread of the Christian Faith. By beginning with the Mediterranean, Walker gives priority to the Roman world and a Hellenistic viewpoint over a Jewish perspective with concern for Palestine and Zion.1 Kenneth Scott Latourette touches upon Jerusalem and the Temple, in passing, as part of Williston Walker, R. A. Norris, D.W. Lotz, and R.T. Handy, A History of the Christian Church, 4th ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985), 5. 1 Zion’s Place in Global Christianity 1271 his second chapter on Judaism.2 But the focus is upon the religious roots of Christianity, of which the Temple at Jerusalem is but one component. Similarly, Joseph Lynch, in his Early Christianity: A Brief History, discusses Jerusalem primarily as the location of the Temple and as part of early Christianity’s social and religious context.3 Yet, Jerusalem’s theological meaning he passed over. Justo L. González’s sensibility is closer to Wilken’s. His The Story of Christianity begins by recognizing the importance of place and time for the birth of Jesus and the Church itself in the mind of the early Christians.4 Although he, too, quotes Acts 1:8, it is Palestine, in González’s narrative, that is the primary place of Christianity’s origin. Jerusalem is just one city—albeit a major city—in the ancient landscape of the Near East. This is understandable. While the community of Jesus’ disciples became ecclesia in Jerusalem with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the so-called Jesus Movement arose some one hundred miles to the north of Jerusalem in Galilee, and, at least according to the synoptic gospels, the adult Jesus did not come to Jerusalem until his last Passover. From this view of the Church geography, Jerusalem, as the scene of Christ’s death, marks the transition in the development of the movement from being the followers of the historical Jesus to being the proclaimers of the kerygmatic Christ.5 Among other historians for whom the history of Christianity rightly begins when it becomes a religion separate from Judaism, the narrative might well commence with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Here, Jerusalem is a point of departure marking the “parting of the ways.”Then, again, place and context can be largely bypassed, as Eric Jay does in The Church: Its Changing Image through the Centuries. This volume presents Church history as a history of doctrine. Jay’s text is not just a history of theology, but a history guided by a theological sensibility. Hence, Jay begins his narrative with an analysis of the meaning of Church, ekklesia. Jerusalem does not enter the story until the fourth chapter’s discussion of Cyril of Jerusalem’s catechesis.6 By contrast, Wilken’s treatment of Jerusalem not only reveals the theological sensibilities that he brings to 2 3 4 5 6 Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), 10. Joseph H. Lynch, Early Christianity: A Brief History (Oxford, 2010), 15. Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity, vol. 1, The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 7. See, for example, Rudolf Bultmann, Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting (New York: Living Age Books, 1956), 80–81, 86–87. Eric G. Jay, The Church: Its Changing Image through the Centuries (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1977), 79. 1272 J. Warren Smith the study of the ancient Church but also illustrates how those sensibilities allow him to grasp the theological significance of Jerusalem in the worldview of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. Place, Memory and Worship Wilken’s attention to Jerusalem reveals his appreciation for the interconnectedness of memory, tradition, and place. Before the mid-1970s, “place” was thought of in academic circles almost exclusively in terms of geographical location or regional character. With the publications of Yi-Fu Tuan’s Topophilia (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974), his Space and Place (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), and Edward Relph’s Place and Placelessness (London: Pion, 1976), the subfield of phenomenology called “place theory” or “humanist geography” began to distinguish “space” from “place.” Tuan defined “space” as simply “an open area of action and movement,” whereas “place” has value and meaning based on human intention and recollection.7 Space is geographic context, but place carries a sense of belonging and identity because our sense of place is the confluence of personal memories and the traditions of collective memory rooted in, and often mediated by, place. Charleston Harbor, Cemetery Ridge, Appomattox, Selma, Birmingham City Jail, and Memphis are, to people who have never called the U.S. home, simply spaces, mere names on a map or historical atlas. For Americans, especially those of us who grew up and lived in the Southeast, they are the locations of events with complex meanings in our history.The names of these places are integral to the narratives that shape our sense of “the South” or of being “Southerners.” Drawing on Martin Heidegger’s idea of Dasein or “dwelling,”8 Relph developed a view of authenticity as a consciousness of being “rooted in.” Authentic existence carries an awareness of our “rootedness” in a particular place and the way one’s life has been shaped, for good and ill, by the places that are the soil of our existence. By contrast, an inauthentic existence, for Relph, lacks any “awareness of the deep and symbolic signifi- 7 8 For a history of the development of place theory, see Tim Cresswell, Place: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell Pub, 2004). Although Heidegger’s view of “dwelling” is not directly taken from Edmund Husserl, it reflects “. . . the genetic phenomenological framework of an embodied being who inherits meaning from its predecessors due to its arising within a world that precedes it . . .” (Janet Donohoe, Remembering Places: A Phenomenological Study of the Relationship between Memory and Place [Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014], xvi). Zion’s Place in Global Christianity 1273 cance of places [with] no appreciation of their identities.”9 Place is prior to the individual ego because the ego is formed by one’s experiences that are located in various places. Our sense of self is constituted by our personal memories and/or traditions about these places. As Janet Donohoe puts it: “Places are not simply settings for experiences. Instead, many places are embodied in such a way that we carry them with us and they inform our constitution of the world. We do not engage in deliberate attempts to remember such places, but they inhabit our memories in the way in which we move through the world.”10 Even if Wilken has never read in the area of place theory, more than most Christian historians, he is conscious of how this sense of place, especially of Jerusalem, informed Jewish and Christian identities. When Isaiah wrote, “. . . look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug” (51:1–2), the prophet was exhorting the Israelites living in captivity in Babylon to preserve their hope for deliverance by remembering God’s faithfulness to their forefathers and mothers. In the memory of their history lay the key to their identity and cultural integrity as a people living in a foreign land.Writing in the same era, the author of Psalm 137 attached cultural memory to a place. The psalmist captures the pathos of conflicting emotions. The Jews living in exile hung their lyres upon the grasses growing along the Tigris and Euphrates because they could not bring themselves to sing the “songs of Zion”—the pilgrimage psalms sung in procession to the Temple in Jerusalem—knowing that Solomon’s Temple had been reduced to rubble and Mount Zion was a wasteland.Yet this lamentation in exile, like Isaiah 51, carries the exhortation—albeit a painful one—to remember, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right had wither . . . if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!” (137:5–6). In Relph’s terms, the psalmist was exhorting his fellow Jews to live authentically as Jews by recognizing that their identity lay in the tension between Babylon, the place of exile, and Jerusalem, the place of promise and home. The act of memory, a looking to the past, is, for the psalmist, how the people of God look forward into the future even in exile. Jerusalem, the city of God, was their place of origin and the place to which they would return, their destination. Remembering Zion in song was a confession of their covenantal identity and their holding fast to the hope of restoration. 9 10 Edward Relph, Place and Placelessness, 78, quoted in Cresswell, Place. Kindle edition location 736. Donohoe, Remembering Places, 3. 1274 J. Warren Smith Place functions as an object of memory or a source of what Ed Casey calls reminiscentia, artifacts of experience that prompt our recollection.11 Jerusalem was important as both an object of recollection and a source of reminiscentia for preserving Israel’s and the Church’s history-formed identity, and for constructing its cultural niche in the ancient world. The Romans knew this also. After the failed Bar Kochba rebellion of AD 132–135, the Roman obliteration of old Jerusalem and the construction of the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina on top of the ruins expunged Jerusalem from the memory of later generations of inhabitants of Judea (110). Without the place, the memory was lost; without the memory, so too was the messianic hope that caused the Jewish insurrection. This, at any rate, was the goal of the Roman strategy. For Christian travelers from the third century on, Jerusalem became a place of pilgrimage—a place to which one returns in order to remember and be reformed by that memory. To the ancient pilgrims in Jerusalem, this place was their “tangible link” to Jesus (109). As such, Jerusalem was more than simply a location; it was a place to remember the Rock from which the Church was hewn. It was the touchstone to the past, to their saving history, because it was the place where the saving work of Christ’s Passion, death, and Resurrection was accomplished. Jerusalem gained a sacred significance in the imagination of early Christians as the place where the transcendent God touched the earth and dwelt as a creature among his creation, as a son of man sojourning in the city of God. Not surprisingly, Jerusalem took on the quality of a holy relic that connected the pilgrim with Jesus in such a way that the pilgrim participated in fellowship with the risen Christ who walked its byways, taught in its public spaces, and ultimately died and rose again outside its city walls. The place created a physical connection between the pilgrim and God. Its stone streets and the view of the city from the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Valley were, in Casey’s language, the reminiscentia that evoked Christian pilgrims’ recollection of Jesus’ life and God’s saving work, preserved in the Church’s collective memory either through the narrative of Scripture or the ritual performance of the liturgy. 11 Donohoe draws upon Ed Casey’s idea that the narratives retrieved from memory and by which memories are passed on to others are not independent or spontaneous but are prompted or triggered by reminiscentia that are in a place or associated with a place. Reminiscentia is an important idea for Donohoe for correcting Paul Ricoeur’s focus on narrative and memory without sufficient attention to bodily elements, such as place, upon which narrative and memory depend. Remembering Places, 30. Zion’s Place in Global Christianity 1275 Wilken quotes Paulinus of Nola’s observation, “No other sentiment draws people to Jerusalem more than the desire to see and touch the places where Christ was physically present, and to be able to say from their own experience, ‘We have gone into his tabernacle, and have worshipped in the place where his feet stood [Psalm 132:7]’” (quoted in First Thousand Years, 115). What is striking about Paulinus’ use of Psalm 132 is that the pilgrim to Jerusalem in the fourth or fifth centuries could not say in any literal sense, “We have gone into his tabernacle,” since Herod’s temple— the temple where Jesus drove out the money changers and taught the infuriating parables of the Kingdom that led to his arrest and crucifixion—had already been demolished. But the pilgrim could worship “where his feet stood”—where the Word made flesh tabernacled among his people (Jn 1:14). They could do so because Jerusalem, the city that was home to Jesus in his last week, was itself a temple that housed the Son of God. The images and sounds of the city gave concrete form to the Church’s memory of Christ that allowed Jerusalem to function as a memorial that drew the distant past into the present through memory (115). Memory has a transportive power that allows the moment of recollection to be a moment of participation. As Donohoe puts it, “Memory is the revitalization of some moment or moment of the past, collecting those moments into the present again.”12 As the city mediated the Gospel to the pilgrim by making the history as vivid and as tangible as the Jesus who walked its streets, it created a unique place to participate in, to enter into communion with Christ through worship. For, as the images of the place formed the pilgrims’ imagination and re-formed their memory of the Gospel narratives, their experience of worship was animated by the city itself. In another deft use of ancient sources not often cited in Church history textbooks, Wilken quotes the fourth century pilgrim Egeria’s account of arriving in Jerusalem during Holy Week: “What I admired and valued most is that all the hymns and antiphons and readings and all the prayers . . . are relevant to the day which is being observed and to the place in which they are used” (113). For the pilgrims, the reminiscentia of Jerusalem revitalized the Church’s collective memories, making the events of the Passion so alive in the pilgrims’ memory that Christ was present to them in their worship in a strikingly different way than in their worship experiences before coming to the holy city. 12 Donohoe, Remembering Places, 1 (emphasis added). 1276 J. Warren Smith A Place of Contested Meaning and Competing Soteriologies For the Jews of the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles, Jerusalem was a place to which they would return. As Wilken explains in the opening chapter of A Land Called Holy, Jewish identity was tied to God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants would be a great nation and would possess the land. Yet, as people living in a diaspora community—either in Egypt or Babylon or Rome—exile was a symbol that God’s promise to Abraham had not entirely been fulfilled.13 Through the covenant, God adopted the sons and daughters of Israel as his chosen people, but they did not yet “possess the land.” God’s redemption of Israel meant restoration or repatriation of Judea. Then, and only then, would they “possess the land” and would God’s promise be fulfilled. It was during their sojourn as strangers in a strange land that Jerusalem became the center of their hope. Originally, Jerusalem was not a place of any importance in Israel’s tradition, since the city did not come into Jewish control until relatively late in Israel’s history, when David seized it from the Jebusites and made it his capital in the tenth century. Yet, in the thinking of homesick exiles in Babylon, Jerusalem came to include not just the city’s precincts and immediate environs, but all the Promised Land. As such it gained an exalted status—the symbol of restoration and redemption. Wilken makes the point in his typical elegance that is worth quoting in full: Jerusalem lived on in the memory of the captives in Babylonia. Banished to a foreign land far from the city they had loved and cherished, their collective dreams created a new and more splendid image of the city, transforming the torn and tattered recollections of past glory into a vision of future majesty. . . . The exaltation of Jerusalem in the exilic prophets is a quantum leap beyond anything said of the city in earlier tradition. (10) Isaiah merged the symbol of Jerusalem into the traditional soteriology of “possessing the land,” when the Lord announced, “He who takes refuge in me shall inherit the land, and possess my holy mountain” (57:13). Although Ezekiel spoke of Zion in cosmic terms as the nexus of heaven and earth, of the Divine and the human, Jerusalem never became for the Jews a mere symbol or figure of God’s redemption. It always remained a specific, concrete place to which Israel would be restored. 13 Robert L.Wilken, The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 3–4. Zion’s Place in Global Christianity 1277 It was, and for many still is, a symbol of God’s faithfulness to his chosen people and of their restoration to the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. For early Christians, however, the exilic prophet’s vision of Jerusalem, especially after the destruction of the second Temple, carried a very different meaning. Wilken uses Christian views of Jerusalem to illustrate the division and conflict between Jews and Christians during the first millennium. The destruction of Herod’s temple by Titus’s legions in AD 70 and the demolition of the whole city in AD 135 were clear signs, in the mind of early Christians, of God’s rejection of unbelieving Israel. As Chrysostom put it, “You Jews crucified him. But after he died on the cross, he then destroyed your city . . .” (quoted in First Thousand Years, 124). The elimination of the Temple, which rendered the Levitical codes in the Torah meaningless in any literal sense, proved that Christ’s one, perfect sacrifice on the Cross for the sins of the world had rendered sacrifice in the Temple unnecessary. Forgiveness of sins was secured through faith in Christ, not through Temple sacrifice proscribed by Torah. God had indeed, as Paul said, “broke off ” or “cut off ” the Jews (Rom 11:17–22) from the covenant and had given it to the Church, the true Israel, through the New Covenant. Incorporating early Christian art into his narrative, Wilken uses the Madaba Mosaic of the Holy Land to illustrate how early Christians reconceived Jerusalem geographically to represent the Gentile Church’s supplanting of the Jews. Jerusalem is the labeled “Holy City,” but its centerpiece is the rotunda of the Church of the Resurrection around Christ’s tomb located outside the walls of the ancient city. By contrast, the empty Temple mount represents “that old and deserted city” of the Jews (116). Wilken uses the conflicting interpretations of Jerusalem—as a hopeful symbol of restoration or sign of rejection—within ancient Jewish and Christian polemics to illustrate the highly competitive relationship between Judaism and Christianity. The symbolic significance of Jerusalem for converts in this contest between Jews and Christians was not lost on the emperor Julian, who planned to rebuild the Temple for the Jews precisely to undercut Christian claims to God’s approbation (124–125). Indeed, Christians recognized the threat that the rebuilding of Jerusalem would pose in weakening their supersessionist argument. Even worse, as a sign of God’s favor, it would galvanize Jewish efforts at proselytizing and would draw converts to Judaism.14 Jerusalem in The First Thousand Years is not merely used as a heuristic 14 L. H. Feldman, “Proselytism by Jews in the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Centuries,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 24, no.1 (June 1993): 1–58. 1278 J. Warren Smith device to describe the divide between Judaism and the Church. Rather, Wilken uses it to call the Church to reconsider the significance of place in our soteriology. Even after the disastrous failure of the Bar Kochba rebellion, Jews did not separate the idea of redemption from the idea of restoration as rebuilding Jerusalem or inheriting the Promised Land. For Christians, on the other hand, “Jerusalem” and “Zion,” as spoken by the psalmists and prophets of the Exile, became disconnected from the city itself and were taken instead as a symbol of our heavenly commonwealth. Melito of Sardis, though not entirely dismissive of the earthly Jerusalem, clearly lessens its value within Christian cosmology and soteriology: “The Jerusalem below was precious, but it is worthless now because of the Jerusalem above” (quoted in First Thousand Years, 109). Here, Wilken is building upon a theme he developed at great length in A Land Called Holy. In the third century AD, Jewish commentators interpreted the resurrection imagery in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones (Ez 37) to refer to the restoration of Jewish political autonomy and dominion over Judea.15 Among the ranks of Christian commentators from the third century on, the predominate tendency was to treat Jerusalem either historically as the place of Christianity’s origin or figurally as a type for the Heavenly Jerusalem. The Jewish idea of Or LaGoyim (“light unto the nations”), from Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6, that God’s election of Israel had as its goal drawing the Gentiles to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was commonly reinterpreted Christologically by early Christian exegetes. Christ is the light who draws pagan Gentiles from darkness to truth and salvation.16 For Cyril of Alexandria, in his discussion of Isaiah 60:3 (“Kings shall walk by your light and nations by your brightness”), Jerusalem is a figure of unity and division between Jews and Gentile Christians. On the one hand, the Gentiles whom Christ draws to himself offer their worship in place of the unbelieving Jews of the earthly Jerusalem, who “slight the Redeemer, and turn away from his love and bring ruin on themselves.” On the other hand, Cyril interprets Isaiah’s account of the calling of the Gentiles to refer to the creation of a new Jerusalem through “the union of two people in Christ.” The two people united by faith in Christ are “the spiritual Jerusalem, that is, the Church . . . initially composed of Jews, for they were the first to believe.”17 Even as Paul, in Romans 2:28–29, says that a 15 16 17 Tertullian, Res. 30.2, cited in Wilken, A Land Called Holy, 70. See Origen, Commentary on Lamentations 1 and Ambrose in On the Holy Spirit III 2.10. “The children of Jerusalem will be not only Israelites by blood, but also people Zion’s Place in Global Christianity 1279 real Jew is one who bears not the marks of outward circumcision alone, but the circumcision of the heart, Cyril claims what makes Jerusalem the city of God is not its location or buildings but the indwelling presence of the glory of God. Commenting on Isaiah 52:1 (“Awake, awake, O Zion! Put on your strength, O Zion, and put on your glory, O Jerusalem, the holy city”), Cyril says that “Zion” and “Jerusalem” do not refer “solely to the city built from stone”; rather, they denote the community of faith, the Church, “formed from both Jews and Gentiles.”18 For, their strength is in good works that are the product of their conformity to Christ’s divinity and their participation in the Holy Spirit, and her glory is the glory of the Lord. Cyril’s notion of the Church as the “spiritual Jerusalem” where Jews and Gentiles of faith are united, argues for the fulfillment, and thus the relevance, of Isaiah’s prophecy. Whereas for Jews of the fifth century, Jerusalem has been destroyed and is no more, for their Christian contemporaries, Jerusalem endures in the people who, in the light of the Spirit, have beheld the glory of the Christ and who, being changed from glory unto glory, reveal the Lord’s glory to the world. Yet, by reconceiving Jerusalem in spiritual terms, Cyril has reduced Jerusalem (as a place) to its historical significance as the city of origin, rather than as a place of return. Redemption, for Christians, entails not possession of the promised land of Canaan or the restoration of the city of Jerusalem, but citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem. Jerusalem as a place belongs to the Church’s past, not its future. Not all early Christians, however, separated the significance of Jerusalem as place from their theology of redemption. For Justin Martyr, if the Gentiles are Abraham’s heirs through faith akin to Abraham’s, then their hope lies in possessing the land that God promised to Abraham. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin says, “Many nations will flee for protection to the Lord and they will become to him a people. . . . We will inherit the holy land when we receive the inheritance for an infinite age being children of Abraham on account of faith.”19 Writing some fifty to seventy years after Justin, Irenaeus, in Against Heresies, preserves the Jewish connection between inheriting Jerusalem and God’s redemption of Abra- 18 19 from every nation and land called to be the light of Truth through faith,” (Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Isaiah, quoted in Isaiah, trans. R. Wilken, The Church’s Bible [Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007], 463). Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Isaiah (PG 70:1144A–1149A), quoted in Isaiah, trans. R. Wilken, The Church’s Bible, 402–403. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 119.5, quoted in A Land Called Holy, 58. 1280 J. Warren Smith ham’s children. More specifically, the bishop of Lyons, like the Tertullian’s North African Jews, integrates the eschatological hope of the resurrection with the “glorification of Israel.” He interprets Paul’s claim in Galatian 4:26 (“Jerusalem above is free and she is our mother”) to mean that, at the resurrection, Jerusalem on earth will be rebuilt patterned after Jerusalem above.20 The penultimate sentence of The First Thousand Years is Isaiah 2:2, “all the nations shall flow . . . to the mountain of the house of the Lord.” Wilken’s emphasis on the global character of Christianity over the first millennium requires an attention to place conceived of geographically and existentially. Historically, Jerusalem is the geographic starting point of the Christian Church. Jerusalem, however, is more than the spatial context of early Christianity. Through the example of Christian pilgrims, Wilken shows that Jerusalem is a place, the locus of memory, of hope, and thus of identity. Writing as a churchman and a historian, Wilken uses Isaiah’s call for the Church to remember Jerusalem, not simply as its geographic origin, but as our eschatological home. Following Irenaeus, Wilken challenges us to see the interconnection between the place Jerusalem—the Promised Land to be possessed—and the promise of the resurrection of the body. If we take seriously our eschatological hope of the resurrection and glorification of the body, then we must take the place to which the body is restored seriously as well. Wilken notes that there is a tension within Christianity between the Jewish concern for Jerusalem itself and the Johannine transcendentalism expressed in Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman at the well, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. . . . The hour is coming and is now when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:21, 23). This is a tension Wilken does not resolve; such would be beyond the scope of this book.Yet, by calling us to remember Jerusalem, he calls us to be conscious of that tension and so live authentically aware of how our past and future are tied to the holy city. For, while the Church, led by the Spirit to spread outward from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, is not confined to any geographic space, Jerusalem is our home, a place inscribed in our consciousness by the Church’s most profound and precious memories: a foolish king dancing before the ark, a twelve-year-old conversing with priests in the Temple court yards, streets strewn with palm branches, a cross-crowned hill, an empty tomb, and a house filled with a mighty wind and tongues of fire. 20 Irenaeus, Against Heresies V.35.2, cited in Wilken, A Land Called Holy, 61. Zion’s Place in Global Christianity 1281 When we think of Jerusalem as place, rather than merely geographic space, Jerusalem retains its specificity in our memory and in our hope, while at the same time taking on a global significance of “home” for all resident aliens of the Christian diaspora. How may the Church reconcile the competing interpretations of Jerusalem? Let me end with one possibility that we might draw from reading The First Thousand Years. Even as Isaiah and Ezekiel expanded the boundaries of “Jerusalem” to encompass not just the city on Mount Zion, but all the Promised Land, so might the Church, in its figural reading of the Church as the spiritual Jerusalem, imagine itself connected to the historic place from whence the glory of the Lord shone. A model for such thinking can be found in Cassiodorus’ interpretation of Isaiah 2:3–4: “Out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” Cassiodorus, a fifth-century Roman senator and lay exegete, is explicit that Jerusalem is to be understood in its historical sense: “It is within this city that the mountain gleams like gold metal on pure hearts. . . . Jerusalem is a revered city, a holy hilltop; we can rightly call that notable dwelling of our King the earthly citadel.” Then he invokes the image from Genesis and Revelation of streams of water; for the place to which Christ called the Gentiles is now “the place where his teaching flowed over the bounds of the whole world as from a clear and abundant stream.”21 If the Church’s sense of mission is guided by our Scriptural imagination, then Jerusalem is the central place in the narrative foundation for our missional identity. We should then see our proclamation of the Word as the flow of living water from Jerusalem that draws all the nations into Jerusalem’s wide bounds and makes a home for Jew and Gentile before the throne of the one God who is the fount of living water. By giving such attention to Jerusalem in the first millennium of the Church, Wilken has revitalized a too-often neglected feature of our historic landscape, and in so doing, he may revitalize our vision of the N&V Church’s mission into the future. 21 Cassiodorus, Explanation of Psalm 49 (50) (CCSL 97:441–2), trans. P.G.Walsh, quoted in Wilken, Isaiah, 41. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2015): 1283–1301 1283 Book Reviews Saving Karl Barth: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Preoccupation by D. Stephen Long (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2014), 272 pp. D. Stephen Long’s Saving Karl Barth: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Preoccupation is not, as its title might seem to indicate, a book about rescuing the eternal soul of Karl Barth, who was one of the most important Reformed theologians of the twentieth century. It is, rather, a book about the soul of Karl Barth’s theology and the fate of that theology’s interpretation in modern scholarship. It is also a book about the friendship between Barth and the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. These two facets of Long’s book are always to be read together: this is a book about how Barth is to be understood fruitfully in the present era, and also a book about how Balthasar’s friendship with him—alongside Balthasar’s own interpretation of him—serves as a model for the continued impact of Barth’s theology today. “The following argument,” explains Long, “. . . [is] a defense of the conversation between them and of a way of doing theology that involves friendship rather than conquest” (2). Long’s book proceeds first through history and then through theology. He begins with a detailed review of Balthasar’s friendship or “preoccupation” with Barth, both in terms of chronology and in terms of Balthasar’s major works on Barth (chs. 1 and 2, pp. 7–88). Then follows the “collapse” of Balthasar’s interpretation in Protestant and Catholic theological circles alike (89–128). The first half of the book is thus spent recalling the historical realities of Balthasar’s work with and on Barth, as well as the strong critiques that work received both at the time and in present theology. Long’s last three chapters detail the “positive theological gains” (3) of Barth and Balthasar’s relationship, one that affected them each in their theologies of God (129–176), their ethics (177–238), and their ecclesiologies (239–282). The implication is not only that the two influenced one another in helpful ways, but also that their mutual 1284 Book Reviews influence ought to continue to deepen the theology of today. “I suspect, and worry,” writes Long, “that current trends in Protestant and Catholic theology may be repeating the entrenched Protestant and Catholic positions that made Barth and Balthasar’s friendship so unlikely and yet theologically necessary” (5). It is a necessity that extends into the present age. The concerns of these last three chapters—God, ethics, church—are the concerns of the entire work. Barth and Balthasar are each formed by interests in theologies that articulate a strongly theocentric perspective that is simultaneously ethical and ecclesial, though each comes to distinctive ways of articulating that perspective. Long arranges the two theologians’ concerns with care for what unites the thought on God, ethics, and ecclesiology for both men: Christology. Balthasar thought that Barth’s dogmatics “captured the glory of Christian revelation,” explains Long (12), and that this glory that Barth captures is fundamentally the glory of God in Christ (see esp. 42–47, 81–86). In other words, Balthasar has profound appreciation for Barth’s Christology. It is what draws the former to the latter. For Balthasar, Barth has in his own way reached into the very center of Christianity, the center that Catholicism also holds and adores. This, for Balthasar, makes Barth similar to that most “Catholic” of thinkers, Thomas Aquinas. As Long describes it, Barth “is a radical Thomist because, like Thomas, he consistently thinks the form of Christianity: the incarnation” (45). The Incarnation also serves as the foundation for Barth’s reciprocation of Balthasar’s friendship. In the book, Barth’s friendship with Balthasar is characterized as one aspect of an entire attitude that Barth embodied toward Catholicism, an attitude that involves willingness to “suffer” it or to be challenged by it (see 13–20). Long writes, “[Barth] envisioned a robust Protestant theology that would be as grounded upon the solid truth of dogma as Catholicism, but he meant something different by ‘dogma’ than . . . Roman Catholics” (19). Despite such “suffering” and dogmatic difference, Barth saw in Catholicism a thorough and lively interaction with revelation, one that he strove to imitate even as he set himself against and apart from it. In Long’s assessment, both men are drawn together by serious Christological convictions, convictions that set them against the theological modernism that would prefer to mask Christ in the watered-down language of simple ethics and epistemological platitudes (see 88, 120, et passim). That is, for Long, both theologians represent deep and consistent engagement with the uniqueness of Christ. It is also through Christology that we are able to grasp what separates both men: the analogia entis. Barth is famous for his rejection of the analo- Book Reviews 1285 gia entis, which he said “was the reason he could never become Roman Catholic” (7). In Barth’s mind, the analogy of being lays hold of the revelation of God by both conditioning it—through a metaphysic that shapes and determines the nature of revelation—and by determining the form of our reception of it (cf. 155–156). Barth’s rejection of the doctrine seeks to emphasize God as the primary actor in revelation, both in its giving and in its receiving, and Catholic metaphysical thought appears to contradict this primacy. It would seem to be possible to know God without the help of God, and this Barth finds intolerable. In response to Barth’s objections, Balthasar works hard to show that Barth’s own dogmatic project has always, at its best, presupposed analogy—not merely of faith, but also of being—and that the analogia entis is not a pre-determined created means by which Catholics might lay hold of God (12–13, 41–48, 132–136). For Balthasar, the analogia entis enables theology not because it stands outside of theology or is a prolegomena to it, but because it is part of a thorough Christology. Such a Christology is able to describe how God employs the full breadth of worldly being in order to express divine being, even as that expression at the same time reveals the “ever-greater” difference between God and the world (see esp. the discussion on 55–62). In other words, the analogia entis is an essential part of a thoroughly Chalcedonic Christology. Still, Balthasar thought that Barth had detected a real temptation in Catholicism but had misidentified it as the analogia entis. Instead, the problem rests in natura pura, or a “pure nature” that exists apart from grace (see, in the same discussion, 56–60). Balthasar affirms a hypothetical natura pura—or else grace simply eradicating an empty nature—but with reservations. He thinks that a doctrine of pure nature articulated too strongly outside the realm of grace devolves into an unfortunate, schematized dualism between the natural and supernatural orders of creation. So, while pure nature is a necessary hypothesis, and the duplex ordo of Vatican I is always to be affirmed, the reality at hand is the reality of grace perfecting nature. In Long’s words, Balthasar “did not think theology within, or upon the ground floor of, philosophy, but philosophy within theology” (56). For Balthasar, the ability to think within theology is ultimately what makes Barth so relevant, not only to Protestants, but also to Catholics. Even Barth’s rejection of the analogy of being, which in Balthasar’s mind Barth misunderstands, is not enough to sideline him. Barth thinks the “form” of theology, and everyone ought to listen. The disagreement between Barth and Balthasar over the analogia entis serves as the major backdrop both for the theological friendship between the two men and for the subsequent collapse of Balthasar’s interpretation 1286 Book Reviews of Barth in both Protestant and Catholic theologies. In the case of the latter, Catholic theologians are experiencing a renaissance of studies in Thomas Aquinas, and these studies have brought into question Balthasar’s own theology of nature and grace, as well as his positive interpretation of Barth as a “Thomistic” theologian. Long reviews the Catholic disagreement in some detail. In essence, Catholics are concerned with both Balthasar’s and Barth’s theology because they both fail to take nature seriously enough to make sense of revelation. These theologians think that both Balthasar and Barth underestimate the importance of natura pura and its relevance to the theological task. Long explains that, for these thinkers, a weak or nonexistent doctrine of pure nature dilutes the centrality of Vatican I’s duplex ordo and—here is perhaps the most important objection—at the same time surrenders to modernity by denying natural knowledge of God (90–99). In this way, the contemporary Catholic objection to Balthasar’s interpretation of Barth resembles Balthasar’s own concerns about Barth’s works at the time they were written 20–22). Protestant objections to Balthasar’s interpretation of Barth agree with the Catholic objections, though they assess its value distinctly: for both groups, Barth is thoroughly modern (99). This is a cause for concern with Catholic interpreters, whereas for Protestant interpreters of Barth, his modernity is why he remains relevant to theology. Bruce McCormack is perhaps most central here, as he sees Barth as the beginning of a new theological turn that moves away from traditional descriptions of revelation and toward an “ontology of election.” Long explains that, while Catholics “argue the incarnation makes no sense without the metaphysical language of nature, substance, and hypostasis, McCormack argues that it makes no sense with them. They must be jettisoned for a theological ontology found in election” (108). In other words, McCormack intensifies Barth’s rejection of the analogy of being. In his interpretation and scholarship like his, Barth’s work on dialectic receives more radicalization rather than less over time, and this dialectic is thoroughly involved in Kantian epistemology and ethics (120). Here, the risk in Balthasar’s interpretation for Protestant thinkers seems to be that of losing what made Barth so innovative, which was his intense dialectical mode of theology, one that parts ways from the theological past and so frees theology from that past (see esp. 112–118). God’s radical freedom to express himself thus sunders itself from any form of knowing other than its own free expression, and this is Barth’s great insight that must be preserved. Long, for his part, is concerned that these new battle-lines over Book Reviews 1287 Balthasar and Barth are in fact very old ones, that they reveal divisions between Catholics and Protestants that pit the integrity of nature against the integrity of God’s freedom. The last three chapters of Saving Karl Barth thus work to show how it is helpful to understand not only how the two theologians influenced each other, but also how this influence destabilizes neither nature nor God’s freedom. Rather, it destabilizes the old ecclesial divisions that have marked theology. Of the several extended arguments that Long makes, three serve as exemplars of his essential outlook. The first is to follow Balthasar in the rejection of Nominalist metaphysics in favor of a realist metaphysic that affirms the potentia oboedentialis. For Long, this argument shows that Barth should, in order to be consistent, affirm the analogy of being precisely because of the Incarnation (161–162). That is, a natural potency for faith understood through a Christological analogia entis, as found in Balthasar, safeguards the supernatural end of human nature by its very affirmation of that nature. It helps to make sense of the Incarnation by safeguarding the role that Christ’s humanity plays in salvation. The second argument is the affirmation of Barth’s dictum that “dogmatics is ethics,” which is an effort to link dogmatic and ethical thought in a serious, though unconfused, way (179–191). Long sees both Barth and Balthasar working out this dictum in their separate theological projects. “Barth and Balthasar shared a desire not to make the modern move of reducing theology to ethics,” Long explains, “while at the same time recognizing dogmatics entails the theory and practice of good human action” (190). The third argument wrestles with what Long sees as an instructive but severe disagreement between Barth and Balthasar over the place and role of the church, which the former saw as important but separate from Christ’s work, and which the latter saw as fundamental to and an extension of Christ’s work. On this third point, Balthasar’s own dilemma is a most helpful summary: “Balthasar’s theology was always caught between these two poles: convincing Catholics they were as Christological as Barth’s Reformed theology, and convincing Protestants they could affirm the analogia entis and thereby glimpse the whole creation as God’s good gift, through, and for . . . the hypostatic union” (277). Ecclesiology is thus a source of lasting disagreement between Barth and Balthasar, even as both men sought ecclesial renewal for the sake of Christ. The major achievements of Long’s Saving Karl Barth are several. The most accessible achievement is its detailed review of the friendship between Barth and Balthasar and the impact it has had on theological conversations from their own time until now. It is a difficult balance to 1288 Book Reviews achieve, since interpretations of both Barth and Balthasar vary widely, and since the sheer amount of effort involved in collecting their mutual history is immense. The real worth of the book is in its significantly more complex undercurrent of theological assessment as it reviews the history at hand. Here, Long attempts to bridge what seems to be an ever-widening gulf between Reformed and Catholic theologians over the matters of Christology and metaphysics, and thus over their respective doctrines of God, of grace, and of revelation. Long is sympathetic to the two poles between which Balthasar’s theology was “always caught,” and the book reads as a major effort to see that these theological tensions continue to be worked out in modern theology, rather than slackening by drifting apart from one another. Long critiques both Catholic and Protestant objections to Balthasar’s interpretation of Barth, and in many ways the work is an attempt to save that interpretation. One might well ask why Balthasar’s interpretation is worth saving, and for Long it is worth saving because of its ecumenical importance. Here at last—though in fact on every page—the book emerges as a major work of ecumenism. The book is unusual for an ecumenical work of theology because it steps through and amid the complex perspectives of its two central interlocutors, Barth and Balthasar, and so it has no explicit “program” of ecumenical outcomes. It is unusual as well in its sympathy for the divisions that lasted between Barth and Balthasar, divisions that the book does not attempt to resolve or dilute. For Long, it is clear that what makes ecumenism possible is Christology: the Christology of glory that both Barth and Balthasar loved, the Christology irradiated by the analogia entis as Balthasar understood it, the Christology driven immediately into ethics, as Barth so vividly grasped. This Christologically-driven ecumenical perspective is amenable to neither staunch modernist Barthians nor staunch “ressourcement Thomists” in Long’s parlance. In a certain sense, this Barthian-Balthasarian Christology provokes as much as it unites. The book is well-written and provocative, and yet also at times a challenge to read, requiring familiarity with either Barth or Balthasar’s works, if not both, as well as with arguments surrounding nature, grace, and the analogy of being. While the complexity of the book does much to indicate Long’s extensive and careful knowledge of several fields in theology, all of which are vital to grasp the relationship between Balthasar and Barth, the density of the book’s content may be an obstacle for a reader unfamiliar with at least one portion of the book’s massive interests. Long is also at times distracted by what to do with the analogy of being, as he—like Balthasar—supports it while having suspicions about Book Reviews 1289 the doctrine of pure nature. This concern sometimes dominates the book, perhaps distorting the role it plays in either theologian’s oeuvre. In this way, Saving Karl Barth at times succumbs to the very tensions that it attempts to bridge. In Long’s defense, nature-grace debates are a concern that preoccupies current scholarship on both Barth and Balthasar. These troubles are provocative, even as they obfuscate, and in the long run reinforce the relevance and breadth of the scholarship at play in the text. The perplexity of the book is the perplexity of our ecumenical present, which challenges scholars to lay hold of their convictions and at the same time to listen. Saving Karl Barth is fierce and successful in its various achievements, and in that sense all the more troubling and challenging for its success. If Long is right, and the friendship between Barth and Balthasar ought to be a model for present theological endeavors, then one ought to be troubled by the division among its interpreters at present. At the same time, if Long is right, then theology is presented with a refreshing challenge for its current context, which is to continue the dialogue begun between Barth and Balthasar, rather than letting it fade into the past. For this reason alone, among many others, Saving Karl Barth is a worthwhile N&V and supremely relevant book in modern scholarship. Anne M. Carpenter St. Mary’s College of California Moraga, CA The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification by David Vincent Meconi, S.J. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2013), xxii + 280 pp. David Meconi teaches Patristic Theology at St. Louis University. The book under review here is his first published monograph (he has edited or co-edited a number of other volumes) and is derived from a doctoral thesis completed at Oxford under the direction of Oliver O’Donovan. Meconi’s central purpose is to elucidate the place of deification in Augustine’s theology, and he does this both narrowly, by examining Augustine’s uses of the verb deificare, and broadly, by treating Augustine’s understanding of the creature’s union with God. The book is a fine piece of work: modest, careful, accurate, thoughtful, and theologically interesting. It is also certainly the first book-length treatment of its subject in English, and perhaps in any language. Meconi’s study appears motivated in part by a desire to rebut readings 1290 Book Reviews of Augustine that contrast his thought too severely with the emphasis on deification typical of large tracts in the Orthodox tradition. Claims that Augustine has no interest in deification, or that his theology permits no place for the idea, or that he is a theologian of justification rather than deification (there are many other variants) have often been made by both Catholic and Orthodox exegetes and interpreters of Augustine, though more often and more excitedly by the Orthodox. Meconi wants to show, and succeeds in showing, that in their crude forms, these judgments, and especially the more sweeping among them (I have in mind as representative example Pavel Florensky’s occasional anti-Augustinianism), are not adequate as interpretations of Augustine’s texts. Augustine does, indeed, have a place for the idea of deification; he does, indeed, use the word (eighteen times in the entire corpus); and he does, indeed, have a deep conceptual, pastoral, and homiletic interest, from the beginning to the end of his career, in the idea that all creatures, in their different ways, have profound intimacy with the Lord as their proper end and real possibility. Meconi begins (chapters one and two) by treating Augustine’s theology of creation—both of creatures in general and of human creatures in particular. For this, he draws mostly from De Genesi ad litteram [Literal Commentary on Genesis] and emphasizes Augustine’s depiction of the deiformity of the entire created order, together with the intensified instance of this in Augustine’s imago-theology of the human creature. In a nice summary phrase, Meconi writes that, “Created ad imaginem Dei, human persons are simultaneously God’s receptive icons as well as God’s distinct others” (35). This formulation contains one of the book’s leitmotifs: that union with God—deification—is given as possibility by the very fact of being a human creature, and yet that such union never abolishes the difference between God and human creatures. The key category for explaining this, in Meconi’s presentation of Augustine, is participation: the unity with God indicated by the term “deification” is, in fact, a kind of participation in which “the participant never becomes identical with or absorbed into the one in whom it participates” (51). Participation yields the degree of similarity to God proper to a particular creaturely kind, but it never, not even in the case of the human creature, yields identity. Meconi’s exegetical treatment of the range and intensity of Augustine’s tropes for intimacy between God and human creatures (cohaerere, adhaerere, affixus, and so on) is especially good. Following the treatment of creation, Meconi analyzes, in his third and fourth chapters, Augustine’s depiction of what the Son, the incarnate one, and the Spirit, the inspiring one, do to restore creaturely intimacy with God, damaged Book Reviews 1291 as it has been by the fall. It is in this context that Augustine uses the language of deification: the verb deificare, Meconi shows, is used only in connection with the incarnate one. He becomes human in order that we might become divine,—deified—and so it is necessarily the Incarnation that provides the possibility of deification for us. The restoration of the imago by way of the Incarnation is the locus, for Augustine, of talk about deification. Even in that place, however, as Meconi admits, sometimes with reluctance, deification is only one trope among many, and it is neither the most frequent nor the most significant. In some cases, however, its use is indeed striking. Meconi quotes and discusses Sermon 238, for example, in which Augustine tells his listeners that they ought to be certain that the Lord will give them his divina, his divine reality, so that they, who were human, will become gods (ut qui homines erant dii fiant). Lastly, in the fifth chapter, Meconi treats the ecclesial reception of the divine life. The Church, he argues, is for Augustine the totus Christus, Christ’s mystical body here below, together with the risen and ascended Christ, understood as “one single organism animated and amalgamated by grace” (233). Totus Christus, the whole Christ, serves, therefore, as an organizing trope for the idea that creation in its entirety, human, angelic, and the rest, will become “deified”—that is to say, transformed into profound and perfect intimacy with the Lord. Meconi provides in this chapter an elegant and accurate exposition of Augustine’s sacramental theology, showing that Augustine’s thought is the beating heart of his thought about the Church. Meconi’s book, as I have said, is accurate in its rendering of Augustine on the topics he treats, careful in its exegesis of particular texts, and a good corrective to those depictions of Augustine and Augustinianism that over-emphasize pessimism about the human condition, and thus make it difficult to see how the life of the Church—and, above all, the sacramental life—are grace-filled instruments for bringing about intimacy with the Lord. That is all very good, and the book is sufficiently clear and sufficiently broad in its scope, especially with respect to ecclesiology and sacramental theology, that it can profitably be read as an introduction to Augustine on those topics even by those without special interests in the deification question. By the time I had finished the book, though, I found myself uneasy. It is not that there is anything wrong with what Meconi argues or anything inaccurate in its particulars. It is, rather, that there is a subtle distortion in the big picture. Meconi is eager, perhaps over-eager, to emphasize the idea of deification. But he is not as eager as he should be to undercut 1292 Book Reviews that idea—to immediately take back with the left hand what the trope offers with the right. Augustine’s thought is replete with conceptual devices intended to emphasize the difference between the Lord and his creatures; such emphasis is one of his central concerns. Creatures are to be loved under the sign of use, for instance, while the Lord is to be loved under the sign of enjoyment; the Lord is the one whose beauty and love are what he is, whereas our beauty and love, such as they are, participate in and derive from his; and so on. Juxtaposing these fundamental and essential points with the language of deification—which is available and required because it is scriptural (Gen 3:5, 22; Ps 82:6; 2 Cor 3:17–18; and so on), a point that Meconi does not emphasize enough—transforms that language. It shows that deification does not mean being made God in the same way that liquefaction means being made liquid. It means, rather, being made as intimate with the Lord as is possible for a creature of a particular kind. Meconi knows this, of course, and says it sometimes. Nevertheless, the reader—this reader, anyway—finds himself shifting uneasily in his chair at about every tenth page and muttering to himself, “yes, but . . .” The point, I suppose, is that so far as I can see—and, I think, so far as Augustine could see—deification is and ought to be a minor trope in the fabric of Christian thought and talk. It ought always to be treated as such, handled as though it were a hot coal. Meconi treats it N&V jauntily sometimes, as if his hands were fireproof. Paul J. Griffiths Duke University Divinity School Durham, NC Rekindling the Christic Imagination: Theological Meditations for the New Evangelization by Robert P. Imbelli (Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2014) i-xx + 122 pp. Father Robert Imbelli , recently retired longtime professor of theology at Boston College, has gifted the Church with this brief, beautiful work that encourages a deeper participation in Christ’s own life while eschewing the anxiety we entertain to develop ecclesial programs to prove our interest in the New Evangelization. In four chapters that flow from profound theological meditations upon ecclesial art, literature, and sacraments, the reader bathes in Catholic culture as the conduit for contemplation. The New Evangelization is both an invitation to receive Christ in ever-deeper levels of encounter and a mission to invite others into this encounter as well. If evangelization is to prosper in this age Book Reviews 1293 of practical atheism, it is “intimate friendship with Jesus” (xvi) that the Church must communicate through all means possible. Evangelization is the desire to awaken others to being loved by Christ. This evangelization, however, is shocking because its substance carries the scandal of particularity. Evangelization is Christologically centered; one cannot receive the love of God generically: it is mediated by the one Christ. Evangelization is particular (Christ’s Cross), intimate (mystical), and public (personal transformation can be seen). In receiving the love of Christ, one is transformed.This transformation affects the body and the mind. To be evangelized is to receive a Christic imagination. With this imagination a person does not simply imitate Christ; he participates in Christ’s mysteries. This emphasis upon participation (83) is a key theological motif for Imbelli and a theme that is truly at the core of all discipleship. One is not called to be “good” or “ethical,” but rather, like Henri de Lubac, Imbelli sees that the mysteries of Christ must come before morality. The Church must be possessed by Christ and, in being so possessed, is rendered beautiful and attractive. It is this beauty that attracts “all” to Christ. Such beauty wounds the consciousness of persons and frees them to ask, “Master, where do you live?” Christic beauty invites communion. The beauty that is most accessible to our senses is the radiating truth of holiness. This holiness is the only “new” thing in creation, and it is the real “agenda” of the New Evangelization. We can see that holiness attracts others to Christ in and through the lives of the saints. The saint evangelizes by allowing the Trinity to love him or her more each day. The saint attracts by radiation, not irritation. All sanctity arises from “the soil of the sacraments” (74), and it is to these sacraments that the saints lead the sinner, thus sharing their own source of “new” life. This new life exists in the Church in dramatic ways, ways that are abundantly fertile! Fr. Imbelli uses the glorious mosaic from the Basilica of San Clemente to make his point about the fertility of holiness and ecclesial life. To be evangelized means that a person has been moved into the beautiful Source of life: The Paschal Mystery. This Source, now inhabiting the soul, then irrigates the world with love and vibrancy. This source is Christ’s own spousal self-giving upon the Cross, mediated to us today through the sacraments. An ecclesial view of evangelization is one that draws people close enough to the source of its holiness that these peoples get drenched in life as well. “It is not what we do that is primary,” writes Imbelli, “but what God is doing through Jesus Christ” (50). The holy ones, those with imaginations born in their own participation in the Paschal Mystery, keep inviting God to do more and so keep holding 1294 Book Reviews themselves open to receive more. In so doing they become beacons of evangelization, attractive persons who revel in having had their own minds moved beyond the mind of the present age! (Rom 12:2) For Fr. Imbelli, Christ, even in his particularity, is no threat to individual freedom or to the diversity of the many cultures on the planet. Evangelization, however, can be threatened and the Church’s freedom removed when outside agencies try to mute the beauty and uniqueness of Christ. In spite of this, the Church must bear the beauty of Christ without fear and in deep humility so that this beauty remains one that is only revealed and then offered, never exposed in order to coerce or manipulate. The Church simply desires to carry its transcendent message to all and then leave all free to be encountered by Truth, Beauty and Love: Jesus Christ.The Church points toward the divine communion that possesses it and only “captures” others by being faithful to the nature of Christ’s own way of revealing His love: in respect for the developmental capacity of each person to receive the truth about both themselves and God (31). In this way Imbelli echoes what Pope Francis has been emphasizing in his way of evangelizing: the command by Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations “is born not from a desire for domination . . . but from the force of love”(96). This book is invaluable for seminary formation, college classes and RCIA gatherings, but most especially for personal lectio divina. Its message is powerful, and so must be received by one reader at a time soaking in its wisdom before the Blessed Sacrament. From such a contemplative reading of this book will come much wisdom for the New Evangelization. N&V James Keating Institute for Priestly Formation Creighton University Omaha, NE Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation: The Mediation of the Gospel through Church and Scripture by Matthew Levering (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014), xi + 363 pp. When Contemporary Theologians talk about the “mediation” of divine revelation, their agenda, more often than not, is to emphasize the malleability of the Christian faith. A divine message that is mediated by human activity can seem to be very elusive and highly susceptible to distortion by the medium. This means that we can never be sure that received Christian doctrines really reflect the divine message. Book Reviews 1295 Matthew Levering’s very important book presents a different, and today much needed, approach. The author emphasizes that human mediation is an integral part of revelation. He is equally insistent, however, that we have good reason to trust the basic reliability of the mediating entities and processes. The Church is the locus where revelation is “received, enacted, and handed down” (2). Inspired Scripture is an essential part of this ecclesial mediation, which means that Scripture must be interpreted in the context of the Church’s liturgical worship. A basic trust in the truthfulness of the Church’s interpretation of revelation is made necessary by something as fundamental as belief in the Holy Spirit. Levering is, therefore, critical of “ecclesiastical fall narratives” that affirm the existence of a divine revelation but deny that it has been faithfully preserved by the Church. In the spirit of John Henry Newman, the author argues that this is an untenable position. The Christian doctrine of revelation is incoherent unless it includes, as an essential element, the Church’s faithful mediation. In order to expound and defend this perspective, the author engages contemporary theological debates in a number of areas. His vantage point is Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, and the book can be read as a creative defense of this document. The thought of Joseph Ratzinger—one of the architects behind Dei Verbum—is a discernible influence on the book in many respects, and Levering’s way of combining a keen sensitivity to contemporary challenges with an equally strong orthodox instinct brings Ratzinger to mind. A method consistently used by the author is to argue for the importance of the Church, liturgy, priesthood, Tradition (etc.) on the basis of what Scripture has to say. This is an effective way of underwriting the inseparability of Scripture, Tradition, and the Church, and a fruitful approach in relation to the many Protestant voices with which Levering dialogues and upon which he draws. A common critique against theologies that give the Church an active role in revelation is that the priority of God’s action is thereby downplayed. In first and second chapters Levering counters this critique by firmly anchoring the Church’s liturgical mediation of revelation in the theology of Trinitarian missions. At bottom, revelation is simply the Father’s sending of the Son into the world, and the Church is nothing but a participation in the Son’s mission under the guidance of the Spirit. By drawing on the thought of Aquinas, von Balthasar, and Christopher Wright, Levering highlights the intrinsic connection between the Church’s mission, Christ’s messianic mission, and the Trinitarian missions, 1296 Book Reviews in order to show that the Church’s active participation does not threaten the theocentric character of revelation. The Church’s role can be understood in terms of a kind of “double agency”—God acts in and through our actions.The place where this is most manifest, and where the Church is preeminently drawn into the life and revelatory activity of the Trinity, is the liturgy, which the author views through the lenses of Alexander Schmemann and Ratzinger. Liturgy is God’s work for us, but also our sharing in God’s work. Chapter 3 discusses the role of the hierarchical priesthood for the mediation of revelation. The point of departure for the discussion is the classical “fall narratives” by John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, according to which priestly mediation introduced a devastating source of conflict in the Church. Against this, Levering argues that priestly rivalry was present already from the start and that the New Testament is well aware of the problem and provides both spiritual and structural solutions to it. Jesus emphasized the connection between leadership and servantship and taught certain “cross-centered” ways of limiting rivalry. Especially through participating in and remembering Jesus in the Eucharist, the Church and her leadership can be conformed to his cruciform love. The hierarchical priesthood, including the Petrine office, must be understood against the background of this Eucharistic reconfiguration of power in terms of mercy and service. Although the argument about ecclesial cohesion and conflict resolution in chapter 3 is very enlightening in many respects, I think that an important aspect of the problem is left unaddressed. Unity, after all, is not worth much unless it is a unity in truth, which means that the hierarchy’s role in promoting unity cannot be properly discussed in separation from its role in promoting truth. What is needed in this context is a discussion and assessment of the claim that the bishops receive a special divine assistance in service of truth. If this traditional claim is true, it follows that lay Christians normally have good reason to submit to episcopal authority in doctrinal and ethical questions, not just because the unity of the Church requires it—which would be an insufficient reason, considering the importance of remaining in the truth—but because the bishops are more likely to get things right. A credible case in favor of the legitimacy of the hierarchical Church must, in my view, include a defense of some kind of special divine, truth-aimed assistance of the bishops. Chapter 4 argues that the Church is integral to revelation not only because she mediates revelation, but also because she belongs to the very content of revelation. True, the content of revelation is the Gospel, and Book Reviews 1297 the content of the Gospel is Jesus Christ, but the story of Jesus includes the story of Israel and continues in the sacramental life of the Church as she journeys towards eschatological fulfilment. Following Aquinas, Levering argues that the Gospel is about union between God and man, which in a primary sense takes place in the Incarnation, but which in a secondary sense includes the adoption of believers as children of God. Our incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church, is hence an essential part of the Gospel. Levering joins Scott McKnight in emphasizing the need for a “Gospel culture” that puts Christ at the center but attends to the whole story of Israel and the Church, through which Christ in his entirety is present. The next two chapters discuss the faithfulness of the Church’s mediation of revelation in terms of the reliability of Tradition and the continuity of doctrinal development. Chapter 5 presents, in the spirit of Yves Congar and Dei Verbum, Tradition as the fundamental form of the Church’s mediation of divine revelation and Scripture as a part of this divine communication. “The content of divine revelation cannot be handed down, even in Scriptural form, without being interpreted by the Church under the guidance of Christ and the Spirit” (172–173). But what does it mean to hand down the content of revelation faithfully? Levering addresses this question in critical dialogue with Terrence Tilley, who has delivered an influential critique of Catholic Tradition. According to Tilley, Tradition has no definite propositional content, and doctrinal truth is reducible to how well doctrinal formulations manage to promote human authenticity. This means that doctrines can (and must) change profoundly in response to cultural and other developments and that this process of change unfolds in a non-teleological fashion. The “faithfulness” of Tradition is not, in other words, a matter of the stability of a deposit of faith, but should be understood in terms of how well adaptations and changes succeed in meeting the needs of people in different contexts. Levering’s main criticism of this account is that it falsifies the view of Tradition that Scripture teaches. The New Testament, and Jesus himself, make a distinction between divinely revealed contents that must be faithfully handed down and human innovations that are not authorized by God. Tilley’s constructivist view cannot account for this distinction and is very hard to reconcile with much of what Jesus says in his encounters with the Pharisees (e.g., Mt 15: 5–6), or what Paul says with regard to the necessity of believing in Jesus’s Resurrection (1 Cor 15: 12–14). It seems that “Tilley advocates the kind of ever-changing human ‘tradition’ 1298 Book Reviews that Jesus and Paul . . . are at pains to reject” (173). This is a very cogent criticism. It is difficult to see how the distinction between authentic revelation (“commandments of God,” in Jesus’s words) and mere human constructions (“human traditions”) can be drawn in terms of how well putative revelations succeed in promoting authentic practices. Why cannot a merely human message sometimes promote such practices? In chapter 6, Levering deepens his account of the transmission of revelation by addressing the hard question of doctrinal development. He defends a Newman-inspired perspective on development against the attack by John T. Noonan, who sees radical reversals and rupture where Newman saw, more or less, organic development. In response to Noonan, Levering appeals to recent scholarship about the Nicene period that emphasizes the holistic nature of development (Lewis Ayres and Khaled Anatolios). Development, according to Anatolios, has to do with recreating coherence in the whole of Christian life in face of new questions that challenge received interpretations. Levering seems to embrace, at least in part, this holistic view, which allows him to acknowledge certain “breaks” and discontinuities without denying an underlying continuity. Levering’s main strategy to counter Noonan, however, is to appeal to the distinction between definitive and non-definitive magisterial teachings. True development can involve contradictions between magisterial statements of a non-definitive kind, but not contradictions between definitive statements. Pope Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of reform,” which acknowledges continuity and discontinuity at different levels, is an obvious point of reference. In chapter 7, the author discusses the inspiration of the Bible in dialogue with Origen and Augustine. The focus of the chapter is restricted to a rather limited—but important—aspect: what is the relationship between a doctrine of inspiration and the issue of the truth of Scripture’s historical narratives? From Augustine and Origen, as well as from Scripture itself, Levering retrieves a sense of history that acknowledges a spiritual “inside” and typological meaning to events.The deeper meaning of history—fully revealed in Christ—has to do with God’s providential ordering of events for the sake of salvation, and the modern restriction of the label “historical” to the outward dimension of history represents an impoverishment. If Christianity is true, the salvational meaning of history is really there, intrinsic to the unfolding of events, and to refuse to acknowledge it is to fail to be properly “historical.” Dei Verbum’s claim that “every single part” of the Bible mediates revelation truthfully does not entail, for Levering, that every single event Book Reviews 1299 described in the Bible’s historical narratives must actually have happened. Appealing to the difference between modern and ancient historiography, Levering argues that some narrated events may be read as purely typological, but without thereby underplaying their “historicity” in a wider sense. The question of which events actually happened must be answered on a case-by-case basis through a “theological-historical dialogue rooted in faith’s engagement with the particular narratives and the available historical evidence” (240). This is very sound advice in the context of a debate that often tends to neglect the enormous difference in (secular) historical credibility between New Testament and Old Testament narratives. Pope Benedict XVI famously argued that “the encounter between the biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance,” and that “the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith.”1 Along similar lines, chapter 8 highlights the positive contributions of Hellenistic philosophy and language to Christian faith and discusses the significance of this for the theology of revelation. One positive contribution is the Greek insight about the immateriality of God, which helped to steer the Christian tradition away from materialistic conceptions of the Deity, despite important Scriptural ambiguities in this area. As usual, Levering appeals to Scripture in order to show both the mutual enrichment between biblical and Greek thought and the shortcomings of Hellenistic conceptions of God. Israel’s reflection about God is affected by Hellenistic philosophy from the Second Temple period, and the New Testament explicitly concedes true insights about God to pagan philosophers (Levering especially discusses Acts 17—Paul’s Areopagus speech—and the natural theology of Rom 1). The author’s conclusion is that “divine revelation made fruitful use of the historical and cultural context . . . of the biblical authors and redactors” (283). Levering’s book as a whole presents a masterfully synthesized, creative, and convincing account—firmly grounded in Scripture and Tradition— of how the Gospel can be faithfully mediated by the very human, and hence ambiguous, phenomena of Church, Scripture, liturgy, Tradition, priesthood, and philosophy. The choice of these vulnerable media of revelation is not out of character for a Lord “who literally gives himself into the hands of sinners and who sends his Holy Spirit upon the very disciples who betrayed him” (297). The Spirit’s guidance certainly does 1 Pope Benedict XVI, “Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections” (lecture, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany, September 12, 2006), http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html. 1300 Book Reviews not protect the Church from all errors, but it protects her from certain kinds of errors—namely, from going wrong in her definitive interpretations of revelation. Without something like this divinely imposed limit on the Church’s interpretive fallibility, there simply is no such thing as revelation. “We do not have divine revelation without faithful mediation” (3). This is an argument that needs to be made today, and Levering makes it with sophistication, sensibility, and immense erudition. Every chapter is a gold mine of references for those interested in the relevant debates. What I especially appreciate about the book is its persistent insistence that revelation can transform “not only our hearts but also our minds through cognitive content” (13–14). The claim that revelation transmits propositional contents is not at all a given in Catholic theology today, as the book’s very helpful introductory overview of recent theology of revelation (5–27) makes clear. The “anti-propositional shift” in the wake of Vatican II is, in my view, a disastrous development that must be reversed if Catholic theology is to retain philosophical credibility. The fatal mistake made by many theologians is to distance propositions (which are not strings of words, but conceptually structured, cognitive contents) from “revelation itself ” and claim that propositions enter at a logically later stage, in the context of the interpretation of revelation. This opens up a host of philosophical problems and inevitably makes “revelation itself ” irrelevant for the formulation of doctrine. What is lacking here is the insight that Levering so effectively drives home—namely, that mediation (in this case, propositions expressed in human language) is intrinsic to revelation. Henri de Lubac is an example of a brilliant theologian (but bad philosopher) who makes the above-mentioned fatal mistake, and tendencies in the same direction can be found even in Ratzinger’s work. Levering’s book makes an important contribution in this respect. Not only because its account of faithful mediation highlights the question of propositional truth, but also because the author’s understanding of mediation does not sharply separate a mysterious “revelation itself ” from the mediating entities, such as propositions asserted by Jesus, or by Scriptural authors. However, in a footnote, the author says that “we need to be careful not to separate revelation from propositions . . . even if in my view we should distinguish the two” (24, n. 77, my italics). It might be the influence of Colin Gunton (whose theology Levering recounts in this context) that is behind the italicized statement, which in my view is false. Jesus asserted propositions when he taught, and Book Reviews 1301 what Jesus asserts must surely count as revelation.2 So there is no need to N&V distinguish the two. Mats Wahlberg Umeå University Umeå, Sweden 2 Jesus’ propositional teaching must at least count as revelation when it is understood and believed by his hearers. Discover the Church’s Ancient Understanding of Scripture, Liturgy, and Sacrament “A marvelous guide to the typology and symbolism of the sacraments found in Scripture and Tradition.” —Peter S. Williamson, Adam Cardinal Maida Chair in Sacred Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Co-editor of the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture “If this book is well-used, it may spell an end to the sad neglect and under-appreciation of the divine mysteries that Christ has so graciously placed in our weak hands.” —Sean Innerst, Professor of Theology and Catechetics, St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, Augustine Institute “Fr. Roza provides us with an excellent compendium of biblical types that will greatly assist in recovering the typological vision of the Fathers for the contemporary Church.” —John Bergsma, Professor of Sacred Scripture, Franciscan University of Steubenville Get it today! EmmausRoad.org