et Vetera Nova Fall 2017 • Volume 15, Number 4 The English Edition of the International Theological Journal Co-Editors 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 Reinhard Hütter, Catholic University of America 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 C. Pecknold, Catholic University of America Michael S. 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., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas 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 Simon Francis Gaine, O.P., Blackfriars, University of Oxford Timothy Gray, Augustine Institute Nicholas J. Healy, Jr., Pontifical John Paul II Institute (Washington, DC) Russell Hittinger, University of Tulsa Paige Hochschild, Mount St. Mary’s University Andrew Hofer, O.P., Dominican House of Studies 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) Michał Paluch, O.P., Instytut Thomistyczny (Warsaw, Poland) Trent Pomplun, Loyola University Maryland Christopher J. Ruddy, Catholic University of America Richard Schenk, O.P., University of Freiburg 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. 2. Contributions should be prepared to accord as closely as possible with the typographical conventions of Nova et Vetera. The University of Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition) is our authority on matters of style. 3. Nova et Vetera practices blind review. Submissions are evaluated anonymously by members of the editorial board and other scholars with appropriate expertise. Name, affiliation, and contact information should be included on a separate page apart from the submission. 4. Galley-proofs of articles are sent to contributors to be read and corrected and should be returned to the Editors within ten days of receipt. Corrections should be confined to typographical and factual errors. 5. Submission of a manuscript entails the author’s agreement (in the event his or her contribution is accepted for publication) to assign the copyright to Nova et Vetera. Nova et Vetera The English Edition of the International Theological Journal ISSN 1542-7315 Fall 2017 Vol. 15, No. 4 Commentary Easter Sunday of the Resurrection. . . . . . . . . . . J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P. Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. . . . . . . Romanus Cessario, O.P. The Church, the Modern World, and the Spirit of Vatican II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bruce D. Marshall 979 983 999 Articles The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dennis Bonnette 1013 Prospects for a Sapiential Theology: Bonaventure on Theological Wisdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gregory F. LaNave 1037 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments: A Catholic Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Root 1065 Freedom and the Fearful Symmetry: Theological Reflections on Freedom’s Relationship to Truth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. 1085 The Structure and Protreptic Function of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John. . . . . . . . . . . . . Randall B. Smith 1101 “Partnership with God”: Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rudi A. te Velde 1151 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oliver Treanor 1177 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, and the Natural Desire for a Supernatural End. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacob W. Wood 1209 Exchange Vatican II on the Religions: A Response. . . . . . . . . Gerald O’Collins, S.J. 1243 Ad Father O’Collins.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eduardo Echeverria 1251 Book Reviews Das Heil des Menschen als Gnade by Michael Stickelbroeck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emery de Gaál 1281 Ecce Homo: On the Divine Unity of Christ by Aaron Riches.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Levering 1284 Sacred Liturgy: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church edited by Alcuin Reid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard S. Meloche 1292 Contemplation and Classical Christianity: A Study in Augustine by John Peter Kenney. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emily C. Nye 1295 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 978-1-947792-36-4) is published quarterly by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 1468 Parkview Circle, Steubenville, OH 43952. Nova et Vetera is distributed to institutional subscribers for the St. Paul Center by the Catholic University of America Press. Institutional subscriptions, notifications of change of address, and inquiries concerning subscriptions, back issues, and missing copies should be sent to: JHUP Journals Division, PO Box 19966, Baltimore, MD 21211-0966. All materials published in Nova et Vetera are copyrighted by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. © Copyright 2017 by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Please send address change to Nova et Vetera, 1468 Parkview Circle, Steubenville, OH 43952. Periodical Postage Paid at Steubenville, OH. This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Catholic Periodical and Literature Index® (CPLI®), a product of the American Theological Library Association, 300 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 2100, Chicago, IL 60606, USA. Email: atla@atla.com, www.atla.com. Nova et Vetera Subscription Rates: • Individuals: one-year $40.00, two-year $75.00 International: one-year $60.00, two-year $115.00 • Students: one-year $30.00, two-year $50.00 International: one-year $40.00, two-year $70.00 • Colleges, Universities, Seminaries, and Institutions: one-year $110.00, one-year print + electronic subscription $150.00 International: one-year $135.00 To subscribe online, please visit http://www.nvjournal.net. For subscription inquiries, email us at novaetvetera@stpaulcenter.com or phone 740-264-9535. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 979–982 979 Easter Sunday of the Resurrection J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P. Homily Delivered at the Dominican House of Studies April 16, 2017 Acts 10:34a, 37–43 / Colossians 3:1–4 / John 20:1–9 Brothers and sisters in Christ , a warm welcome to all who join the Dominican friars on this Easter Sunday morning as we rejoice in the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. The eyes of all this morning are fixed on the face of risen Christ: those of Mary Magdalen, those of the disciples, ours, and those of the whole Church. What about his Holy Mother’s? The fifth-century Latin poet Sedulius, in his Paschale carmen, imagines that it was to the Blessed Virgin Mary that the Risen Christ first appeared: “Before her eyes the Lord first stood / And presented himself openly in the light, so that his good mother, / Spreading abroad the news of his great miracles, the one who was / The way by which he once came to us, might also signal his return” (5.361–64). Pope St. John Paul II thought there might be something to this: “The Blessed Virgin too was probably a privileged witness of Christ’s Resurrection, completing in this way her participation in all the essential moments of the paschal mystery.”1 We do not have to take a position on this disputed question to imagine an early appearance of Christ to his Holy Mother, to hear the news of his Resurrection from her lips, and to contemplate his face through her eyes. From the very first moment of Christ’s conception, the “eyes of her heart were already turned to him” and thereafter her “gaze, ever filled with adoration and wonder, would never leave him.”2 “No one General Audience, May 21, 1997. Pope St. John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, §10. 1 2 980 J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P. has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary.” Why? Because: “in a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which points to an even greater spiritual closeness”.3 The Regina coeli invokes precisely Mary’s divine maternity to identify the Risen One: Quia quem meruisti portare, Alleluia / Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia. Who has risen from the dead? The one whom she merited to bear. The “gaze of sorrow” of the Stabat Mater is now “transformed into a gaze radiant with the joy of the Resurrection”4 because it is from the face of the one formed in her womb that the glory of the Resurrection now blazes forth. At Christmas we sang: “O that birth forever blessed, / When the Virgin full of grace, / By the Holy Ghost conceiving, / Bore the Savior of our race; / And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer, / First revealed his sacred face, / Evermore and evermore” (Prudentius, Of the Father’s Love Begotten). On the morning of the Resurrection, gazing at the face of her Risen Son, Mary can still see the sacred face of her infant son as he lay in her arms on the night of his birth. So can we, as she draws us into the depths of these mysteries. A pious Jewish maiden, Mary would have been familiar with the whole array of prophecy and tradition that foretold the identity and mission of the child who was to become the Savior of the world. She knew that “He comes to make his blessings flow / Far as the curse is found.”5 She would have known the texts we heard at the Easter Vigil that recall the whole complex web of prefiguration and typology that render the Paschal mystery intelligible to the eyes of faith. Christ endured every kind of suffering in those who prefigured him: “In Abel he was slain, in Isaac bound, in Jacob exiled, in Joseph sold, in Moses exposed to die, . . . sacrificed in the Passover lamb, persecuted in David, dishonored in the prophets.”6 Discerning all this from the beginning, with the passing years, Mary came to an ever deeper knowledge of the saving mission that would climax in the Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection of her Son. Surely she must have felt some premonition of the future ordeal of the Passion in the very chill and hardship of the circumstances Ibid. Ibid. 5 Isaac Watts, Joy to the World. 6 Melito of Sardis, Easter Homily. 3 4 Easter Sunday of the Resurrection 981 surrounding his birth, when “Earth stood hard as iron, / Water like a stone.” 7 The tradition of Christmas song demonstrates an uncanny intuition of Mary’s prophetic sense of what the future would hold for her Son. After his death, Jesus lay in Mary’s arms again when she received his body as he was taken down from the Cross. Perhaps she participated in the preparation of his body for burial. As the Gospel of St. John records, Joseph of Arimathea was assisted by Nicodemus, who brought aloes and myrrh, according to Jewish custom, to be folded into the white linen burial cloth. Not swaddling clothes this time, but a burial cloth instead. Perhaps at that moment Mary recalled the visit of the Wise Men from the East, the prefigured meaning of whose precious aromatic gifts could now be recognized. “Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume / Breathes a life of gathering gloom; / Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, / Sealed in the stone cold tomb.”8 In Mary’s gaze, the face of the infant Christ blends with the face of the suffering Christ and the face of the Risen Christ. Sharing this morning in Mary’s contemplative gaze and devoutly imagining her Easter witness, we learn to celebrate the mysteries of Christ in the present tense, for their deepest meanings coexist with and interpenetrate one another. It is no surprise, then, that the feast of the Nativity should come to mind in the midst of our celebration of the Paschal mystery. For, to hear the message of the Resurrection from Mary’s lips, as it were, is to contemplate the full sweep of the Passio Christi— from Bethlehem to Golgotha, and beyond to the right hand of the Father—to learn the meaning of these mysteries for the Church and for ourselves under her tutelage, and not only to learn about them but also to receive through her intercession the powerful grace they impart. Expert in the mysteries of Christ, Mary never fails to turn our eyes to what is most important for us to see and grasp there and “to be open to the grace which Christ won for us by the mysteries of his life, death and resurrection.”9 The Resurrection of Christ is, in a real sense, the fulfillment of the Annunciation, when Mary’s fiat opened the way to our redemption, and her own. The body of our risen Lord—the same body he offered in sacrifice on the Cross—was the body he received from Mary in Rossetti and Holtz, In the Bleak Mid-winter. John Henry Hopkins, We Three Kings of Orient Are. 9 Rosarium Virginis Mariae, §13. 7 8 982 J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P. the womb. What is more, Easter has made her what we hope to be as well. “Welcoming the risen Jesus, Mary is . . . a sign and anticipation of humanity which hopes to achieve its fulfilment through the resurrection of the dead.”10 Our Lady is the first one to share in the Resurrection of her Son, the first fruits, as it were, of Easter: assumed into heaven and now reigning as Queen of Heaven, she anticipates the Resurrection of our bodies and the life of bliss to come. How easy it is to imagine with Sedulius that she who was “the way by which he once came to us, might also signal his return.” At Easter, we call on Mary to rejoice—Regina coeli, laetare—thus “prolonging in time the ‘rejoice’ that the Angel addressed to her at the Annunciation.”11 While the (probably Franciscan) author of this wonderful antiphon is unknown, there is a beautiful legend that Pope St. Gregory the Great—as he followed barefoot in procession with St. Luke’s icon of Mary—heard angels singing the first lines and added what would become the antiphon’s concluding line: Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluia. Queen of heaven, rejoice, and pray for us to God. May God grant that, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we who this Easter morning have heard the news of the Resurrection from her lips and “who in this season have received the grace to imitate [her] devoutly in contemplating the Passion of Christ . . . cling more firmly each day to your Only Begotten Son and come at last to the N&V fullness of his grace. Amen.”12 Pope St. John Paul II, General Audience, May 21, 1997. Ibid. 12 Cf. alternate collect for Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent. 10 11 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 983–998 983 Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit1 Romanus Cessario, O.P. Saint John’s Seminary Brighton, MA Outside the Confines Within the context of reflection on interreligious dialog and the new evangelization, the topic “Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit” piques the theological imagination. The mind turns with a certain litheness of spirit to a theme that, over the past fifty years, has both animated theologians and appeared in authoritative Church documents. I refer to the claim that the Holy Spirit works “outside of the visible confines of the Mystical Body.”2 Lumen Gentium §16, though it makes no explicit mention of the Holy Spirit, sparks thinking along these lines. Gaudium et Spes §22 takes up the “outside” theme, though with specific reference to the Holy Spirit: “For, since Christ died for all men (see Rom. 8:32), and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with [the] paschal mystery.”3 So also Ad Gentes §15 makes refer An earlier version of this article was delivered at the annual meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas held in the Vatican City State on June 19–21, 2015. The general theme of the Academy’s sessions was “Religion and Religions: A Thomistic Look.” 2 John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis (1979), §6. In the next sentence, the encyclical warns against using the testimonies of other religions as establishing grounds for doubt. The Pope refers to an anathema found in the nineteenth-century Vatican Council I, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, ch. 3 (De fide), can. 6. 3 Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, §16 (accessed August 5, 2017, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html). 1 984 Romanus Cessario, O.P. ence to “the Holy Spirit, who calls all men to Christ by the seeds of the Lord and by the preaching of the Gospel.”4 Thus run several significant texts from the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). In 1997, the Interreligious Dialogue Commission of the Central Committee for the Year 2000 published a short report on the “outside” theme titled “Presence and Actions of the Holy Spirit in the World and in Other Religions.” The author introduces his essay with these words: “The Christian community lives in the firm belief that it is guided by the Spirit, but God’s closeness to humankind, which is accomplished by the power of the Spirit, cannot be limited to the Christian community alone. The Spirit is free, and blows where it wills ( Jn 3,8); wherever the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom.”5 All in all, the words of John 3:8, “The wind blows where it will,” have prompted over the past five decades broad considerations and interpretations about what significance this biblical affirmation may hold for Christian life and practice, including its serving as an endorsement for the “outside” theme.6 More recently, in his Presentation of Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia on 22 December 2014, Pope Francis, citing John 3:8, spoke about the “freedom of the Holy Spirit” to warn against curial “functionalism.” 7 One may view this Second Vatican Council, Ad Gentes, §15 (accessed August 5, 2017, http:// www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_ decree_19651207_ad-gentes_en.html). 5 Giovanni Cereti, “Presence and Actions of the Holy Spirit in the World and in Other Religions,” a document prepared for the Interreligious Dialogue Commission of the Central Committee for the Year 2000 (accessed August 5, 2017, http://www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/magazine/documents/ ju_mag_01091997_p-56_en.html). The author represents official teaching as it stood in 1997. 6 Of the three times that John 3:8 appears in the conciliar documents, none refers unequivocally to the “outside” theme. See Vatican II, Apostolican Actuositatem, § 3, and Presbyterorum Ordinis, §§8 and 13. 7 Admittedly, the context of the reference does not relate directly to interreligious matters. “The disease of excessive planning and of functionalism. When the apostle plans everything down to the last detail and believes that with perfect planning things will fall into place, he becomes an accountant or an office manager. Things need to be prepared well, but without ever falling into the temptation of trying to contain and direct the freedom of the Holy Spirit, which is always greater and more flexible than any human planning (cf. Jn 3:8). We contract this disease because ‘it is always more easy and comfortable to settle in our own sedentary and unchanging ways. In truth, the Church shows her fidelity to the Holy Spirit to the extent that she does not try to control or tame him . . . to tame the Holy Spirit! . . . He 4 Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit 985 papal admonition as an in-house variation on the “outside” theme. Outside is not always a bad place from which to look. For example, it may be useful for students of comparative religion to draw up a list of values or beliefs found in other religions that may compare favorably with the received gifts of the Holy Spirit, for which the first magisterial reference may be found as early as the late fourth century (382).8 It would be odd, in fact, to think that such things as wisdom, counsel, and piety do not correspond, at least in name, to some of the highest aspirations found among the practitioners of non-Christian religions. More specific examples of possible inquiries also come to mind. One may envisage research into comparisons such as between knowledge and Brahman, understanding and Confucius, and fear of the Lord and the fatwā.9 Moreover, this kind of comparative exercise should be easy to accomplish. Research that aims to establish apparent parallels between Christian and non-Christian categories flourishes in schools where comparative religion has replaced the exercises of Catholic theology. It would surprise me, however, to discover that, today, much fruitfulness for the Catholic Church results from multidisciplinary investigations. Religious studies, at least in North America, have become increasingly prone to the promotion of religious and ethical relativism. In any event, the pursuit of these correlations would unlikely advance investigations into the place that the virtue of religion holds in the new evangelization. Such a pursuit may even entail odd reversals of theological method. A robust theology of the gifts of the Holy Spirit goes in search of its anthropological, psychois freshness, imagination, and newness’” (Pope Francis, Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia, December 22, 2014, accessed August 5, 2017, http:// w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/december/documents/ papa-francesco_20141222_curia-romana.html; quoting his own homily from a November 29 Mass of the same year, 2014, on apostolic journey to Turkey). 8 See the Decretum Damasi in Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matter of Faith and Morals, ed. by Peter Hünermann, 43rd ed., trans. and ed. Robert Fastiggi and Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), no. 178. For the latest pronouncement, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1831: “The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They belong in their fullness to Christ, Son of David (see Isa 11:1–2). They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them. They make the faithful docile in readily obeying divine inspirations.” 9 Pope Saint John Paul II raised certain considerations about elements of these world religions that may find points of correspondence within Catholicism (Crossing the Threshold of Hope [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994], esp. 82–94). 986 Romanus Cessario, O.P. logical, and similar foundations. An exercise of this kind could result in the theologically self-defeating effort to portray nature as perfecting grace. What is regrettable, at least from a Catholic viewpoint, appears in the frequency with which some version of the method of correlation controls theological style and education in Catholic settings.10 Advances in the new evangelization must be made, however. Recall the repeated exhortations of Pope Francis, who gave this reason for urgency: “How many men and women, on the existential peripheries created by a consumerist, atheistic society, wait for our closeness and our solidarity!”11 Other voices are raised. One prophetic announcement came from the pen of the British poet T. S. Eliot († 1965). In his essays on Christianity and Culture, Eliot wrote: “If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on a new culture readymade. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor would our great-great-great-grandchildren: and if we did, not one of us would be happy in it.”12 Eliot first spoke these words in 1939 at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Though one may appreciate the suggestion that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, albeit in some disguised form, range outside the visible confines of the Mystical Body, T. S. Eliot’s prognosis (and perhaps Pope Francis’s exhortation) should give the Catholic theologian a moment for pause. That some Catholic theologians of the 1960s thought hypothesizing about “secularization” held promise for the future of Catholicism should be obvious to even the novice in theological studies.13 Perhaps For an overall good-willed example, see Searching for a Universal Ethic: Multidisciplinary, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Responses to the Catholic Natural Law Tradition, ed. John Berkman and William C. Mattison, III (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014). 11 Pope Francis, Address to Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, Consistory Hall, May 29, 2015 (accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ speeches/2015/may/documents/papa-francesco_20150529_nuova-evangelizzazione.html). 12 T. S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture: The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes towards the Definition of Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1949), 200. 13 For instance, see Harvey G. Cox, The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective (New York: MacMillan, 1965), which appeared in 10 Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit 987 the Cambridge, Massachusetts, theologians of “The Secular City” should have paid more attention to the warning given by the Poet Eliot at the Cambridge six months before the start of World War II. In any event, seventy-five years later, in 2015, world circumstances, as Pope Francis has warned, make it difficult to pursue the secularity option with a buoyant optimism.14 The Holy Father instead directs us to educate people, especially children, “to encounter Christ, living and working in his Church.”15 How better to achieve this salutary objective than by considering those “special dispositions, created in our powers by the Holy Ghost, for the purpose of perfecting the infused virtues”—to borrow the language of a venerable American author of the twentieth century?16 The Gifts of the Holy Spirit There is another consideration that dissuades us from pursuing an investigation into whether or not the gifts of the Holy Spirit may be found among those who subscribe to other world religions. The structure of the Catechism of the Catholic Church—if not the numbers that treat explicitly the gifts of the Holy Spirit—locates these divine graces within the confines of justified human existence.17 This presentation in the Catechism follows what, in 1897, Pope Leo XIII wrote in his encyclical Divinum Illud Munus. The following text, which is not included in the Denzinger collection, affords a convenient magisterial snapshot of what the Church holds about how the gifts of the Holy Spirit shape the life of the justified Christian: The just man, that is to say he who lives the life of divine grace, and acts by the fitting virtues as by means of faculties, has need the midst of the debate that preceded the passage of Gaudium et Spes. See also The Secular City Debate, ed. Daniel Callahan (New York: Macmillan, 1966). Callahan, then editor of the magazine Commonweal, wrote in the “Introduction” to these collected essays by both Catholics and Protestants: “I can attest from my own experience as an editor of a Catholic periodical that Cox’s book aroused unusual interest in the Roman Catholic community” (1). 14 For a different viewpoint on the “outside” theme, see Ralph Martin, Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012). 15 Pope Francis, Address to Council for Promoting New Evangelization, May 29, 2015. 16 Robert Edward Brennan, O.P., The Seven Horns of the Lamb (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce, 1966), 11. 17 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§1830 and 1831. 988 Romanus Cessario, O.P. of those seven gifts which are properly attributed to the Holy Ghost. By means of them the soul is furnished and strengthened so as to obey more easily and promptly His voice and impulse. Wherefore these gifts are of such efficacy that they lead the just man to the highest degree of sanctity; and of such excellence that they continue to exist even in heaven, though in a more perfect way. By means of these gifts the soul is excited and encouraged to seek after and attain the evangelical beatitudes, which, like the flowers that come forth in the spring time, are the signs and harbingers of eternal beatitude. Lastly there are those blessed fruits, enumerated by the Apostle (Gal. v., 22), which the Spirit, even in this mortal life, produces and shows forth in the just; fruits filled with all sweetness and joy, inasmuch as they proceed from the Spirit, “who is in the Trinity the sweetness of both Father and Son, filling all creatures with infinite fullness and profusion” (St. Aug. de Trin. 1. vi., c. 9).18 While admittedly not a definition of faith, this papal text clearly presents the gifts, beatitudes, and fruits of the Holy Spirit as among “those many heavenly gifts and helps that can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church.”19 The influence of Aquinas shines forth.20 One wonders whether contemporary students of theology would not mistake Pope Leo’s text for a page from a nineteenth-century scholastic manual. Like the Church, spiritual authors discuss the gifts as the prerogatives of the justified. In 1994, Don Arnaldo Pedrini, S.D.B., published in the Academy’s series Studi Tomistici his Bibliografia Tomistica sulla Pneumatologia.21 This survey of the literature begins in 1870. Father Pedrini indicates that, within the period of his research, one Pope Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus (1897), §9 (accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_ enc_09051897_divinum-illud-munus.html). 19 Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis (1943), §103, cited in Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, Dominus Iesus (2000), §22: “If it is true that the followers of other religions can receive divine grace, it is also certain that objectively speaking they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation.” 20 See Brennan, Seven Horns, 33. 21 Arnaldo Pedrini, S.D.B., Bibliografia Tomistica sulla Pneumatologia, Studi Tomistici 54 (Rome: LEV, 1994). 18 Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit 989 of the first treatments of the gifts of the Holy Spirit appears as early as 1882. Three years after the publication of Aeterni Patris (1879), the Swiss Jesuit Moritz Meschler (1830–1912) from the Valais published his work Die Gabe des heiligen Pfingsfestes: Betrachtungen über den heiligen Geist,22 and a French translation appeared in 1895, while an English one followed in 1903.23 The book, a collection of tailored meditations on the Holy Spirit and his activity in the life of the Christian, originally was published in Germany a year after the launch of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf and remained in print long enough to warrant a new edition fifty years later! 24 It thus falls squarely within the discipline of spiritual theology that, during the period of moral casuistry, Servais-Th. Pinckaers has shown had become the normal category for such treatments.25 When, in a chapter dedicated to the topic, Meschler begins to treat the gifts of the Holy Spirit, he includes a footnote that explains that his theology of the gifts depends mainly on the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas.26 This is significant for two reasons. First, Meschler, though not numbered among the recognized Thomist authors of his period, claims Aquinas as his mentor.27 Moritz Meschler, S.J., Die Gabe des heiligen Pfingsfestes: Betrachtungen über den heilgen Geist (Freiburg-im-Breslau: Herder, 1882). Even before 1879, Edward Cardinal Manning took up the theme of the gifts of the Holy Spirt in The Internal Missions of the Holy Ghost (New York: D.&J. Sadlier, 1875), although he relies more on Denys the Carthusian (1402–1471) than he draws explicitly from Aquinas. 23 Moritz Meschler, Le Don de la Pentecôte. Méditations sur le Saint Esprit, ed. Ph. Mazoyer, 2 vols. (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1895); English translation as The Gift of Pentecost: Meditations on the Holy Ghost, trans. Amabel Kerr, (London: Sands and Company, 1903). 24 See Meschler, Die Gabe des heiligen Pfingstfestes. For the effect of the Kulturkampf on the Jesuits, see Michael B. Gross, The War against Catholicism: Liberalism and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth-century Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004). 25 See Servais-Th. Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sr. Mary Thomas Noble (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 263–64. 26 Meschler, The Gift, 230n1. He also acknowledges the great difference of opinion that one finds among the theologians when it comes to speaking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In fact, Aquinas influences the overall book, as the author attests in his introduction: “We have taken as our guides on this journey the great masters of theology, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, and his disciples and expounders, ancient and modern, as well as all the others from whom there is something to be learned about the Holy Ghost” (vii). 27 Meschler does not appear in the exhaustive list of Thomists authors composed by Leonard A. Kennedy, C.S.B., A Catalogue of Thomists, 1270–1900 (Houston, 22 990 Romanus Cessario, O.P. Secondly, Aquinas clearly teaches that the gifts of the Holy Spirit “cannot exist apart from charity.”28 Charity of course includes all that friendship with God entails.29 Pedrini’s catalogue, which does not pretend to be exhaustive, includes some sixty-five publications, both books and articles, that treat the gifts of the Holy Spirit according to the mind of the Angelic Doctor. Each considers the gifts as graces proper to the justified, to those who abide in charity. The final entry for 1989 refers to an essay by Horst Seidl, of our Academy, on the gift of Piety in John of Saint Thomas.30 This seventeenth-century Iberian Thomist, as is well known, enjoys a certain prominence among the commentators for his treatment of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.31 One advantage of the Thomist commentatorial tradition is that those who interest themselves in it are always referred back to the saint who stands as the inspiration for his commentators. Many people think that the TX: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1987). It may be interesting to note that Meschler does not adopt the Molinist interpretation of the how the gifts move—namely, that they set in motion the production of virtuous actions. For further information and a Thomist response to a Molinist author of a later period, R.P. de Guibert, S.J., and his unique interpretation of the surpahuman mode of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, see Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Perfection chrétienne et Contemplation selon S.Thomas d’Aquin et S. Jean de la Croix, vol. 2 (Saint Maximin, FR: Éditions de La Vie Spirituelle, 1923), appendix 2, pp. [52]-[64]. 28 Aquinas, Summa theologiae [hereafter, ST] II-II, q. 19, a. 9. See also I-II, q. 68, a. 5. 29 Pope Francis addressed this theme in the General Audience of November 6, 2013: “The Church grows only by the love that comes from the Holy Spirit. The Lord invites us to open ourselves to communion with him, in the Sacraments, in the charisms and in charity, in order to live out our Christian vocation with dignity!” (accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en/audiences/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20131106_udienza-generale.html). 30 H. Seidl, “Osservazioni al trattato di Giovanni di S. Tommaso sul dono della pietà,” Angelicum 66 (1989): 151–60. 31 See Javier Sese, “Juan de S.T. y su tratado de los dones del Espiritu Santo,” Angelicum 66 (1989): 161–84. See also Romanus Cessario, “A Thomist Interpretation of Faith: The Gifts of Understanding and Knowledge,” in Novitas et Veritas Vitae: Aux Sources du Renouveau de la Morale Chrétienne; Mélanges Offerts au Professeur Servais Pinckaers à l’Occasion de Son 65e Anniversaire, ed. Carlos-Josaphat Pinto de Oliveira (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1991): 67–102, and “John Poinsot: On The Gift of Counsel,” in The Common Things: Essays on Thomism and Education, ed. Daniel McInerny (Mishawaka, IN: American Maritain Association, 1999): 163–78. Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit 991 Thomist commentators distract from Thomas. In fact, the commentators have kept Aquinas alive. With the possible exception of Saint Bonaventure, who enjoys his own sort of following, the other figures of the middle ages remain, by and large, objects of historical investigation, most of which begins in the twentieth century. In any event, Pedrini’s Bibliografia documents a fairly long suite of treatises on the gifts of the Holy Spirit that begins at the end of the nineteenth century and continues until the present day. During the roughly twenty-two years since Pedrini completed his work, authors have continued to discuss the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian.32 In April of 2014, Pope Francis himself devoted a series of General Audiences to the sevenfold gifts. He began by saying: “The Spirit himself is ‘the gift of God’ par excellence (cf. Jn 4:10), he is a gift of God, and he in turn communicates various spiritual gifts to those who receive him.”33 A recent scientific study on Aquinas’s teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirt comes from the atelier of the German Dominican Ulrich Horst. His title is straightforward: Die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes nach Thomas von Aquin.34 Horst exposes carefully the important theological construction that Aquinas develops around the gifts of the Holy Spirit. From the historical point of view, Horst observes that earlier theologians in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including the Dominicans Peter of Tarentaise († 1276), Robert Kilwardby († 1279), and Albert the Great († 1280), pioneered in explaining and organizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, Horst also points out that the secondary literature on patristic treatments of a theology of the gifts suggests that thematization of the gifts did not much detain patristic authors, even though both Augustine and Gregory the Great offer commentary and intuitions.35 Aquinas, for his part, shows himself thinking about the theology of the gifts of the Holy Spirit from his earliest writings, including his Scripture See for example the remarkable study by Daria Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace Deification According to St. Thomas Aquinas (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2015), which includes a general discussion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (240–48). 33 Pope Francis, General Audience of April 9, 2014 (accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2014/documents/ papa-francesco_20140409_udienza-generale.html). 34 Ulrich Horst, Die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes nach Thomas von Aquin (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001). 35 Ibid., 23n1. 32 992 Romanus Cessario, O.P. commentaries, the Summa contra gentiles, and sermons. A magisterial refinement, reports Horst, appears in the prima-secundae of the Summa theologiae. There Aquinas associates each of the seven gifts with the powers or capacities of the human soul, both the intellectual and the appetitive “faculties.” Horst underscores the dynamic harmoniousness that the gifts of the Holy Spirit develop in the powers of the soul, one that benefits the human subject in his march toward the promised plenitude of happiness. He also commends the “instructive” article by M.-M. Labourdette in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité that remains, in Horst’s view, one of the best accounts of Saint Thomas’s theology of the gifts.36 The contribution of twentieth-century French Thomist authors to the popularization of Aquinas’s doctrine on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, even under the guise of their providing Thomist spiritual instruction, is well known. The Dominicans Bartholomew Froget († 1905), Ambrose Gardeil († 1931), and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange († 1964) rank among the best known.37 Father Labourdette’s lecture notes and articles, however, have inspired much Thomist reflection specifically on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including that by the author who probably is better known outside of France than he, the abovementioned Belgian Dominican Servais-Th. Pinckaers († 2008).38 Father Labourdette stands in the line of classical Thomist commentators. He is more concerned to sniff out incursions of Molinism into the theology of the gifts than to worry about what historical exegesis may come up with in order to explain the different ways that, in his major writings, Aquinas organizes the sevenfold gifts.39 For Labourdette, Aquinas’s doctrine of the gifts conforms Ibid., 43n6. See Marie-Michel Labourdette, O.P., “Dons du Saint-Esprit, IV, Saint Thomas et la théologie thomiste,” Dictionnaire de Spiritualité (Paris: Dabert-Duvergier Beauchesne, 1957) 3:cols. 1610–35. 37 Bartholomew Froget († 1905), De l’ habitation du Saint-Esprit dans les âmes justes (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1898); Ambrose Gardeil (†1931), La structure de l’âme et l’expérience mystique, 2 vols. (Paris: Gabalda, 1927); R. Garrigou-Lagrange († 1964), Perfection chrétienne et contemplation (Paris: Éditions de la Vie Spirituelle, 1923). For more information, see Edward D. O’Connor, C.S.C., The Gifts of the Spirit, Summa theologiae 24 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), 151–52. 38 See Romanus Cessario, “On the Place of Servais Pinckaers († 7 April 2008) in the Renewal of Catholic Theology,” The Thomist 73 (2009): 1–27. 39 For a brief account, see O’Connor, Gifts, 110–30. O’Connor speaks of an “evolution” in the thought of Aquinas. 36 Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit 993 perfectly to his conception of how the new law of grace works in the justified: “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (Rom 8: 14). Aquinas of course employed a Vulgate version of this text: “Quicumque enim spiritu Dei aguntur, ii sunt filii Dei.” The true children of God are moved by God more than they move themselves.40 The general doctrine of the infused virtues, whether the theological virtues or the moral virtues, takes account of this movement from within. However, as Labourdette insists, the principles of action, the infused habitus, differ from those direct divine movements that move on our actions themselves. Such movements Aquinas originally calls inspirations. “Inspiration,” the Common Doctor says, “denotes a motion coming from the outside.”41 He means, of course, outside the human creature, not outside the visible confines of the Mystical Body. Inspiration gives way to instinctus as Aquinas’s preferred way to describe the action of the Holy Spirit.42 For Saint Thomas, the gifts come from God in the form of habitus “by which man is perfected so as to obey the Holy Spirit readily.”43 This brief summary of Aquinas’s teaching on the gifts suffices to consider a particular gift that may assist the Church to undertake the task of interreligious outreach with an eye toward her advancing the new evangelization. Which gift displays the most personal account of the virtue of religion? Pope Francis offers a suggestion. “Piety,” he says, “is synonymous with the genuine religious spirit, with filial trust in God, with that capacity to pray to him with the love and simplicity that belongs to those who are humble of heart.”44 The Gift of Piety. The gift of Piety occupies a stable niche in the architecture of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. One finds Piety in each of the various arrangements Pope Francis, General Audience, September 25, 2013: “Who is the driving force of the Church’s unity? It is the Holy Spirit, whom we have all received at Baptism and also in the Sacrament of Confirmation. . . . The Holy Spirit is the mover” (accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/ en/audiences/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130925_udienza-generale. html). 41 ST I-II, q. 68, a. 1. 42 For further information, see O’Connor, Gifts, appendix 5 (131–41). 43 ST I-II, q. 68, a. 3. 44 Pope Francis, General Audience, June 4, 2014, accessed August 5, 2017, http:// w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20140604_udienza-generale.html. 40 994 Romanus Cessario, O.P. of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that Aquinas presents: in his Sentences commentary and in both the prima-secundae and secunda-secundae of the Summa theologiae. In the Sentence commentary, Aquinas associates piety with the needs of the active life. Piety directs the execution of our actions that regard other people, whereas Fortitude and Fear direct the emotional life of man. In the prima-secundae, Aquinas leaves Piety as a gift that aids our dealings with other people, although he signals the gift’s relationship to the workings of the rational appetite or the will.45 Some opine that Aquinas’s understanding of moral psychology underwent a certain development.46 In the secunda-secundae, where Aquinas’s pairing of gifts with the virtues dominates the landscape, he places the gift of Piety at the service of the virtue of justice.47 The definition that Aquinas sets down in the secunda-secundae affords a comprehensive statement about his intuition into piety. “The distinctive meaning of piety,” he writes, “involves offering service and honour to a father and so it follows that the Piety whereby these are offered to God as our father under the special prompting [per instinctum] of the Holy Spirit is a Gift of the Holy Spirit.”48 Aquinas is quite straightforward about the specific context in which the gift of Piety operates, as Horst Seidl has shown in his study of John of Saint Thomas.49 First of all, Aquinas distinguishes the gift from the virtue—whether acquired or infused—of piety. One finds this latter virtuous quality of soul in the person who honors and serves a natural father. Because something of a moral debt governs child–parent relationships, piety ranks among the potential parts of the cardinal virtue of justice, which is the virtue that concerns our rendering the justum, or the just thing.50 As a virtue, piety is distinguished from both religion and what Aquinas calls respect or observance.51 The gift of Piety belongs to those who practice the virtues of veneration and who, in a word, also have been taught by God to pray the Our Father. ST I-II, q. 68, a. 4. O’Connor, Gifts, 119. 47 ST II-II, q. 121. Because of the lengthier treatment given to each gift in the secunda-secundae, one may appreciate why Aquinas’s commentators took these texts as his fully developed position on the gifts. Labourdette, as we have seen, prefers to see the several presentations as complementary. For an account of the several arrangements, see O’Connor, Gifts, 130. 48 ST II-II, q. 121, a. 1, trans. T. C. O’Brien, in Virtues of Justice in the Human Community, Summa Theologiae 41, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972). 49 Seidl, “Osservazioni,” 157–60. 50 The commentatorial tradition includes piety among the virtues of veneration. 51 See ST II-II, q. 80, a. 1. 45 46 Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit 995 Aquinas situates the gift of Piety close to the virtue of religion. He distinguishes between acquired and infused religion. Religion surpasses the virtue of piety, inasmuch as to show reverence toward God excels our showing reverence toward an earthly father. At the same time, the gift of Piety, which offers reverence to God precisely as the Heavenly Father (whom Christ alone reveals), surpasses the virtue of religion, inasmuch as religion, conceived of as a human virtue, reveres God as creator and lord. As one commentator has observed, “a natural virtue of religion, based on a metaphysics of divine causality, however rare it might be, is still conceivable.”52 To qualify as a virtue, however, natural religion can embrace nothing of the unreasonable, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has reminded us.53 At the same time, even reasonable religion fades in comparison with how the gift of Piety ennobles the Christian believer. Father Labourdette draws on the commentary of Cardinal Cajetan: the gift of Piety “makes us regard things and persons ‘ut filios et res Patris’— as children and the belongings of the Heavenly Father.”54 To return to our Jesuit author, Meschler, one notes again that his discussion of the gift of Piety places the gifts squarely within the context of the believer’s achieving Christian perfection. Although the effort to restrict the gifts to the service of a special class of Christians has been corrected by post-conciliar moral theologians such as Father Pinckaers, what a spiritual author of the casuist period wrote about the gift of Piety still merits our consideration. In accord with his overall perspectives on the spiritual life, Father Meschler instructs T. C. O’Brien, Virtues, 287n“d.” See Pope Benedict XVI, Meeting with the Representatives of Science, Lecture of the Holy Father, Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006: “‘God,’ he [Manuel II Paleologus] says, ‘is not pleased by blood—and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God’s nature.’. . . Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God” (accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/september/ documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html). 54 Marie-Michel Labourdette, O.P., Cours de Theologie Morale: Vertus Rattachees Á La Justice (IIa-IIae, 80–120), (Toulouse, FR: Province dominicaine, 1960– 1961), vol. 2, p. 467. Pope Francis makes the same observation in his General Audience of June 4, 2014: “If the gift of piety makes us grow in relation to and in communion with God and leads us to live as his children, at the same time, it helps us to pass this love on to others as well and to recognize them as our brothers and sisters.” 52 53 996 Romanus Cessario, O.P. that those intent on achieving perfection must “cultivate” the gift of Piety.55 Why? He offers five reasons: first, the gift of Piety helps one pray frequently and much because it makes of prayer a familiar conversation between child and Father; second, the gift of Piety gives encouragement to the believer, inasmuch as nothing sustains a person in difficult circumstances as does the knowledge of a father’s love; third, since filial love spawns generosity, Piety disposes the Christian to make sacrifices; fourth, while the road to perfection brings crosses and sufferings, gift-prompted filial Piety eases these sufferings inasmuch as we recognize in them the will of a heavenly Father and not faceless misfortune; fifth, the gift of Piety brings a liberty of spirit, a self-forgetfulness that prospers our movement toward perfection.56 Liberty of spirit and self-forgetfulness, says Meschler, stand out as the happy prerogatives of being a child. Our author’s insight into the gift of Piety reveals a synthesis that coheres with what Saint Thomas teaches about the paradigm for Christian living. Today, we again associate the gift of Piety with those dedicated to holiness by their perseverance in the life of charity. In other words, no Christian life gets along well without the aforementioned five spiritual qualities. In conclusion, I should like briefly to remark that Pope Francis has emphasized each of the same five qualities of Christian living that Meschler set down in 1882. First is the importance of praying a lot: “Insistence, courage. It is tiring, true, but this is prayer. This is what receiving a grace from God is.”57 Second is the need for courage: “Along the way, the wise men encountered many difficulties . . . which they manage to overcome thanks to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, who speaks through the prophecies of sacred Scripture.”58 Third is the need for generosity to embrace sufferings: “They For what follows in this paragraph, see Meschler, The Gift, 280. Charles Journet captures this thought about bearing hardships: “In times of difficulty or sadness, in times of suffering, if you frequently call to mind that God is in you to give you his love, you will not be alone, you will find the Guest within you, and he will answer you” (The Meaning of Grace [New York: P. J. Kennedy & Sons, 1960], 14). 57 Pope Francis, Morning Meditation in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, July 1, 2013, “Praying bravely to the Lord,” accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2013/documents/ papa-francesco-cotidie_20130701_praying-bravely.html. 58 Pope Francis, Homily, Holy Mass on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, January 6, 2015, accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2015/documents/papa-francesco_20150106_omelia-epifania.html. 55 56 Religion and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit 997 [the Korean martyrs] were willing to make great sacrifices and let themselves be stripped of whatever kept them from Christ—possessions and land, prestige and honor—for they knew that Christ alone was their true treasure.”59 Fourth is the ability to sustain crosses and difficulties: “The mystery of the Cross. It can only be understood, a little bit, by kneeling, in prayer, but also through tears: they are the tears that bring us close to this mystery.”60 Lastly is freedom from self-absorption and a liberty of spirit: “It is so difficult to listen to the voice of Jesus, the voice of God, when you believe that the whole world revolves around you: there is no horizon, because you become your own horizon. And there is more behind all of this, something far deeper: fear of generosity. We are afraid of God’s generosity. He is so great that we fear Him.”61 Do we not see in these expressions a fulfillment of what Pope Saint John XXIII asserted hopefully at the start of the Second Vatican Council? “Est enim aliud ipsum depositum Fidei, seu veritates, quae veneranda doctrina nostra continentur, aliud modus, quo eadem enuntiantur, eodem tamen sensu eademque sententia.”62 When the members of the Church cherish these characteristics— and they can be developed only within the confines of the Church’s sacramental administration—and, under the leadership of their Pope Francis, Homily, Holy Mass for the Beatification of Paul Yun Ji-chung and 123 Martyr Companions, (Seoul) Gwanghwamun Gate, August 16, 2014, accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ homilies/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20140816_corea-omelia-beatificazione.html. 60 Pope Francis, Homily, Holy Mass on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, 2013, accessed August 5, 2017, https:// w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20140914_omelia-rito-matrimonio.html. 61 Pope Francis, Morning Meditation in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, November 4, 2014, “God’s Gift is Free,” accessed August 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2014/documents/ papa-francesco-cotidie_20141104_god-s-gift-is-free.html. 62 Pope John XXIII, Opening Speech to the Second Vatican Council, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (October 11, 1962), in Enchiridion Vaticanum Documneti il Concilio Vaticano II (Bologna: EDB, 1971), 44. This passage is a Golden Apple of Discord of sorts, and one can see why, when considering the project of translating it into English, it is a telling fact that the Vatican does not seem to have provided anywhere an official English translation, although they do provide translations in some Romance languages.The battle rages over words like sensu and sententia and aliud modus, quo eadem enuntiantur: how does one translate them into English? 59 998 Romanus Cessario, O.P. Pastors, work together, then one will witness the importance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially Piety, for the new evangelization. Or as Pope Francis puts it, “The gift of piety which the Holy Spirit gives us makes us gentle, makes us calm, patient, at peace with God, at the service of others with gentleness.”63 N&V Pope Francis, General Audience, June 4, 2014. 63 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 999–1012 999 The Church, the Modern World, and the Spirit of Vatican II1 Bruce D. Marshall Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas In the late summer of 1977, I made my way to New Haven, Connecticut, not yet twenty-two years old and afire to study theology at Yale Divinity School. At that innocent dawn of my theological life I was surprised to discover that not everybody at YDS shared my passion for theology. People had other reasons for going to seminary besides wanting to read more Augustine and Luther, to say nothing of more Kant and Hegel. “If you’re interested in that sort of thing,” I was advised, “take Lindbeck.” I did. The course George Lindbeck offered that term was “Comparative Doctrine,” which focused on the historic doctrinal disagreements among Christians. The Second Vatican Council featured heavily in the course. Lindbeck, I learned, had been an official Protestant observer at Vatican II, which had concluded only a dozen years before. As I found out a good deal later, he had in fact been much involved in the complex goings on at the Council through all four of its “periods,” from its surprising opening sessions in the fall of 1962 through to its conclusion in 1965. His main interest in “Comparative Doctrine,” as it turned out, was not simply the differences of doctrine among Christians, but their possible resolution, especially those between Lutherans and Roman Catholics. This was not my first taste of Vatican II—that had come in an undergraduate church This essay originally appeared in the December, 2015, issue of First Things under the title “Reckoning with Modernity.” For publication in Nova et Vetera I have made a few changes. 1 1000 Bruce D. Marshall history course—but it was my first exposure to the difference the recently concluded ecumenical Council might make to the thought of theologians and in the lives of Christians, not least those outside the Roman Catholic Church. At the time I was one of the interested outsiders, and I listened. There is a conventional narrative about Vatican II, a dramatic story about what happened at the Council and the impact it had. This story was already current in my theological youth. In its simplest form, the standard narrative goes like this. With a clarity he himself attributed to an unanticipated illumination of the Holy Spirit, the newly elected Pope John XXIII announced in early 1959 that he intended to summon an ecumenical council. The coming council, he insisted, was to have three purposes: the spiritual and pastoral renewal of the Catholic Church, the updating of the Church’s outlook and institutions so as to make her proclamation of the Gospel more effective in the modern world, and ecumenical reconciliation with non-Catholic Christians. Inevitably, the massive work of preparing for the council fell mainly to officials of the Roman Curia, who were uniformly entrenched traditionalists and designed a council that would produce none of the changes the Pope hoped to see. Indeed they aimed, in drawing up the schemata that would be discussed by the council fathers, at raising to the level of permanently binding Catholic doctrine the broad rejection of modern developments in biblical scholarship and theology that had been the norm in Rome since the modernist crisis at the beginning of the twentieth century. But in the dramatic opening sessions of the Council in the fall of 1962, the assembled bishops and other leaders of the Catholic Church, headed by those from Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, refused to follow the agenda set by the traditionalist Curia, repudiated their reactionary schemata, and unexpectedly showed themselves to be, in the majority, progressives open to John XXIII’s agenda of sweeping pastoral renewal. All was not smooth sailing from there on out. Pope John died in the summer of 1963, and the curial traditionalists retained their powerful positions. But John’s successor, Paul VI, largely embraced the progressive intentions of his predecessor and of the Conciliar majority. The result, by the time of the Council’s conclusion a little more than fifty years ago, was the irreversible triumph of a progressive Catholicism open to the modern world. At least for a time, traditionalist elements would remain in the Church, hoping to blunt, if not roll back entirely, the impact of the progressive victory. But they The Church, the Modern World, and the Spirit of Vatican II 1001 had, and always would have, the weight of this ecumenical Council against them. This story has some truth to it, along with more than a little wishful thinking. Narratives do not get to be standard unless there is a grain of truth in them. That Vatican II was a triumph of progressives over traditionalists in the Catholic Church is right as far as it goes. The important question is what the progressives actually won—what the Council actually achieved—and why. Not long after Paul VI brought the Second Vatican Council to its solemn conclusion on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1965, Jacques Maritain published The Peasant of the Garonne. The great Catholic philosopher, by then well into his eighties, subtitled his book An Old Layman Questions Himself about the Present Time. He began, however, not with questioning, but “in profound thanksgiving for everything the Council has decreed and accomplished.” To the recently concluded Council we owe a ringing affirmation of the dignity and rights of the human person and of true human freedom—not least religious freedom. Equally, we owe to the Council an abundance of new light on “the sacred treasures of Catholic doctrine” concerning the Church and divine revelation. The Council has taught us to treat every human being as “an invaluable gift” from God, as truly our brothers whether they are near or far from the fullness of truth known to the Catholic Church—whether they are non-Catholic Christians, the adherents of non-Christian religions, or indeed, hardened atheists. It has decisively repudiated anti-Semitism and insisted on God’s special love for the Jewish people. It has affirmed and blessed with unprecedented depth and clarity the mission of the laity of Christ’s Church. And Vatican II “recognizes more explicitly than ever the value, beauty, and dignity of this world.” For this and much more, for a veritable torrent of beneficial and authoritative teaching, every faithful Catholic should offer thanks to God. The teaching of Vatican II, enshrined in the sixteen substantial documents it produced, Maritain embraced without reservation. But the event of the Council was, in his eyes, laced with ambiguity. It had unleashed vast pent-up longings both inside and outside the Church. Some of these were forces for great good, but in others lay the potential for great evil. Chief among the latter was the astonishing readiness of some Catholics, in the name of being up to date, to “kneel before the world.” The Council eloquently expressed the truth that this world is God’s good and beautiful creation, but the Council did not forget that at present this world is also, as Scripture 1002 Bruce D. Marshall unsparingly teaches, “in the power of the evil one” (1 John. 5:19). Theologians and exegetes in particular seemed willing to bend the knee. In those days, virtually all Catholic theologians were priests. We are thus treated to the spectacle, Maritain acidly observed, of priests “who boast of no longer genuflecting before the tabernacle” but happily bend the knee to the manifold spirits of this passing world. The damage this can do to the Church, to her liturgy, to her teaching, and above all to the yearning for holiness—which always requires renunciation of the goods of this world for love of the Good who infinitely transcends this world—is beyond calculation. The Peasant of the Garonne was widely read and counted among its admirers François Mauriac, Julien Green, and Charles de Gaulle. Theologians, though, were mostly dismissive. Maritain’s talk of a “crisis” in Catholicism evident even before Vatican II was over seemed wholly out of touch with the Council’s great success at bringing about deep changes Maritain himself, as much as anyone, had long passionately advocated. Obviously the octogenarian philosopher mistook the dubious claims of a few fringe figures (like Teilhard de Chardin) for influential trends in the post-Conciliar Church, an ominous aspect of what the progressive victory had let loose. More than one reader wondered whether dementia had set in. A decade after the Council’s conclusion, though, a good number of its participants had come to share Maritain’s worries, including some who had previously been critics of the now departed “peasant.” George Lindbeck was among those who saw, and even from outside the Church worried over, a serious crisis in post-Conciliar Catholicism. The shortcomings of the standard narrative were increasingly plain to see, even if many refused (and still refuse) to take notice. By the time I took his course, Lindbeck had written that “the process of reforming popular Catholicism started by the Council is draining it of its communal, cultural, and religious substance.” Though as a Protestant theologian he was naturally inclined to give Catholic progressives the benefit of the doubt, Lindbeck nonetheless found himself appalled by the extent to which the progressives “appealed to the Council to justify their own loss of faith, their mindless capitulation to modernitas, their devious and unacknowledged departures from what is essential, not only to the Roman tradition, but to Christianity itself.” The French Jesuit Henri de Lubac was among the most influential theologians at Vatican II. Like his younger Dominican compatriot Yves Congar, de Lubac had been appointed by John XXIII to the The Church, the Modern World, and the Spirit of Vatican II 1003 preparatory commission for the Council, despite the fact that both of them had been very much under a cloud in Rome throughout the 1950s. Also like Congar, de Lubac was scathing about what he saw as the theological backwardness and intellectual mediocrity of the curial officials with whom he had to work in preparation for the Council, and on whose views he was able to have little positive effect. Both were deeply gratified at the unexpected openness of the Council to meaningful change in the face of curial resistance and saw in this the gracious hand of providence. But by the last years of the Council—1964 and 1965—de Lubac was already worried about where things were going. During these two years, most of the influential texts of the Council were forged into their final form: the Constitutions on the Church (Lumen Gentium), divine revelation (Dei Verbum), and the Church in the modern world (Gaudium et Spes), along with the decree on ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) and the declarations on religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) and on the Church and non-Christian religions (Nostra Aetate). The intense debate on these documents, even more behind the scenes than in the aula of St. Peter’s, made all too clear, de Lubac observed in his diary, that the “progressive” majority was in fact deeply divided. The theologians at the Council, almost as numerous as the bishops they were there to advise, may have been mostly “progressives” by 1964, but they had very different ideas about what the Church and her teaching ought to look like after the Council. As for the bishops, de Lubac wondered how many of them really understood the texts they were voting to approve and what it would take to implement their teaching. The divisions within the Council were especially clear in the fierce debates about “Schema XIII,” which eventually became the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World approved by the Council the day before it ended. To de Lubac and others, drafts of this document seemed like little more than laundry lists of political and social desiderata, lacking what he called “apostolic boldness”: the evangelical spirit essential for genuinely Christian engagement with the world. Indeed, de Lubac worried, the support Schema XIII was receiving from some of the bishops and theologians at the Council would leave the Church vulnerable to an uncritical embrace of the world, and yet more seriously to mistaking its own growing temptation to worldliness for apostolic and missionary zeal. He was among those who worked hard to place the “pastoral constitution” on a firm doctrinal, and especially Christological and eschatological, footing 1004 Bruce D. Marshall ( Joseph Ratzinger, then a professor in his mid-thirties, was another). They succeeded, but by this time it was already clear that the standard narrative was not even true at the time of the Council itself, let alone up to our present hour. Having a common enemy in a relative handful of Roman theologians and traditionalist bishops did not unite the Council into a single and shared progressive intention. Still less did the episcopal and theological majority at Vatican II shape a unified reception of the Council after it was over. The divisions already in evidence before 1965 and the widely acknowledged crisis of the years that followed were not the result of a revanchist minority’s ongoing effort to thwart the enlightened aims of the progressive majority. They bespoke deep conflict among the majority itself—all those who welcomed the Council and strove to implement its teaching—about what it really means for the Church to be “updated” and open to the world. Yet, the crisis has passed and the Council has largely succeeded in bringing about the good John XXIII envisioned when he decided to call for it, the faithful renewal of the Church that was the deep hope many of the participants brought with them to Rome in 1962. Fifty years on, this is the single most salient fact about Vatican II, out of all the things that could rightly be said of the Council and its effects. When he addressed the Council on its opening day, Pope John was clear about its aim: to transmit Catholic doctrine to the modern world “pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion.” This saving patrimony, he observed with broad Petrine understatement, “is not well received by all.” Therefore, our duty, he implored the Council fathers, “is not only to guard this precious treasure, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our age demands of us, pursuing thus the path which the Church has followed for twenty centuries.” In Pope John’s frequently remembered image, the time had come to open the windows of the Church and let the winds of the modern world blow in. No half measure would be enough. Nothing less than an ecumenical council was needed for the Church to do what now needed to be done. John XXIII knew, as did his successor Paul VI, that, along with goods the Church should welcome, much that was meaningless, banal, and distracting would come in through the open windows, and some that was truly evil. Relying on “twenty centuries” of Catholic doctrine and tradition, the Council’s responsibility was to give pastoral teaching that would enable the Church of “our age” to distinguish what was good in the modern world from what The Church, the Modern World, and the Spirit of Vatican II 1005 was indifferent, or worse, and to make right use of the good while firmly rejecting the bad. To a remarkable extent, this has in fact happened. Much surely remains to be done so that the inestimable riches of the Catholic tradition become more visibly present in the day-to-day life of the Church. Nonetheless, the event of the Council has lost much of its ambiguity for the Catholic Church, while the teaching of the Council has gradually but definitely taken root. It was hardly inevitable that this should have happened. Looked at from the midst of the chaos of around 1975, it might well have seemed unlikely that it would ever happen. In order to understand why things turned out as well as they did, we need to abandon the standard narrative, which narrows everything about the Council down to mid-twentieth century conflicts between traditionalists and progressives. A more plausible story about Vatican II has to locate the Council in the larger modern history of Catholicism. For the Catholic Church, the basic fact about modernity, the event with an impact that exceeded any other, was not the rise of modern science or the emergence of historical criticism, but the French Revolution. The Revolution wanted to destroy the Catholic Church in France: to nationalize it, sever its ties with Rome, and turn it into a wholly owned and docile subsidiary of the new French republic. Resistance was met with widespread exile, imprisonment, and slaughter. Thousands of priests, nuns, and laypeople were murdered for their failure to comply with the new “liberty” of France, many of them publicly beheaded. The lands of the Church throughout France were confiscated and sold off, religious orders were banned, churches were turned into temples of reason, the crucifix replaced on occasion with a bust of Jean Marat, and the French would now count their days and years not from the birth of Christ, but from the birth of the Revolution. With varying degrees of intensity, the Revolution’s violence against the Church would be repeated again and again in Europe over the next two hundred years. In France the worst of the destruction passed with the Reign of Terror, and some of the damage began to be repaired. But Napoleon soon sought to spread the Revolution’s control of the Church across the continent in the wake of his European conquests. He secularized Church lands and institutions in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere and continually pressured the Church to cede her independence in spiritual as well as temporal matters. One Pope, Pius VI, died a prisoner of the French army in 1799, and his successor, Pius VII, lived for five 1006 Bruce D. Marshall years as Napoleon’s captive. Bonaparte hoped that fear and despair would compel the aging Benedictine Pope to give in to the spirit of the times, and yield up the Church to the demands of the Revolution. He did not, and “the old imbecile,” as Napoleon called him, lived to see Bonaparte brought low and die in exile, reconciled to the Church by a chaplain Pius himself had sent to St. Helena. In a sense, the Revolution was a blessing for the Catholic Church. By sweeping away the ancien régime, the Jacobins and their successors unwittingly took a long first step toward freeing the Church from the often suffocating embrace of Catholic monarchs who thought they, and not the pope and the bishops, should be in charge of Catholicism in their country or empire. The French Revolution demolished the alliance of throne and altar that had characterized Catholic Christendom for a thousand years. That alliance had always been troubled and uneasy, but France found a radical solution: destroy the throne. Others would adopt the same remedy or have it imposed upon them, and by the end of the long nineteenth century, in 1918, the ancient Catholic monarchies of Europe would all be gone. Especially at Vatican I and in the pontificate of Leo XIII (1878–1903), the Catholic Church, in fact, embraced this epochal change and began to work out in earnest a new, genuinely post-Constantinian teaching on the relation of Church, state, and civil society, a teaching above all concerned to secure the freedom and independence of the Church from the modern state. The Revolution tried to demolish altar as well as throne, but the Church proved more resistant and more durable than any of the monarchies of Europe. The Revolution did, however, establish secularism (or “anti-clericalism,” laïcité) as a basic feature of European politics and culture—a fundamental element of what had come to see itself as enlightened modernity. The secularism first institutionalized in Europe by the French Revolution never aimed simply at a liveand-let-live separation of church and state, a simple break with the early modern idea that a coherent society requires a single religious confession—cuius regio, eius religio. It was, and is, a political and social program that aims to refashion society from the ground up. It wants a veritable transvaluation of values, a reorientation of human loves that exalts above all the things of this world. From the beginning, this aggressive secularism has—rightly—seen the Catholic Church, and especially its asceticism, its passionate love of goods beyond this world, as the chief enemy of what it calls progress. The Church is the obstacle that above all must be surmounted, and where necessary The Church, the Modern World, and the Spirit of Vatican II 1007 destroyed, if human beings are to love as they ought, if love, as secularism conceives it, is to win. Seventy-five years after the French Revolution, Pope Pius IX grasped very clearly the nature of this secularism and the grave threat it poses to the Church. Casting off religion and true justice, the Pope argued, “this unhappy age” relentlessly seeks a selfish materialist society “with no other end than obtaining and amassing wealth,” a society that “follows no other law in its actions except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests.” As the architects of this secular society well knew, it could be built only by wresting from the Church control over two basic social institutions: marriage and the education of the young. The Church, Pius insisted, could only resist as well as she was able the many encroachments on her traditional rights over marriage and education already then underway. Even at the time, Pius IX was derided for being so retrograde as to say that the pope ought not, indeed could not, “reconcile himself to progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” A hundred and fifty years later, though, it is hard to read his description of emerging Western secularism as anything but prophecy fulfilled. There really ought to be little wonder that the Catholic Church would, for the better part of two centuries, see great caution where possible and open resistance where necessary as the rule for her engagement with modernity—political, cultural, intellectual, and otherwise. By the time of Pius IX, the Church already had deep experience of modernity’s destructiveness, much of it deliberate. It would be absurd to expect the Church and the papacy, in this post-Revolutionary world, to welcome the political forces of modernity and the philosophies that support them as benign, let alone benevolent. Nonetheless a reckoning with modernity clearly lay in the future, and for two basic reasons. First, secular political arrangements of the sort introduced by the French Revolution became, if by fits and starts, pervasive in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With these, of course, came myriad cultural and intellectual changes. Some of these political and cultural shifts were moderately favorable to the Catholic Church (and, depending on the location, to other forms of Christianity), others less so, and some murderously hostile. It was, in any case, increasingly unrealistic to hope, as some Catholics did well into the twentieth century, for a return to traditional Catholic societies in Europe under the leadership of Catholic princes. The Church needed deep clarity about her relationship to this new political and 1008 Bruce D. Marshall intellectual world, and this required the same clarity about her own identity and mission, given the radically changed public circumstances in which she now lived. Second, modernity brought with it great goods, both political and intellectual. More precisely, modernity saw the emergence of potent but ambiguous political and intellectual realities. Take, to recall two quite different examples, religious freedom (with its attendant disestablishment of the Church) and medical technology. In these lay the potential for tremendous benefit for the Church and for the societies she inhabited. Given the Church’s deep and ancient impulse to embrace truth and goodness wherever she finds it, the benefits of modernity had to be sought out and assimilated by Catholicism. But there was potential in these modern realities for great harm as well. Everything depended on the Church, when the time had arrived, truly coming to grips with modernity on her own terms, and not on the terms modernity inevitably sought to impose. Only in this way could the good in modernity rightly be discerned from the irrelevant and the genuinely evil, the good uses of what modernity had wrought from the distracting and the truly destructive. To borrow a phrase the Council itself would use in another connection, the Church could rightly come to terms with modernity only by “searching her own mystery.” The centrality of ecclesiology at Vatican II was not accidental, but in the nature of the case. John XXIII’s inspiration was simply to have discerned that the time had come for the Church’s decisive reckoning with modernity. It was not too soon. The Church had lived amidst the manifold intellectual and political realities of the modern world long enough to decide effectively what could be assimilated and what should not. And it was not too late. The Church, as Benedict XVI would later say, “was still strong enough at that time.” Her grip on her own doctrinal, moral, and devotional traditions remained deep and wide enough for a sweeping pastoral “update” in the midst of modernity, a renewal that would still firmly adhere to and embody those authentic Catholic traditions. By disposition and training, John XXIII was a thoroughgoing traditionalist. Paul VI was the real reforming Pope of the Council who gently guided it through many perils to a successful conclusion. John had seen the need and the time—that the Church’s problems needed to be confronted now and could be handled in no other way than by an ecumenical council. He entrusted the Council to the fathers, and most of them came to share his vision. The time was now The Church, the Modern World, and the Spirit of Vatican II 1009 right for a fearless renewal of the Church, precisely as the guardian of that “precious treasure” entrusted to her by Christ, and the Council fathers committed themselves to the long labor of making that vision a reality. So, in particular, did John’s successors in the Chair of Peter. This, and not the much ballyhooed triumph of “progress” over “tradition,” was the real “spirit of Vatican II.” That Pope John’s discernment was correct does not make it any less bold, indeed audacious. It, as well as the Council’s embrace of it, was an astonishing act of faith in the Holy Spirit’s unfailing guidance of the Church. A true reckoning with modernity, the banal and the destructive as well as the good, meant deliberately steering the barque of Peter for a long sail on turbulent seas. Perhaps inevitably, the ship listed to port for a time, but she sailed on, gradually righted herself, and now allows us to look back with some clarity on where we have come. When, in the summer of 1960, Yves Congar began what was to become his long personal journal of Vatican II, he worried that “the Council has come twenty five years too soon.” An odd judgment, on the face of it. Congar had been on the blunt end of the potent anti-modernist discipline by which, in the first half of the twentieth century, the Church sought to regulate her interaction with the modern world. One might have expected Congar, for whom the Council entailed a personal liberation from that discipline, to have said it could not come soon enough. He worried, though, that the good fruits of modernity, particularly in biblical studies and theology, had not taken deep enough root in the Church, especially among the episcopate, and that the Council would only frustrate the pent-up longings of the Catholic world. Congar became not only an especially influential peritus at the Council, but perhaps its most consistent theological defender in the decades that followed, although I do not know whether he ever explicitly revised that earlier judgment. Had the Council in fact been put off for a quarter century or more, there is good reason to think that it would not have borne nearly so much good fruit, but would instead have come too late. As John XXIII and Paul VI (but not, it seems, the Congar of 1960) saw very clearly, when the windows are opened, fresh air is hardly all that comes in. The rigorous anti-modernism of the decades before Vatican II, however needed it may have been for a time, tried to let the winds of modernity into the Church only one purified breeze at a time. In 1960 it was increasingly evident, not least to people 1010 Bruce D. Marshall like Congar, that this anti-modernist discipline had become deeply ineffective at coping with the flood of social, cultural, and intellectual forces that confronted the Church. Had this regime continued while modernity—the bad along with the good—continued to take root among Catholics unguided by the actions and decisions of an ecumenical council, the flood might simply have broken in on the Church willy-nilly, sweeping away the precious treasure Congar loved along with the anti-modernist regime he detested. Vatican II set Catholicism on a turbulent course for decades to come, but it probably saved the Catholic Church from something far worse: an uncontained explosion on the scale of the Protestant Reformation. Catholics who are inclined to dismay over the lingering effects of the post-Conciliar chaos (including me, at least some of the time) should remember this. To take one case in point: the desire for liturgical reform, above all Mass in the vernacular, was widespread among the clergy, and to some extent among the laity as well, in the decades before Vatican II. Pius XII had already taken preliminary steps in this direction; it was not simply the interest of a few cuttingedge liturgical scholars. Without Vatican II, the movement for the reform of Catholic worship might have ended in schism or, short of that, in an ongoing liturgical chaos within the Church that would have dwarfed anything Vatican II brought in its wake. Because of the Council, the sometimes great tensions introduced into the Catholic world by liturgical reform were, over time, made livable within the Church. One need not be delighted with every liturgical change that followed the Council to be grateful that this pent-up longing found a home in the Church rather than outside it. The same goes for other movements and yearnings in pre-Conciliar Catholicism: the active participation of the laity in the mission of the Church, the theological return to the biblical and patristic sources of the faith, and religious freedom as an inalienable feature of human dignity. More than that, “kneeling before the world” is always a temptation for Christians, one to which Catholics have too often succumbed in the years after the Council. But, without Vatican II, at the right time, bending the knee might have come to seem so normal that Catholics could no longer even tell when they were doing it. Vatican II did not, as some theologians still suppose, accommodate modernity by digging an ugly ditch between the Catholic Church and her past. It channeled the modern flood in a way that was beneficial to the Church just because it was faithful to her traditions. The Coun- The Church, the Modern World, and the Spirit of Vatican II 1011 cil was, in that quite fundamental sense, a profoundly conservative event. A few weeks before my own entry into the Catholic fold, I sat around a lunch table with one of the great leaders of the post-Conciliar Church in America. He had recently returned from the conclave that elected Benedict XVI, and in response to our questions, said as much as the confidentiality of the proceedings would allow, his gratification at the outcome unmistakable. At one point he observed (apropos exactly what I don’t recall) that the Church before Vatican II “was like a convent,” and the opening to the world effected by the Council was simply necessary. A new way of engaging the modern world was a deep requirement of the Church’s own mission to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth. A half century after the Council, Catholics in the West still sometimes act as though they were imprisoned in the old convent. Incredibly, some still seem to think the Church’s biggest problem is insufficient openness to the modern world. Were they paying attention, they would realize that the Church now needs more, not fewer, convents. Prisoners of the standard narrative, they mistakenly believe Vatican II meant to sever the Church from her past and to set up, as one theologian has risibly put it, a new “constitution” for the Catholic Church. In the process, they forget a hard and basic lesson the Church has learned again and again since 1789. The Council itself teaches this lesson with great clarity in Gaudium et Spes: it is the task of the Church “to distinguish the many voices of our times and to interpret them in the light of the divine Word”—and not the other way around. Only thus will we avoid the delusion that peace and salvation are to be found “in a worldview now fashionable.” Catholics who put themselves in the posture of modernity’s oppressed advocates—theologians, mostly, but the occasional bishop as well—are often shockingly naïve about the intentions of the world they willingly let into the Church through the windows Vatican II encouraged them to open with proper discernment and care. Failing to see the Council’s place in the whole modern history of the Church, they try to unlearn a still harder and more basic lesson about the Church’s relationship with the world, one that long antedates Catholicism’s journey through modernity. This lesson, too, the Council teaches plainly. At the heart of its teaching on the identity and mission of the Church, Vatican II deliberately recalls some words of St. Augustine: 1012 Bruce D. Marshall “The Church, ‘like a stranger in a foreign land, presses forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God.’” The world’s assault on the Church is not a thing of the past, but a permanent feature of the Church’s pilgrim life in this “foreign land.” For all the sins and failings of her members, the Church is the one fold of Christ and the temple of the Spirit, and so she values above all not herself, but the “precious treasure” from above of which John XXIII spoke. Just by being herself, by clinging to the consolations of God, the Church makes plain to this world that it and all it treasures are passing away. Jesus taught his disciples: “If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you” ( John 15:18). Augustine comments: “It is necessary that the world hates us, because we do not want what it loves.” Modernity has made the world’s hatred of the Church, this primal conflict of loves, more, not less, clear than at any time in the Church’s past. This is a severe truth. Trying to forget it is not only foolish, but dangerous, above all when we have deliberately opened the windows to let the world in. Vatican II calls for just this opening but offers no excuse at all for trying to forget the hard truth that goes with it. On the contrary, the Council channeled the torrent of modernity in a way that made the Church’s ancient teaching on her relationship with the world especially clear. The earthly city can never overcome the city whose builder and maker is God, nor triumph over the Church, which will batter down even the gates of hell. The earthly city’s final impotence only enrages it further, especially when it has had, for the moment, an illusory taste of the triumph it will never see. Yet, even till the end of time, the Church will endure the rage of this world and of the tyrants who rule her, sheltered in the wounds of him who holds the keys of death N&V and hell. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1013–1036 1013 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve Dennis Bonnette Lewiston, New York The human mind forever probes the mysteries of God’s creation seeking to find ultimate answers which satisfy its enquiry. Normally, this involves a natural progression toward some single truth that essentially defines “the solution.” Imagine a case in which there is a true explanation for a major human question and yet, it turns out that more than one answer is possible. An impenetrable mystery emerges when it cannot be discovered which answer is the correct one. Such a noetic impasse appears in the quest for mankind’s origin: the search for a literal Adam and Eve (assuming some sort of evolutionary scenario). I shall show that a literal Adam and Eve can be demonstrated to be rationally credible. Yet, equally demonstrable is the impossibility of being certain which of two alternative possible explanations of their credibility is correct. Perhaps the full truth requires elements of both.1 This article is edited by Mary Helen Klinge-Drucker. While I am indebted to Dr. Ann Gauger, Senior Research Scientist at the Biologic Institute, for her extensive discussions with me on current genetic research into our origins, all views expressed are my own. I want to acknowledge that I have published similar themes in other venues, including a short article, “The Myth of the ‘Myth’ of Adam and Eve,” in the collection Sztuka i realizm [Art and Reality] (Lublin, PL: Polish Society of Thomas Aquinas [Catholic University of Lublin], 2014) and a peer-reviewed article offering more detailed scientific analysis of similar arguments in a Spanish journal: “The Rational Credibility of a Literal Adam and Eve,” Espiritu 64, no. 150 (2015): 303–20 (accessed August 4, 2017, http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=5244649). While the pres- 1 1014 Dennis Bonnette For much of Christian history, a literal set of first parents of all humanity, Adam and Eve, was accepted as factual. Today, claims made by some natural scientists have led to widespread doubt or even denial of this once universal belief. Catholic doctrine clearly affirms theological monogenism, the teaching that all human beings are biological descendants of the first genuinely human individual, Adam. Pope Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis proclaims that “revealed truth . . . and the magisterium of the Church” propose that original sin “proceeds from a sin truly committed by one Adam [ab uno Adamo], and which is transmitted to all by generation, and exists in each one as his own.”2 Pius XII insists that “the faithful in Christ cannot accept” the “conjectural opinion” of polygenism, which he defines in theological terms as “this view, which holds that either after Adam there existed men on this earth, who did not receive their origin by natural generation from him, the first parent of all; or that Adam signifies some kind of multitude of first parents.”3 This papal decision follows logically from the dogmatic teaching of the Council of Trent affirming that all true men must inherit original sin from Adam through generation.4 Having other genuinely human first parents not descended from Adam (polygenism) would contradict that doctrine, since they could not then have inherited original sin from him as the dogma declares. Decades later, the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms this same teaching when it tells us, “The whole human race is in Adam ‘as one body of one man.’”5 Further, it declares, “Adam and Eve committed ent article includes some genetic analysis similar to the earlier articles, newly examined in expanded detail is a possible philosophical difficulty entailed in the “interbreeding hypothesis,” which has been widely accepted as an apparent solution to the well-known “problem of genetic diversity.” 2 Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis (1950), §37, in The Companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: A Compendium of Texts Referred to in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 113. For the Council of Trent’s teaching on the transmission of original sin, see Heinrich Denzinger, Heinrich and Peter Hünermann, Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum [hereafter, “Denz.”], 43rd ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 2010), nos. 1511–14. 3 Pius XII, Humani Generis, §37. 4 Denz., no. 1513. 5 Catechism of the Catholic Church [hereafter, CCC], 2nd ed. (New York: Doubleday Religion, 2003), §404. see also St. Thomas Aquinas, De malo, q. 4, a. 1. For a more complete explanation of why theological monogenism is authentic Catholic doctrine, see Dennis Bonnette, “Monogenism and Polygenism,” in The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1015 a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind.”6 Current Objections Answered From the scientific disciplines of paleoanthropology and genetics, two basic objections to theological monogenism have been posed. The first is that the standard evolutionary narrative speaks of slow changes in anatomy and behavior as early primate populations evolved into modern human beings. Thus, paleoanthropologists argue that intellectual abilities manifested gradual development as tool-making activity became more and more sophisticated over vast time periods, and similarly, early experience with fire led eventually to its controlled use.7 Contemporary paleoanthropologists would scoff at the Catholic doctrine of a literal Adam and Eve instantly appearing with fully human rational abilities. While paleoanthropologists may fail to see the sudden appearance of true human beings in the paleontological record, classical philosophy offers a different perspective on the same data. Sourced in Aristotle’s observation that man is distinguished from lower living things by possession of a rational nature, the definition of man as a rational animal became common in Scholastic philosophy.8 Man distinguishes himself from lower animals through abilities to understand abstract concepts, form judgments, and engage in discursive reasoning. St. Thomas Aquinas uses such specifically intellectual powers to demonstrate the spirituality and immortality of the human soul.9 An individual hominin must either possess a spiritual soul (substantial form) or not. Since, as Aquinas points out, “no substantial form is participated according to more or less,” becoming human cannot be New Catholic Encyclopedia Supplement 2012–2013: Ethics and Philosophy, ed. Robert L. Fastiggi (Detroit, MI: Gale, 2013), 3:1013–16. 6 CCC, §404 (italics original). 7 James Steele, P. F. Ferrari, and L. Fogassi, “From Action to Language: Comparative Perspectives on Primate Tool use, Gesture and the Evolution of Human Language,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367, no. 1585 (2012): 4–9. 8 See Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics 1.13, as well as De anima 3.11. 9 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [hereafter, ST] I, q. 75. See also Dennis Bonnette, Origin of the Human Species, 3rd ed. (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2014), 103–10. 1016 Dennis Bonnette a gradual process.10 While paleoanthropologists may not be able to discern the exact point in the paleontological record at which true man first appears, sound philosophy demonstrates that such a singular event must exist.11 At some point in time, the first rational-souled, genuine human beings must have suddenly appeared: Adam and Eve, created by God radically superior in nature to all previous primates.12 The second major objection to monogenism comes from geneticists who claim that, since the time when the lineages leading to chimpanzees diverged from those leading to modern man—known as the Homo (human) / Pan (chimpanzee) split—millions of years ago, never has there been a bottleneck (reduced population) of a single mating pair of hominins (members of the human lineage).13 Since an evolutionary scenario would have our first true human parents appear within this hominin lineage, and since they are commonly believed to have appeared within this time frame, this claim would seem to render a literal Adam and Eve to be impossible. This second objection to a literal Adam and Eve is from the science of genetics. In 1995, geneticist Francisco J. Ayala published a study in Science entitled “The Myth of Eve: Molecular Biology and Human Origins.”14 Examining the HLA-DRB1 gene that is part of our immune system and has hundreds of variant forms known as alleles, he concluded that thirty-two ancient alleles existed at the time of the Homo–Pan split, which is now dated at least seven million years ST I-II, q. 52, a. 1, corp. See also ST I, q. 76, a. 4, ad 4. All translations of the ST cited in this article are taken from the Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. Anton C. Pegis (New York: Random House, 1945). 11 Pope St. John Paul II, Address to the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences on the Subject “The Origins and Early Evolution of Life,” October 22, 1996, §6: “The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation” (Papal Addresses to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 1917–2002 and to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences 1994–2002 [Vatican City: The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 2003], 373). 12 CCC, §343. 13 John Hawks, K. Hunley, S-H. Lee, and M. Wolpoff, “Population Bottlenecks and Pleistocene Human Evolution,” Molecular Biology and Evolution 17, no. 1 (2000): 2–22; Heng Li and R. Durbin, “Inference of Human Population History from Individual Whole-genome Sequences,” Nature 475, no. 7357 (2011): 493–97. 14 Francisco J. Ayala, “The Myth of Eve: Molecular Biology and Human Origins,” Science 270, no. 5292 (1995): 1930–36. 10 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1017 ago.15 According to Ayala, there are too many alleles to pass through a bottleneck of a single mating pair of hominins at that time or any time thereafter.16 The total elimination of any such hominin bottleneck in that time frame would entail that our biblical first human parents would also be impossible. The importance of Ayala’s claims lies not simply in the study itself, but in the fact that this study was accepted by many in the intellectual community as clear proof that Adam and Eve must be mythological—never again to be taken seriously. Still, just three years later, Uppsala University geneticist Tomas Bergström and his group completed a similar study of the HLA-DRB1 gene.17 Unlike Ayala, who had examined the exon 2 region of the gene, this new study focused on intron 2, the intron next to exon 2, “expressly to avoid the confounding effects of strong selection, a high mutation rate, and/or gene conversion.”18 Using this improved methodology, this 1998 study concluded that only seven HLA-DRB1 ancient alleles existed.19 Nine years later, in 2007, yet another study in Bergström’s group, headed by Jenny von Salomé, concluded that only four allelic lineages of that same gene predated five million years ago, with a few more appearing thereafter.20 Since two hominins can pass along four such lineages, a bottleneck of two mating individuals appears possible. Still, several additional HLA-DRB1 lineages appearing shortly after that time needs explanation. Also, this possible bottleneck of two mating hominins would not have been the biblical Adam and Eve, given that it occurred some five million years ago, much too early for any realistic time frame for their appearance. The above scenario is not intended to demonstrate the actual Ibid.While Ayala thought the time of the Homo–Pan split was some six million years ago, more recent estimates place it at least seven million years ago (see Catherine Brahic, “Our True Dawn: Pinning Down Human Origins,” New Scientist, no. 2892 [2012]: 34–37). 16 Ayala, “The Myth of Eve,” 1931. 17 Tomas Bergström et al., “Recent Origin of HLA-DRB1 Alleles and Implications for Human Evolution,” Nature Genetics 18, no. 3 (1998): 237–42. 18 Ann Gauger, “The Science of Adam and Eve,” in Ann Gauger, Douglas Axe, and Casey Luskin, Science and Human Origins (Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute Press, 2012), 113. 19 Bergström et al., “Recent Origin,” 239, figure 2a. 20 Jenny von Salomé et al., “Full-Length Sequence Analysis of the HLA-DRB1 Locus Suggests a Recent Origin of Alleles,” Immunogenetics 59, no. 4 (2007): 261–71. While the Homo–Pan split is generally dated to at least seven million years ago, this 2007 study does use five million years as a division point. 15 1018 Dennis Bonnette origin of the first true human beings. What it does show, though, is that the number of ancient HLA-DRB1 genes to be explained was significantly fewer than that which Ayala claimed. This raises the interesting possibility that, perhaps, with further investigation, a more complete explanation might be discovered as to how a founding population of just two first true human beings could exist. And yet, does this analysis of Ayala’s study from 1995 reflect the current or possible future literature? The answer is that such radically retrospective studies are, by their very nature, subject to the same difficulties found in Ayala’s research: there is no way to assure that the assumptions inherent in such population genetics studies will fit what actually occurred.21 Often not realized are the epistemic weaknesses of retrospective calculations of genetic conditions hidden deep in the recesses of past time. These highly speculative studies employ computer models that rely on assumptions about such things as constant mutation rates, random breeding among individuals, constant population size, valid schema of common descent, and other conditions—variables that are capable of introducing substantive errors in claimed conclusions.22 Because such assumptions might not accurately depict actual populations, some geneticists have concluded that DNA sequence differences, considered in themselves, may not allow calculation of effective population size (an idealized size of a breeding population).23 Minimal reflection upon the above conclusions renders it obvious that statements such as “Adam and Eve are scientifically impossible” are themselves “scientifically impossible.” Nonetheless, the possibility remains that too much ancient genetic material actually did exist to have passed through the single mating pair of first true human beings. Still, given the inherent limitations For example, see Li and Durbin, “Inference of Human Population History,” 493–97. Molecular biologist Ann Gauger notes the paucity of genomes used in that study and inherent epistemic limits which render such studies not definitive (“On Retrospective Analysis and Coalescent Theory,” Evolution News & Science Today, August 6, 2012, accessed August 4, 2017, http://www. evolutionnews.org/2012/08/on_retrospectiv062881.html). 22 Gauger, “The Science of Adam and Eve,” 111–12. 23 P. Sjödin et al., “On the Meaning and Existence of an Effective Population Size,” Genetics 169, no. 2 (2005):1061–70; John Hawks, “From Genes to Numbers: Effective Population Sizes in Human Evolution,” in Recent Advances in Paleodemography: Data, Techniques, Patterns, ed. Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008), 9–30. 21 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1019 of retrospective genetic speculation, there is simply no way ever to be certain as to what actual conditions existed in the past. Genetic studies alone can never tell us whether or not theological monogenism actually took place, since models are only as good as their assumptions.24 If there is too much ancient genetic material to have passed through a single pair, is there another and different direction that can be taken? The next section ponders such a possible alternative answer, yet one which itself turns out not to be free of all difficulties. The mystery is about to deepen. Interbreeding Solution: A Philosophical Difficulty The above analysis shows (1) that Ayala’s initial claims were overstated as to the number of ancient HLA-DRB1 alleles to be explained and (2) that the genetic case against a literal Adam and Eve is not definitive. Unfortunately, in recent decades, discussion about mankind’s origin involving genetics tends toward the false assumption that Ayala and other scientists have relegated our biblical first parents to the scrapheap of mythology. In 2011, philosopher Kenneth W. Kemp, citing Ayala’s study and findings of other scientists, concluded that “modern science suggests not a monogenetic, but a polygenetic, origin for man.”25 In response to this challenge to Catholic doctrine, Kemp proposed an alternative defense of theological monogenism: that significant interbreeding had occurred between Adam and Eve’s descendants and the subhuman population in which Adam and Eve appeared, thus providing the added genetic material needed to explain present genetic diversity.26 Kemp’s analysis is currently accepted in many quarters as the only An alternate model starting from a single pair has been recently proposed, since the submission of this paper. This model may be able to account for current genetic diversity as well or better than current retrospective models. While we can never recreate history, if there are two competing models, both of which can explain existing genetic diversity, the claims of the current model against Adam and Eve are considerably weakened. Since the alternate model has not yet been tested, I do not consider it at all in the speculative scenario I offer in my postscript. See Ola Hössjer, Ann Gauger, and Colin Reeves, “Genetic Modeling of Human History Part 1: Comparison of Common Descent and Unique Origin Approaches,” BIO-Complexity, vol. 2016, no. 3 (November 11, 2016):1–15 (doi:10.5048/BIO-C.2016.3). 25 Kenneth W. Kemp, “Science, Theology, and Monogenesis,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85, no. 2 (2011): 217–36, at 225. 26 Ibid. 24 1020 Dennis Bonnette credible explanation consistent with the realistic possibility of a literal Adam and Eve. Nonetheless, philosophical difficulties can arise with this hypothesis. Following the assumed standard evolutionary scenario for human origins, it is arguable that there would be few morphological or genetic differences between the subhuman population in which Adam and Eve appeared and Adam and Eve’s descendants. Understandable is the presumption that Adam and Eve’s immediate descendants would belong to the same biological species as the subhuman hominins, and thus, interbreeding would be successful. After all, many instances of successful interbreeding between diverse biological species are known to modern science, even where there are notable morphological differences, as in the case of the lion and tiger producing tigons and ligers. From a purely scientific perspective, an interbreeding hypothesis seems to be unassailable, since we cannot trace back to the exact genetic and fertility conditions that existed in the subhuman hominin population with which Adam and Eve’s descendants may have mingled. Moreover, since interbreeding appears to be solely a biological process, some might argue that no philosophical or theological objections would be relevant. However, regarding possible interbreeding, two major philosophical considerations are crucial and generally overlooked: (1) the distinction between biological species and philosophical natural species, and (2) the ontological fact that substantial form—not matter—determines the ultimate disposition of the matter of a substance.27 All biological species concepts are based solely upon “accidental characteristics,” such as morphology or genetics or even intrinsic reproductive isolation. They fail to discern philosophically essential differences between species. Because biological science as such never reaches to the intrinsic essence of organisms, evolutionists today tend to define the biological species concept in terms of “lineages” or “populations,” which are viewed as evolving separately based upon such abovementioned “accidental characteristics” or “contingent properties.”28 Such “contingent properties” are no longer viewed as absolutely necessary to a given population or lineage.29 Still, all of Bonnette, Origin of the Human Species, 27–39, 232–35. Kevin de Queiroz, “Ernst Mayr and the Modern Concept of Species,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102, supplement 1 (2005): 6600–07. 29 Ibid. 27 28 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1021 them can be used as significant markers of a population that is evolving so as to be separate from other populations or lineages.30 This explanation does not resolve adequately the “species problem” because it fails to address the essential nature of organisms, what it is in the organisms themselves that makes them essentially one with each other and diverse from other species. The biological species concept has historically proven itself to be inherently problematic.31 Eminent biologist Ernst Mayr observed long ago that we must get past empirical terms—like “phenotypic, morphological, genetic, phylogenetic, or biological”—so as to reach the “underlying philosophical concepts” in order to analyze properly the “species problem.”32 Conversely, the philosophical natural species concept penetrates beyond mere sensible accidents to the metaphysical essence of living things expressed in essential properties (per se accidents) that are simply either present or absent.33 Animals have sentient powers lacking in plants. True human beings have intellect and will, utterly missing in brutes. Defending the natural species concept, Australian theologian and philosopher Austin M. Woodbury writes, “Therefore men and brute animals and plants differ from each other according to natural species and specific essence.”34 Generally assumed in any hypothetical evolutionary scenario is that the subhuman hominin population in which Adam and Eve Ibid. Ibid. 32 Ernst Mayr, The Species Problem (Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1957), 17. 33 Bonnette, Origin of the Human Species, , 34–39. See also: Etienne Gilson, The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas [Le Thomisme], trans. Edward Bullough (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1929), 154; Kemp, “Science, Theology, and Monogenesis,” 230. 34 Austin M. Woodbury, Philosophical Psychology (Sydney, AU: Aquinas Academy, 1945 [unpublished manuscript]), 57. Woodbury was a Marist priest who studied under Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. He founded the Aquinas Academy in Sydney, Australia, in 1945, which he directed until 1975. Shortly thereafter, the University of St. Thomas in Rome (the Angelicum) granted the Academy the right to offer the degree of licentiate in philosophy. Woodbury wrote several extensive, deeply scholarly manuscripts dealing with the classical philosophical sciences. Although these works were never actually published, they were distributed to many thousands of students at the Aquinas Academy for over a quarter century. They are highly technical philosophical works that far exceed the depth and breadth of most published works in the discipline today. 30 31 1022 Dennis Bonnette would appear shares their same biological species. Hence, interbreeding between their descendants should be no problem. Still, Adam and Eve are not in the same philosophical natural species as that subhuman population, because the first true human beings possess intellective powers, which are essential properties not found in mere animals. Diverse natural species entail diverse substantial forms. Substantial form determines an organism as to its natural species.35 Interbreeding among organisms in diverse biological species is possible, for example, between lions and tigers, sheep and goats, and camels and llamas, all of which belong to the same philosophical natural species. Analysis of genomes of modern humans indicates that they mated with at least two groups of ancient hominins: Neanderthals and Denisovans.36 Still, these ancient hominins appear to have belonged to the same philosophical natural species as true human beings, because their fossils are associated with artifacts that evince rational powers.37 This would imply that interbreeding between modern man and such rational hominins, all of whom are true human beings, was simply not an instance of interspecific natural species interbreeding. Moreover, Adam must have lived prior to them all, since the doctrine of original sin entails that all true human beings inherit the “state” of original sin from him by propagation.38 Examples of interbreeding, even between diverse biological species, invariably appear to be between organisms that share the same philosophical natural species. No examples whatever of interspecific interbreeding between diverse philosophical natural species seem to exist. Hence, arguments taken from examples of interbreeding between diverse biological species that are in the same philosophical natural species do not tell us whether successful mating is actually possible between subhumans and humans, which, while facilely assumed to belong to the same biological species, are actually in diverse philo Etienne Gilson, The Elements of Christian Philosophy (New York: New American Library, 1960), 170: “Furthermore, the form is that which places the thing in its own species.” 36 Alanna Mitchell, “DNA Turning Human Story Into a Tell-All,” New York Times, January 30, 2012. 37 Tim Appenzeller, “Neanderthal Culture: Old Masters,” Nature 497, no. 7449 (2013): 302–4; Ann Gibbons, “Who Were the Denisovans?” Science 333, no. 6046 (2011): 1084–87. 38 Denz., no. 1513. See also CCC, §404. 35 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1023 sophical natural species. Moreover, “subhumans” or “prehumans” are simply not human at all. Every bit of a true human being differs radically from a subhuman hominin, even assuming seemingly identical morphology and many similar behaviors. That, as philosopher Steven Baldner points out, is because the essential nature of the human being pervades every part and element of its being and body.39 The substantial form determines that the nature of every part of a true human is human and that the nature of every part of a subhuman hominin is not human.40 To say that a human being is simply a subhuman hominin with rationality is an essential error. Yes, man is a rational animal. But, the phrase, “rational animal” does not mean that “rationality” is simply added, as an extrinsic principle or part, to “animality.” Since, as Aquinas maintains, “there is no substantial form in man other than the intellectual soul,” “rational animal” is a unitary substantial nature essentially different from an irrational animal nature in every part of its being.41 Cartesian misunderstanding makes one think that just adding a “rational soul” to an animal would produce a human being, as if the animal nature or form is untouched by the “addition” of rationality. Rather, the irrational animal nature specifies one kind of substance and the rational animal nature specifies another essentially distinct and qualitatively superior kind of substance. They share some common attributes, but that does not make their essential natures the same; nor does it place them in the same philosophical natural species; nor does it assure us that they can mate successfully. Form’s Role in Natural Species’ Origin According to Darwinian naturalism, random material mutations and natural selection are claimed to account for the origin of new biological species. However, substantial form plays a unique role in Steven Baldner, “An Argument for Substantial Form,” The Saint Anselm Journal 5, no. 1 (Fall 2007): 8–9. 40 ST I, q. 76, a. 8, corp: “The soul is a substantial form, and thus must be the form and act, not only of the whole, but also of each part.” See also Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles [hereafter, SCG] II, ch. 72, no. 3: “That the soul is the substantial form both of the whole and of the parts [of an organic body], is clear from the fact that not only the whole but also the parts owe their species to it” (all translations of SCG cited in this article are taken from St. Thomas Aquinas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, vol. 2, trans. James F. Anderson [Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1956]). 41 ST I, q. 76, a. 4, corp. 39 1024 Dennis Bonnette the coming-to-be of new and more perfect natural species.42 Form places an organism into its proper species.43 Since Aquinas maintains that “matter must be proportionate to form,” it appears to follow that a qualitative difference in forms between diverse natural species must entail a real difference in the disposition of the matter receiving those forms.44 He insists that “form and matter must always be mutually proportioned and, as it were, naturally adapted, because the proper act is produced in its proper matter.”45 Since substantial form actively determines primary matter in the formation of a material substance, substantial form renders the material organization of the composite substance specific to the natural species produced. Hence, the material organization of the new substance must be constituted in accordance with the specificity of the new substantial form. Until the new substantial form is actually present, the material disposition needed for it cannot be present, since it is form (which is act) that places matter (form’s corresponding potency) into its proper natural species, not vice versa. While prior forms and causal agency may account for the penultimate disposition of the matter, solely the new and higher form actuates the matter to its ultimate disposition. Aquinas maintains that form is “the specifying principle” of matter and “absolutely speaking form is prior in time because the potential is brought to actuality only by means of something actual.”46 Form is ontologically prior in determining the final organization of the matter needed for that self-same new and higher form. Woodbury, writing about the coming-to-be of philosophical natural species, concludes that “the ultimate disposition [of the matter] is never found with the prior form, but solely becomes present when the new and Dennis Bonnette, “The Philosophical Impossibility of Darwinian Naturalistic Evolution,” Faith & Reason 33, nos. 1–4 (2008): 55–67, at 61–62 (this article appears also in Bonnette, Origin of the Human Species, third edition, 227–238, at 234). 43 Ibid. See also Gilson, The Elements of Christian Philosophy, 170. 44 ST I, q. 76, a. 5, ob. 1. See also Gilson, The Elements of Christian Philosophy, 170: “A prerequisite for the form is a certain mensuration and commensuration of its principles. For instance, a due proportion of matter to form.” 45 SCG II, ch. 81, no. 7. 46 Aquinas, In VII Meta., lec. 2, no. 1278, in Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, trans. John P. Rowan, Library of Living Catholic Thought 11 (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1961), 498. 42 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1025 succeeding form is actually present.”47 Moreover, this material disposition is dynamic, varying throughout an individual organism’s life—and between biological species within the same natural species. The zygote exhibits micro-organization suitable to the form, even prior to its development of the organs specific to its species, while its macroscopic appearance is utterly diverse from that of the adult. Philosopher John N. Deely depicts the form as setting the boundaries of such diverse material organization by “establishing a ‘reaction range’ outside of which the organism cannot be pushed without ceasing to be itself.”48 While natural science can never assure us that the matter is properly disposed for actuation by the substantial form, what is more important and, in fact, decisive is that philosophical analysis alone tells us that form determines the ultimate disposition of the matter so as to assure that the matter is properly organized to be actuated by the form of a certain natural species. This means that no prior state of matter can account for matter’s final organization—neither through mutations or other biological mechanisms nor through the presence of any prior form. Prior material states do not include that which differentiates the ultimate material state from them. Since they cannot give that which they lack, they cannot account for the ultimate material state. Prior forms cannot dispose the matter to the new form, since that is the role of the new form exclusively. That alone that can account for the final organization of the matter must be the new substantial form of the new philosophical natural species. This philosophical analysis forced me to revise my own earlier position and conclude that “natural evolutionary processes alone cannot adequately explain new and successively higher philosophical natural species.”49 I have shown in the “Current Objections Answered” section that studies indicating that Adam and Eve are “scientifically impossible” without interbreeding can never be definitive. And yet, assuming that no interbreeding occurred, present day genetic diversity might Austin M.Woodbury, Cosmology (Sydney, AU: Aquinas Academy, 1949 [unpublished manuscript]), 68. 48 John N. Deely, The Philosophical Dimensions of the Origin of Species (Chicago: Institute for Philosophical Research, 1969), 306. 49 Bonnette, “The Philosophical Impossibility,” 63, and Origin of the Human Species, 235. 47 1026 Dennis Bonnette still render a literal Adam and Eve impossible. Given that successful interspecific interbreeding would involve the question of how the human form can interact with a subhuman hominin’s matter, I need to examine more closely how the above philosophical analysis of matter and form might apply to the interbreeding hypothesis. Why Interbreeding Cannot Be Assumed Given today’s evolutionary mindset, genetic markers are accepted as determinative of species and their properties. DNA is viewed as what makes an organism to be what it is. Because of this, the philosophical analysis that insists that the ultimate disposition of an organism’s matter is determined by the succeeding substantial form, not preexisting material conditions, looks virtually anti-scientific . Aquinas appears to support the notion that matter might not be, in some instances, proportionate to form. He maintains that “the matter need not always be commensurate with the form.”50 He affirms that human beings with intellective souls, through the act of understanding, are “capable of an operation which is accomplished without any bodily organ at all.”51 The human spiritual soul thus “transcends the condition of corporeal matter” and “must not be wholly encompassed by or imbedded in matter, as material forms are.”52 Aquinas grants that “the human soul’s act of understanding needs powers—namely, imagination and sense—which function through bodily organs.”53 Indeed, it might be argued that any sufficiently developed hominin body would meet the material conditions needed for the infusion of the intellectual soul, for example, by possessing a sufficiently developed brain and sense organs. This appears to support the claim that the descendants of Adam and the subhuman population in which they appear belong to the same biological species, since they might manifest virtually no differences in bodily organization and sense powers. Hence, successful interbreeding could occur. In this scenario, the only change manifested in the coming-to-be of Adam would have been the infusion of a soul that was like that of a subhuman hominin in almost all respects, except that it was also spiritual in nature as evinced by its ability to perform intellectual functions. No bodily changes need be entailed. SCG II, ch. 68, no. 7. Ibid., no. 12. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 50 51 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1027 In the case of a new natural species arising purely within the subhuman level, with no spiritual soul or spiritual powers involved, the form of the new and higher species would necessitate a proportionate change in the material disposition of the new organism, as demonstrated above. Unlike the human spiritual soul, material forms are “wholly encompassed by or imbedded in matter.”54 Since material forms in no way transcend the matter that they actuate, matter must be strictly proportionate to form such that potentially gene-altering material changes must always occur with the coming-to-be of a new and higher natural species. On the other hand, in the case of the origin of the first man, Adam, one might argue that no change in the disposition of matter was required, since the higher perfections found in human nature arise solely in spiritual powers that in no way depend on bodily organs for their existence or proper operation. Matter would not be commensurate with form because the only change would be in the added powers of the spiritual soul, perhaps nothing being altered in the matter itself. Still, it is possible that spiritual faculties operate more perfectly when the material sense organs themselves are more perfect in some fashion. While the intellect in its own proper operation would be in no way dependent upon a bodily organ, still, some added perfection in the brain or senses or imagination, for example, might render the image more suitable to the act of abstraction. Hence, while the new substantial form’s spiritual faculties might not, as such, entail a commensurate change in the material disposition, still, a more perfect material organization within the bodily organs would be produced. In fact, Aquinas argues, when speaking about the apt disposition of the body of the first man, Adam, “that God fashioned the human body in that disposition which was best according as it was most suited to such a form and to such [rational] operations.”55 He goes on to say that the human body is “suitably proportioned to the soul and its operations.”56 What is “most suited” to rational operations might, indeed, entail more perfect sensory organs than those found in earlier hominins, thus requiring a change in material disposition. Because such a material change could affect the genetic makeup in such manner as to affect the procreative process with subhuman Ibid. ST I, q. 91, a. 3, corp. 56 Ibid. 54 55 1028 Dennis Bonnette hominins, the assumption that interbreeding could take place might prove ill-founded. There is no way to go back in time and ascertain whether or not these genetic changes would impede successful procreation. The more likely explanation appears to be the following. God did not infuse spiritual souls into lower primates, such as gorillas and chimpanzees, even though they have sense organs and faculties with which to form images. Genuine human beings are so qualitatively superior to subhuman hominins that it is reasonable to expect their radically superior intellectual cognition to be accompanied by more perfect sensory organs and faculties essentially ordered to such qualitatively more perfect cognition. Paleoanthropologists assume a gradual progression in organic formation and function during the last almost two million years, since Homo erectus appeared. If, at some point, a new behavior definitively evincing intellectual presence is found, such as the making of artistic Acheulean stone hand-axes, a corresponding improvement in material organization would appear reasonable.57 Note that highly sentient lower primates and hominins appear, at least prima facie, to have requisite material organization for the human form. That is, gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and so forth appear to have the sense organs needed to form phantasms, which the intellect could use as instrumental causes for intellective acts. Such sense faculties appear present also throughout the evolutionary development of hominins from the prior arboreal primate stock of early Australopithecines to later ones ending some two million years ago with such designations as africanus, robustus, and boisei. Such sense organs and powers are evident as well in the genus Homo beginning about two million years ago with designations such as habilis, erectus, and sapiens in its various forms, including, finally, modern humans. During this immense span of time, physical characteristics better suited to the human substantial form gradually appear in terms of arms, legs, hands, erect posture, and larger brains. At some point in time, the presence of genuine human beings becomes evident, measured by signs of intellective behavior. Following Aquinas, the matter must have then become “most suited” for rational operations. Today, we would speak not only of larger brains, but of more perfect brain architecture and neural function, reflected in appropriate genetic modifications. Bonnette, Origin of the Human Species, 163–64. 57 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1029 Such genetic modifications might serve to impede natural species interspecific interbreeding. Still, while other primates and earlier hominins might not have been most suited for rational operations, this does not preclude them from possibly being simply suited for rational operations. If all that is needed is the material organs associated with the sense power of the imagination—so that the intellect has phantasms from which to abstract concepts—what would then prevent God from infusing an intellective soul into a mastodon, a monkey, or even a mouse? The exact material disposition needed for rational operations is subject to speculation. It appears that God waited well into the evolutionary development of hominins before he chose to create a human soul, thus transforming preexisting organic matter into a true human being, Adam. Was this (1) because the matter was not actually apt for the presence of the spiritual soul until then, or (2) because God simply chose to wait until the bodily organization was “most suited” to rational operations? If the subhuman hominin matter was not apt for the human soul, then there must be a real material difference between Adam’s descendants and the subhuman hominins, since their less perfect material organization was apparently not yet apt for the spiritual soul’s infusion. I am not saying that the change in matter’s disposition enabled God’s infusion of the human spiritual soul, since, as shown above, form determines the ultimate disposition of the matter, not vice versa. Rather, when God freely infused the human soul, the matter was then so changed as to befit that new and higher substantial form or soul. A change so radical as to enable matter suddenly to become “apt” for actuation by the human spiritual soul might well entail genetic changes that could impede future interbreeding. If, on the other hand, God freely chose to infuse a spiritual soul at that point in created time in which a particular hominin body was “most suited” for rational operations, no such required material change to “aptness for the human form” would have taken place, because lower hominins would already possess the material organization needed for a human soul. Therefore, no procreation-impeding genetic difference would then distinguish Adam’s descendants from the subhuman hominin population. In that case, there is the possibility that God could infuse the human spiritual soul into the offspring of any two mating hominins— be they human or subhuman. Because this population of subhumans 1030 Dennis Bonnette have a material body (matter) “suited” for rational operations, there is even the possibility for a subhuman mating with another subhuman and producing a true human—provided God infuses a spiritual soul. Under these conditions, God’s decision to infuse the human spiritual soul into the offspring of any two mating individuals becomes strictly a question of divine choice and intention, since there would be no procreation-impeding material difference between these two natural species. This begs the question as to what was God’s original intention in making Adam and Eve and in founding the human natural species. We cannot presume to know God’s intention. He might have intended to create the human soul solely in cases of intraspecific procreation between members of the human natural species. Arguing that present genetic diversity requires interspecific interbreeding presupposes that there is no other way in which to defend theological monogenism except through such interbreeding. But I have shown that other explanations may indeed be possible, since the genetic case against a bottleneck of two true humans cannot be definitively demonstrated. Following the hypothetical assumption that no procreation-impeding material differences might have existed between Adam’s descendants and the subhuman hominins, then (1) God could have chosen to infuse the human soul solely in the case of mating between Adam’s descendants. Or, (2) God could have ordained that interbreeding between Adam’s descendants and subhuman hominins be fruitful as well. In fact, (3) God could have willed that mating between any two subhumans would produce genuinely human offspring. It becomes purely a matter of divine choice. God’s ways are inscrutable, unless which alternatives were actually fulfilled have somehow been revealed. God’s will excludes the third alternative, since, in that case, true humans would be born who have not inherited original sin from Adam, contrary to Catholic dogma.58 Still, the status of the first and second alternatives is indeterminate, since divine revelation does not directly address these two possibilities. Therefore, the interbreeding hypothesis cannot be strictly demonstrated, even assuming that no procreation-impeding material differences existed between the natural species involved. For, even without such differences, unless God freely intends to create the human Denz., no. 1513. 58 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1031 substantial form needed for successful interspecific interbreeding, such interbreeding becomes objectively impossible. On the alternative supposition that real material differences do exist between the aforesaid natural species, resulting potential genetic differences could impede successful mating. Following either alternative, the assumption that interspecific interbreeding must have occurred is not licit. I have demonstrated above that the genetic arguments against a bottleneck of two first human beings, such as posed by Ayala, are not definitive, which possibly obviates the necessity of any interbreeding solution at all. Why the True Solution Ever Eludes Us Scripture appears to suggest that God somehow used prior matter to occasion the creation of the human soul in Adam’s case.59 And yet, the line “God formed man of the slime of the earth” could imply merely that man was a material as well as spiritual composite substance.60 God could simply have created the first human being ex nihilo. Still, any hypothetical evolutionary scenario requires some use of preexistent matter, some material connection leading to the first true man. It is this evolutionary hypothesis that I explore. Evolving material substances in themselves could not educe the human form, since God alone can create the human spiritual soul.61 This ontological shift from subhuman hominins results in the first true human being, Adam. Having initiated the human natural species in Adam (and Eve), God then blessed our first parents, telling them to, “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.”62 After the Flood, God told Noah and his sons again to “increase and multiply, and fill the earth.”63 Since God’s injunctions to “increase and multiply, and fill the earth” were directed to clearly rational, fully human creatures, one can reasonably assume that God’s intention was the propagation of that natural species through sexual intercourse between its members. Extending procreation to include interbreeding with subhuman Gen 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Douay-Rheims translation). 60 Ibid. See also CCC, §355: “In his own nature [man] unites the spiritual and material worlds.” 61 SCG II, ch. 87, no. 3. 62 Gen 1:28 (Douay-Rheims). 63 Gen 9:1, 7 (Douay-Rheims). 59 1032 Dennis Bonnette hominins appears possible, since God could create a human soul in those cases as well. But, as seen above, nothing necessitates that God choose that option. While interbreeding remains possible, there is no way of proving that God embraced this choice on the grounds that it is the one and only way in which to explain present genetic diversity. That is because, in the section “Current Objections Answered,” I have clearly demonstrated that the arguments against a possible explanation of present genetic diversity in terms of a bottleneck of just two first true human beings are not definitive. On the other hand, what if there is, in fact, a potentially procreation-impeding difference between two distinct natural species involved? Then, it might be the case that the human substantial form of the human being involved in such interbreeding, in virtue of its formal superiority, could so dominate the generative process that what is effected is the same embryonic material found in procreation between two human beings. God might then will that all such embryonic material receives the human soul, regardless of the objectively morally perverse act (bestiality) through which it was produced. Or perhaps the fact that such unions might occur only in those instances when a subhuman male forces himself upon a human female—entailing no sin on the part of the true human being—might constitute conformity to a general law that God wills for successful procreation. None of these genuine, but very contingent, possibilities constitute proof of any necessity for the “interbreeding solution.” Whether possibly procreation-impeding differences in the material disposition of the diverse natural species involved in interbreeding be affirmed or denied, the result is the same: interbreeding, though seeming to be theoretically possible, might also turn out to be, de facto, impossible. All these various uncertainties contribute to doubts about the “interbreeding solution” as an explanation of genetic diversity. It is facilely assumed that interbreeding between Adam and Eve’s descendants and members of the hominin population in which they appear should be possible, since they are taken to belong to the same biological species. But the fact that they belong to diverse philosophical natural species ultimately makes such assumed possible interbreeding indemonstrable and legitimately doubtful. Paleoanthropological claims of gradual hominization were answered earlier by pointing out that the human spiritual/intellective soul must be either fully present or entirely absent in any given The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1033 hominin, thereby making gradual emergence of human intellectual powers impossible. Still, the true answer to the objection against a literal Adam and Eve posed by contemporary genetic diversity remains an “impenetrable mystery” for the following reasons. There are three possible solutions to the genetic problem: (1) the fact that the objections raised by molecular biology are not definitive leaves room for a genetic solution not presently known, (2) interbreeding between true humans and subhuman hominins may account for that diversity, or (3) some combination of (1) and (2). The problem with these possible solutions is that both alternatives (1) and (2) are open to factual contradiction; that is, it may be that one or the other is not actually possible, as shown above. Worse yet, the true solution can never be discovered, since there is no way to be fully certain about actual genetic conditions existing deep in the distant past. In addition, philosophical analysis reveals inherent uncertainties about the possibility of interspecific natural species interbreeding. What is certain is that one of these two alternative explanations, or possibly some combination of both, is, in fact, a viable solution. We know this not because of the molecular biology or philosophy involved but because revealed truth affirms the existence of a literal Adam and Eve, as attested by two thousand years of miracles confirming the truth of the Catholic religion, beginning with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ Himself—a death and resurrection that atoned for that original sin committed by the first man, the literal Adam, whose spouse was the literal Eve. Because people tend to think in biological rather than philosophical terms, most observers will continue to prefer the interbreeding hypothesis. But that does not lessen the force of the above philosophical analysis, whose implications might, de facto, preclude an interbreeding solution and, thereby, dictate that the true solution lies in a molecular biology that is de facto open to a bottleneck of a single mating pair of first true humans, Adam and Eve. Moreover, some combination of both alternatives is also possible, wherein significantly fewer ancient alleles might need to be explained than Ayala claimed and, yet, interbreeding remains necessary in order to explain present genetic diversity. While theological certitude demands that a literal Adam and Eve must exist, an impenetrable mystery shall ever remain as to which exact scenario explains precisely how they are scientifically possible. 1034 Dennis Bonnette And, yet, such possibility remains scientifically credible. Even in the twenty-first century, intelligent, reasonable, scientifically educated Christians still have every reason to believe in a literal Adam and Eve, the first true human beings, the founding parents of all mankind. Postscript While the above analysis offers a definitive explanation of epistemic limitations surrounding the ways in which a literal Adam and Eve are possible, in no way does it prevent speculation about the most probable actual solution to this fascinating mystery. Here I will offer my own attempt at such speculation, while assuming some sort of hypothetical evolutionary scenario. Theological certitude demands that a literal Adam and Eve must exist. Still, the question remains as to whether the truth of their historic existence lies in there being (1) a way to resolve the genetic diversity problem through a single mating pair of true humans within a realistic time frame for Adam and Eve without recourse to interbreeding between subhuman hominins and the first true humans, or (2) actual interbreeding between subhuman hominins and true human beings in order to account for present genetic diversity, or (3) a combination of these two. Speaking solely in probabilistic terms, the following might be argued. Regarding a direct genetic solution allowing for Adam and Eve, the von Salomé study cited in the section entitled “Current Objections Answered” suggests that, while a bottleneck of a single mating pair of hominins is theoretically possible, the timing of that extreme population reduction would have been at least some five million years ago, seemingly far too early to fit any realistic scenario for the biblical Adam and Eve. Moreover, even that same study, which gave the most helpful result of merely four ancient alleles to be explained, indicated the presence of more HLA-DRB1 alleles shortly after about five million years ago, thereby entailing problematic ancient genetic diversity.64 Nonetheless, that 2007 study also indicated that most of the genetic diversity occurred in the last half million years, which would appear non-problematic, since Adam and Eve probably predate that time period.65 Von Salomé et al., “Full-length sequence analysis of the HLA-DRB1 locus suggests a recent origin of alleles,” 264–66. 65 Ibid., 269. Since artistic artifacts apparently requiring true intellect for their formation date back to the early Middle Pleistocene period, true man appears 64 The Impenetrable Mystery of a Literal Adam and Eve 1035 The result of all this genetic information would be to suggest that a significant reduction in ancient alleles compared to Ayala’s estimate would allow for fewer such alleles needing to be explained, and yet, too many might still exist in order to be explained by a single mating pair: Adam and Eve. The need for interspecific natural species interbreeding thus remains. Still, such interspecific mating between diverse natural species might have been less frequent than what some have assumed.66 Although the term “evolution” has been used to describe the scenario by which Adam and Eve appeared on Earth, the step from subhuman to human is not, in fact, any form of purely naturalistic biological evolution. Rather, it is a radical ontological upward step initiated by God introducing the new and qualitatively superior spiritual human substantial form into an instantly transformed and elevated human substance. As Pope St. John Paul II points out in a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: “Theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.”67 If any natural species interspecific interbreeding occurred, as I have shown was possibly necessary to achieve present genetic diversity, then the most likely explanation is either (1) that, in the case of material diversity between the subhuman hominins and Adam’s descendants, the formal superiority of the substantial form of the human being so dominates the procreative process as to assure that God will then create a new human soul for its embryonic product, or (2) that God freely wills to create human souls for such interbreeding’s offspring, where there is no possibly-procreation-impeding material difference between the diverse philosophical natural species involved. to date at least that far back in time. Adam would have to be the first true human being. See Bonnette, Origin of the Human Species, xiv–xv; see also Thomas Wynn, “Archeology and Cognitive Evolution,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2002): 389–438, esp. 398; Naama Goren-Inbar et al., “Evidence of Hominin Control of Fire at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel,” Science 304 (2004): 725–27. 66 Kemp, “Science, Theology, and Monogenesis,” 232. Following Ayala, Kemp speaks of “several thousand hominid ancestors.” 67 Pope St. John Paul II, Address on “Origins and Early Evolution of Life,” §5 (Papal Addresses, 373). 1036 Dennis Bonnette There is no way to be certain that the above scenario is the actual way that the human origin took place. Still, if one speaks in terms of mere probability, the hypothesis just given would appear to be the most reasonable evolutionary explanation of how a literal Adam and Eve came to be—in spite of the seeming difficulty posed by contemporary genetic diversity. Since speculative probabilities can never equate to objective certitude, the doctrine of a literal Adam and Eve remains, as shown above, an impenetrable mystery as to the exact manner in which theological monogenism actually occurred. Still, since natural science offers no definitive case against a literal set of first parents for the entire human race, and since perfectly reasonable scenarios have been presented that comport fully with their literal existence, it remains perfectly rational—both scientifically and philosophically—to believe in this Genesis-based doctrine concerning our own uniquely superior natural species, a teaching consistently affirmed by the Catholic Church and still accepted by most Christians throughout the world as factuN&V ally true. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1037–1064 1037 Prospects for a Sapiential Theology: Bonaventure on Theological Wisdom Gregory F. LaNave Dominican House of Studies Washington, DC Is theology a science , or a wisdom? Theologians formed in any Scholastic tradition readily recognize the vital importance of understanding that theology is a science. The topic received such attention well into the twentieth century that it provoked something of a reaction, with theologians insisting that there were other things to be said about theology as well.1 Such a dynamic was anticipated by the thirteenthcentury university masters. Alexander of Hales, for example, begins his Summa of theology by asking “whether the doctrine of theology is scientia.” He concludes that, whatever one may say about the scientific aspects of this doctrina, it is far more appropriately called “wisdom,” sapientia. Is theology, then, a science, or a wisdom? 2 The two need not be For a helpful outline of the twentieth-century trajectory among Thomists, see Mark F. Johnson, “The Sapiential Character of the First Article of the Summa theologiae,” in Philosophy and the God of Abraham: Essays in Memory of James A. Weisheipl, O.P., ed. R. James Long (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991), 85–98. From a different perspective, one may consider Hans Urs von Balthasar’s famous dictum that theology needs to be done “on one’s knees” (“Theology and Sanctity,” in The Word Made Flesh, vol. 1 of Explorations in Theology, trans. A. V. Littledale and Alexander Dru [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989], 206), or Karl Rahner’s claim that “the devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic,’ one who has ‘experienced’ something, or he will cease to be anything at all” (“Christian Living Formerly and Today,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 7, Further Theology of the Spiritual Life 1, trans. David Bourke [New York: Herder and Herder, 1971], 15). 2 The reader may find it grammatically odd to speak of “a wisdom” rather than “wisdom” (as does my word-processing program; the grammar func1 1038 Gregory F. LaNave opposed. But if the desire—whether it originates among the thirteenthcentury masters or twenty-first-century theologians—to describe theology in terms of wisdom is to bear fruit, one will have to have a precise understanding of what wisdom is. The purpose of this article is to enter into the subject by laying out the thought of one extraordinary exemplar of sapiential theology, St. Bonaventure. It is notable that he is committed to the scientific character of theology. He is perhaps the first theologian to appeal to the Aristotelian notion of subalternation to validate a true science of theology.3 It is equally obvious, though, that his vision of the theologian’s activity does not end in a purely intellectual mastery of the things of faith. To give just one example, at the end of the Itinerarium mentis in Deum, having gone through an extraordinarily dense argument about the variety of ways in which the Christian mind may be raised to God, Bonaventure states that the completion of this journey lies in a transitus, a passing over in which the mind is utterly quieted and intellection gives way to the ardor of love.4 We will not understand his theology if we try tion marks “a wisdom” as an error). This is, in fact, something of the point. It is common to regard wisdom as a single thing. A Christian may associate “wisdom” with the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Someone steeped in the Aristotelian tradition may regard wisdom as that highest of intellectual virtues whereby a man orders all things (see Nicomachaean ethics 6). It is not uncommon to regard wisdom as an eminently practical kind of knowing or an especially graced or spiritual knowledge. By contrast, the Scholastic tradition was accustomed to speak of varieties of wisdom: “It is fitting, and this is a fundamental point, to distinguish three wisdoms properly so called; wisdom being defined as a supreme knowledge, having a universal objet and judging things by first principles” (Jacques Maritain, Distinguish to Unite, or the Degrees of Knowledge, trans. under the supervision of Gerald B. Phelan [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959], 247). The burden of this article is to try to give some specificity to that wisdom that pertains to theology and that, therefore, must be carefully distinguished from other kinds of wisdom. 3 In I Sent., pro., q. 2, ad 4. See: M.-D. Chenu, La théologie comme science au XIIIe siècle (Paris: J.Vrin, 1957), 56; Henry Donneaud, Theologie et intelligence de la foi au XIIIème siècle (Paris: Parole et silence, 2006), 465–79. 4 Itin. 7.1, 4, 5: “Accordingly, the mind has reached the end of the way of the six contemplations. . . . When the mind has done all this, it must still, in beholding these things, transcend and pass over, not only this visible world, but even itself. . . . In this passing over, if it is to be perfect, all intellectual activities ought to be relinquished and the loftiest affection transported to God, and transformed into Him. . . . And since, therefore, nature avails nothing and human endeavor but little, little should be attributed to inquiry, but much to unction; little to the tongue, but very much to interior joy; little to the spoken or written word, but everything to the Gift of God, that is, to the Holy Spirit. Little or Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1039 to deny or minimize its scientific character, but the perfection of theology lies not in a purely scientific project. An adequate account of Bonaventure’s understanding of theology in light of wisdom must contain four elements. First is the simple identification of theology as wisdom, which I will accomplish with reference to seminal texts on the nature of theology. Second is a more refined identification of theological wisdom in light of Bonaventure’s whole doctrine of wisdom. This will require appeal to two famous texts in which he speaks of four types of wisdom and the isolation of that type that is most strictly speaking theological. Third is the incorporation of this wisdom into the ordinary working of theology: the relationship between the wisdom of theology and the science of theology. Here, our attention will turn to various forms of theological argument, especially the form that Bonaventure calls the argument ex pietate. I will focus on two texts, one that indicates the distinctive quality of this kind of reasoning and a second that gives an example of such reasoning. Fourth is the relationship that theology has to other kinds of knowledge. The question of the “autonomy” of Bonaventure’s philosophy was one of the great topics of twentieth-century Bonaventure studies. Yet, without directly engaging that vast literature, it is possible, and helpful, to distinguish between the ways in which theology may be said to have a purely extrinsic relationship to other sciences and the ways in which its relationship is intrinsic. In sum, the prospects for a sapiential theology in Bonaventurean terms should deal with theological wisdom (1) in itself (a combination of the first two points mentioned above), (2) in relation to theological science, and (3) in relation to nontheological knowledge.5 Theology as Wisdom That Bonaventure regards theology as a matter of both science and wisdom is undoubted: nothing should be attributed to the creature, but everything to the Creative Essence—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (The Journey of the Mind to God, trans. Philotheus Boehner, ed. Stephen F. Brown, with intro. and notes [Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1993], 37–38). 5 For a good introduction to Bonaventure’s understanding of wisdom, see Christopher M. Cullen, Bonaventure (New York: Oxford, 2006), esp. ch. 2 (“Christian Wisdom”; pp. 23–35), or Gregory LaNave, Through Holiness to Wisdom: The Nature of Theology according to St. Bonaventure (Rome: Istituto storico dei cappuccini, 2005), ch. 5 (“The End of Theology”; pp. 147–92). 1040 Gregory F. LaNave Sacred Scripture or theology is a science that imparts to us wayfarers as much knowledge of the First Principle as we need to be saved. Now God is not only the principle and effective exemplar of all things in creation, but also their restorative principle in redemption and their perfecting principle in remuneration. . . . Thus theology is the only perfect science, for it begins at the very beginning, which is the First Principle, and continues to the very end, which is the everlasting reward. . . . Theology is also the only perfect wisdom, for it begins with the supreme cause as the principle of all things that are caused—the very point at which philosophical knowledge ends. But theology goes beyond this, considering that cause as the remedy for sins; and it leads back to it, considering that cause as the reward of meritorious deeds and the goal of [human] desires. In this knowledge one finds perfect taste, life, and the salvation of souls; that is why all Christians should be aflame with longing to acquire it.6 This early text, from the Breviloquium, does not elaborate on the distinction between science and wisdom. What really is the difference between, for example, considering God as “the principle of all things that are caused” (wisdom) and “the principle and effective exemplar of all things in creation” (science)? It appears that theology as a science concerns the ordered unfolding of the understanding of revelation,7 while, as wisdom, it goes on to the greatest mysteries, at which philosophy stops. Moreover, theology as perfect wisdom clearly achieves an affective end, compared to the more intellectual end of philosophy or even of theology considered purely as a science.8 A more precise consideration of theology as wisdom comes in an early text, the delineation of the nature of theology in the prologue to book 1 of Bonaventure’s commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. The passage in full reads as follows: Brev. 1.1.2–3, in Breviloquium, trans. Dominic V. Monti, O.F.M, Works of St. Bonaventure 9 (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2005), 28. 7 This touches on the method of the whole Breviloquium. The treatment of each topic begins with a statement of what must be believed and moves on to an explanation of this in terms of the First Principles (whether the first principle of creation or of salvation). 8 Here, Bonaventure is evoking the common etymology of wisdom: sapientia = sapida scientia, “tasted knowledge.” 6 Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1041 We should note that our intellect can be perfected by scientific knowledge. Now we can consider the perfection of the intellect in three ways: in itself; as it applies [se extendit] to our affections; and as it applies to deeds, an application the intellect achieves through giving orders and ruling. Corresponding to these three modes of perfection, our intellect, because subject to error, has three kinds of directive habits. If we consider the intellect in itself, it is properly speculative and it is perfected by a habit which exists for the sake of contemplation. This habit is called speculative science. If we consider the intellect as it applies to deeds, it is perfected by a habit which exists for the sake of our becoming good. This habit is practical or moral science. If we consider the intellect in a way falling between these two, as it applies to our affections, it is perfected by a habit that lies between the purely speculative and the purely practical, but one that embraces both. This habit is called wisdom and it involves knowledge and affection together: “For the wisdom of doctrine is like her name.” Consequently, this habit is for the sake of contemplation and also for our becoming good, but principally for the sake of our becoming good. Such is the kind of knowledge contained in this book. For this knowledge aids faith, and faith resides in the intellect in such a way that, in accord with its very nature, it moves our affections. This is clear; for the knowledge that Christ died for us, and other such truths, move us to love, unless we are talking about a hardened sinner. But a truth like ‘the diameter is incommensurate with the side’ does not. Therefore, we should grant that this science is for the sake of our becoming good.9 The way this is understood depends on the sense that one gives the final cause, which is the topic of the question.10 If it is understood as the purpose—the end for the sake of which we undertake theology— then it is possible to say that theology is meant to lead to an end that In I Sent., pro., q. 3, in Commentary on the Sentences: Philosophy of God, trans. R. E. Houser and Timothy B. Noone, Works of St. Bonaventure 16 (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2013), 11–12. 10 Bonaventure explicitly says that the four questions of the prologue to book 1 are divided according to the four causes of theology (or, more precisely, of iste liber, Lombard’s book of Sentences)—in order: the material, formal, final, and efficient causes. 9 1042 Gregory F. LaNave is extrinsic to its scientific mode of proceeding, which Bonaventure just defined in the previous question.11 In that case, “sapiential theology” would mean theology as undertaken for the sake of the end and, thus, would more rightly be called “sapiential” than “scientific” (or “speculative”). If, on the other hand, the final cause is understood as that end that perfects the formal cause—thus not the end of the one who undertakes the activity, but rather the proper end of the activity itself—then theology must be governed in an intrinsic way by this application ad affectum. In that case, “sapiential theology” would mean theology understood in a thoroughly scientific way that is also, and for the very same reason, thoroughly sapiential. One could reasonably argue that the first interpretation reflects the plain meaning of the text: to say that the loving knowledge of Christ is the end of theology suggests a transitus from the intellectual activity of theology to its affective end.12 Also in favor of this interpretation is the aforementioned fact that Bonaventure often describes an ascent in Christian knowledge that leads beyond the purely intellectual or speculative. Christian wisdom,13 nulliform wisdom,14 and ecstatic knowledge15 are all states that are clearly beyond the scope of theological science, though that science plays a role in each case in preparation for the end.16 Without denying any of the foregoing, I would suggest that a strong case can be made for the second interpretation. A prima facie reason for this can be seen in the context of this text. In the immediately previous question, Bonaventure departed from his Franciscan teachers (notably Alexander of Hales and Odo Rigaud) in asserting forthrightly that the mode of proceeding in theology See J. F. Quinn, The Historical Constitution of St. Bonaventure’s Philosophy (Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, 1973), 683–86. That the mode of proceeding of theology is scientific is established by Bonaventure in the previous question (In I Sent., pro., q. 2). 12 In I Sent., pro., q. 3. The same ordering of the intellective to the affective can be found in Bonaventure’s description of the wisdom that is the gift of the Holy Spirit (In III Sent., d. 35, a. un., q. 1). 13 Itin. 7. 14 Hex. 2. 15 De sc. Chr., epilogue. 16 See E. Randolph Daniel, “St. Bonaventure a Faithful Disciple of St. Francis? A Reexamination of the Question,” in S. Bonaventura 1274–1974, ed. Jacques Guy Bougerol, 5 vols. (Rome: Collegio S. Bonaventura, 1974], 2:171–87, esp. 183ff. Cf. Charles Carpenter, Theology as the Road to Holiness in St. Bonaventure (New York: Paulist Press, 1999): 175–91. 11 Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1043 is “perscrutatorious,” by way of examination, inquiry—a rational mode of proceeding distinct from the modus authenticus (narrative, parable, exhortation, etc.) that is appropriate to Scripture. And, as noted previously, he evokes the Aristotelian notion of subalternation to validate this distinction between theology and Scripture. It would be puzzling to find Bonaventure following up his presentation of a thoroughly scientific conception of theology with an outright denial of its speculative character. The problem that faces Bonaventure is this. In identifying theology as an Aristotelian scientia, he has raised the prospect of it being an effort of syllogistic reasoning that is measured only by the philosophical perspicacity of the theologian and his adherence to the knowledge contained in the articles of faith.17 This Bonaventure certainly does not regard as satisfactory. He knows well the vain musings of those masters and students at the University of Paris who, if not heretical, left much to be desired.18 One way to address this problem would be Elsewhere in the Sentences commentary (In III Sent., d. 25, q. 1, a. 1), Bonaventure states explicitly that theology contains two sets of principles: the common principles are those that are known through philosophy, and the proper principles are the articles of faith. Therefore, theology is absolutely bound to adhere both to the truth of philosophy and to the truth of faith. 18 See, e.g., Hex. 1.9: “For theologians have attacked the life of Christ as related to morals, and the teachers of the School of Art have attacked the doctrine of Christ by their false statements” (in Collations on the Six Days of Creation, trans. José de Vinck, Works of Bonaventure 5 [Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1970]); the former seems to be a reference to the mendicant controversy, and the latter to the influence of radical Aristotelianism at the university. See also Hex. 19.10–14, where, in laying out the proper order of theological study— Scripture, the Fathers, the summas of the masters, the philosophers—Bonaventure warns several times of the dangers attendant upon going too readily to the lower levels, closing by saying: “Indeed, not so much of the water of philosophy should be mixed with the wine of Sacred Scripture that it turn from wine into water. This would be the worst of miracles.” Whether Bonaventure might be called “anti-intellectualist” in the Hexaëmeron (and if so, what that would mean) is a complicated question, not least because the two existing reportationes of these lectures differ rather notably on precisely this point, the Quaracchi edition containing occasional prophecies of an age in which the intellectual activity of the theologians would be superseded, the Delorme edition at times displaying a much greater knowledge and use of Aristotle. The most provocative view is perhaps that expressed by Joseph Ratzinger in The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure. Ratzinger identifies what he calls an “prophetic-eschatological anti-Aristotelianism” in Bonaventure’s later works, most notably the Hexaëmeron: “In the Hexaëmeron we find the final development of this anti-philosophical attitude which here becomes an anti-Scholas17 1044 Gregory F. LaNave to insist on the presence of other qualities (habits) in the theologian— thus one could talk about the importance for theology not only of faith and knowledge but also of docility, studiousness, and piety, not to mention such higher habits as the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Here, however, Bonaventure addresses the problem by appealing to the end of the science. The delineation between speculative, practical, and affective perfections of the intellect and between the sciences corresponding to them is suggestive. A practical science, unlike a speculative science, requires knowledge of its final cause in order to accomplish its work. The speculative science of geometry is guided only by its principles and deduces whatever it may from them; the practical science of housebuilding is guided by the requirements of the end—the qualities of the house that is the telos of the activity. By comparison, the end of theology is not an artifact, and so it differs from a practical science. But insofar as the end of theology—the love of God in Christ—gives guidance to theology, it differs also from a speculative science. Hence the category of affective science: a science in which the relation of love toward its subject plays a role in determining the principles on which the science is based. Sapiential theology is therefore not so much theology as it attends to the affective needs of the theologian as it is theology that is governed by the insight gained from a proper loving knowledge of its subject. Theology among the Wisdoms The texts we have looked at so far indicate a difference between wisdom and scientia. Not all wisdom is the same, however. Twice in his corpus, Bonaventure speaks about four kinds of wisdom:19 the ticism in which Franciscan, Joachimite, and Dionysian themes merge. . . . For the present, speculative theology—philosophical and theological—is justified. But in the higher state that is to come, this will be transcended and become superfluous” (Ratzinger, The Theology of History in Saint Bonaventure, trans. Zachary Hayes [Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1971], 160–61). Whatever position one takes on Ratzinger’s argument, it may at least be said that Bonaventure does not take the same route as Aquinas in addressing the problems of radical Aristotelianism. Aquinas set himself the task of commenting at length on Aristotle’s corpus; Bonaventure never wrote a commentary on Aristotle. It is as if Aquinas saw that the challenge was to get Aristotle right, while Bonaventure saw that this would not do, that the more fundamental problem was the bracketing of the faith by Christian Aristotelian thinkers. 19 For a detailed exegesis of these passages, see LaNave, Through Holiness to Wisdom, 147–92. Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1045 first is in distinction 35 of the third part of his Sentences commentary, where the topic is wisdom as the gift of the Holy Spirit; the second is in collation 2 of his Hexaëmeron, where he speaks about the fourfold beauty of wisdom. In III Sent., d. 35, a. un., q. 1 “Communiter”: cognitionem rerum generalem “Minus communiter”: cognitionem rerum aeternarum “Proprie”: cognitionem Dei secundum pietatem “Magis proprie”: cognitionem Dei experimentalem Hex. 2.8 “Uniformis” in regulis divinarum legum “Multiformis” in mysteriis divinarum Scripturarum “Omniformis” in vestigium divinorum operum “Nulliformis” in suspendiis divinorum excessum The question for us here is: what do these distinctions suggest about the wisdom that is theology? It must be admitted that neither text speaks explicitly about theological wisdom. Readers accustomed to a division between philosophical wisdom, theological wisdom, and mystical wisdom do not find it, at least named as such, here.20 Nevertheless, it is fair to expect it. There is no doubt that Bonaventure distinguishes theology from both the natural knowledge of things proper to the rational mind and the infused knowledge of divine and created things that is the gift of the Holy Spirit.21 Theology has a distinct light and reaches to a distinct end, and the perfection of that knowledge is what we mean by theological wisdom.22 Such is the common division in the Thomist tradition. See, e.g., Kieran Conley, O.S.B., A Theology of Wisdom: A Study in St. Thomas (Dubuque, IA: Priory Press, 1963). For its applicability to Bonaventure, see Leon Veuthey, “Scientia et sapientia in doctrina S. Bonaventurae,” Miscellanea Franciscana 43 (1943): 1–13. 21 See De septem donis Spiritus sancti 4; De sc. Chr., q. 4; In I Sent., pro., q. 1. 22 It can be tempting to try to find a one-to-one correspondence between the fourfold distinction in the Sentences commentary and that in the Hexaëmeron (see, e.g., George H. Tavard, Transiency and Permanence: The Nature of Theology according to St. Bonaventure [St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1954], 189; cf. Cullen, Bonaventure, 24–26), but I have argued that this is inaccurate and that it ignores a key difference in the purpose of these discussions (see LaNave, Through Holiness to Wisdom, 151–55). In brief, in the Sentences, Bonaventure is concerned with the effects of the gifts of the Holy Spirit upon 20 1046 Gregory F. LaNave Commentary on the Sentences In the Sentences commentary, Bonaventure distinguishes between wisdom commonly so called, less commonly so called, properly so called, and more properly so called. The first is the general knowledge of things; Bonaventure quotes Aristotle in the Metaphysics as saying that “the wise man knows all things, insofar as it is appropriate.” The second is “sublime knowledge,” or “the knowledge of eternal things,” what Aristotle calls the “knowledge of the highest causes.”23 The fourth is the gift of the Holy Spirit, the “experimental knowledge of God,” and Bonaventure goes on at some length to describe the way it unites knowledge and the affect. None of these pertains specifically to theology, and so none can be equated with that wisdom that is theology.The first two kinds of wisdom do not, strictly speaking, require grace, nor do they have to do with God under the distinct formality of theology. The fourth kind of wisdom emphatically requires grace, but it achieves a cognition that is beyond what theology itself can provide.24 We are left with the third kind of wisdom, wisdom “properly speaking,” and this Bonaventure describes as “the knowledge of God according to piety.” In the third way wisdom is understood properly, and this names the knowledge of God according to piety. This knowledge is attained in the cult of latria that we show to God through faith, hope, and love. Augustine speaks of it in this way in De Trinitate 14, expositing Job (28:28): “Behold, this piety is wisdom,” saying here that piety and wisdom are the same as theosebia, and theosebia is the same as divine worship, which consists in the three virtues, as he says at the beginning of his Enchiridion, to Laurentius. the powers of the soul, and so his fourfold distinction pertains to various ways in which the soul may be engaged in an act of wisdom. In the Hexaëmeron, he is interested rather in the way that wisdom shines forth from God, and thus his fourfold distinction pertains to different ways in which God manifests himself as wisdom. 23 On these first two forms, cf. Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q. 45, a. 1, on the distinction between wisdom “in a genus” and wisdom “simply.” 24 For a distinction between philosophical, theological, and graced knowledge, see Bonaventure, De septem donis Spiritus sancti 4. The topic there is knowledge, rather than wisdom, but the lesson may easily be transferred to the realm of wisdom: whatever connections there are between these three, they do not require an identification between them. Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1047 The mention of piety, latria, theosebia, and cultus divinus may suggest that this kind of wisdom is devotional rather than theological.25 However, the text certainly highlights the theological virtues. Properly speaking, “the knowledge of God according to piety” has to be understood in terms of the effect of the theological virtues on the soul. For our purposes, we can distinguish two such effects: first, in terms of the image of God in the soul, and second, in terms of the soul’s reception of revelation. The rational soul, by virtue of its creation as rational, always bears the image of God, the imago creationis. The same soul rectified and transformed by grace—including most importantly the infusion of the theological virtues—also bears the image of God as the imago recreationis and is formed in the likeness of God, the similitudo. By virtue of the first, the soul has God as its object; by virtue of the second it has God as its end; and by virtue of the third, it has an affective union with him. 26 These three qualities can coexist in the same Cf. Hex. 19.24–27, which presents the exercise of wisdom in a way that does not seem to have anything to do with theology. It should be noted, however, that the mention of latria and theosebia suggests a more precise theological doctrine. In an earlier discussion of latria (In II Sent., d. 16, a. 2, q. 3), Bonaventure distinguishes latria properly speaking from a more general use of the term. Properly speaking, it is an exterior act of worship, part of the virtue of religion, directed toward God as honorable; more generally, it is an interior act of worship informed by the theological virtues and directed to God as the object of the soul. The better term for this more general usage of latria is theosebia. And it is theosebia to which Augustine refers in the text cited by Bonaventure and that is the key virtue at stake here. 26 In Bonaventure’s doctrine of creation, it is most customary to distinguish between vestige, image, and likeness of God (similitude): the vestige of God (the creature simply as created), points to him as its cause, according to its possession of unity, truth, and goodness; the image of God lies in the rational soul and consists of the way in which its powers of memory, intelligence, and will have God as their object; and the likeness of God lies in the soul as conformed to God by the infused gifts of faith, hope, and love (see, e.g., Brev. 2.12; In I Sent., d. 3, p. 1, a. un., q. 2, ad 4; De sc. Chr., q. 4; Christus unus omnium magister, 17; Hex. 2.26–27; see also Brev. 5.4; Itin. 1.10–11; 3.1; 4.3). In this context, to say that the rational soul apart from the infusion of grace has God as its object means that the powers of the soul are naturally and ineluctably oriented toward God and cannot function properly without that orientation. This is different from the relation the soul has to God by way of the elevation of its powers through sanctifying grace. Nor is there just one such graced relation. In an important text (In II Sent., d. 16, a. 2, q. 3), Bonaventure distinguishes the graced soul as image (according to which it is configured like God) and likeness (according to which it is made like him, sharing in some measure 25 1048 Gregory F. LaNave person at the same time, but the point is that they bespeak different kinds of relation to God. The relation that is the imago creationis is what allows the person to have philosophical knowledge; the relation that is the similitudo is what allows the person to have an experiential knowledge of God. The relation that is the imago recreationis, therefore, lying as it does between the other two, is what allows the person to have knowledge of God beyond the philosophical but short of the mystical. Prima facie, this seems to be the realm of the theological.27 As for the soul’s reception of revelation, Bonaventure makes it clear repeatedly that the theological virtues are necessary in order to apprehend revelation as such.28 God reveals himself to us through Scripture, but, as Joseph Ratzinger noted, it is not Scripture itself that is revelatio for Bonaventure, but the spiritual meaning of Scripture—and the theological virtues are necessary for us to apprehend the spiritual meaning of Scripture.29 Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, the most perfect instance of revelation for Bonaventure is not Scripture, but Christ—and the theological virtues allow the person to apprehend Christ as the Word of God. The “knowledge of God according to piety” may have devotional aspects to it, but insofar as Bonaventure is really talking here about the knowledge of God according to the theological virtues, he is talking about something that belongs to theology, concerning as it does the ability to apprehend God’s revelation, rather than philosophy or mysticism. This is theological wisdom. Hexaëmeron The treatment of wisdom in the Hexaëmeron speaks at length about the fourfold form of wisdom. The introduction to the subject is as follows: in his quality). There are also texts in which Bonaventure makes it clear that, although there is some cognitive apprehension of God that is suitable to the soul transformed in grace, the ultimate height of this is an affective rather than a cognitive experience (see esp. Itin. prol. 3–4; Itin. 7.4–5; Hex. 2.32–33). What I am presenting in this paragraph is a combination of the doctrines of these various texts. 27 The doctrine of the three imagines given here is especially drawn from In II Sent., d. 16, a. 2, q. 3. 28 Brev. prol.1.5: faith and love are necessary to know the breadth, length, height, and depth of Scripture; Brev. prol.4.5: faith is correlated with the allegorical meaning of Scripture, hope with the tropological, and love with the anagogical; Hex. 2.13–17: faith allows us to know the allegorical meaning of Scripture, hope the anagogical, and love the tropological. 29 Ratzinger, Theology of History, 62–63. Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1049 This form [of wisdom] is marvelous, because in one mode it is uniform, in one mode multiform, in one mode omniform, and in one mode nulliform. Thus it clothes itself with a fourfold light. It appears uniform in the rules of the divine law, multiform in the mysteries of the divine Scriptures, omniform in the vestiges of the divine works, and nulliform in the elevations of divine transports.30 On the face of it, all these forms of wisdom appear to be theological, for they all have to do with the divine—divine law, divine Scriptures, divine works, and divine transports. A couple of easy distinctions can be made, however. Nulliform wisdom, having to do with divine transports, is beyond the theological. It is “without form”; it “transcends every science”; it is “attained only through grace.” It has to do with a kind of experience of God that is far more affective than intellective: “For Christ goes away when the mind attempts to behold this wisdom through intellectual eyes; since it is not the intellect that can go in there.” Bonaventure’s favorite authority here is Dionysius, who urges us “to enter into the radiance of darkness.”31 We might call this wisdom mystical, without pausing to define the term too closely. Uniform wisdom, despite its reference to the divine law, is really more philosophical than theological. Bonaventure says of it, “These rules filling the rational mind with splendid light are all the ways by which the mind knows and judges that which could not be otherwise.”32 It is a wisdom that is present to all, even those without grace, and that forms the basis of all sure knowledge and judgment. This leaves us with multiform and omniform wisdom as candidates for theological wisdom. Multiform wisdom has to do with “the mysteries of divine Scripture.” Bonaventure’s explanation of this adverts to the spiritual senses of Scripture, and as noted above, he correlates them with the theological virtues (faith–allegory; hope– anagogy; charity–tropology). In a word, it is through this wisdom that one receives revelation.33 Omniform wisdom is manifested in “the traces of the divine works.” God has left his impress on everything he has created, and from any divine work, one may rise to the Hex. 2.8. Ibid. 2.32. 32 Ibid. 2.9. 33 Ratzinger, Theology of History, 62. For the meaning of revelatio in Bonaventure, see Pietro Maranesi, Verbum inspiratum: Chiave ermeneutica dell’Hexaëmeron di san Bonaventura (Rome: Istituto storico dei cappuccini, 1996), 141–45. 30 31 1050 Gregory F. LaNave knowledge of its author—though in different ways, depending on whether one is considering an essence, a substance, or a spiritual creature. Etienne Gilson called this Bonaventure’s doctrine of “universal analogy.”34 This is certainly, in a way, philosophical, for it involves an access to what God really has done in the creation of things. Yet, it is not sharply distinct from the theological, for Bonaventure readily says that some of what the soul sees is a reflection of the Trinity—and properly speaking, not just by way of the Trinitarian appropriations (which are qualities that even the philosopher could, in principle, attribute to God).35 It thus appears that, in the Hexaëmeron account, theological wisdom is not confined to one form. It certainly has to do with revelation, but it extends to the consideration of all natural realities as expressive of divine wisdom as well.36 This consideration is enabled by the transformation of the soul by grace—omniform wisdom presupposes multiform wisdom—but it is not limited to the reception of revelation proper to multiform wisdom. In sum, theological wisdom is the knowledge of God that comes from the apprehension of his revelation—whether in Scripture, in Christ, or in the things he has made—according to the powers of the soul transformed by grace, particularly the theological virtues. Theological Wisdom and Theological Reasoning Wisdom is not science. “Science” refers to the mode in which a certain discipline proceeds, whereas “wisdom” refers to the end of that discipline, what it looks like when it has achieved its perfection. It is not “Universal Analogy” is the title of ch. 7 of Etienne Gilson, Philosophy of St. Bonaventure, trans. Dom Illyd Trethowan and F. J. Sheed (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1938). 35 E.g., Hex. 2.23: “Every created substance has matter, form, and composition: the original principle or foundation, the formal complement, and the bond. . . . And in these the mystery of the Trinity is represented: the Father as the origin, the Son as the image, and the Holy Spirit as the bond”; Hex. 2.27: “Again, the creature is made in God’s likeness. This may be according to a likeness of nature or a likeness of grace. The former is memory, intelligence, and will in which the Trinity shines forth.” 36 Something of the same dynamic is evidenced later in the Hexaëmeron. The text as we have it (Bonaventure never completed these lectures) runs through the first four days of creation, which reveal understanding (1) inscribed through nature, (2) lifted up through faith, (3) taught through Scripture, and (4) exalted through contemplation. Philosophy clearly corresponds to the first kind of understanding, and mystical knowledge to the fourth. If there is an in-between level, it corresponds to the second and third kinds of understanding and should not be reduced to one alone. 34 Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1051 difficult to see, however, that, in any area in which one can identify the existence of a particular wisdom, the reality of that wisdom may have an effect on the practice of the science. A philosopher may practice the science of philosophy assiduously, but if he is not cognizant of or is unconcerned with the perfection of philosophy that is philosophical wisdom, we would expect his practice of the science to be limited. In this section, I will say a bit about how Bonaventure sees the impact of theological wisdom on theological science. A Principle of Theological Reasoning: To Think of God Most Piously A common Bonaventurean theme is that reason itself demands that one reason about God in the highest and most pious fashion.37 The following is a passage from his disputed questions on the mystery of the Trinity, when he asks whether the doctrine of the Trinity is “credible”: By reason of that light given naturally to man by God and known as the light of the divine face, human reason dictates to each individual man that we are to think of the first principle in the highest and most reverent way. . . . But to think that God can and does wish to produce one equal to and consubstantial with Himself so that He might have an eternal beloved and cobeloved is indeed to think of God in the highest and most reverent way; for if one thinks that He is not capable of this, one does not think of Him in the highest way; and if one thinks that He is capable of this but does not will to do it, one does not think of God in the most reverent way. That God exists in this way and that He is to be thought of in this way, I say, is not dictated by the innate light by itself, but by the infused light from which—together with the natural light—one concludes that God is to be thought of as one who generates and spirates one co-equal to and consubstantial with Himself, and thus one thinks of God in the highest and most reverent way.38 Bonaventure is not offering here an argument from natural reason that God is a Trinity; as he says, thinking in this way “is not dictated by the innate light by itself.” But neither does he regard the truth of See, e.g., Hex. 8–12. De myst. Trin., q. 1, a. 2 (Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity, trans. Zachary Hayes, O.F.M., Works of St. Bonaventure 3 [St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1979], 131). 37 38 1052 Gregory F. LaNave the Trinity as something simply known as a datum of faith. It is an intelligible truth, and indeed a conclusion of reason. The same point is made in the response to the first objection in this article: “Whatever is contrary to all the dictates of reason is incredible for reason. But all reason dictates the contrary of the statement that a being which is one is really a trinity. Therefore, it is incredible for reason.” Bonaventure replies: Reason can be understood in three ways; as fallen, as upright [stante],39 and as elevated. When it is said that whatever is contrary to all the dictates of reason is incredible, if this is understood in particular of fallen reason it is false, because it is possible that something which is repugnant to fallen reason is consonant with innocent or elevated reason. But if it is understood universally of reason in all three senses, then the first proposition should be conceded as true, but the minor is false and should be denied; since—while [fallen] reason dictates the opposite of the fact that God is one and three, upright reason dictates something consonant with this, and elevated reason dictates this very truth itself.40 The reason of the man without grace leads to one conclusion, but the reason of the man whose intellect has been healed by grace (or whose intellect was never wounded by sin) leads to a different conclusion, and the reason of the man whose intellect has been transformed or elevated by grace leads to yet a different conclusion. Theology may make use of reason in any one of these forms, but surely the most appropriate use will be that of the third: elevated reason. Bonaventure makes the same point in laying out his theological methodology in the prologue to book 1 of his Sentences commentary. In question 2 of that prologue, he asserts that the mode of proceeding in theology is rational. An objection is raised: I have altered Hayes’s translation to make it more literal. Hayes translates stante as “innocent.” “Upright” is more literal, though it is no more accurate. “Innocent” suggests reason as it existed in a state of innocence, before the Fall, which is in fact what Bonaventure means here. The idea is that man in the proper natural state is rightly ordered to the knowledge of God but that sin “bent” (incurvatus) him over. One of the effects of grace other than its elevating function is the rectification of the soul, making man able to stand upright and direct himself properly to God once again. 40 De myst. Trin., q. 1, a. 2, ad 1 (p. 133). 39 Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1053 The method of proceeding should be appropriate to the subject-matter at issue. Therefore, it says at the beginning of the Ethics: “Methods of inquiry should follow the material.” But the subject matter of this science is the object of belief. Now the object of belief surpasses reason. Therefore, a method of proceeding using rational arguments is not appropriate to this doctrine.41 Bonaventure concedes the point, but verifies a rational mode of proceeding nonetheless: When you object that the method of proceeding ought to be appropriate to the material, I reply: It is appropriate. And when you object that the object of belief surpasses reason, I reply: This is true, it surpasses reason as far as acquired knowledge is concerned; but it does not surpass reason that has been elevated through faith and through the gifts of knowledge and understanding. For faith elevates reason so that it can assent, while the gifts of knowledge and understanding elevate reason to understand what it has already believed.42 Exactly how faith and the gifts of knowledge and understanding affect the reason is an enormous topic in its own right. For our purposes, it suffices to see that Bonaventure conceives of theology as a process of rational argument, with the qualification that the most proper form of that reasoning requires the influence of grace, resulting in an “elevated” reason. One might add that this thinking with “elevated reason” is not the same thing as the simple reiteration of what one knows in faith. Faith knows that God is both one and three. Elevated reason sees that this is “dictated” by reason.43 In I Sent., pro., q. 2, obj. 5 (p. 7). In I Sent., pro., q. 2, ad 5 (p. 10). 43 Another example of this same approach, though in a very different context, is in the second vision of Bonaventure’s Collationes in Hexaëmeron (collations 8–12). This is the vision of understanding “lifted up by faith.” It is beyond the natural light of reason but short of the understanding involved in the interpretation of Scripture or contemplation. Bonaventure says that the vision of understanding lifted up by faith is lofty, stable, and visible. Collations 10–12 speak about its visibility and begin by talking about twelve “thoughts of faith,” corresponding to the twelve pearls that form that gates of the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21. These twelve thoughts of faith are “that God is the First, 41 42 1054 Gregory F. LaNave An Example of an Argument ex Pietate The idea that theological reasoning is affected by grace as it transforms the theologian is not unique to Bonaventure among the Scholastic thinkers. Any argument from fittingness lends itself to this possibility: the grounds upon which one asserts the fittingness of a conclusion may be accessible to reason in the light of nature alone, but they may also require the illumination of faith to be seen as truly probable. A distinctive Bonaventurean version of such reasoning is the argument ex pietate. “Piety” may evoke a sense of the devotional rather than the theological, but as we have already seen, a more precise definition of terms presents a different picture. One may have piety toward an authority, such as Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. An opinion that is more clearly in keeping with the testimony of Scripture and the Fathers is to be preferred on the basis of piety. There is also the piety we have toward God, which ascribes to him the greatest glory. On the basis of piety, that opinion that is more in keeping with the glory of God is to be preferred. These distinctions may be elaborated in the question on the primary reason for the Incarnation. The tradition had offered two reasons for the Incarnation: the perfection of creation (Hugh of St. Victor) or redemption from sin (Anselm). The question Bonaventure poses is: which one is the primary reason? Now it seems that the first way is more in keeping with the judgment of reason, but the second with the piety of faith: first, because it is more in accord with the authority of the saints and the sacred Scripture. . . . The second reason it is more in accord with the piety of faith is that it honors God more than does the first opinion. This first opinion says that it is fitting for God to become incarnate for the perfection of the universe; and therefore it claims in some way that God is within the perfection of that He is triune, that He is the Exemplar of things, the Creator of the world, the One who gave form to the soul, and the Giver of life; that God, united to the flesh was crucified, that He is the Remedy of the minds, [living food,] the Retribution of crimes and the eternal Reward” (Hex. 10.3 [p. 148; de Vinck simply leaves out “living food” (vitale pabulum)]). These three collations go on to speak at length about the first three of these thoughts: God as Being, God as Trinity, and God as Exemplar. It is important to note that these twelve thoughts of faith do not correspond precisely to the articles of faith. They are presented here not as things believed, but as things that reason sees when it is elevated by the virtue of faith—they are theological thoughts. Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1055 the universe and that there is some necessity of the incarnation if the perfection of the divine works is not to be lost. But the second opinion, holding as it does that the mystery of the incarnation is above all perfection, establishes that Christ is above all perfection of the universe, whether as to nature, grace, or glory.44 . . . Fourth, because it more inflames the affect of the faithful. For it more excites the devotion of faithful souls that God became incarnate for the destruction of our wickedness than for the completion of incomplete works.45 Reason within the light of nature alone does not make a decisive judgment between these opinions, though it may lean in the direction of Hugh’s view. Considering the matter in the light of piety, on the other hand, gives us several reasons to prefer Anselm’s view. Piety in the devotional sense leads one to say that it is better to think that redemption is the primary reason for the Incarnation, for this will move the heart to gratitude for God’s gift. Piety as adherence to the authority of Scripture and the Fathers regards their clear preference for the primacy of redemption as reason enough to support that view. Piety toward God—thinking of him in the highest and most pious way, ascribing to him the greatest glory—leads likewise to the conclusion that redemption is the primary reason. There is much debate among Bonaventure scholars regarding this point, especially in light of the later position of Duns Scotus that the Incarnation would have happened even if man had not sinned. There are significant reasons to ascribe this same position to Bonaventure.46 However, in the text here from the Sentences commentary, he turns our attention solely to what either position implies about the relationship The third reason, which is not particularly germane to our purposes, is that so great a mystery would not have occurred without the greatest cause; the placating of the divine anger and the restoration of all things in heaven and on earth required an offense to the divine majesty and the fall of the most noble of creatures. 45 In III Sent., d. 1, a. 2, q. 2. 46 Ilia Delio, O.S.F., “Revisiting the Franciscan Doctrine of Christ,” Theological Studies 64 (2003): 3–23; Zachary Hayes, “The Meaning of convenientia in the Metaphysics of St. Bonaventure,” Franciscan Studies 34 (1974): 92–96; J. A. Wayne Hellmann, Divine and Created Order in Bonaventure’s Theology (Saint Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2001), 74–77; cf. Joshua Benson, “The Christology of the Breviloquium,” in A Companion to Bonaventure, ed. Jay M. Hammond, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and Jared Goff (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 261–65. 44 1056 Gregory F. LaNave between God and creation. One might argue that Hugh’s position gives greater honor to God because the Incarnation is not viewed as a reaction to sin, but as a sovereignly free decision on God’s part. Here, by contrast, Bonaventure insists that Hugh’s position ends up regarding God as “within the perfection of the universe,” rather than as transcending it.47 It is more in keeping with the “piety of faith” to see Christ as utterly transcending the perfection of the universe and, therefore, not to give priority to the perfection of the universe as the reason for the Incarnation. The argument ex pietate adjudicates between varying opinions not in terms of devotional import, nor by simply appealing to a datum of faith, but by recognizing the harmony (or disharmony) between what is asserted in an opinion and what is known to one who is accustomed to thinking of God in the highest way—one might say, what is known to one who has the feel of the faith. It accords with the affective end of theology—not by warming the affections of the theologian but by reflecting the intimate knowledge of God that is had in the theologian’s real relationship with him.48 The proper regard for theology as wisdom, therefore, allows one to engage all the more in theological reasoning, perfecting one’s ability to make sound theological determinations. It is not anti-argumentative; rather, it promotes a certain kind of theological argument. Theological Wisdom and Other Forms of Knowledge Theology is not an isolated discipline for Bonaventure. All human cognition may be divided into three kinds of knowing, depending on whether one is looking outside oneself in the sensible world, inside oneself, or above oneself.49 These three form an ascending continuum such that, while it is possible to consider only the outside world, the natural dynamism of the knowledge thus gained is to ascend to consider the soul in itself and ultimately to consider the angels and God; indeed, to stop short with only the sensible world is to have a stunted knowledge even of that world. Now, it is not the case that to consider God and the angels as above the soul is necessarily to engage As George Tavard notes, “Christ is not in creation like a perfecting element, since, as a Person, he towers high above all creaturely perfection” (Tavard, Transiency and Permanence, 204). 48 For a slightly different interpretation of the argument ex pietate, see JacquesGuy Bougerol, Introduction a saint Bonaventure, 2d ed. (Paris: Librarie philosophique J. Vrin, 1988), 153–58. 49 Itin. 1.4; Brev. 2.12. 47 Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1057 in theology; philosophy is at home here as well. But this pattern of Bonaventure’s thought, as well as the fact that he regards theology as one of the possible states of human cognition, raises the possibility that theology has a role to play in drawing up the lower sciences to their perfection. Classic texts in this regard are collations 1 and 4–7 of the Hexaëmeron50 and the short treatise De reductione artium ad theologiam. 51 It must be added that the higher knowledge is not confined to theology. It includes all infused forms of divine revelation as well, such that one could legitimately speak about how, for example, the knowledge of one of the mechanical arts leads to and is perfected in an ecstatic state of contemplation. Here, however, our interest is confined to the way in which theology plays that role and, thus, may rightly be called “Christian wisdom” with respect to the lower forms of knowledge. The difference between theology and the other higher states is that, while it is certainly based on the infusion of faith, it is an acquired rather than an infused knowledge. The first thing to be said about the lower disciplines—perhaps surprisingly, given what has just been said—is that they are autonomous. Nowhere does Bonaventure say that only a theologian can be a metaphysician, or a fortiori a mathematician, physicist, logician, ethicist, and so on. Yet, at the same time, he excoriates those who try to rely on their natural abilities and on the natural realities themselves in order to understand these disciplines. Most striking in this way is a passage from collation 5 of the Hexaëmeron. For the entirety of collation 4 and the bulk of collation 5, Bonaventure lays out in Collation 1 of the Hexaëmeron is largely devoted to a consideration of Christ as “the central point of all understanding” (Hex. 1.11), the center of metaphysics, physics, mathematics, logic, ethics, politics, and theology. Collations 4–7 deal with “understanding as given by nature” (Hex. 1.24) and begin (Hex. 4.1—5.20) with a description of the way truth shines out in the truth of things (considered in metaphysics, mathematics, and physics), the truth of words (considered in grammar, logic, and rhetoric), and the truth of morals (morum) (considered in the doctrine of moral habits, the doctrine of intellectual habits, and politics). Taken together, these collations tell us much about how Bonaventure regards different philosophical disciplines and their relation to the divine truth and especially Christ. 51 In De reductione, Bonaventure divides all knowledge according to illumination by “the Father of lights” (Jas 1:17), thus distinguishing an exterior light (the mechanical arts), an inferior light (sense knowledge), an interior light (philosophy, whether natural, rational, or moral), and a superior light (the light of grace and Scripture), and “reducing” the exterior, inferior, and interior to the superior. 50 1058 Gregory F. LaNave varying degrees of detail52 the natural knowledge that one can have of the truth of things (metaphysics, mathematics, physics), the truth of words (grammar, logic, rhetoric), and the truth of morals (moral virtues, intellectual virtues, political virtues), and he brings the whole to a crashing end when he says, “But in all of these reason went on a rampage, metaphysics ran riot.”53 Later on in the Hexaëmeron (collations 6–7), we see the same dynamic: the radical Aristotelians of Bonaventure’s day are blamed for losing sight of the truth of philosophical knowledge, while Aristotle himself is held blameless, though not able fully to understand this natural knowledge. Perhaps the simplest way to account for these judgments on Bonaventure’s part is to say that they indicate an extrinsic role that divine illumination has on natural knowledge. The intellect of the natural knower is darkened by sin, and thus, needs the light of grace to know some things that, in principle, it can know in the light of nature. Or, natural reason may not be able to decide between two equally plausible conclusions while, if the truth of one is known through revelation, faith can give the answer to the natural question. Or again, some natural disciplines, such as ethics and metaphysics, deal with matters of ultimate concern (the human good, God), and theology can, because of its insight into precisely those matters, judge the claims of the natural knowledge. All of these are ways to describe possible relationships between divine illumination and natural disciplines, and Bonaventure acknowledges them.54 They are, however, all extrinsic, and to leave the matter there would not do justice to his claims about the intrinsic relationship between that illumination and natural knowledge. The two great texts that display this relationship are the short treatise De reductione artium ad theologiam and collation 1 of the Hexaëmeron. As the title indicates, De reductione shows how the various arts and sciences are related to theology: Just as all those creations [i.e., the illuminations corresponding to the six days of creation] had their origin in one light, so too are all these branches of knowledge [viz., sense perception, mechanical art, rational philosophy, natural philosophy, and How much detail depends in part on which reportatio is being consulted.There are topics where the Delorme edition contains a great deal more detail than the Quaracchi. 53 Hex. 5.21. 54 See esp. Hex. 7. 52 Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1059 moral philosophy] ordained for the knowledge of Sacred Scripture; they are contained in it; they are perfected by it; and by means of it they are ordained for eternal illumination.55 Collation 1 of the Hexaëmeron, for its part, is largely devoted to the theme of “Christ the center”: Our intent, then, is to show that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and that He Himself is the central point of all understanding. He is the central point in a sevenfold sense, in terms of essence, nature, distance, doctrine, moderation, justice and concord. The first is in the metaphysical order, the second in the physical, the third in the mathematical, the fourth in the logical, the fifth in the ethical, the sixth in the political or juridical, and the seventh in the theological. The first Center is first by eternal origin, the second is most strong through the diffusion of power, the third is most deep because of the centrality of position, the fourth is most clear by rational proofs, the fifth is most important because of the choice of moral good, the sixth is outstanding because of the retribution of justice, the seventh is at peace through universal conciliation. Christ was the first center by His eternal generation, the second by His incarnation, the third by His passion, the fourth by His resurrection, the fifth by His ascension, the sixth by the judgment to come, the seventh by the eternal retribution or beatification.56 There is a considerable literature on the technique of reductio in Bonaventure, and the theme of “Christ the center” has received increased attention in recent decades.57 For here, we may confine ourselves to some general comments. Reductio involves seeing the De red. 7 (De reductione artium ad theologiam, trans. Sr. Emma Thérèse Healy, in Works of St. Bonaventure 1 [Saint Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1955], 29). 56 Hex. 1.11 (p. 6–7). 57 For recent commentary on collation 1 or the theme of “Christ the center” generally, see Zachary Hayes, The Hidden Center (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 192–204; Ewert Cousins, Bonaventure and the Coincidence of Opposites (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1978), 131–59; Hellmann, Divine and Created Order, 62–73; Kevin L. Hughes, “St. Bonaventure’s Collationes in Hexaëmeron: Fractured Sermons and Protreptic Discourse,” Franciscan Studies 63 (2005): 107–30. 55 1060 Gregory F. LaNave dependence of one thing upon another for its intelligibility. For example, the intelligibility of a sensible object lies not entirely in itself, but within its exemplary cause—ultimately, in God’s idea of that object. Again, privations are not intelligible in themselves; they must be seen in light of the dispositions of which they are privations. When it comes to the sciences and theology, one may say very simply that the truth of things lies in three places: in the thing itself, in the rational mind that knows it, and in the divine mind according to which it is created, and the fullest truth of the thing lies in the divine mind; therefore, although we can talk about the truth of a natural science in itself, the fullness of its truth lies in its relationship to the divine mind. The theme of “Christ the center” can be understood in much the same way. Much of the attention of commentators has been drawn to Christ as the center of metaphysics—understandably, since Bonaventure says more about this than about any other science in Hexaëmeron 1 and because one of the great debates in twentiethcentury Bonaventure scholarship concerned “the Bonaventurean question” of whether philosophy is a properly autonomous discipline. As Zachary Hayes argued, there is for Bonaventure such a thing as philosophical metaphysics, which deals with the efficient, exemplary, and final causes of things, but there is also a theological metaphysics that understands these causes as appropriated to the Trinity and especially understands that in Christ is the exemplary cause of all things. Both are properly metaphysical, but the theological is more perfect than the philosophical.58 One could draw the same lesson for any of the other sciences Bonaventure speaks of in Hexaëmeron 1, for example, mathematics. The mathematician measures things: “Although his first concern is the measuring of the earth, he further considers the motion of the higher bodies in so far as they act by their influence upon the lower earthly bodies.” Christ in his crucifixion and his descent into hell went to the center of things and, thus, provides the point from which they can be measured—not physically measured, but morally measured through Christ’s humility.59 It is not the case that the mathematician can be a mathematician only by reflecting on the crucifixion. But neither is it the case that the connection Bonaventure is drawing here is a pure matter of pious sentiment, Zachary Hayes, “Christology and Metaphysics in the Thought of Bonaventure,” Journal of Religion 58, suppl. (1978): S82–S96. 59 Hex. 1.21–24. 58 Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1061 that it is a holy thing for a mathematician, who investigates quantity, number, and proportion to think about the crucifixion. Rather, one of the greatest truths of mathematics, the truth of proportion, has its prime instance in the proportion between the humble part (Christ’s crucifixion and descent to the dead) and the great whole (all of human history). And it is not impossible to think that knowing the prime instance, the exemplary truth, can shape one’s knowledge of the realities that stand underneath it.60 Piecing together these claims of the connection between the knowledge of revealed truths and the relative autonomy of natural knowledge, we could present Bonaventure’s doctrine as follows. In terms of the light of knowledge, there is a clear distinction between the light of nature and the light of faith (or yet higher lights). One may know something in the light of nature, in which case one is engaged in philosophy, or in the light of faith, in which case one is engaged in theology. It may be the same thing that is known—for example, the existence of God. In terms of the light in which this is known, philosophy has a proper operation here that is independent of the light in which theology knows the same thing.61 In terms of what is known, the relationship is a little different. Because of Bonaventure’s understanding of the nature of exemplar causality, he will not say that the truth of things lies entirely within them. It is rather contained within God as exemplary cause.62 Therefore, God’s knowledge of things governs the truth of things within themselves. Put in these terms, such a view may seem unexceptional. But, for Bonaventure, it follows that the person who has access to I am grateful to Br. Bonaventure Chapman, O.P., for sharing with me his reflections on “Christ the center”: “Christus tenens medium in omnibus, nisi in comprehensione? Hexaëmeron Collation 1 in Light of the First Day” (unpublished paper). Chapman’s paper is an exploration of an underdeveloped aspect of studies of the Hexaëmeron—namely, the connection between Christ the center of the seven named sciences in collation 1 and Bonaventure’s explanation of those sciences in collations 4 and 5. The comments about mathematics in the above paragraph owe much to Chapman’s paper. 61 Thus Bonaventure “consistently distinguishes between arguments based on the authority of faith (de fide) and those based on reason (de ratione)” (Cullen, Bonaventure, 29). 62 See esp. De sc. Chr., q. 4: See also Itin. 2.9: no one can judge with certainty about sensible things except by certain rules, and these rules are “not made but uncreated, eternally existing in Eternal Art” (p. 15). One could go further and say that the exemplary truth of things lies within the divine Word and, therefore, because of the Incarnation, in Christ (see Hex. 1.13–17). 60 1062 Gregory F. LaNave God’s knowledge of things via revelation also knows the truth that governs the truth of things within themselves. In this sense, no natural knowledge is exempt from the governance of supernatural knowledge and the truth of things can be seen in a more perfect degree by the person of faith than the person without faith. The philosopher has a real knowledge of his subject, but the theologian knows the truth of it more perfectly. The great fault of the philosopher in this situation is to reject deliberately the more perfect knowledge in the name of the autonomy of his discipline. Theology as wisdom thus stands above every other discipline because what it knows is determinative for them. This applies not only to subordinate disciplines like ethics and metaphysics; all disciplines are judged by theology, for they are all intrinsically related to what theology knows. Finally, in terms of the end of the sciences, the relationship is different yet again. In De reductione, Bonaventure says that the lower branches of knowledge are “ordained for the knowledge of sacred Scripture.” One may have the impression that the “higher” status of theology means that one should engage in the study of only the lower disciplines in order to understand revelation. It is true that Bonaventure occasionally derides those who claim to find joy in the knowledge of the lower disciplines,63 but his view is more complex than that. Some sciences (e.g., geometry) have a purely and properly speculative end. It may be a very good thing for the theologian that his knowledge of geometry helps him to understand something in Scripture, but that in no way affects his knowledge of geometry per se. On the other hand, God created things the way they are with a view toward the revealed order. Therefore, those things that are specially pertinent to the revealed order should command the attention of those who are investigating aspects of natural knowledge. There is another aspect of Bonaventure’s thought that is relevant here: the order of forms to one another. His account of creation does not postulate the simple creation of a set of fixed forms; rather, he sees the emergence of higher forms out of lower because of the dispositions inherent in the lower forms—the seminal reasons. 64 The telos of a lower form is therefore not itself, but the flowering of the See, e.g., Hex. 17.7: “In this knowledge [i.e., of Scripture] alone there is delight, and in no other. The Philosopher says that it is a pleasure to know that the diameter is asymmetrical to the circumference. Let this pleasure be his: provided he savors it” (p. 255). 64 See Kent Emery, Jr., “Reading the World Rightly and Squarely: Bonaventure’s Doctrine of the Cardinal Virtues,” Traditio 39 (1983): 183–218. 63 Bonaventure On Theological Wisdom 1063 disposition whereby it is raised and perfected in a higher form. The same is true of forms of knowledge: the lower will, if pursued well and brought to their fulfillment, find themselves raised up and transformed into higher forms. This may happen in a very limited way for some—what can one really say about a geometry that is raised up to become “Christian geometry”?—but it may be the life-blood of others (e.g., Christian ethics, Christian politics). Theology therefore plays a governing role: not by importing its special knowledge into an otherwise autonomous discipline, but by enabling the lower discipline to reach its perfection by being sublated into a higher. No one is faulted for pursuing the knowledge appropriate to his illumination, and a philosopher may be excused for his mistakes if he was lacking the knowledge of revelation.65 However, one is not excused for refusing to allow for the upward dynamic of natural knowledge. This is to falsify natural knowledge itself. Summary One should be in no doubt that Bonaventure conceives of theology as a science in the Aristotelian sense. It is indeed a process of syllogistic reasoning based on indubitable principles known in faith with the assistance of the certain knowledge that comes from reason. The consideration of theology as sapiential is not meant to replace the science of theology, but to complete it by giving an account of things that are not readily apparent to one who considers only the scientific aspect. The first of these is the role of the theological virtues in theology. From the standpoint of the science of theology, it is easy to see that the virtue of faith is necessary because it is the means by which we know those principles that come to us through revelation. From a sapiential standpoint, we can also say that theology involves a whole knowledge of God—“whole” not in the sense of “comprehensive,” but in the sense of an entire body of knowledge that has a distinctive formality and light, much as metaphysical or mystical knowledge of God has.66 We learn further that theology can attend to—because it involves an openness to being formed by—the divine self-expression wherever that occurs, be it in the documents of revelation or in the depths of creation itself. See Bonaventure’s conciliatory remarks about Aristotle’s errors in Hex. 7.2. “Theology is quite a different thing from a simple application of philosophy to matters of revelation: that would truly be a monstrous conception” (Maritain, Distinguish to Unite, or the Degrees of Knowledge, 250). 65 66 1064 Gregory F. LaNave A second distinctive contribution of sapiential theology is that it broadens our notion of what constitutes legitimate theological reasoning. The real elevation of the Christian’s intellect by grace gives him a capacity to make theological judgments that the natural man can at best see as possible, and that the sinful man is most likely to regard as absurd. Readers familiar with pieces of Bonaventure’s writing from different parts of his career will no doubt note that late texts such as the various collationes, and even middle-period texts such as the Itinerarium, do not display the kind of argumentative structure one finds in the early commentary on the Sentences or in the various disputed questions. I suggest that this is due not to the abandonment of the science of theology but, rather, to its completion by sapiential theology, reasoning in (an implicitly) syllogistic fashion about the faith in light of a sense for divine things. Finally, evoking the sapiential aspect of theology points us to the relationship between theology and the lower sciences. The science of theology makes use of those lower sciences and implicitly—because it is committed to the unity of truth—judges in favor of the conclusions of theology over anything that seems contrary to them in the conclusions of the lower sciences. It is in considering theology as wisdom, however, that we are forced to give a more comprehensive judgment of the relationship between the higher and the lower. On this point, Bonaventure gives us a way to maintain the autonomy of the lower sciences while allowing for a deeper theological insight into their truth and seeing them as ordained to theology. It is not the use of the lower sciences that is at issue in sapiential theology so much as it is their perfection. Bonaventure’s doctrine of theological wisdom is the reflection of a medieval mind committed to the supremacy of wisdom over science, but also to the strict requirements of Aristotelian scientia. It is the vision of a Christian who sees the relative autonomy of the created order but also the transformed sense one can have of that order. And it is the vision of a mystic who knows that the highest knowledge of God lies in a luminous darkness, but that the same God has revealed himself in and through the world through his self-expression. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1065–1084 1065 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments: A Catholic Analysis1 Michael Root The Catholic University of America Washington, DC What is the causal role of faith in the sacraments as understood by the Protestant Reformers? The Catholic might think that this question is simpler than a parallel question addressed to Catholic understandings of sacraments. After all, Protestants generally affirm only two sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist,2 or even (the Catholic might say) only one-and-a-half, since the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist is uniformly denied by Protestants (or, on occasion, affirmed in a way that pushes it to the margins). The field to be explored is thus significantly smaller. But the initial glance is deceiving for two reasons. First, the rejection of Scholasticism by the Reformers meant that the conceptual resources available for discussing the causal role of faith (or anything else) in the sacraments are less precise than those available within Catholic discussions.3 Figuring out just what is the This essay began as a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Academy of Catholic Theology in May 2016. It has been only lightly revised and retains a somewhat oral style. Sources are given for quotations, but English translation is cited, not original language texts. Other footnotes have been kept to a minimum. 2 Luther wavered on the sacramental status of confession or penance. For Luther’s final reduction of penance to a return to one’s baptism, see his Large Catechism, nos. 74–86, in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 465–67. 3 The scholastic understanding of sacramental causality and debates over its details is summarized in Bernard Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology (London: Longmans, 1960), 283–381. 1 1066 Michael Root causal role of faith in the sacraments for the Reformers is a complex interpretive task. Second, there is no shared Protestant understanding of the role of faith in the sacraments. In fact, the role of faith in the Eucharist became a central topic of Lutheran–Reformed dispute, with the Lutherans accusing the Reformed of making faith a cause of Christ’s presence, in the sense of efficient cause, and the Reformed accusing the Lutherans of bypassing faith, in ascribing an inappropriate power to the material elements of baptismal water and Eucharistic bread and wine. While disputes over baptism were less prominent, Lutherans and Reformed did take significantly different positions on baptism and faith, leading to differences in practice, notably the Lutheran tendency to baptize infants in danger of death and a Reformed reluctance to do so. Thus, any attempt to understand the causal role of faith in relation to the sacraments must at least take up the different strands of Protestant theology separately. In order to make my task manageable, I will deal here with only the two most important theologians of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin, who represent two of the three most important strands of classical Protestant theology. I will thus not address those theologians, few in the sixteenth century but of increasing importance in later Protestant history, who may be described as simply nonsacramental—who denied that sacraments are divine actions that in some way communicate grace, instead understanding them as human actions attesting to or calling to mind a reality independent of the sacramental rite itself. For such theologians, Zwingli being the most important from the sixteenth century, the question of sacramental causality takes a quite different form. This article will be something of a cross-border exploration. The question of sacramental causality as it has been discussed in Catholic theology was not discussed in such terms by Protestants, although the underlying issues that gave rise to the Catholic discussion were present for Protestant theologians as well, at least for those who can be called sacramental. I will thus be asking a Catholic question of Protestant theology: what sort of causal or cause-like role does faith play in the sacraments? My hope is that this cross-border excursion will cast a different light both on Protestant discussions and, by reflection, on how Catholics understand faith and the sacraments. Cross-border trips can be messy and hobbled by misunderstanding. Matters are made more complicated by the less than perfectly clear accounts of faith and the sacraments offered by both Luther and Calvin. I will thus need to make some summary claims about each Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments 1067 that would not be universally accepted by all interpreters, and I will not have space here to defend them. I will offer extensive quotations from both, but I know that quotations that seem to point in a different direction can also be found. Faith A preliminary comment needs to be made about one of the central terms being employed, faith, and the role of faith in salvation and the Christian life. The word “faith” almost always carries a different range of reference and a different set of connotations for Protestant theologians than it does for much Catholic theology, although the overlap between the two linguistic uses is also significant. Catholic theology typically understands faith in the context of Paul’s triad of faith, hope, and love in 1 Corinthians 13. The interpretive task, most famously carried out by Aquinas in the opening sections of the secunda secundae of his Summa theologiae, is to understand these three theological virtues in their difference and in their unity. Together, the three theological virtues are at the core of the Christian life; they are the concrete means God uses to elevate the Christian to participation in the communion of the Trinity. While distinct from one another, the theological virtues function together, at least when they function aright. Faith, even supernatural faith, can exist without love, but unless formed by love, it is frustrated; it does not justify. Within that triad, faith has most often been understood within Catholic theology in terms of Hebrews 11:1, as the assurance or substance of things hoped for, the conviction or evidence of things not seen. That passage is usually taken to imply that, within the triad of faith, hope, and love, faith plays a primarily intellectual role. While influenced by the will, it finds its primary home in the intellect. The triad of 1 Corinthians 13 is not the context within which Luther, Calvin, or most other Protestant theologians understand “faith.” If there is a biblical passage that is definitive of faith, it is more likely to be Romans 1:17: “The just shall live by faith” (King James Version). Faith is what the Christian lives by, a comprehensive attitude of the self, of both intellect and will, by which the self turns away from itself and relies entirely on God, or more specifically, on God’s saving act in Christ. If sin is the self incurvatus in se, faith is its opposite, the self turned utterly toward God. For both Luther and Calvin (but more explicitly for Calvin), faith has a strong component of understanding. The sinner must hear, minimally understand, and believe the truth of God’s promises and the fulfillment of those 1068 Michael Root promises in Christ (hence Calvin’s polemic against “implicit faith”).4 But faith is not only notitia but also assensus and, decisively, fiducia. Faith is a reliance on Christ, a handing over of the self to Christ. As Luther says in his Large Catechism: “[Faith is] that one’s whole heart and confidence be placed in God alone, and in no one else. . . . You lay hold of God when your heart grasps him and clings to him. To cling to him with your heart is nothing else than to entrust yourself to him completely.”5 For both Luther and Calvin, the believer is united with Christ through faith. Luther uses various images for this union, for example, that Christ and the believer are baked together in one cake. He often used nuptial imagery, most famously in On the Freedom of the Christian: “[Faith] unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh.” Within this marriage, the “happy exchange” can occur: “The believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. . . . Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ’s, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul’s.”6 Faith thus plays a role that, in Catholic theology, is usually ascribed to the triad of theological virtues, with love at the center. Because faith is that by which the redeemed receive redemption and by which the believer is united with Christ, faith is always the proximate or immediate target or point of orientation for any mediation of salvation. Christ, grace, or the Holy Spirit may strengthen love, help curb unruly desires, or inspire good works, but faith is the hand that initially receives the gifts, the door through which help must enter. For any action that seeks to mediate salvation or grace— any preaching of the Gospel, any sacramental rite, and so on—the proximate final cause, one might say, is eliciting or strengthening or exercising faith in the comprehensive sense noted. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, bk. III, ch. 2, no. 3, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960), 545–46. 5 Luther, The Large Catechism, nos. 13–15 (Book of Concord, 388). 6 Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, trans. W. A. Lambert and Harold J. Grimm, in Luther’s Works [hereafter, LW], ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Helmut T. Lehmann, and Christopher Boyd Brown, 55 vols. (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1955–1986), 31:351. 4 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments 1069 A question naturally arises: why put faith and not love in this central location, especially since Paul seems to prioritize love over faith in 1 Corinthians 13? Scholarship over the last fifty years has stressed the way Luther’s understanding of faith correlates with the understanding of Gospel as fundamentally promise.7 A promise is received not by loving the promiser, but by trusting, relying upon, the promise. If you promise to pick me up at 5 p.m., then I trust the promise by not calling a cab at 4:45, just in case you forget. Love may accompany or follow such trust and reliance, but it is not the act by which the promise is received. I would make a more general point. The Reformers see faith as more directly attuned than love to the primarily receptive character of the believer’s relation to God. The self receives Christ through a radical openness in which the self has nothing positive to offer and can only receive. Love receives but also gives; faith simply receives— it does not contribute to what is received. Thus, while Luther will say that faith is active, doing things in the Christian’s life, he insists that, at the moment of reception, the emphasis must fall on faith as passive. Reception as a human action tends to remain unspoken in Luther’s discussions of the reception of salvation.8 This silence about the act of reception has a reason. Faith justifies by what it receives, which is Christ. As a human disposition or action, faith is always more or less imperfect, a trust and dependence that is less than complete. As a human disposition or act, faith is no better than love or hope—partial, conflicted, subject to temptation. Faith is only the earthen vessel containing the treasure. Calvin states: “Faith is said to justify because it receives and embraces the righteousness offered in the gospel.” 9 This sharp distinction between faith and what it receives is pastorally important for the Reformers. As noted, for the Reformers, faith is a looking away from the self and a looking toward Christ. If the Martin Luther, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church: “For anyone can easily see that these two, promise and faith, must necessarily go together. For without the promise there is nothing to be believed; while without faith the promise is useless, since it is established and fulfilled through faith” (trans. A. T. W. Steinhäuser, Frederick C. Ahrens, and Abdel Ross Wentz, in LW, 36:42). 8 See the excellent discussion of faith and love in Luther’s theology in Berndt Hamm, “Why Did Luther Turn Faith Into the Central Concept of the Christian Life?” in The Early Luther: Stages in a Reformation Reorientation, trans. Martin J. Lohrmann (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 59–84. 9 Calvin, Institutes, bk. III, ch. 11, no. 17 (p. 746). 7 1070 Michael Root faithful self were to look back at itself, the temptation would inevitably arise of either despair because faith is weak or pride because one falsely perceives faith as stronger than it is. For the Reformers, and especially for Luther, faith is understood in such a way that self-reference becomes difficult. Faith can talk of almost anything but itself. Faith must be, by its very nature, self-forgetful. This understanding of faith, shared (with some variations) by Luther and Calvin, sets the context for all they say about the sacraments. It gives a much sharper anthropological focus to any discussion of sacramental causality. If one were to ask how extreme unction mediates grace, any answer would have to concentrate on how the rite addresses faith. Even if the aid given by the anointing extends beyond faith, it would need to be received by faith. As this example indicates, this general understanding of faith and the sacraments forms an important aspect of the background for the insistence that only baptism and the Lord’s Supper are sacraments (although, for the most part, it did not play a foreground role). Luther Contemporary interpreters for the most part agree that Luther’s understanding of sacraments changed not only in the late 1510s, as he developed a Reformation understanding of justification, but again in the mid-1520s, when his debate partners expanded beyond his Catholic critics to include also the Swiss and Upper German advocates of a significantly less “realistic” understanding of the sacraments, such as Zwingli in Zürich, Oecolampadius in Basel, and Bucer in Strasbourg.10 In the late 1510s and early 1520s, Luther’s emphasis fell almost entirely on the sacraments as, quite strictly, visible words, as the communication of the Gospel by symbolic means. Sacraments are signs and seals of the promise contained in the Gospel. “In all his promises, moreover, in addition to the word, God has usually given a sign, for the greater assurance and strengthening of our faith.” To Noah, he gave the rainbow; to Abraham, circumcision; to Gideon, dew on the ground and the fleece. “This is what Christ has done in this testament [i.e., the mass]. He has affixed to the words a powerful See, e.g.: Gordon A. Jensen, “Luther and the Lord’s Supper,” in Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology, ed. Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and L’ubomir Batka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 322; Dorothea Wendebourg, “Taufe und Abendmahl,” in Luther Handbuch, ed. Albrecht Beutel, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 415. 10 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments 1071 and most precious seal and sign: his own true flesh and blood under the bread and wine.”11 In three 1519 texts on baptism, the mass, and penance, Luther says that every sacrament has three aspects or parts: the sign, the significance of the sign, and the faith that receives the significance of the sign.12 We seem to have here a clear picture of sacramental causality; sacraments are signs that communicate in a physical way the same content that preaching communicates, the promise of the Gospel. Put crudely, they seem to be divinely mandated audio-visual aids. Luther can, at this point in his career, give the impression that such is his understanding of sacrament: “The mass was instituted to preach and praise Christ, to glorify his sufferings and all his grace and goodness, so that we may be moved to love him, to hope and believe in him, and thus, in addition to this word or sermon, to receive an outward sign, that is, the sacrament; to the end that our faith, provided with and confirmed by divine words and signs, may thereby become strong against all sin, suffering, death, and hell, and everything that is against us.”13 A crucial aspect of Luther’s views at this point should, however, be noted. As is stated in the above quotation, the sign in the mass is not simply the bread and wine (in the language of Catholic theology, the sacramentum tantum); the sign is the body and blood of Christ under the bread and wine (in Catholic terms, the res et sacramentum). The body and blood of Christ under the bread and wine that we consume is a sign of the unity with Christ which is our justification. In his 1519 treatise on “The Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism,” Luther says: “A baptized person is therefore sacramentally altogether pure and guiltless. This means nothing else than that he has the sign of God: that is to say, he has the baptism by which is shown that his sins are all to be dead, and that he too is to die in grace and at the Last Day is to rise again to everlasting life, pure, sinless, and guiltless.”14 The sign in baptism is something like a permanent character, a sign of God’s saving work in which the Christian may trust throughout his or her life. In the mid-1520s, Luther encountered theologians—Zwingli and his associates—who understood sacraments as signs in a more reduc Martin Luther, A Treatise on the New Testament, That is, the Holy Mass, trans. E. Theodore Bachmann, at LW, 35:86. 12 See, e.g., Martin Luther, The Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism, trans. E. Theodore Bachmann, at LW, 35:30. 13 Luther, New Testament, That Is, the Mass, at LW, 35:105. 14 Luther, Sacrament of Baptism, at LW, 35:32–33. 11 1072 Michael Root tive sense. Sacraments point to a reality truly independent of the rite. In response, Luther came to stress what had remained unemphasized earlier: the sacraments directly confer grace or Christ. Thus, in 1528, he says about the Supper: “For the new testament [in the cup] is promise, indeed, much more: the bestowal of grace and the forgiveness of sins, i.e., the true gospel.”15 The Supper is not merely a sign of grace; it is a means of grace: “Therefore, he who drinks this cup really drinks the true blood of Christ and the forgiveness of sins or the Spirit of Christ, for these are received in and with the cup.” The body and blood are given and consumed not only by those with faith, those who trust in the sign, but also by “Judas and the unworthy.”16 The Christian should “believe firmly what baptism promises and brings—victory over death and the devil, forgiveness of sin, God’s grace, the entire Christ, and the Holy Spirit with his gifts.”17 Luther still insists, with unchanged vehemence, that only faith receives unto salvation the grace bestowed. Judas eats the body of Christ unto judgment. An adult who is baptized “deceitfully and with an evil purpose” (Luther says “a Jew”) is validly and truly baptized—and under no condition is to be rebaptized—but is not thereby redeemed.18 Although faith receives grace through the sacraments, that does not mean that only faith in a narrow sense benefits. Christ is now, through his body and blood given in the Supper, in the believer, who is body and soul. As the soul benefits from spiritually feeding on Christ: “Similarly, the mouth, the throat, the body, which eats Christ’s body, will also have its benefit in that it will live forever and arise on the Last Day to eternal salvation. This is the secret power and benefit which flows from the body of Christ in the Supper into our body, for it must be useful, and cannot be present in vain.”19 Faith remains strictly receptive in this sacramental mediation. For the later Luther, this receptive character appears in his insistence that faith or its absence has no effect on the validity of baptism or the Supper—that is. that they truly bestow grace. Faith only determines whether that grace is fruitfully received. Again, a pastoral motive Martin Luther, Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, trans. Robert H. Fischer, at LW, 37: 325. 16 Luther, Confession Concerning Supper, at LW, 37:354. 17 Luther, Large Catechism, pt. IV (Of Baptism), no. 41 (Book of Concord, 461; emphasis added). 18 Luther, Large Catechism, pt. IV (Of Baptism), no. 54 (Book of Concord, 463). 19 Martin Luther, That These Words of Christ, “This is My Body,” Etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, trans. Robert H. Fischer, in LW, 37:134. 15 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments 1073 rooted in the nature of faith is decisive. Faith always looks away from itself. The sacraments, as works of God that are objective and, in a sense, external, are objects to which faith may turn in moments of doubt. “Faith must have something to believe—something to which it may cling and upon which it may stand.”20 If faith were to make a contribution to what is given, then faith would be turning to itself in turning to the sacraments; one would be placing faith in one’s own faith, which Luther will not allow.21 One might think, however, that Luther has a problem. If sacraments are fruitfully received only by faith, then how is infant baptism effective, since, to all appearances, infants do not have faith? Luther’s defense of infant baptism is complex and surprising, for he argues from the unanimity of practice. In his Large Catechism, he argues that, without valid baptism, one does not receive the Holy Spirit. Through much of church history, almost all Christians were baptized as infants. If infant baptism were not valid, then the Church would at some point have not existed, which is impossible in light of God’s promise. Hence, infant baptism must be valid.22 But baptism is effective only when received by faith. The most likely conclusion, Luther believes, is that, in the rite of baptism, faith is created in the infant. He says: “So through the prayer of the believing church which presents it, a prayer to which all things are possible, the infant is changed, cleansed, and renewed by infused faith.”23 Luther treats this fides infusa infantium as a theologoumenon, a likely opinion, not as a firm conclusion. It has always been controversial among Lutherans.24 Nevertheless, it shows his firm commitment both to the power of the sacraments and to their orientation to faith. In summary, for Luther after the early 1520s, sacraments are both signs and means of grace, oriented to faith as receptive, but having effects in the individual beyond faith. Luther, Large Catechism, pt. IV (of Baptism), no. 29 (Book of Concord, 460). Martin Luther, Concerning Rebaptism: “There is quite a difference between having faith on one hand and depending on faith and making baptism depend on faith on the other” (trans. Conrad Bergendoff, at LW, 40:252). 22 Luther, Large Catechism, pt. IV (of Baptism), nos. 47–51 (Book of Concord, 462–63). 23 Luther, Babylonian Captivity, at LW, 36:73. 24 The most recent comprehensive discussion is Eero Huovinen, Fides infantium: Martin Luthers Lehre vom Kinderglauben, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz / Abteilung für Abendländische Religionsgeschichte 159 (Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1997). 20 21 1074 Michael Root Calvin John Calvin, Luther’s junior by twenty-six years and the leading theologian of the distinct Reformed tradition, shares with his older contemporary his understanding of faith as a comprehensive attitude of the self. He does, however, place a greater emphasis on the intellectual character of faith: “We shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”25 The intellectual character of faith, for Calvin, should not be overdrawn. He adds: “That very assent itself [of faith] . . . is more of the heart than of the brain, and more of the disposition than of the understanding.”26 Like Luther, Calvin insists that, through faith, Christ truly dwells in the believer’s heart through the Spirit. As Brian Gerrish, perhaps the best recent interpreter of Calvin, put it, Calvin’s thinking “culminates in the idea of a ‘secret communion’ by which Christ-for-us becomes Christ-in-us.”27 A crucial word here is “secret.” Calvin consistently refers to the inner work of the Holy Spirit and its effect as secret, arcanus. The opening chapter of book III of the Institutes, which describes faith and justification, is entitled “The Things Spoken Concerning Christ Profit Us by the Secret Working of the Spirit [arcana operationis Spiritus].”28 Calvin’s understanding of sacraments corresponds to his understanding of faith and its source, the secret working of the Spirit. “A simple and proper definition [of ‘sacrament’] would be to say that it is an outward sign by which the Lord seals on our conscience the promises of his good will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith; and we in turn attest our piety toward him in the presence of the Lord and of his angels and before men.”29 They are like a seal on a government document that attests to its trustworthiness.30 The word informs us of that which faith grasps. The sacraments portray the same truth symbolically. The sacraments, however, “have this Calvin, Institutes, bk. III, ch. 2, no. 7 (p. 551). Ibid., bk. III, ch. 2, no. 8 (p. 552). 27 B. A. Gerrish, The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 109. 28 Calvin, Institutes, pt. III, ch. 1 (p. 537; Latin in John Calvin, Institutio christinae religionis, Corpus Refomatorum 30 [Brunswick: C. A. Schwetschke u. Söhne, 1864], col. 393). 29 Calvin, Institutes, bk. IV, ch. 14, no. 1 (p. 1277). 30 Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 14, no. 5 (p. 1280). 25 26 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments 1075 characteristic over and above the word because they represent them [God’s promises] for us as painted in a picture from life.”31 Although a covenant among a group of person may be “first conceived, established, and decreed in words,” a subsequent handshake is the visible sign that agreement has been reached.32 The sign is useful not only because of the weakness of words but also because the work of the Holy Spirit and its effect are secret: “Since, however, this mystery of Christ’s secret [arcanae] union with the devout is by nature incomprehensible, he shows its figure and image in visible signs best adapted to our small capacity. Indeed, by giving guarantees and tokens he makes it as certain for us as if we had seen it with our own eyes.”33 A striking feature of Calvin’s discussion of sacraments is his repeated use of verbs of seeing to describe our relation to them. The Spirit must be at work in you so that “the sacraments may not strike your eyes in vain.”34 Or again, the Lord “nourishes faith spiritually through the sacraments, whose one function is to set his promises before our eyes to be looked upon, indeed, to be guarantees of them.”35 Calvin describes sacraments as signs and confirmatory seals of the work of the Holy Spirit and its effect, faith and faith’s unity with Christ. Sacraments are directed to that reality of faith to give it a firmer assurance. Are sacraments for Calvin also means of grace? Do the sacraments communicate what they signify? When one reads Calvin on baptism, the answer seems to be “no.” “The first thing that the Lord sets out for us is that baptism should be a token and proof of our cleansing; or (the better to explain what I mean) it is like a sealed document to confirm to us that all our sins are so abolished, remitted, and effaced that they can never come to his sight to be recalled, or charged against us.”36 Calvin defends this understanding as in accord with the New Testament: “For Paul did not mean to signify that our cleansing and salvation are accomplished by water, . . . but only that in this sacrament are received the knowledge and certainty of such gifts.”37 Thus, when Ananias urged Paul to be baptized to Ibid. Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 14, no. 5 (p. 1281). 33 Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 17, no. 1 (p. 1361) (Institutio christinae religionis, col.1002). 34 Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 14, no. 10 (p. 1285). 35 Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 14, no. 12 (p. 1287). 36 Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 15, no. 1 (p. 1304). 37 Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 15, no. 2 (p. 1304). 31 32 1076 Michael Root wash away his sins, “Ananias meant only this: ‘To be assured, Paul, that your sins are forgiven, be baptized.’”38 Baptism seems to be the sign of a reality fundamentally independent of that sign: “Cornelius [in Acts 10], . . . having already received forgiveness of sins and the visible graces of the Holy Spirit, was nevertheless baptized.”39 This independent existence of the reality baptism signs is clear in Calvin’s defense of infant baptism. For Calvin, baptism does not, as it does for Luther, bestow salvation on the child. The children of Christian parents are already within salvation, according to God’s promise to Abraham to bless not only him but also his descendants (Gen 17:7): “God declares that he adopts our babies as his own before they are born, when he promises that he will be our God and the God of our descendants after us.”40 Infants are baptized “to testify that they are heirs of the blessing promised to the seed of the faithful, and that, after they are grown up, they may acknowledge the fact of their baptism, and receive and produce its fruit.”41 Consistent with this understanding, Calvin rejects the baptism by a layperson of an infant in danger of death. The irregularity of lay baptism is not needed, since the reality baptism signs is already present in the infant born of Christian parents.42 I should note that Calvin will at times speak of baptism in different terms: “Through baptism Christ makes us sharers in his death, that we may be engrafted in it.”43 When pressed, however, he falls back on the explanation of baptism as sign. On the Supper, Calvin clearly affirms a mediation, but his exposition is complex (or perhaps ambiguous).44 As Gerrish notes, Calvin on the Supper can lead in more than one direction and it is not easy to harmonize all he says.45 The language of “sign” is still central: “The Lord instituted for us his Supper in order to sign and seal in Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 15, no. 15 (p. 1315). Ibid. 40 Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 15, no. 20 (p. 1321). Similarly, see John Calvin, Catechism of the Church of Geneva, in Calvin:Theological Treatises, trans. J. K. S. Reid (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1954), 134–35. 41 Calvin, Geneva Catechism, 135. 42 Calvin, Institutes, bk. IV, ch. 15, no. 20 (p. 1320–1). 43 Ibid., bk. IV, 15, 5; 1307. 44 The best comprehensive discussion of Calvin on the Eucharist is B. A. Gerrish, Grace & Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology Of John Calvin (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993). 45 Gerrish, The Old Protestantism and the New, 106. 38 39 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments 1077 our consciences the promises contained in his gospel concerning our being made partakers of his body and blood; and to give us certainty and assurance that in this consists our true spiritual nourishment; so that, having such an earnest, we might entertain a right assurance about salvation.”46 Spurred by the bitter dispute with the Lutherans over Christ’s Eucharistic presence, however, Calvin states consistently and forcefully that the Supper is not only a sign but a means of communing in the body and blood of Christ: “When we have received the symbol of the body, let us no less surely trust that the body itself is also given to us.”47 Famously, however, Calvin insists that the local presence of Christ’s human body at the right hand of the Father in heaven means that the body cannot be locally or substantially present elsewhere. To say that Christ’s body could be locally or substantially present beyond the local presence in heaven is to compromise Christ’s continuing human nature. Rather, through the symbols of bread and wine, received in faith, the Holy Spirit unites us with the body and blood in heaven so that there is a true spiritual eating and drinking of the body and blood. “Even though it seems unbelievable that Christ’s flesh, separated from us by such great distance, penetrates to us so that it becomes our food, let us remember how far the secret power of the Holy Spirit towers above all our senses, and how foolish it is to wish to measure his immeasurableness by our measure. What, then, our mind does not comprehend, let faith conceive: that the Spirit truly unites things separated in space.”48 Note that this mutual presence of the recipient of the Supper and the body and blood of Christ occurs only if the recipient has faith. Only by faith is the recipient lifted to heaven to feed on Christ. In fact, faith’s feeding on Christ’ body in the Supper is simply a form of that feeding on Christ that is always open to faith: “There is no communion of the flesh of Christ except a spiritual one, which is both perpetual and given to us independently of the use of the Supper.”49 What is offered in the Supper is offered in every proclamation of the Word: “God gives no more by the visible signs than by his Word, John Calvin, Short Treatise on the Holy Supper of Our Lord and Only Savior Jesus Christ,” in Calvin: Theological Treatises, 145. 47 Calvin, Institutes, bk. IV, ch. 17, no. 10 (p. 1371). 48 Ibid. (p. 1370). 49 John Calvin, The Clear Explanation of Sound Doctrine Concerning the True Partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, in Calvin:Theological Treatises, 295. 46 1078 Michael Root but gives in a different manner, because our weakness stands in need of a variety of helps.”50 As Gerrish notes, Calvin understands the sign to be less the elements than the action involving the elements, the eating and drinking.51 The eating and drinking are signs of that feeding on Christ that occurs whenever faith turns to its object, Christ.52 Thus, Calvin can say: “It is not, therefore, the chief function of the Sacrament simply and without higher consideration to extend to us the body of Christ. Rather, it is to seal and confirm that promise by which he testifies that his flesh is food indeed and his blood is drink, which feed us unto eternal life.”53 For the Lutherans, Calvin’s view that Christ in the Supper is truly and substantially present only to those with faith was a decisive mistake. Faith appeared to be given a causal role in the sacrament. Faith seems to be what makes Christ present. This criticism is, I think, at least misphrased. For Calvin, faith is not an efficient cause of Christ’s presence. The cause is strictly the Holy Spirit. Rather, for Calvin, faith is a conditio sine qua non of the mutual presence of Christ’s body and the faithful recipient. Without faith, no presence and no feeding on Christ of any sort can occur. For the Lutheran critics, however, cause and condition constitute a distinction without a difference. In either case, the Christian cannot be urged to turn confidently in the Supper to Christ present in his body and blood, for some action or disposition of the self is required for Christ to be truly present to the recipient. For the Lutherans, the argument with Calvin was not a minor dispute about the mode of the presence, but an argument about a theology that, in their view, undercut the evangelical trustworthiness of the sacrament. Here, I believe the typical categories of Catholic theology can help illuminate the difference. I noted earlier that, even for the Luther of the late 1510s and early 1520s, the sign in the Supper was not simply the bread and wine themselves but also the body and blood of Christ Ibid., 281. Gerrish, Grace & Gratitude, 13. 52 As Gerrish describes Calvin’s understanding: ”This, in short, is what makes the Supper a sacrament: not that it brings about a communion with Christ, or a reception of his body, that is not available anywhere else, but rather that it graphically represent and presents to believers a communion they enjoy or can enjoy, all the time” (Grace & Gratitude, 133). A question for further investigation is how far Gerrish is correct in his claim that Calvin reproduces the late-medieval Thomist position that the Eucharist causes by signifying (ibid., 168). 53 Calvin, Institutes, bk. IV, ch. 17, no. 4 (p. 1363). 50 51 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments 1079 under the bread and wine, something more like the res et sacramentum, rather than the sacramentum tantum. Similarly, in baptism, a permanent reality, something like a permanent character, comes to typify the baptized person. For Luther, the sacraments create a truly spiritual reality that is given to the recipient, although that reality saves only when received by faith. That spiritual reality exists independently of faith, otherwise faith could not depend upon it in self-forgetfulness. Luther’s understanding of faith and its external focus shapes his understanding of the sacraments. The threefold distinction of sacramentum tantum, res et sacramentum, and res tantum provides a means to distinguish the validity and the efficacy of the sacrament. In any valid sacrament, a res et sacramentum comes to be—the body and blood of Christ in union with the species, the baptismal character, and so on. Thus, something happens in the sacrament regardless of the nature of its reception. When the sacrament is rightly received, then the res tantum is realized, such as the particular unity with Christ that is the telos of the Eucharist or of baptism. The realization of the res tantum is the cash value, so to speak, of saying that the sacrament is efficacious or fruitful. For a variety of reasons—some having to do with his understanding of faith and the “secret union” faith works between Christ and the believer and some probably having to do with his anthropology— in his understanding of the sacraments, Calvin effectively rejects any reality that is res et sacramentum. There is only the sacramentum tantum, the created reality that is a sign—the water, the bread, the wine, the human actions involving them—and the res tantum, the unity with Christ brought about in faith. Without faith to interpret the sign, the sign is only water, bread, or wine. Calvin makes this point in relation to 1 Corinthians 10:4, that the rock from which the Israelites drank was Christ. For the faith of the Israelites, the rock from which they drank was a sign of the Messiah. For the animals who also drank from that same water, the rock was simply a water fountain.54 Without the interpretive act of faith, the sign is not a sign; it is only a material reality. Without some functional equivalent of the res et sacramentum, Calvin is left without an effective means for explicating what happens in the sacrament that is not received in faith. Ibid., bk. IV, ch. 17, no. 15 (p. 1377). It would be interesting, but beyond the scope of this essay, to compare Calvin here to medieval discussions of the problem of the mouse. It should be noted, however, that Calvin’s point extends beyond animals who are incapable of interpretation to include humans who can interpret but do not because they lack faith. 54 1080 Michael Root For both Luther and Calvin, faith is the only true receptive instrument by which the Christian can receive the grace offered in the sacraments. Their similar but different understandings of faith, along with other differences in their theologies, produce rather different sacramental theologies, leading to the historic dispute over the relation between faith and Christ’s presence to the one who communes in the Supper. Faith as Passive Reception and as Active Reception To this point, the focus has been on a detailed analysis of what Luther and Calvin propose about faith and the sacraments, rather than on the traditionally controversial issues between Catholics and Protestants related to these matters. I think such a preliminary focus is ecumenically fitting.We should always first let the other speak and try to understand what they are saying. Sometimes the use of Catholic theological categories can be helpful in that expository task, as I think the threefold analysis of sacramentum tantum, res et sacramentum, and res tantum can be helpful in seeing what differentiates Luther and Calvin. Nevertheless, for the most part, I have tried to understand the internal logic of the Reformers’ understandings in something close to their own terms. Serious ecumenical engagement does not stop with such analysis, however. There are traditional controversial points that cannot responsibly be ignored. In addition, the theologian may see (or think she sees) differing structures of thought that stand in the way of agreement, and these should be indicated. The traditional issue between Catholics and Protestants in relation to the role of faith in the sacraments has been the Catholic assertion of the efficacy of sacraments ex opere operato, by the deed done, if only the recipient places no obstacle in the way of such efficacy.55 For Luther and Calvin, this idea undercuts the unique role of faith as the recipient of sanctifying grace.56 A variety of related issues come into play here. What are the effects of the sacraments on the self? Is grace, strictly speaking, only sanctifying grace (as both Luther and Calvin would say, but then frequently fudge by referring to graces of various sorts) or does “grace” also include other gifts, such as those that enable ordained ministry or the strengthening in the face of serious illness mediated by the anointing of the ill? If the latter, how do such For a recent explanation of this Catholic teaching, see Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 27–62. 56 See, e.g., Luther, New Testament, That Is, the Mass, at LW, 35:102. 55 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments 1081 graces relate to sanctifying grace? Or what does Catholic theology precisely mean when it speaks of placing an obstacle, an obex, that blocks the efficacy of a sacrament? Is such an obstacle different from the absence of faith that Luther or Calvin would see as the decisive block to sacramental efficacy? 57 My topic in this articles is only the role of faith in the sacraments according to Luther and Calvin. I thus will take up only the question of the ex opere operato effect of the sacrament within this narrow focus. For Calvin, almost nothing occurs in the sacrament ex opere operato. As noted, he posits no equivalent to a res et sacramentum that comes to be in the sacrament regardless of its reception. For those without faith, a sacrament is no different from a sermon preached in a language that its hearers do not comprehend. For Luther, the issues raised by the ex opere operato effect of the sacraments are far more complex. The disagreement over the phrase ex opere operato, at least when it is separated from the question of Eucharistic sacrifice, is far narrower than is often thought. It is mostly a holdover from Luther’s more strictly sign-oriented sacramental theology of the late 1510s and early 1520s that makes little sense once he himself came to a different set of emphases. Yes, the adult who undergoes baptism hypocritically—without any faith, simply for show—or the recipient of the Eucharist who has rejected the faith is not redeemed by the sacrament, as the Catholic would agree. Luther would agree with the Catholic that, regardless of the faith of the minister of the sacrament or of the recipient, when the Eucharist is rightly performed, the body and blood of Christ are present in connection with the elements (and thus present ex opere operato) and that, when a person is baptized, that person is then personally characterized by that baptism and has available to him or her a grace to which they can always later turn in faith. The receptive character of the faith that functions within any sacrament implies for the Reformers, however, the rejection of more than just certain understandings of the ex opere operato effect of a sacrament. The receptive character of faith is also central to the rejection of the understanding and practice of the Eucharist as sacrifice to which the Catholic and Orthodox churches are alike fundamentally committed. If faith in relation to the gift of Christ in the mass is strictly receptive, even passive, if faith only receives and is not active An obex is an “obstacle that arises from the free will of the recipient, such as lack of faith or sorrow for sin” (Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 6). 57 1082 Michael Root or giving in the reception of grace, then, as Luther and Calvin both argue, the Mass cannot be a sacrifice in the Catholic sense.58 To argue that the Mass is a sacrifice and to celebrate it as sacrifice can then be only a violation of the evangelical character of the Christian message, an implicit affirmation that salvation is not pure gift, that we make our own contribution in addition to God’s work, that all is not grace. So Luther stated: “the mass under the papacy has to be the greatest and most terrible abomination, as it directly and violently opposes this chief article” of salvation exclusively through Christ and not our works.59 The Catholic response here needs to be careful and precise. Catholic theology affirms no less emphatically than the Reformers that salvation is by grace alone, that we are utterly dependent on Christ and his saving work, that we have nothing to boast of except Christ. The question is about how grace engages the self as it heals and elevates the person to life with God. In particular, how does grace engage the self as agent? For Luther and Calvin, in the area of that which constitutes salvation and its mediation, the self is pure recipient and is not engaged as an agent.60 For Catholic theology also, there is a strictly receptive character to the relation of the self to sanctifying grace (and thus grace, in this aspect, is operative, not cooperative). But what does the self receive in grace? In and through grace, the self receives a participation as a responsible agent in Christ and, thus, in certain respects, participates in his work. In the Eucharist, the self is taken into Christ’s self-offering (passive-voice verb) in such a way that the self truly offers Christ (active-voice verb). There is an oblation by the Church in the Mass that is a participation in the self-obla For an argument along these lines, see Luther, Babylonian Captivity, at LW, 36:288–89. 59 Martin Luther, The Smalcald Articles 2.2.1 (Book of Concord, 301). 60 I would note, in disagreement with such interpreters as Bishop Charles Morerod, that the motivation for this understanding for Luther and his followers is not philosophical; it is not an inability to think of divine and human agency as noncompetitive and interpenetrating. Luther excludes the human agent from involvement in salvation and justification for religious reasons: any such involvement would compromise faith’s trust in the work of Christ and the Spirit. See Charles Morerod, Ecumenism and Philosophy: Philosophical Questions for a Renewal of Dialogue (Ann Arbor, MI: Sapientia Press, 2005), and my review: Michael Root, “Review of Ecumenism and Philosophy: Philosophical Questions for a Renewal of Dialogue, by Charles Morerod,” Modern Theology 24 (2008): 505–8. 58 Luther and Calvin on the Role of Faith in the Sacraments 1083 tion of Christ. The Church’s oblation, as participatory, adds nothing to the perfection of Christ’s self-offering.61 The Catholic–Protestant difference over the sacrifice of the mass is a difference over the way grace engages the self. Is the self receptive and passive (as Luther and Calvin would insist) or receptive and active (as Catholic theology would state—on the ground, among others, that God perfects the nature we are given and the nature we are given is that of a responsible agent).62 One way of getting at the issue is through a distinction from nineteenth-century German Protestant theology between Christ’s exclusive and inclusive representation.63 As exclusive representative, Christ does that which the Christian then does not. Christ’s action replaces ours. For Hans Urs von Balthasar, for example, Christ endures the depths of hell for me so that I do not then need to do so. As inclusive representative, Christ’s does an action in which the Christian then participates: Christ dies and the Christian dies with and in Christ. This participation transforms the reality, since to die with Christ is not dissolution but salvation. For Luther, Calvin, (and most Protestant theology), Christ’s exclusive representation is more far-reaching than it generally is for Catholic theology. For Catholic theology, Christ merits and we merit in Christ. Christ offers himself and, in the Eucharist, we participate not only in the benefits he has won but also in his self-offering. The Church offers not only its own praise and thanksgiving; it offers Christ. Especially through the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, the self is brought into Christ’s work and is not only the recipient of its effects. See the clear and forceful presentation of “The Relation of the Mass to Our Lord’s Offering” in Maurice de La Taille, The Mystery of Faith, vol. 2, The Sacrifice of the Church, trans. Joseph Carroll (London: Sheed and Ward, 1950), 186–96. 62 For a fuller discussion of these issues, but in relation to merit rather than the Mass, see Michael Root, “Aquinas, Merit, and Reformation Theology After the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,” Modern Theology 20 (2004): 5–22. 63 This distinction goes back at least to Philip Marheineke. See Gunther Wenz, Geschichte der Versöhnungslehre in der evangelischen Theologie der Neuzeit, Münchener Monographien zur historischen und systematischen Theologie 9 (Munich: Kaiser, 1984–86), 1:317–18. 61 1084 Michael Root Conclusion What has our cross-border excursion taught us? I hope it has laid out in a clear way an aspect of the logic of the sacramental teaching of Luther and Calvin. Their critiques of Catholic theology and practice flowed from an understanding of faith and its role in the Christian life that was in significant ways different from that of the medieval theological tradition.Their concern was not merely with a small range of practices that could be labeled abuses. It addressed fundamental convictions. More importantly, the role the Reformers ascribe to faith within the sacraments brings into profile important aspects of their understandings of the relation between God and the redeemed. The comprehensive dependency on grace that should pervade all the Christian life implies, on their understanding, a reformation of thought and practice in relation to the sacraments and elsewhere. In the face of that critique, Catholic theology still faces the challenge of clarifying its own equally decisive but differently conceived understanding of a radical dependency on grace. The Reformers should here serve as a spur to Catholic theology. In a time when breakthroughs to ecumenical agreement may be few, Protestant–Catholic engagement should press both sides to greater clarity on fundamental principles. Catholics N&V and Protestants can only gain by such clarity. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1085–1100 1085 Freedom and the Fearful Symmetry: Theological Reflections on Freedom’s Relationship to Truth Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. University of Fribourg Fribourg, CH Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? —William Blake In the winter of 1932 , when Malcolm Muggeridge was in Moscow as a foreign correspondent, he would often walk the streets and observe the Muscovites. He relates that, as he walked among them, he had a strange, almost mystical certainty that: “As they were, so we were all fated to be. In them, for those with eyes to see, might be discerned the fearful symmetry of things to come.”1 Muggeridge was captivated by William Blake’s notion of a “fearful symmetry” in creation. Throughout his long literary career, as he made his slow and circuitous journey toward faith and the Catholic Church, Muggeridge deepened his understanding of this symmetry. At first, long before he was a believer, as he reported on the events of the world, he began to notice that they seemed laced with comic irony. Events that at first glance seemed meaningless and absurd, on closer inspection, often seemed perfectly tailored to reveal—and comically punish—human Malcolm Muggeridge, “The Fearful Symmetry of Freedom,” Christianity Today, April 21, 1978, 13. 1 1086 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. folly. As he himself would later describe it, the “Theatre of the Absurd proves on closer examination to contain within itself a Theatre of Fearful Symmetry.”2 Muggeridge began to discern that there was order underlying apparent confusion, meaning underlying apparent meaninglessness. He began, as he would later describe it, to hear “the still, small voice of truth that makes itself heard above thunderous falsity.”3 From personal experience and observation, he came to believe that freedom was dependent on fidelity to the truth, to both that truth inscribed in nature and the truth who is Christ. Indeed, for Muggeridge, the theatre of fearful symmetry is ultimately the stage of God’s providential action in creation: it is grace mercifully leading each heart to see itself as it truly is and to find its salvation in Christ. In those desolate years, Muggeridge was not the only one to discover freedom’s dependency on truth or its relationship to Christ. In the summer of 1942, while the Nazis’ reign of terror was in full force throughout Poland, two young intellectuals where clandestinely exchanging letters as they labored to survive in that apocalyptic landscape that was Warsaw. Czesław Miłosz, already a published poet, writing to his friend, Jerzy Andrzejewski, makes the following confession: “The spiritual ruin that has befallen Europe has not passed us by, either; rather, it played out in us first.”4 He adds, “How difficult it is to look clearly at oneself and at others, to not tell lies, not create myths.”5 Miłosz, however, joins his voice with those who affirm that “what constitutes the sickness of contemporary culture is the repudiation of truth for the sake of action. . . . Like Pilate, [contemporary] culture asked, ‘What is truth?’ and washed its hands.”6 The Polish poet adds wistfully, “Does not the same yearning that I feel in myself resonate in millions of human beings?” 7 Others in Poland were filled with a similar yearning. The young Karol Wojtyła, for example, who at that moment was a clandestine seminarian in Krakow, had penned a play in which he affirmed, “One must throw truth across the path Malcolm Muggeridge, Conversion: The Spiritual Journey of a Twentieth Century Pilgrim (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2005), 69. 3 Ibid. 4 Czesław Miłosz, Letter to Jerzy Andrzejewski, August 22, 1942, in Czesław Miłosz, Legends of Modernity: Essays and Letters from Occupied Poland, 1942– 1943, trans. Madeline G. Levine (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005), 151. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., 157. 7 Ibid., 158. 2 Theological Reflections on Freedom’s Relationship to Truth 1087 of lies. One must throw truth into the eye of a lie.” This is so because “in truth are freedom and excellence,” while the betrayal of truth leads only to slavery.8 Later, when Wojtyła was Pope, he would offer his mature Christological reflections on freedom’s dependency on truth: 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 freedom that fails to enter into the whole truth about man and the world.9 Others in central and eastern Europe were making a similar discovery, and often in surprising ways. Muggeridge himself draws our attention to a case that he explicitly describes as revealing God’s fearful symmetry: a case of one who discovered true freedom while in prison, the case of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.10 At the very moment that Miłosz and Wojtyła were reflecting on freedom’s relationship to truth, Solzhenitsyn was fighting at the front as a captain in the Red Army. A thoroughly indoctrinated and committed communist, he showed few signs of what he would later become. Toward the end of the war, however, he was thrown in prison for supposedly anti-Stalinist views carelessly expressed in a letter. So began an eight-year odyssey that would lead him through the Soviet system of prisons and prison camps that he would make famous as the Gulag archipelago. Against all expectation, and contrary to the effect that the camps usually had on an inmate’s character, Solzhenitsyn followed the path of a select but happy few, a path that led him to discover truths about himself and the nature of freedom. His transformation began with a renunciation: “As soon Karol Wojtyła, The Collected Plays and Writings on Theater, trans. Boleslaw Taborski (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 109 and 103, respectively, cited by Kenneth Schmitz, At the Center of the Human Drama: the Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyła/Pope John Paul II (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 7. 9 Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis (1979), §12. 10 Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 17. 8 1088 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. as you have renounced that aim of ‘surviving at any price,’ and gone where the calm and simple people go—then imprisonment begins to transform your former character in an astonishing way. To transform it in a direction most unexpected to you.”11 The first effect was patience and a new tolerance: Formerly you never forgave anyone. You judged people without mercy. . . . And now an understanding mildness has become the basis of your uncategorical judgments. You have come to realize your own weakness—and you can therefore understand the weakness of others. And be astonished at another’s strength. And wish to possess it yourself.12 Solzhenitsyn famously adds that “it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”13 Solzhenitsyn carried from his prison years “this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good.”14 The key, for Solzhenitsyn, was an individual’s relationship to truth: “Anyone who has once proclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose the lie as his principle.” And when a government imposes dictatorial violence, “more often than not it demands of its subject only that they pledge allegiance to lies, that they participate in falsehood.”15 Thus, as Solzhenitsyn explains in his Nobel Lecture: “The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me.”16 When Solzhenitsyn was finally expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974, he explained this idea more fully: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, in The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings, 1947–2005, ed. by Edward E. Ericson, Jr., and Daniel J. Mahoney (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2009), 261. 12 Ibid., 262. 13 Ibid., 265. 14 Ibid. 15 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1970 Nobel Lecture on Literature, in Solzhenitsyn Reader, 526. 16 Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Lecture, 526. 11 Theological Reflections on Freedom’s Relationship to Truth 1089 It is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty. And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me! 17 Solzhenitsyn even developed a nine-point list of principles, each of which expresses a concrete refusal to live by lies, and a commitment “to live by the truth.”18 For Solzhenitsyn, the first consequence of a commitment to live by the truth is personal repentance. He explains that, once we recognize the bitter truth that the dividing line between good and evil passes through the heart of each of us, then the only way forward is “repentance and the search for our own errors and sins”: “Repentance is the first bit of firm ground underfoot, the only one from which we can go forward not to fresh hatreds but to concord. Repentance is the only starting point for spiritual growth. For each and every individual. And every trend of social thought.”19 Solzhenitsyn’s writings, with their affirmation that life in the truth was the sole road to freedom and spiritual growth, articulated the experiences of an ever growing number of people living within the Soviet bloc. Indeed, it emboldened them more fully to refuse to live the lie. One person encouraged by Solzhenitsyn’s thought was the Czech playwright Václav Havel, who, in the Fall of 1978, wrote the lengthy political essay “The Power of the Powerless.”20 While Solzhenitsyn understood fidelity to the truth as ultimately fidelity to Christ, becoming himself an Orthodox Christian believer, Havel was an agnostic when he began his political reflections on freedom’s relationship to truth. Nevertheless, his understanding of life in the truth articulated the experience of many religious believers, both Solzhenitsyn, “Live Not by Lies!” in Solzhenitsyn Reader, 557–58. Solzhenitsyn, “Live Not by Lies!” 559. See also Solzhenitsyn, “We Have Ceased To See the Purpose,” in Solzhenitsyn Reader, 593. 19 Solzhenitsyn, “Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations,” in Solzhenitsyn Reader, 530. 20 Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless,” in Open Letters: Selected Prose, 1964–1990, ed. Paul Wilson (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 125–214. 17 18 1090 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. in Czechoslovakia and in Poland. Havel’s essay was an attempt to describe accurately the situation in Czechoslovakia and to suggest a possible future for his country. To do this, he began by articulating the role of lies, of ideology, in the totalitarian regimes as they then functioned within the Soviet bloc. Havel portrayed ideology as a false but apparently high-minded vision of the world that both reinforces the government’s dictatorial power and renders it more palatable. The greengrocer who places the political slogan among the vegetables or the office worker who posts a similar slogan on the bulletin board, why do they do it? Havel argues that most do it because it is easier and even more comforting than trying to resist the tide of conformity. “Ideology,” Havel explains, “offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. . . . It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo.”21 It thus provides both oppressors and their victims “with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.”22 Havel further notes that “Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them.”23 In language reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn, Havel describes this as living within a lie: “They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it.”24 Havel became fascinated by the human capacity to live illusion, to conform one’s life to a world of lies: Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. . . . Each person is capable, to a greater or lesser degree, of coming to terms with living within the lie. Each person somehow succumbs to a profane trivialization of his inherent humanity, and to utilitarianism. In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudolife.25 Ibid., 133–34. Ibid., 134. 23 Ibid., 136. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., 144–45. 21 22 Theological Reflections on Freedom’s Relationship to Truth 1091 Havel argues, however, that it need not be the case. He affirms confidently that the “essential aims of life are present naturally in every person.”26 Havel had this confidence because of the experience of alienation that comes from living in the lie: Individuals can be alienated from themselves only because there is something in them to alienate. The terrain of this violation is their authentic existence. Living the truth is thus woven directly into the texture of living a lie. It is the repressed alternative, the authentic aim to which living a lie is an inauthentic response. Only against this background does living a lie make any sense: it exists because of that background. In its excusatory, chimerical rootedness in the human order, it is a response to nothing other than the human predisposition to truth. Under the orderly surface of the life of lies, therefore, there slumbers the hidden sphere of life in its real aims, of its hidden openness to truth.27 This fact helped Havel explain what was happening under the surface of Czechoslovakian society in the late 1970s. A growing number of ordinary Czechs and Slovaks were refusing to live the lie, to post the party slogans, to vote in rigged elections, to participate in a sham consensus. This refusal was the first step. Next, there were those who had begun the positive quest to live in the truth, the truth about how to make quality beer, or run an efficient grocery, or other homely truths about the arts and agriculture or the sciences. Havel explains that, once a person attempts to articulate this to others—to organize a meeting with other grocers or to teach underground classes on making good Pilsen lager—and joins with others who wish to do the same, something new is born that Havel describes as the “independent spiritual, social, and political life of society.”28 Pope John Paul II would later describe this as the “subjectivity of society.”29 Gradually, people begin to develop “parallel structures,” or even a “parallel polis,” where the members of society can pursue together the real ends of human life.30 Havel has in mind here underground Ibid., 145. Ibid., 148. 28 Ibid., 176. 29 John Paul II, Centesimus Annus (1991), §46. 30 Havel, “Power of the Powerless,” 192–93. The Czech poet Ivan Jirous had already introduced the notion of a “Second Culture” to describe the under26 27 1092 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. universities, theatres, trade unions, music groups and any other associations that provide space for the collective and free pursuit of the authentic aims of human life. Writing in 1978, Havel judged that this was as far as the resistance movements had gotten.31 He predicted, however, that one possible outcome would be the peaceful collapse of the regime and the emergence of a democratic society where the state itself would protect and foster these intermediate associations.32 In essence, Havel sketched the features of the velvet revolution that would erupt ten years later.33 As the Polish dissident journalist Adam Michnik noted in April of 1989, on the eve of free elections in Poland and several months before the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia, ground music scene emerging in Prague during the 1970s, but as Havel himself notes, it was an essay by the Czech Catholic intellectual Václav Benda published in the underground Samizdat press in May 1978 that introduced the notion of a “parallel polis.” See Václav Benda, “The Parallel Polis,” in Civic Freedom in Central Europe: Voices from Czechoslovakia, ed. by H. Gordon Skilling and Paul Wilson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991), 35–41. It is important to note that Benda and Havel never saw these parallel structures as a flight from society, but instead as the only responsible engagement with society that was left open to responsible citizens. The goal was not flight, but rather, responsible engagement: “It would be quite wrong to understand the parallel structures and the parallel polis as a retreat into a ghetto and as an act of isolation, addressing itself only to the welfare of those who had decided on such a course, and who are indifferent to the rest. It would be wrong, in short, to consider it an essentially group solution that has nothing to do with the general situation. Such a concept would, from the start, alienate the notion of living within the truth from its proper point of departure, which is concern for others, transforming it ultimately into just another more sophisticated version of living within a lie. . . . Even the most highly developed forms of life in the parallel structures, even that most mature form of the parallel polis can only exist—at least in post-totalitarian circumstances—when the individual is at the same time lodged in the ‘first,’ official structure by a thousand different relationships, even though it may only be the fact that one buys what one needs in their stores, uses their money, and obeys their laws” (Havel, “Power of the Powerless,” 194–95). 31 Havel, “Power of the Powerless,” 193–94: “These parallel structures, it may be said, represent the most articulated expressions so far of living within the truth.” 32 Ibid., 204. 33 See George Weigel, The Final Revolution:The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 159–90. See also Zdenek Kavan and Bernard Wheaton, The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia, 1988–1991 (Boulder, CO:Westview Press, 1992), and Pavel Mücke and Miroslav Vanek, Velvet Revolutions: An Oral History of Czech Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). Theological Reflections on Freedom’s Relationship to Truth 1093 Havel’s goal was not just political change, but spiritual freedom. Reflecting on Poland’s new freedoms, Michnik shared that Havel’s essay had offered them a clear call: “Don’t succumb to hatred; don’t give in to despair. So that we can protect spiritual freedom, and build—even in prison, as Václav did—some foundation for a community of ‘those who were not indifferent.’”34 Christians, both in Czechoslovakia and in Poland, embraced Havel’s analysis because it described well their own experience.35 They too had discovered that, under the orderly surface of the life of lies, there slumbers the hidden sphere of life in its real aims, of life in the truth. There was this difference, however: like Muggeridge, they had discerned “the still, small voice of truth” and discovered that this truth was not a “what,” but a “who.” Moreover, their openness to the truth was actually experienced as a response to a truth that sought them out, that had been humbly present to them all along, suffering with them and revealing to them the Father’s love: in short, their encounter with the truth revealed itself to be an encounter with the Christ, the Word made flesh, God among them. Pope John Paul was especially attentive to this experience. As noted above, John Paul affirms that “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).”36 It is in this context that Jesus’s words to Pilate become especially significant: “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” ( John 18:37). Jesus adds, “Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice” (ibid.). John Paul interprets this passage by asking a series of rhetorical questions that reflect the experience of oppressed Christians through the ages: In the course of so many centuries, of so many generations, from the time of the Apostles on, is it not often Jesus Christ himself that has made an appearance at the side of people judged for the sake of the truth? And has he not gone to death Adam Michnik, “Welcome to Freedom, Václav,” in Václav Havel and Adam Michnik, An Uncanny Era: Conversations Between Václav Havel and Adam Michnik, ed. and trans. Elzbieta Matynia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 29–30. 35 See Václav Benda, “Catholicism and Politics,” International Journal of Politics 15 (1985–1986): 110–24. 36 John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, §12. 34 1094 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. with people condemned for the sake of the truth? Does he ever cease to be the continuous spokesman and advocate for the person who lives ‘in spirit and truth’ ( Jn 4:23)? Just as he does not cease to be it before the Father, he is it also with regard to the history of man.37 John Paul wrote these reflections at virtually the same moment that Havel was writing his influential analysis, a full ten years before the revolutions that tumbled the totalitarian regimes in their two countries.38 These works had an electrifying effect on their readers and were quickly integrated into discussions taking place throughout the Soviet Bloc because they articulated the experiences of many. For example, Jerzy Popiełuszko, the Polish priest who was chaplain to the Solidarity movement, proclaimed these ideas forcefully in a homily three years later: In order to remain spiritually free, we must live in truth. To live in truth means to bear witness to it to the outside world at all times and in all situations. The truth is unchangeable. It cannot be destroyed by any decree or law. The source of our captivity lies in the fact that we allow lies to reign, that we do not denounce them, that we do not protest against their existence every day of our lives, that we do not confront lies with the truth but keep silent or pretend that we believe in the lies. Thus we live in a state of hypocrisy. Courageous witness to Ibid. Unforeseen circumstances in 1978 led both Havel and Wojtyła to write down ideas that had been percolating independently in each of them for a number of years. For Havel, it was his meeting with the Polish journalist and dissenter Adam Michnik in the Krkonoše mountains on the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia that August. The relatively less repressed situation of the press in Poland offered Havel a new outlet for his writing, which Michnik promised to publish. Havel began writing “Power of the Powerless” in October 1978, sending the final version to Michnik in mid-November (see Havel and Michnik, An Uncanny Era, 1–10, 23–26). For Karol Wojtyła, it was his election as pope on October 16, 1978. Wojtyła subsequently affirmed that he began work on his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, “immediately” after his election (see George Weigel, Witness to Hope: the Biography of Pope John Paul II [New York: Harper Collins, 1999], 288). This means that, although Havel finished “Power of the Powerless” before John Paul finished Redemptor Hominis, there was a period of overlapping composition in late October 1978. Both documents would subsequently be published in 1979. 37 38 Theological Reflections on Freedom’s Relationship to Truth 1095 the truth leads directly to freedom. A man who bears witness to the truth can be free even though he might be in prison.39 For Fr. Popiełuszko, although Christians are called to proclaim the truth, they cannot coerce others to accept it. In other words, the fidelity to truth that brings freedom is a fidelity that cannot be coerced. The mission of Christ, therefore, was an invitation to freedom in the truth: “The whole activity of Jesus Christ was aimed at making people realize that they were created for the freedom of the children of God. God created man in his image, so he is free; indeed, man can accept or reject his Creator, love would not exist if we were forced to love.”40 Popiełuszko recognized that this respectful invitation to the truth makes us vulnerable, and thus it ultimately leads to the cross. Through Christ’s death and resurrection the Cross—a symbol of disgrace—became a symbol of courage, virtue, help and brotherhood. In the sign of the Cross we embrace today all that is most beautiful and valuable in man. Through the Cross we go on to resurrection. There is no other way. And therefore the crosses of our country, our personal crosses and those of our families, must lead to victory, to resurrection, if we are united with Christ who conquered the Cross.41 Jerzy Popiełuszko would ultimately live this truth to the full, being tortured and killed by Poland’s Security Police in October of 1984.42 Not surprisingly, therefore, when Pope John Paul later reflected upon the events that led to the fall of the dictatorial regimes in central and eastern Europe, he underlined the central role of Christ and his Cross: Jerzy Popiełuszko, “Homily, Masses for the Country, October 31, 1982,” in Grazyna Silorska, Jerzy Popiełuszko, A Martyr for the Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985), 56. 40 Jerzy Popiełuszko, “Homily, Masses for the Country, February, 1983” (Silorska, Popiełuszko, 51). 41 Jerzy Popiełuszko, “Homily, Masses for the Country, September, 1982” (Silorska, Popiełuszko, 52). 42 See John Moody and Roger Boyes, The Priest and the Policeman: the Courageous Life and Cruel Murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko (New York: Summit Books, 1987). In 2009, Fr. Popiełuszko was posthumously awarded Poland’s highest civil decoration, the Order of the White Eagle; in 2010 he was beatified by the Church. 39 1096 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. Undoubtedly, the struggle which led to the changes of 1989 called for clarity, moderation, suffering and sacrifice. In a certain sense, it was a struggle born of prayer, and it would have been unthinkable without immense trust in God, the Lord of history, who carries the human heart in his hands. It is by uniting his own sufferings for the sake of truth and freedom to the sufferings of Christ on the Cross that man is able to accomplish the miracle of peace and is in a position to discern the often narrow path between the cowardice which gives in to evil and the violence which, under the illusion of fighting evil, only makes it worse.43 It is through the mystery of Christ’s Cross and our participation in it that Christians can freely live the truth. As Saint Paul affirms, “for freedom Christ set us free” (Gal 5:1). He does this by sending his Spirit into our hearts: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17). Through the Spirit’s action, we are configured to Christ, and begin to live the freedom that comes from living the life of charity: “For through the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of righteousness, . . . by faith working through love” (Gal 5:5, 6). Pope John Paul, early in his papacy, had underlined charity’s relationship to true freedom: “Christ teaches us that the best use of freedom is charity, which takes concrete form in self-giving and in service. For this ‘freedom Christ has set us free’ (Gal 5:1; cf. 5:13) and ever continues to set us free.”44 Christians through the centuries have experienced that one grows in this freedom by stages. As St. Augustine proclaims, “the beginning of freedom” is the freedom not to sin mortally: “[It is] to be free from crimes . . . such as murder, adultery, fornication, theft, fraud, sacrilege and so forth. When once one is without these crimes (and every Christian should be without them), one begins to lift up one’s head towards freedom. But this is only the beginning of freedom, not perfect freedom.”45 Perfect freedom, for Augustine, is not freedom from, but freedom for; it is the freedom to engage in the morally beautiful actions of the virtues, all of which are ways of loving God and John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, §25. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, §21. 45 St. Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus 41.10: (CCL 36:363, cited in Pope John Paul II, Veritas Splendor [1993], §13). 43 44 Theological Reflections on Freedom’s Relationship to Truth 1097 neighbor.46 Unlike the pagan conception of virtue, however, these excellences are not something that comes from us or from our own ethical gymnastics: these excellences come from God as habitual gifts of his grace.47 Paul states this very clearly, when he affirms, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13), and when he tells the Philippians, “God is at work in you both to will and to do” (Phil 2:13). Paul experiences this divine empowerment as a new life made possible in Christ: “for me life is Christ and death is gain” (Phil 1:21). The fact that this freedom for excellence is a gift is ever before Paul’s eyes, for he remains keenly aware of his own poverty: “We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor 4:7). It was famously while asking the Lord three times to remove “a thorn in the flesh” that Paul received from God the assurance that “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Thomas Aquinas describes this divine affirmation as “a marvelous way of speaking” (mirus modus loquendi), exclaiming, “To affirm that virtue is made perfect in weakness is like saying that fire grows in water!”48 This recognition of the contrast between the poverty of what we are on our own and what we can do in Christ is at the heart of Muggeridge’s conception of the theatre of fearful symmetry. It is what transforms the human tragedy into a divine comedy, a comedy that keeps us joyful and even laughing in the midst of the sorrows of this life. Václav Havel developed the view that what the peoples of central and eastern Europe were suffering in the 1970s was but a concentrated and intensified version of what all peoples in Europe and the United States were confronting: a society “which has renounced the absolute, which ignores the natural world and distains its impera- See Augustine, On the Morals of the Catholic Church 1.15.25 (PL, 32:1322) and City of God 15.22 (PL, 41:467). For the contrast between these two types of freedom, see Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 3rd ed., trans. Mary Thomas Noble (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 327–78. 47 Augustine, Exposition on the Psalms 83.11 (PL, 37:1065–66); Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II, q. 63, a. 3; Aquinas, De virtutibus, q. 1, a. 10. See also Servais-Th. Pinckaers, Morality: the Catholic View (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001), 70–72. 48 Thomas Aquinas, Super 2 Cor, ch. 12, lec. 3, Marietti no. 479 (my translation from the Marietti edition). 46 1098 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. tives.”49 For Havel, what they were experiencing in Czechoslovakia was the fusion of “dictatorship and the consumer society” that offered an “inflated caricature of modern life in general” and that could serve as “a kind of warning to the West, revealing to it its own latent tendencies.” 50 Havel, therefore, shared with Muggeridge the view that the experience of the countries of the Soviet bloc belonged to “the fearful symmetry of things to come.” Havel was especially sensitive to the effects on the natural world of consumer society, both in the East and in the West. He articulated fidelity to the truth as fidelity to nature and our place in it, affirming that “we must draw our standards from our natural world, heedless of ridicule, and reaffirm its denied validity.”51 Havel’s experiences on the world stage as the democratically elected president of the Czech Republic only confirmed him in his belief that unbridled consumerism was both destroying the natural world and creating new forms of enslavement. Havel ruefully recognized that “everything is infinitely more complex than we naïvely imagined when we were in prison.”52 After nearly ten years in office, he reflected that, “if our civilization does not somehow deepen spiritually, if it doesn’t realize anew its own spiritual roots, if it doesn’t start to respect moral principles, we are threatened with a disintegration of our human bonds, the loss of a sense of responsibility, and totally unbridled self-interest. This problem concerns our whole civilization, not just the post-Communist states.”53 After he was out of office, Havel continued to worry about contemporary society’s ongoing disregard for nature: “I don’t know whether civilization on its own will come to its senses without huge quakes or tsunamis. In any case I feel the need for some existential revolution. Something has to change in the mentality of people.”54 He never abandoned his conviction that freedom depends on fidelity to truth, a truth that is discovered through a communal engagement with the natural world as we pursue together the real ends of human life. Havel even saw signs of hope in the “various civic organizations” (unions, associations, initiatives, etc.) working to address local and Václav Havel, “Politics and Conscience,” in Open Letters, 261–62. Havel, “Power of the Powerless,” 145. 51 Havel, “Politics and Conscience,” 267. 52 Havel, “Everything Is Still in Motion: Prague, November 1998,” in Havel and Michnik, An Uncanny Era, 107. 53 Ibid., 109. 54 Havel, “On Existential Revolution:Warsaw, November 15, 2008,” in Havel and Michnik, An Uncanny Era, 153–54. 49 50 Theological Reflections on Freedom’s Relationship to Truth 1099 international problems, seeing these “microcommunities” as places of moral formation.55 Nevertheless, Havel was confronting the limitations of nature as a ground for moral renewal. Malcolm Muggeridge would himself eventually recognize this. For Muggeridge, the fearful symmetry of creation was not nature alone, but nature as redeemed by Christ. It was nature as the playground of grace. Muggeridge articulated this by turning to the Patristic notion of nature as a parable, a notion he discovered from his reading of John Henry Newman. Newman holds that to see the world as the early Church did was to recognize that: “The exterior world, political and historical, was but the manifestation to our senses of realities greater than itself. Nature was a parable; Scripture was an allegory, pagan literature, philosophy and mythology, properly understood, were but a preparation for the Gospel.”56 For patristic authors such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, the book that should guide our study of nature is Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity” (Eccl 1:2). For these authors, armed with such a field guide, the study of the natural world reveals both the beauty and goodness of creation and its broken and fleeting character. From our study of nature (of ourselves and of everything else), we can discern principles concerning how to live and our inability, on our own, to live according to these natural-law principles. As such, the study of nature prepares us to receive the merciful instruction of Christ and be integrated into the dynamic life of his body, the Church. Havel, therefore, expresses a deep truth when he affirms that “we must honor with the humility of the wise the limits of that natural world and the mystery which lies beyond them, admitting that there is something in the order of being which evidently exceeds all our competence.”57 That something is the mercy of God written in the symmetry of redeemed creation. Ultimately, the temptation to live according to the lie is as old as the Fall, where our first parents first encountered the “father of lies” ( John 8:44). But in the fearful symmetry of God, the Fall was also the occasion of the promise: the Ibid., 154. John Henry Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua (New York: Random House, 1950), 55, cited in Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, 10. Newman notes that he is here alluding to the poetical volume Nature a Parable: A Poem in Seven Books (London: Rivington, 1842) by the Patristics scholar and Catholic convert John Brande Morris. 57 Havel, “Politics and Conscience,” 267. 55 56 1100 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. Protoevangelium that promised the woman an offspring who would vanquish the liar and his lies (Gen 3:9–15): “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it” ( John 1:5).58 We therefore can participate joyfully in the comic theater of God’s fearful symmetry because we know, along with John Paul the Great, that “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 N&V you free’ ( John 8:32).” Catechism of the Catholic Church, §410. 58 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1101–1149  1101 The Structure and Protreptic Function of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John Randall B. Smith University of St. Thomas Houston, Texas One of Thomas’s most elegant prologues is certainly his prologue to his commentary on the Gospel of John, which is structured around the passage from Isaiah 6:1 that reads: “I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty, and the whole earth was full of his majesty, and the things that were under him completely filled the temple [Vidi dominum sedentem super solium excelsum et elevatum, et plena erat omnis terra maiestate eius, et ea quae sub ipso erant, replebant templum].”1 In what follows, I have attempted to set forth the essential elements of what I take to be the structure and function of this prologue. We begin with an analysis of its mnemonic structure. This prologue, as with nearly all of Thomas’s prologues, from his Sentences commentary on, uses the structure of the preaching style common at the time—what was called the sermo modernus style of preaching. As we examine each part of the prologue, we will also want to ask: All references to Thomas’s prologue to the Commentary on the Gospel of John (including parenthetical Latin terms) have been taken from the on-line version at dhspriory.org/thomas/SSJohn.htm (accessed July 28, 2017). References to the prologue will be to the section numbers in that translation. And, since my topic is the prologue and not the body of the commentary itself, references will be of the form of, e.g., “Prologue, 3,” which would refer the reader to section 3 in the Weisheipl translation of the prologue. This dhspriory.org text is the electronic version of the translation by Fr. James Weisheipl the commentary, originally published as Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, trans. James Weisheipl, O.P. (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1980), which will be cited as “Weisheipl, Commentary.” 1 1102 Randall B. Smith “What was the purpose of this prologue?” To put this in Aristotelian terms, we might say: As we examine the formal elements of the prologue, we will also want to ask about its final cause. What was the prologue supposed to do for its readers or do to its readers? I will be suggesting that, just as the structure of the prologue is very different from anything the reader will find in contemporary literature, so too our contemporary expectations about what a prologue should do are very different from those of Thomas Aquinas and his audience. Our expectations about appropriate material for a prologue have been conditioned in large part by nineteenth- and twentieth-century concerns about the importance of historical, literary, and intellectual context. Living as we do in the wake of the Freudian revolution, we have come to assume that the biography of the life of the author will somehow be revelatory of the text we are about to read. So too, living as we do in the wake of Hegel and his followers, we assume that a text must be understood in terms of its historical and intellectual context. And living as we do in the wake of the great advances in philological scholarship of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, we have come to expect an introduction to tell us numerous details about the manuscript tradition of the text, as well as the status of various previous editions. Finally, if the text is what we generally describe as a “literary” one, contemporary literary scholarship has conditioned us to expect an introduction to compare our text’s literary style with those written contemporaneously or those on which our author’s text was based. These were not, I would suggest, for good or for ill, the expectations of Thomas’s medieval audience. What those expectations were and the difference they made will be the subject of final section of this article. Prologues and the Sermo Modernus Style In a “modern sermon” of the sort that was common in Thomas’s day, the preacher did not set out to comment on the opening biblical verse, called the thema of the sermon. Rather, the medieval preacher would use this verse as a mnemonic device to structure the message he wished to deliver. Thus, the first task for the preacher, after locating the right thema verse, was to divide it into three or four major parts, each of which he would then expand upon or “dilate” in the body of the sermon itself.2 I cover these three major stages of sermon production—selecting the thema, divisio, and dilation—in my book Reading the Sermons of Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide, Renewal within Tradition (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1103 Thomas divides the thema verse for this particular prologue, Isaiah 6:1, into three parts: (1) “I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty”; (2) “the whole house was full of majesty”; and (3) “the things that were under completely filled the temple.” In each phrase, there is a dominant image: in the first, “high and lofty” (excelsum et elevatum); in the second, “full” (plena); and in the third, “filled completely” (in Latin, replebant, from which we get the English word “replete,” a detail that will become clearer in a moment).3 2016). A very fine introduction can also be found in Michèle Mulcahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study”: Dominican Education Before 1350 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998), esp. 403–9. Another short introduction to this style can be found in a previous article of mine, “How to Read a Sermon by Thomas Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera (English) 10, no. 3 (Summer 2012): 775–804. 3 Fr. Weisheipl notes in one of the several invaluable essays at the back of the Magi Press volume—essays not reprinted on the dhspriory web site noted above—that the text of Isa 6:1 that appears here with all three of its parts—“Vidi Dominus sedentem super solium excelsum et elevatum, et plena erat domus a maiestate eius, et ea quae sub ipso erant, replebant templum”— cannot be found this way in any of the ordinary editions of the Latin Vulgate that have come down to us, nor in the Clementine version, nor in the Greek Septuagint or the Hebrew Masoretic text of Isaiah. It does, however, show up this way in Thomas’s running gloss on the book of Isaiah (see the Expositio super Isaiam ad Litteram, in Opera Omnia, Leonine ed. 28 [Rome 1974], Isa 6:1, lns. 96–103), and we find Thomas’s teacher St. Albert the Great quoting it as well in the prologue to his Commentary on the Second Book of the Sentences (Opera Omnia, ed. Augusta Borgnet and E. Borgnet [Paris: L. Vivès, 1890–1899], 27:1–3). Thus, the “historical and textual problem,” as Weisheipl points out, “is to locate the vulgate tradition to which the Bible of Thomas and Albert belonged,” which as he also points out, “has not yet been done” (see Weisheipl, Commentary, 447–49). The Latin text of Isa 6:1 the reader will find in modern critical editions of the Latin text reads as follows: “Vidi Dominum sedentem super solium excelsum et elevatum, et ea quae sub eo erant implebant templum.” In other words, it is identical to the version Thomas uses with regard to its first and third parts, but the second part in Thomas’s version is missing. One can scarcely blame Thomas for the imperfections in the texts available to him in his time and circumstances.This might be more of a concern if Thomas had been commenting upon the verse and if he were deriving from it a meaning not contained within the actual text itself. But this is not the case. Rather, in this case, he is simply using the text as a mnemonic structuring device. It is no more of a concern that Thomas’s text is corrupted here than it is of concern whether it is actually true that “every good boy does fine,” which is the mnemonic device by which the lines on the treble clef are remembered. It would undoubtedly be more accurate to say something like: “Some good boys sometimes do fine,” but that would not serve the mnemonic purpose of the phrase. 1104 Randall B. Smith “These are the words of a contemplative,” says Thomas, referring, it seems, to Isaiah the author; yet, “if we regard them as spoken by John the Evangelist they apply quite well to showing the nature of this Gospel.” It is important to recall in this regard that, for Thomas and his contemporaries, a key to reading and interpreting the Scriptures was recognizing its Christocentric character. Thomas believed he could use a text spoken by Isaiah to elucidate a text of John’s because of their intrinsic connectedness through Christ. When Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord,” he spoke truly, but he may not have realized that the person he was seeing was Jesus Christ. The scene in which this verse occurs is the commissioning of the prophet, where his mouth is purified by the application of a burning coal to his lips so that he can speak “fittingly” of the Lord. The book of Isaiah is particularly interesting in this regard, given how often passages from Isaiah show up in the Gospels and are directly prophetic of events that happen to Christ, especially those concerning the so-called “Suffering Servant of God” in the latter part of Isaiah. Thus, as Isaiah’s mind was elevated above what reason alone could grasp so that he was privileged to see the coming of the Christ, so too John’s mind, St. Thomas will say, was elevated above what reason alone could grasp so that he was privileged to see the full truth of Christ’s divinity. It is in the sense of seeing Christ’s divinity in a particularly full way that Thomas will claim John is especially contemplative, and he will describe the three-fold nature of John’s contemplation in relation to the three images in Isaiah 6:1 we distinguished above—high, full, and perfect: “I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty”; “the whole house was full of his majesty”; and the things that were under him completely filled the temple” (reading the Latin word related to “replete,” replebant, as “filled completely,” which is the image Thomas has in mind by saying “perfect,” which, in the Latin perfectere, means “to complete” or to bring something to its proper end or completion). These three phrases will also suggest the matter, the order, and the end of the Gospel, but we will get to these in due course. John’s Contemplation Was “High” John’s contemplation was “high,” says Thomas, in that it rose to a knowledge of God, the highest object of contemplation, and this in four different ways, each of which is suggested by the phrase “I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty”: one can come to a knowledge of God, says Thomas, by authority (which is suggested by the phrase “I saw the Lord”), by reasoning from eternity (which is suggested by the The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1105 phrase seated, that is “presiding without any change”), by reasoning from dignity or nobility (which is suggested by the throne’s being high), and by reasoning from incomprehensibility (which is suggested by the throne’s being lofty). The attentive reader will notice that the word “high” is doing double service here: Thomas uses it to suggest the basic distinction between “high,” “full,” and “perfect,” on the one hand, while also using it to suggest “dignity” as opposed to “authority,” “eternity,” and “incomprehensibility,” on the other. This is fine, as long as the chain of associations is clear. The goal ultimately is to be able to use the word to recall a list of various associations, and as a word can have multiple associations, so it can send the reader off into various directions mnemonically to recall various trains of thought. When the reader reads the entire verse, the words “high,” “full,” and “perfect” in each phrase stand out first. As the reader focuses in on the first phrase of the verse, he or she can distinguish four elements—“I saw the Lord,” “seated,” on a throne “high,” and “lofty”—and these four will suggest the four ways in which we come to know God: by authority, through eternity, through dignity or nobility, and through incomprehensibility. Knowing God from His Authority Some have arrived at the knowledge of God from his authority, says Thomas, but by “authority” here he does not mean the sort of authority to which he is referring in the Summa theologiae when, in the very first question, of the prima pars, he lists as an objection that “authority is the weakest kind of proof, as Boethius says.”4 In the Summa, Thomas will turn that argument on its head, allowing that “although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest,” yet, “the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest.”5 Here, however, the notion of “authority” is very different; it is, as Thomas describes it, the “authority in governing” (gubernandi auctoritas) by which God directs all created things back to Himself as their source and ultimate end: For we see the things in nature acting for an end, and attaining to ends which are both useful and certain. And since they lack intelligence, they are unable to direct themselves, but must be ST I, q. 1, a. 8, obj. 2, quoting Boethius, Topics 6. ST I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2. 4 5 1106 Randall B. Smith directed and moved by one directing them, and who possesses an intellect. Thus it is that the movement of the things of nature toward a certain end indicates the existence of something higher by which the things of nature are directed to an end and governed. And so, since the whole course of nature advances to an end in an orderly way and is directed, we have to posit something higher which directs and governs them as Lord; and this is God.6 Those who know Thomas’s Summa theologiae will recognize this argument as the famous “fifth way” of arriving at knowledge of God’s existence—“from the governance of things” (ex gubernatione rerum)—in which Thomas says: We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.7 Why appeal to the fifth way in particular in this context? I suggest that the answer has something to do with the fact that the word Thomas is using to make the association in this context is “Lord” and that the word “lord” suggests “governance.” Indeed, Thomas tells us as much, saying: This authority in governing is shown to be in the Word of God when he says, “Lord.” Thus the Psalm (88:10) says: “You rule the power of the sea, and you still the swelling of its waves,” as though saying: You are the Lord and govern all things. John shows that he knows this about the Word when he says below (1:11), “He came unto his own,” i.e., to the world, since the whole universe is his own.8 Prologue, 3. ST I, q. 3, a. 3. 8 Prologue, 3. 6 7 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1107 What this passage suggests is that the so-called “fifth way” fits both the mnemonic device from Isaiah 6:1 and the content of John’s Gospel that Thomas wants to emphasize. As we will see in more detail below when we get to the comments Thomas makes related to the word “full,” the theological point he wishes to emphasize is that God’s power extends to all things, and thus, it is in this way that “the whole earth” is said to be “ full of his majesty.” But we will get to this point in due time. Knowing God from His Eternity For now, we must return to the list of four ways in which John’s contemplation led to God. The first, as we have seen, was by means of “authority,” although perhaps it would be clearer if we describe it as “the authority of governing.” The second way of arriving at the knowledge of God, then, says Thomas, was “from his eternity” (ex eius aeternitate), which Thomas associates with the word “seated” in the phrase “I saw the Lord seated”—that is, “presiding without any change and eternally” (idest absque omni mutabilitate et aeternitate praesidentem). If the reader is tempted to find the association between “being seated” and “presiding without any change” rather far-fetched (especially those with children who, when seated, are very rarely “still” or “unchanging”), please remember that Thomas is not “commenting” he is simply associating. The word “seated” merely has to suggest the ideas Thomas wants his reader to remember, not denote them. The modus significandi (the “manner of signifying”) here is not direct, as in the way words regularly denote things; in this case, the relationship is indirect. The word being used as a mnemonic device needs to call to mind an image lively enough and interesting enough to allow it to be associated with a specific chain of ideas to be recalled. The word “seated” may have any number of other associations for any particular reader, but the issue at hand is whether, in the context of reading the phrase “I saw the Lord seated,” a particular reader can call to mind the chain of associations leading to the way the mind can arrive at the knowledge of God by way of His eternity (ex eius aeternitate). How does this approach to the knowledge of God “by way of His eternity” work? According to Thomas, we reason from the mutability of things in the created world to the immutability (and thus the eternity) of their Creator. In the prologue to the commentary on John, the argument goes like this: 1108 Randall B. Smith [Others] saw that whatever was in things was changeable, and that the more noble something is in the grades of being, so much the less it has of mutability. For example, the lower bodies are mutable both as to their substance and to place, while the heavenly bodies, which are more noble, are immutable in substance and change only with respect to place. We can clearly conclude from this that the first principle of all things, which is supreme and more noble, is changeless and eternal.9 This argument is similar in certain respects to the first of the “five ways” in Thomas’s Summa, but it is not identical. In the first of the “five ways” in the Summa, Thomas argues famously for the existence of an “unmoved mover.” But, in the Summa, Thomas is careful to define “motion” as “the reduction of something from potency to act.” And since nothing can be reduced from potency to act except by something else already in act, and since there cannot be an infinite series of movers, else “there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover, seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover,” therefore there must be a “first mover” not moved by another (primum movens, quod a nullo movetur); that is to say, there must be an ultimate act that contains no potency to become anything else. In short, the “first mover” must be the changeless source of all change in the created realm.10 I have suggested above that this argument in the Summa, although “similar in certain respects,” is “not identical” to what we find here in the prologue. In an essay at the back of his translation of The Commentary of the Gospel of St. John by St. Thomas Aquinas, Fr. James Weisheipl points out that: This argument, it would seem, was never used elsewhere by St. Thomas. It suggests, however, Plato’s famous argument that from contemplating “that which is Becoming always and never is Existent” one is led to “that which is Existent always and has no Becoming” (Timaeus 27d6–28c4)—an idea Thomas could have read in the translation and commentary by Calcidius (early 4th century). A similar argument from the mutability of all creatures to the absolute immutability of God is also Prologue, 4. ST I, q. 3, a. 3. 9 10 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1109 suggested in Malachi (3:6): “I, the Lord, do not change”; while the whole universe constantly changes.11 “Some contemporary commentators, however,” says Fr. Weisheipl, “have reduced this argument to the ‘first’ [way] given in the Summa,” citing an essay by J. A. Baisnée as an example.12 “But this view does not seem tenable,” argues Weisheipl, “since the argument in the Prologue is cast entirely in terms of temporality and eternity, which is not at all the same as Aristotle’s argument from motion (the first way in the Summa).”13 Fr. Weisheipl’s point here is well worth considering, especially for those (and there are many) who specialize in parsing out the exact character of each of the “five ways.” There are, however, things that remain to be said for the other side. Although Fr. Weisheipl claims, as we have seen, that “the argument in the Prologue is cast entirely in terms of temporality and eternity, which is not at all the same as Aristotle’s argument from motion,” if we look again at the Prologue, we find Thomas at several points referring to the issue of the “mutability” of created things and the Weisheipl, Commentary, 455. The passage Fr. Weisheipl has in mind from Calcidius’s translation of Plato’s Timaeus reads as follows in the Latin: “Est igitur, ut mihi quidem uidetur, in primis diuidendum, quid sit quod semper est, carens generatione, quid item quod gignitur nec est semper, alterum intellectu perceptibile ductu et inuestigatione rationis, semper idem, porro alterum opinione cum inrationabili sensu opinabile proptereaque incertum, nascens et occidens neque umquam in existendi condicione constanti et rata perseuerans. Omne autem quod gignitur ex causa aliqua necessario gignitur; nihil enim fit, cuius ortum non legitima causa et ratio praecedat.” A contemporary English translation of the original Greek text by W. R. M. Lamb (in vol. 9 of Plato, 12 vols., trans. W. R. M. Lamb [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925]) reads as follows (with the relevant Greek text in parentheses): “Now first of all we must, in my judgment, make the following distinction. What is that which is Existent always and has no Becoming? And what is that which is Becoming always and never is Existent (γένεσιν δὲ οὐκ ἔχον, καὶ τί τὸ γιγνόμενον μὲν ἀεί, ὂν δὲ οὐδέποτε)? Now the one of these is apprehensible by thought with the aid of reasoning, since it is ever uniformly existent; whereas the other is an object of opinion with the aid of unreasoning sensation, since it becomes and perishes and is never really existent. Again, everything which becomes must of necessity become owing to some Cause; for without a cause it is impossible for anything to attain becoming (πᾶν δὲ αὖ τὸ γιγνόμενον ὑπ᾽ αἰτίου τινὸς ἐξ ἀνάγκης γίγνεσθαι: παντὶ γὰρ ἀδύνατον χωρὶς αἰτίου γένεσιν σχεῖν). 12 J. A. Baisnée, “St. Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs of the Existence of God Presented in Their Chronological Order,” in Philosophical Studies in Honor of the Very Reverend Ignatius Smith, O.P., ed. J. K. Ryan (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1952), 29–64. 13 See Weisheipl, Commentary, 455. 11 1110 Randall B. Smith “immutability” of God alone. There is a gradation: earthly things are “mutable” with regard to both substance and time, while heavenly things are “immutable” with regard to substance but not with regard to time; thus the First Principle must be “immutable” with regard to both. But it is the “immutability” (immutabilia) of God as opposed to the “mutability” (immutabilia) of everything else that is at issue, and the conclusion Thomas derives from his argument is this: “We can clearly conclude from this that the first principle of all things, which is supreme and more noble, is changeless (immobile) and eternal.”14 So it is not as though “motion” in the sense of “mutability” or “change” is not involved here in the prologue. Moreover, if what Thomas has in mind here is an argument from Plato, as Fr. Weisheipl suggests, then it is odd that Thomas explicitly associates the next argument—the one from “dignity”—with “the Platonists” but not this one. Thomas certainly is not presenting Aristotle’s version of the argument for a Prime Mover here in the prologue; that much is certain. But that is not the question. The question is whether the argument here has at least some similarity to the argument Thomas makes in the first of the “five ways” in the Summa, an argument that, though based on Aristotle’s argument for a Prime Mover, is not identical to it. It is, I have suggested, “similar in certain respects.” And yet, Fr. Weisheipl is certainly right to point to the differences between the argument here and the first of the “five ways” in the Summa, warning us against too facilely equating the two. Whether the differences between the two are relatively unimportant or whether they are crucial to the very nature of the argument is for the reader to decide. What is clear is that Thomas did not merely “cut and paste” his argument from the Summa into the prologue, although we know he certainly had the memory to be able to do so if he had wished. Knowing God from His Dignity Along with knowing God through his “authority” of governing and through his eternity, one can also come to know God, says Thomas, through his dignity or nobility, which is suggested by the word “high” in the phrase “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and lofty.” As before, this way of coming to know God corresponds, loosely but identifiably, with one of Thomas’s famous “five ways,” in this case the fourth way, from participation. Here is how the argument runs in the prologue to Thomas’s commentary on John: Prologue, 4. 14 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1111 Still others came to a knowledge of God from the dignity of God; and these were the Platonists. They noted that everything which is something by participation is reduced to what is the same thing by essence, as to the first and highest. Thus, all things which are fiery by participation are reduced to fire, which is such by its essence. And so since all things which exist participate in existence [esse] and are beings by participation, there must necessarily be at the summit of all things something which is existence [esse] by its essence, i.e., whose essence is its existence. And this is God, who is the most sufficient, the most eminent, and the most perfect cause of the whole of existence, from whom all things that are, participate in existence [esse].15 And here is the famous “fourth way” from the Summa: The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. II. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.16 There are differences between the two, no doubt (about which I will have more to say shortly). But I suggest that the upshot of the two is basically the same: all things that exist merely participate in existence (esse), as that which is hot participates in hotness when it is not itself the source of its own hotness. Since neither we nor anything else we can point to in the created world is the source of its own existence, there must necessarily be a source of the very being (the esse) of things: a source Prologue, 5. ST I, q. 3, a. 3. 15 16 1112 Randall B. Smith of being that does not participate in being as we do but is, rather, the source of its own being. In my case, my essence is “human being.” I exist as a human being. “Human” is the way I do my existing; it defines my way of being in the world. But I am not the source of my own being; I did not create myself. There was a time when I was not—a time before I existed—as there will be a time in the future when I will cease to exist. Thus, I merely participate in existence for a time. I have some existence, but I am not the source of my own existence. Not so with God. God is His own existence. He is, as Thomas says in On Being and Essence “Subsisting Being Itself ” (Ipsum Esse Subsistens). All of us in the universe who have some being have it from that which is the Source of All Being. Those of us who participate in being participate in the being of Subsisting Being Itself. And it is for this reason that Thomas concludes that “there must necessarily be at the summit of all things something which is existence (esse) itself, i.e., whose essence is to exist.” Thomas’s argument here is similar to the fourth of the “five ways” in the Summa, but it shares even more in common with several arguments he uses in his disputed question On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 5, arguments he traces back to Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna, respectively. The question posed in the article is “whether there is anything not created by God?” And, in his reply, Thomas seeks to show that “reason proves,” just as faith holds, “that all things are created by God.” In particular, Thomas sets out to show that “the philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and their disciples attained to the study of universal being, and hence they alone posited a universal cause of things from which all others came into being,” which, says Thomas, “is in agreement with the Catholic Faith.”17 In the three sections that follow, Thomas outlines three arguments for the existence of God: the first of which he attributes to Plato; the second to Aristotle; and the third to Avicenna. The first argument, which he attributes in a guarded way to Plato (ista videtur ratio Platonis), involves the notion that, “if in a number of things we find something that is common to all, we must conclude that this something was the effect of some one cause,” and since On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 5. English and Latin quoted from dhspriory.org/ thomas/QDdePotentia.htm (accessed July 28, 2017). This is an electronic version of Thomas Aquinas, On the Power of God, trans. English Dominican Fathers (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1952; repr. of 1932). 17 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1113 “being [esse] is found to be common to all things, which are by themselves distinct from one another, it follows of necessity that they must come into being [esse] not by themselves, but by the action of some cause [de necessitate eis non ex se ipsis, sed ab aliqua una causa esse attribuatur].”18 The second argument, which he attributes to Aristotle (cf. Metaphysics 2.1), is that: Whenever something is found to be in several things by participation in various degrees, it must be derived by those in which it exists imperfectly from that one in which it exists most perfectly: because where there are positive degrees of a thing so that we ascribe it to this one more and to that one less, this is in reference to one thing to which they approach, one nearer than another: for if each one were of itself competent to have it, there would be no reason why one should have it more than another. Thus fire, which is the extreme of heat, is the cause of heat in all things hot. Now there is one being most perfect and most true: which follows from the fact that there is a mover altogether immovable [aliquid movens omnino immobile] and absolutely perfect. . . . Consequently all other less perfect beings must needs derive being therefrom [omnia alia minus perfecta ab ipso esse recipient]. “This,” says Thomas, “is the argument of the Philosopher.”19 The third argument is based on the principle that whatsoever is through another is to be reduced, as to its cause, to that which is of itself (illud quod est per alterum, reducitur sicut in causam ad illud quod est per se): Wherefore if there were a per se heat, it would be the cause of all hot things, that have heat by way of participation. Now there is a being that is its own being [quod est ipsum suum esse]: and this follows from the fact that there must needs be a being [aliquod primum ens] that is pure act and wherein there is no composition. Hence from that one being all other beings that are not their own being, but have being by participation [quaeIbid. Ibid. 18 19 1114 Randall B. Smith cumque non sunt suum esse, sed habent esse per modum participationis], must needs proceed. “This is the argument of Avicenna,” says Thomas.20 I suggest that there are ways in which Thomas’s discussion in the prologue of the argument “from dignity” is an amalgamation of all three of these. That is to say, what Thomas formulated while writing On the Power of God (probably sometime during 1265–1266) he was able to synthesize and condense for his purposes here in the prologue to John’s Gospel (probably from the second Parisian period, 1268– 1272). This little paragraph in this prologue, in other words, possesses a rich philosophical background and owes a debt to many different sources, all of which have come together in Thomas’s retelling. Indeed, I have gone through this rather complicated business of tracing out the sources behind these last two paragraphs in Thomas’s prologue—the one related to the word “seated” and this one, related to the word “high”—to suggest to the reader that there is some serious heavy lifting that is going on behind these relatively simple comments in the prologue, all of it tethered to the two words “seated” and “high.” Thomas has simplified for his readers into a single paragraph a large and immensely complicated quantity of material. That was one of his great gifts as a master teacher and preacher. Indeed, this comment about the intellectual and philosophical depths underlying what appear to be relatively simply points in the prologue is something we can say about Thomas’s sermons as well. The reader should not be misled by the ostensible simplicity of these sermons. We should not mistake simplicity for a lack of sophistication or depth; the simplicity is the result of a superb mind. If the reader were to scratch the surface and probe a bit more deeply at any point, he or she would unravel a world of interesting detail. Knowing God from the Incomprehensibility of Truth The last of the ways of arriving at the knowledge of God, says Thomas, is “from the incomprehensibility of truth,” which he associates with the word “lofty”—that is, “above all the knowledge of the created intellect.” If the reader were to ask, “Couldn’t Thomas have used the word ‘high’ for this purpose as well?” the answer is “yes.” Indeed, if the verse had been written in some other way or the points he wanted to make Ibid. 20 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1115 somewhat different, then he might have done so. But in this context, this was the association he needed to make, and so Thomas says: Yet others arrived at a knowledge of God from the incomprehensibility of truth. All the truth which our intellect is able to grasp is finite, since according to Augustine, “everything that is known is bounded by the comprehension of the one knowing”; and if it is bounded, it is determined and particularized. Therefore, the first and supreme Truth, which surpasses every intellect, must necessarily be incomprehensible and infinite; and this is God. Hence the Psalm (8:2) says, “Your greatness is above the heavens,” i.e., above every created intellect, angelic and human. The Apostle says this in the words, “He dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Tim 6:16). This incomprehensibility of Truth is shown to us in the word, lofty, that is, above all the knowledge of the created intellect.21 As there must be an ultimate source of all being, so too there must be an ultimate source of all truth. J. A. Baisnée reports in his study “St.Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs of the Existence of God Presented in Their Chronological Order” that he could find no other appearance of this particular argument, which can be traced back ultimately to a comment St. Augustine makes in The City of God 12.18 while refuting those who held that God could not comprehend all numbers.22 Prologue, 6. Baisnée, “St.Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs,” 64.The original text of Augustine’s City of God 12.18 reads as follows: “And thus, if everything which is comprehended is defined or made finite by the comprehension of him who knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way made finite to God, for it is comprehensible by His knowledge. Wherefore, if the infinity of numbers cannot be infinite to the knowledge of God, by which it is comprehended, what are we poor creatures that we should presume to fix limits to His knowledge, and say that unless the same temporal thing be repeated by the same periodic revolutions, God cannot either foreknow His creatures that He may make them, or know them when He has made them? God, whose knowledge is simply manifold, and uniform in its variety, comprehends all incomprehensibles with so incomprehensible a comprehension, that though He willed always to make His later works novel and unlike what went before them, He could not produce them without order and foresight, nor conceive them suddenly, but by His eternal foreknowledge” (trans. Marcus Dods in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff, 1st series, vol. 2 [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994]). 21 22 1116 Randall B. Smith It is to my mind quite interesting to talk about “arriving at a knowledge of God” from the “incomprehensibility of truth” (ex incomprehensibilitate veritatis). One generally expects to arrive at “cognition” from having attained “comprehension.” And yet, we might describe this manner of arriving at a “contemplation” of God as something akin to the famous “way of negation” described in Pseudo-Dionysius’s treatise on the Divine Names, whereby the human mind proceeds by way of negating the affirmations one made previously in the “way of affirmation.” We say “God is not good” or “God is not just,” by which we mean that God is not “good” in the way I comprehend goodness or justice. No—God’s goodness and justice is still infinitely beyond what my limited, finite mind can grasp. There are undoubtedly good reasons that Thomas did not include this argument as one of the five “proofs” for the existence of God in the Summa. But as a mode of “contemplation” and as a way of approaching God’s greatness by way of negation, it has an invaluable role to play. Mnemonic Devices and Dilation: Two Benefits of the Sermo Modernus Style Two further observations are in order at this point about the benefits of using the sermo modernus style in a prologue such as this. The first has to do with the use of the style as a mnemonic device to help the listener remember the content of the prologue. Although I have often had trouble keeping track of which of the “five ways” is which— something Thomists are never supposed to admit in public—I have much less trouble remembering the four ways Thomas describes here in this prologue when I recall the four parts of the opening thema verse: “I saw the Lord” (authority of governance), “seated” (eternity), on a throne “high” (dignity) and “lofty” (above all the knowledge of the created intellect). Remembering the arguments in this way is like remembering the five lines on the treble clef in music by recalling the phrase “Every good boy does fine” (E, G, B, D, F) or remembering the five phases of cell division in mitosis (Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, and Telophase) by recalling the phrase “I Propose Men Are Toads.” If I had been a bit smarter as an undergraduate, perhaps I would have made up one of these ingenious little mnemonic devices to help me remember each of the “five ways” in the Summa. Unfortunately, I never did. Fortunately, here, Thomas has done it for us. The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1117 The second observation has to do with Thomas’s amazing claim that all the complicated and philosophically sophisticated ways of coming to know God described above—from the governance of the world; from the necessity of having an eternal first cause; from the participation of all that exists in some first cause whose essence it is to exist; and from the infinite character of the First Truth— are present and passed on to us in John’s Gospel.23 Most of us do not take the Gospels to be a source of sophisticated philosophical reasoning. Thomas, quite clearly, did. But what on earth could he be talking about in claiming that all these sophisticated philosophical approaches to God can be found in the Gospel of John? A complete answer to this question would require an analysis of the entire commentary, which would be out of place given that our focus is the prologue. And yet, consider: What does one learn even from the opening verses of the Gospel? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Do these words not seem to suggest the Lord’s eternity? Then we read: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Do these words not suggest His dignity as the cause of the whole of existence? “He came to his own.” According to Thomas, because the whole world here is being called “his own” (quia totus mundus est suus proprius), we can understand these words to refer to God’s authority of governing. And finally, “No one has ever seen God.” Do these words not suggest the incomprehensibility of God, who is the First Truth and who can be made known only by the “true light, which gives light to everyone”? Such are the lessons Thomas thinks we can (and ought to) learn from these words. Thus, as Thomas was “unpacking” (by means of dilatio) the thema verse of his prologue, he was also teaching his students by example to “unpack” the Scriptures and to come to understand the incredible intellectual riches lying hidden beneath the surface simplicity of the text. He would have been showing them that the Scriptures can, in fact, be a fruitful source for philosophical reflection and a wise guide if one learns to read carefully. If any of his students had arrived in his class with the mistaken notion that the Scriptures were “simple” books for “simple people”—that they were “milk” for children, while the books of the philosophers were “meat” for adults—Thom Prologue, 6. 23 1118 Randall B. Smith as’s remarkable display of erudition in this prologue should have disabused them of such foolishness. I will have more to say on this protreptic goal of the prologue below. But for now, it is worth noting that, in four short paragraphs, Thomas managed to sum up layer upon layer of complicated philosophical argumentation, ordering it appropriately with regard to its proper end—namely, the One who is both Subsisting Being Itself and Truth—all of it coordinated to one biblical verse, and in particular, four simple words: the “Lord,” “seated,” on a throne “high” and “lofty.” And that, I would suggest, is the work of a master teacher. John’s Contemplation was “Full” and “Perfect” Having gotten everything he wished out of the phrase “I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty” (indeed, more than most of us would have thought possible),Thomas then moves on to the next phrase in his thema verse, “and the whole house was full of his majesty,” unpacking (that is, “dilating”) it more modestly, at much shorter length than he did the first. The dominant image here, as we mentioned above, is that of fullness. John’s contemplation was full, says Thomas, in the sense that it extended to all things. Contemplation is full “when someone is able to consider all the effects of a cause.” Thus John, having been raised up to the contemplation of the divine Word when he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” immediately adds that the power of the Word extends to all things, saying: “Through him all things came into being.” Thus John’s contemplation was full, which is suggested by the phrase “and the whole house was full of his majesty”: And so after the prophet [in the text from Isaiah 6:1] had said, “I saw the Lord seated,” he added something about his power, “and the whole house was full of his majesty,” that is, the whole fullness of things and of the universe is from the majesty and power of God, through whom all things were made, and by whose light all the men coming into this world are enlightened.24 With this, we arrive finally at the last of the three phrases that makes up the opening thema verse, Isaiah 6:1: “and the things that were under him completely filled [replebant] the temple.” As the reader may recall, Thomas associates the Latin word replebant (to fill up completely) with the idea of completion or perfection, saying that: Prologue, 7. 24 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1119 “The contemplation of John was also perfect” (perfecta), since he was “led and raised to the height of the thing contemplated [perducitur et elevatur ad altitudinem rei contemplatae].”25 What Thomas has in mind here might surprise the reader. We might have imagined that the “highest,” “most perfect” sort of contemplation would involve a mystical vision of the divine essence. But this is not what Thomas has in mind. Rather, the contemplation that is “perfect” is a vision of that by which humankind is made perfect. Thus, after John teaches us that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is God, raised above all things (“high”) and that all thing were made through him, and without him, nothing was made (“full”), he tells us how we are sanctified by the grace he pours into us, saying: “Of his fullness we have all received—indeed, grace upon grace” ( John 1:16). “The things under him,” says Thomas—that is, the sacraments of his humanity—“filled the temple”—that is, the faithful, who are the holy temple of God (1 Cor 3:17)—insofar as “through the sacraments of his humanity all the faithful of Christ receive from the fullness of his grace.” Thus, God’s love is a “perfect” love precisely because it “perfects” that which He loves. When we accept this love, it does not leave us in our sin. It is a “complete” love that does not fall short, even when we do, because it completes us by sanctifying us and bringing us to the fullness of our end.26 For Thomas, it was precisely Prologue, 8. On this, consider the following comment by Fr. Louis Bouyer from his wonderful book The Meaning of Sacred Scripture (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1958), 66–67: “God does not wait until man has ceased to be unjust in order to love him, He loves him already in his unjustness. . . . At the same time, this does not include . . . any break with the demands [of justice] once proclaimed by Amos. However paradoxical this seems, it is here, on the contrary, that we find the unhoped-for way in which to satisfy them. If God does not wait for us to be just in order to love us, it is because His love is, precisely, the only force that can make us just. If the love of God is unmerited, it is because He is the creator. And His creative power is such that He can make a just man out of the most guilty. . . . At the same time as the love of God reveals itself as the great, the unique power which is truly creative, the supreme creation of God is discovered to be this new heart which God wishes to place in man.” In a similar vein, Pope Benedict XVI makes this comment in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est (2005), §10: “We have seen that God’s eros for man is also totally agape.This is not only because it is bestowed in a completely gratuitous manner, without any previous merit, but also because it is love which forgives. Hosea above all shows us that this agape dimension of God’s love for man goes far beyond the aspect of gratuity. Israel has committed ‘adultery’ and has broken the covenant; God should judge and repudiate her. 25 26 1120 Randall B. Smith because John saw how God’s love perfects us that we can say John’s contemplation was “perfect.” And with this, Thomas has finished “unpacking” the three sorts of “contemplation” he set out to associate with the three phrases in Isaiah 6:1: John’s contemplation was “high” (“I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty”), “full” (“and the whole earth was full of his majesty”), and “perfect” (“and the things that were under him completely filled the temple”). He had a great deal more to say about the first phrase (“I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty”) than he did about the other two, associating in that case nearly every word in the phrase with a separate topic, but that is simply the way these associations work. Unlike scriptural commentaries, where each verse merits roughly equal treatment, here, when the phrase has served its mnemonic purpose, and only then, does he move on. The Threefold Division of the Sciences And yet, having finished his “unpacking” of Isaiah 6:1 in terms of the three sorts of contemplation we find in John’s Gospel, Thomas is still not done with the verse. For he is now going to associate each of these three types of “contemplation” with one of the three divisions among the sciences common in St.Thomas’s day: moral science, natural science, and metaphysics. “We should note, however, that these three characteristics of contemplation belong to the different sciences in different ways,” says Thomas: The perfection of contemplation is found in Moral Science, which is concerned with the ultimate end. The fullness of contemplation is possessed by Natural Science, which considers things as proceeding from God. Among the physical [natural] sciences, the height of contemplation is found in Metaphysics. But the Gospel of John contains all together what the above sciences have in a divided way, and so it is most perfect.27 This particular division between ethics, natural science, and metaIt is precisely at this point that God is revealed to be God and not man: ‘How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! . . . My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst’ (Hos 11:8–9). God’s passionate love for his people—for humanity—is at the same time a forgiving love.” 27 Prologue, 9. The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1121 physics dates back to the early Greek Stoics, and though it is not one Thomas uses everywhere (the division between mathematics, natural philosophy [or physics], and metaphysics is more well-known from Thomas’s Commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate, q. 5), still the Stoic division was well-known among his contemporaries and served his purposes here.28 Zeno (ca. 335–263 BC), founder of the Stoic school in Athens, insisted that the didactic order that ought to be observed when teaching students was to be: logic first, then ethics, and finally physics. Cleanthes (ca. 330/331–232/231 BC), the second head of the Stoic school in Athens, expanded the list, pairing dialectic and rhetoric, then ethics and politics, and finally physics and theology. Chrysippus (ca. 279–206 BC), third head of the school, sometimes called “The Second Father of Stoicism,” was even more concerned that theology serve as both the source and the summit of the Stoic course of studies. Plutarch quotes him and describes his view in De Stoicorum repugnantiis, 9 (1035a) thus: “Chrysippus is of the opinion, that young students should first learn logic, secondly, ethics, and after these, physics, and likewise in this to meddle last of all with the disputes concerning the Gods. Now these things having been often said by him, it will suffice to set down what is found in his Fourth Book of Lives, being thus word for word: ‘First then, it seems to me, according as it has been rightly said by the ancients, that there are three kinds of philosophical speculations, logical, ethical, and physical, and that of these, the logical ought to be placed first, the ethical second, and the physical third, and that of the physical, the discourse concerning the Gods ought to be the last; wherefore also the traditions concerning this have been styled Τελεταί, or the Endings.’ But that very discourse concerning the Gods, which he says ought to be placed the last, he usually places first and sets before every moral question. For he is seen not to say any thing either concerning the ends, or concerning justice, or concerning good and evil, or concerning marriage and the education of children, or concerning the law and the commonwealth; but, as those who propose decrees to states set before them the words To Good Fortune, so he also premises something of Jupiter, Fate, Providence, and of the world’s being one and finite and maintained by one power. None of which any one can be persuaded to believe, who has not penetrated deeply into the discourses of natural philosophy. Hear what he says of this in his Third Book of the Gods: ‘For there is not to be found any other beginning or any other generation of Justice, but what is from Jupiter and common Nature. From thence must every such thing have its beginning, if we will say anything concerning good and evil.’ And again, in his Natural Positions he says: ‘For one cannot otherwise or more properly come to the discourse of good and evil, to the virtues, or to felicity, than from common Nature and the administration of the world’” (Plutarch’s Morals, translated from the Greek by several hands, corrected and revised by William W. Goodwin, with an introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 5 volumes [Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1878], vol. 4). It is not entirely clear from what source Thomas knew this particular division. He repeats this threefold hierarchy— 28 1122 Randall B. Smith Recall what Thomas said above about John’s contemplation being “high,” “full,” and “perfect”: “high,” in the sense that it arrives at the knowledge of God; “full,” in the sense that he tells us that the power of the Word extends to all things; and “perfect,” in the sense that, by God’s grace, we are lifted up to Him and thus brought to our final end. In this next section of the prologue, each of these three sorts of “contemplation” is coordinated with the threefold Stoic division of the sciences. What happens in natural science? Thomas’s answer John’s Gospel provides (because his contemplation is “full” enough to see that the power of the Word extends to all things) is that the study of nature is, ultimately, a reflection on how God works in and through creation. What is the principle metaphysics seeks? John’s Gospel shows us (because his contemplation is “high” enough to arrive at the knowledge of God) that the goal of metaphysics ultimately must be Subsisting Being Itself (Ipsum Esse Subsistens), the Source of All Being. What is the ultimate goal of moral science? John’s Gospel shows us (because his contemplation is “perfect”) that our minds and hearts must be perfected so as to bring us to the Beatific Vision. Or to state the matter more concisely, we might simply say this: How is the study of natural science perfected? By realizing that what it studies is God’s work. How is metaphysics perfected? By realizing that it is a foretaste of the vision of Subsisting Being Itself. How is moral science perfected? By grace and the reception of Christ’s sacraments. similarly without attribution—in his Commentary on Boethius’ De Trinitate, q. 5, a. 1, obj. 10: “the ancients are said to have observed the following order in learning the sciences: first logic, then mathematics, then natural science, after that moral science, and finally . . . divine science” (trans. Armand Maurer, in St.Thomas Aquinas on the Division and Methods of the Sciences: Questions V and VI of His Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Study, 1963]). Thomas has taken the liberty here in his prologue to the Commentary on the Gospel of John of leaving aside the first two—logic and mathematics, which are presumably not covered in the Gospel (a claim that is not entirely uncontroversial, one would think)—and of eliding “divine science” and “metaphysics.” This identification of the two was not uncommon among Aristotelians: in some places, Thomas will distinguish them carefully; in other circumstances, he will not. Thomas’s basic point, however—and the one most likely to be controversial—is this: In the Gospel of John, one will find instruction in those things traditionally considered “highest” in the order of pedagogy set forth by the philosophers: natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1123 We might think of Thomas’s point here in terms of Bonaventure’s On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology.29 Bonaventure’s “reduction” does not involve “lessening” the arts and sciences so that theology can become preeminent, nor does it involve a violation of the methods proper to each of the various disciplines. What it involves, rather, is showing how each of the disciplines has its proper end and goal revealed to it by theology. So too here, in his prologue, Thomas suggests that “what the above sciences have in a divided way” the Gospel of John “contains all together,” and so is “most perfect.” By this, he does not mean that we can learn natural science, metaphysics, and ethics simply from reading the Gospel. But what we can learn from the Gospel is the proper place of each within the didactic order that leads us to the highest truth and our ultimate end. In the modern world, we tend to think of each discipline as having its own autonomous laws and boundaries. However, given the damage that can often result from the practices of certain politicians and businessmen and doctors, we may subsequently decide that the practitioners of the sciences of politics, business, or medicine should get a little training in what we call “ethics.” But what that often does is simply to introduce extraneously a different set of goals and principles into the usual considerations of the discipline. If business is about maximization of profit, then the “other-regarding” concerns of ethics will often enough seem not only extraneous to the discipline, but downright annoying. If politics is the science of gaining and wielding power, then the ethical concerns of those who think others should be treated as rational agents of equal dignity with oneself will likely seem utterly naive: pleasant enough for the Sunday homiletics of priests or the musings of academic moralists, but not anything for serious politicians. In the medieval view represented by Bonaventure’s reductio and Thomas’s prologue, however, each discipline is understood as pointing the way toward the Creator. The old medieval adage that “grace does not violate nature but perfects it” applies here as well. Recognizing that all the arts and sciences find their ultimate source and summit in God will, on this understanding, not violate the order of the sciences, but rather perfect them. Unlike modern “reductions” of the human person to, say, pure biology or pure physical causality, Cf. Bonaventure, On the Reduction of Arts to Theology, trans. Zachary Hayes, Works of St. Bonaventure 1 (St Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University, 1996). 29 1124 Randall B. Smith which often end up negating a great deal of human experience (say the value of love or aesthetic experience or free will), the kind of “reduction” that Bonaventure and Aquinas have in mind does not negate the importance of the other disciplines. Rather, it reveals how important they are by showing how they can be understood as a foretaste of our eternal beatitude and an important means to that end. Settling in Advance on the Terms for Interpreting the Gospel: John’s Prologue and Thomas’s It is worth noting that Thomas’s prologue to the Gospel of John is meant to achieve many of the same goals traditionally associated with John’s own prologue to his Gospel. Reading the Gospel of John in light of its prologue—and thus, by extension, reading Thomas’s prologue— means reading the Gospel not merely as the story of a wise and interesting first-century-AD prophet, but as the story the incarnate Word responsible for the being of all that exists. Consider, for example, Thomas’s claim in his Prologue that what the sciences of natural philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics have “in a divided way” the Gospel of John “contains all together,” and so is “most perfect.” What makes a comment like this possible is precisely the Christocentric perspective from which Thomas approaches all the books of Sacred Scripture. There is a natural and understandable tendency to think of a “Christocentric” reading of Scripture purely in terms of interpreting events and characters of the Old Testament as “types” or “figures” of Christ. This is certainly one sort of “Christocentric” reading. But I would argue that there is another sort in the New Testament. John’s recalling of Jesus’s life is “Christocentric” for the obvious reason that he is writing precisely to proclaim Jesus as “the Christ.” But more than that, what John understands by proclaiming Jesus to be “the Christ” is something radical and fundamentally “incarnational.” To be “the Christ” means that Jesus is not only the long-awaited Messiah, although He is that as well; it means, more radically, that He unites in himself both divinity and humanity and, through his humanity, is united to all of creation. Pope John Paul II states the truth of the matter nicely in his encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem when he says: “The Incarnation of God the Son signifies the taking up into unity with God not only of human nature, but in this human nature, in a sense, of everything that is ‘flesh’: the whole of humanity, the entire visible and material world. The Incarnation, then, also has a cosmic significance, a cosmic The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1125 dimension.”30 We find the same notion again in Cardinal Avery Dulles’s extraordinary book The Catholicity of the Church, in which he says: “The Word of God, in assuming a full human existence, entered into a kind of union with the [entire] cosmos.”31 Thomas’s Prologue extends this insight and applies it to the debates of his own time, clarifying for his readers why the Gospel can, and indeed must, be taken as seriously by philosophers as by the uneducated. The paradoxical claim is that the Supreme Cause of the being of everything that exists, the ultimate end of the contemplative searches of Plato and Aristotle and most of the greatest philosophers of the ancient world—this Supreme Cause of being is “revealed in” the words and deeds of this particular man from Galilee. He is not merely a “religious” figure, not merely a “mythic” figure, nor merely “the god of the philosophers,” but the Word made flesh, God incarnate. This is the Person to whom Thomas is introducing his readers. This is the person with whom his readers must become acquainted as they read John’s Gospel. Without this perspective, what are his readers left with? Without the reality of “the Word made flesh,” the Gospel is a very different story. It is either the picture of a man pretending to be god-like—a great prophet, perhaps, but one who might rightly be charged with some serious delusions of grandeur—or of a god merely pretending to be a man: pretending to be hungry, pretending to be thirsty, pretending to cry at the death of a friend, pretending to suffer and die on a cross, when in reality, as God, he can really suffer none of those things. Without “the Word made flesh,” the deeds recounted in the Gospel of John are not, as Cardinal Dulles suggests, “outward manifestations of the inner mystery” of Christ’s being; they would be, rather, merely an outward show, an illusion, something to entertain the crowds perhaps, but not the fit object of study for scholars, whether modern or medieval. If Jesus were not the Word who was in the beginning and without whom nothing that came into being exists, if He were not the Way, Truth, and the Life, then neither Thomas nor anyone else could say of His story that, in it, natural philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics find their source and crown. Dominum et Vivificantem (1986), §50. Avery Dulles, S.J., The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 54. 30 31 1126 Randall B. Smith The Four Aristotelian Causes In my introductory paragraphs above, I suggested that the expectations Thomas’s audience brought to reading a prologue were very different from our current expectations. We tend to expect the writers of prologues to provide biographical, historical, intellectual and/or literary background. These were not, however, the expectations of Thomas’s medieval audience. The first difference we have noted is that Thomas’s audience understood how the processes of divisio and dilatio used in the medieval sermo modernus worked and they were not averse to reading a prologue written in this style. We know this to be true not only because Thomas’s prologue to John’s Gospel was written this way but also because nearly all of his other prologues were written this way as well. We find the practice, for example, in the prologue to each book of his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (1252–1256), in the preface to his treatise Contra Impugnantes (1256), and in the prologues to his commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate (1257–1258) and De Hebdomadibus (written sometime after the De Trinitate), and there is even a small vestige of it remaining in the prologue to his Summa contra gentiles (1259). His audience was used to hearing such sermons—it was an efficient way of delivering a good amount of information in an ordered, memorable format—so they clearly did not find this an odd way of introducing a text. Another commonplace among Thomas’s audience of students at the University of Paris would have been knowledge of the four “causes” of Aristotelian natural philosophy: the formal cause, which tells us what a thing is; the material cause, which tells us out of what the thing has come; the efficient or moving cause, which tells us from whence a thing comes (in the sense of what caused the change that brought it into existence); and the final cause, which tells us to what end or purpose the thing is directed. Thomas had organized the prologue to his commentary on the Psalms entirely around these four causes.32 But in other prologues, he had sometimes identified only one or two of the four—as in, for example, his prologue to the commentary on Ephesians, in which he mentions only the efficient cause (Paul), or in his prologues to the commentaries on Colossians and First Corinthians, where he mentions only the materia (the subject matter) of the For a good treatment, see Alistair J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages (London: Scholar Press, 1984), 75f. 32 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1127 text. Here, in his prologue to the commentary on the Gospel of John, Thomas touches upon all four of the Aristotelian causes, but each of them only relatively briefly. Thomas begins this final section of the Prologue with the “matter” (the materia) of the Gospel of John, concerning which he professes that, “while the other Evangelists treat principally of the mysteries of the humanity of Christ, John, especially and above all, makes known the divinity of Christ in his Gospel,” although “he does not ignore the mysteries of his humanity” either.33 From this statement, we can understand why modern translators tend to translate materia in this context as “subject-matter.” And yet, it is important to note that materia in Latin has connotations missing in the English term “subject-matter.” The materia—the “subject-matter” of the text—must still be given form. The author (the efficient cause) must still give his topic a particular shape, size, and order by means of the words he uses and how he makes use of them. So too here, after identifying the “subject-matter” of the text (the underlying materia), Thomas goes on to identify the form of the text— that is, “the order of the Gospel” (ordo istius Evangelii). To get his point across most effectively, Thomas finds that he can return once again to his opening thema verse, Isaiah 6:1: “I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty, and the whole house was full of his majesty, and the things that were under him filled the temple.” The order of the Gospel is suggested by this verse, says Thomas: John first shows us the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, when he says, “In the beginning was the Word” ( John 1:1). He shows secondly how the house was full of his majesty, when he says, “through him all things came into being” ( John 1:3). Thirdly, John shows how the things that were under him filled the temple, when he says, “the Word was made flesh” ( John 1:14). Thomas’s comment here on the “order of the Gospel” corresponds nicely to his discussion above, where he suggested that John’s contemplation was “high” because it arrived at the height of the Godhead Itself (“the Word,” who was “in the beginning”; John 1:1), “full” because John possessed a vision of how God’s power filled the entire world (“through Him all things came into being”; John 1:3), and Prologue, 10. 33 1128 Randall B. Smith “perfect” because it was of that which “sanctified” and “perfected” man (by “the Word” being “made flesh”; John 1:14). The “order” Thomas identifies here in his prologue also corresponds with what we find later in the body of his commentary. If we turn to chapter 1, lectio 1, section (Marietti no.) 23 of the commentary [hereafter, In Ioh.], we find Thomas repeating his claim that the basic “subject-matter” of John’s Gospel is “principally to show the divinity of the Incarnate Word.” So what is the order by which John proceeds to show this? Thomas proposes that the Gospel can be divided into two main parts: in the first, John “declares (insinuat) the divinity of Christ”; in the second, he “shows it by the things Christ did in the flesh.” Where does the “first part” (where John “declares” the divinity of Christ) end and the second part (where he “shows it by the things Christ did the flesh”) begin? Thomas’s answer is that the second part of the Gospel begins at John 2:1, with the words “and on the third day there was a wedding at Cana.” And indeed, if we glance ahead at Thomas’s comments on John 2:1, we find: “Above, the Evangelist showed the dignity of the incarnate Word. . . . Now he begins to relate the effects and actions by which the divinity of the incarnate Word was made known to the world” (In Ioh. 2, lec.1, Marietti no. 335). First, says Thomas, John “tells the things Christ did while living in the world that show his divinity.” Second, “he tells how Christ showed his divinity while dying; and this from chapter twelve on.” And if we once again glance ahead, this time to Thomas’s comments at the beginning of his first lecture on chapter 12 (In Ioh. 12, lec. 1, Marietti no. 1589), we find this: “So far the Evangelist has been showing the power of Christ’s divinity by what he did and taught during his public life. Now he begins to show the power of his divinity as manifested in his passion and death.” What, then, is the “order” of topics in John’s Gospel? As Thomas suggests earlier in his prologue, John’s contemplation was “high,” “full, and “perfect.” It was “high” in that the Gospel begins with a vision of the divinity of Christ, the Word of God made flesh. It was “full” because the Gospel then quickly moves on to show how the Lord’s power filled the entire world: how Christ manifested His divinity by showing forth his divine power over the natural world (e.g., the miracle at Cana, walking on water, healing of the sick, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, raising Lazarus from the dead) and by the authority of His teaching. And finally, John’s vision was “perfect” because the Gospel concludes by showing how Christ The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1129 manifest His divinity in and through His death and resurrection— the sacrifice by means of which our salvation is won and we are “perfected.” Once Thomas has thus clarified the form of the Gospel, the end or purpose becomes clear. “The end of this Gospel” ( finis huius Evangelii), says Thomas, “is that the faithful become the temple of God and become filled (repleantur) with the majesty of God,” which Thomas’s students can more easily remember from the opening thema verse, which ends: “I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the whole house was full of his majesty, and the things that were under him filled [replebant] the temple” [emphasis added]. By “seeing the Lord” as John saw the Lord, with a contemplation that is “high,” “full,” and “perfect,” we are made into “the temple of God” built of living stones, the Body of Christ, and are “filled up to completion with” or “perfected by” (repleantur) the majesty of God.34 Thomas understands, as the early Christians did, that Jesus is not proclaimed the Christ in spite of his death on the Cross, but precisely because of his death on the Cross and resurrection from the dead. It is by this last act, in fact, that the Word reveals itself most fully as the perfect Love that conquers both sin and death. This is “perfect” love both in the sense that it is complete and in the sense that it is perfecting. Not only is His sacrificial death and his resurrection from the dead the means by which Christ reveals God’s will to reconcile man to Himself; it is also the means by which He brings it about. Hence Thomas’s message to his philosophically trained students is this: it is not unimportant philosophically that Christ revealed God’s eternal Word-made-present not merely by showing how God’s power filled the entire world (say, for example, in his miracles) but also in and through His passion and death on the Cross. Unlike, say, Plato, Christ lives. Plato, now dead, has no more power to speak to his students. At best, his soul is united with the eternal Forms, a realm to which he can now give us no more reliable access than he did during his life. We can read the road map he left behind, but he can no longer in person guide our steps along the intellectual ascent to the realities at the top of the Divided Line described in book 6 of the Republic. Christ, by contrast, lives and is seated at the right hand of the Father, from whence He sends God’s own Holy Spirit to both On this, cf. 1 Cor 3:16 (“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”) and 1 Pet 2:5 (“And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple”). 34 1130 Randall B. Smith enlighten our intellects and help discipline our will and our appetites: a living Spirit Plato neither claimed to possess or be able to send to his students after his death. With his death, Plato’s role as “teacher” is over; only his texts remain. With Christ’s death, his role was just beginning; in and through the text of Scripture we have access to the living Word of God and his sanctifying Spirit. Or to put the matter more accurately, it is in and through the Sacred Scriptures that, if we let them, the living Word of God and his sanctifying Spirit can gain access to us. The Author and His Authority Thus far, we have considered three of the four Aristotelian causes: the material, formal, and final causes of the Gospel. And so Thomas sums up at the end of section 10 of the prologue saying: “The matter of this Gospel, the knowledge of the divinity of the Word, is clear, as well as its order and end.” What remains to be examined is the efficient cause, which, in the case of a book, would be its author. And so, in section 11, the final section of the prologue, Thomas says that his final task is to describe “the condition of the author” (conditio auctoris)—and this in four ways: as to his name, his virtue, his symbol, and his privilege. It would have been convenient if Thomas had managed to map each of these topics onto his opening thema verse. But there are limits to what even an imaginative genius such as Thomas can do with one set of words. In his sermons, he is at times able to get his verbal mnemonics to do double, even triple, duty. In this prologue, Thomas has already managed to get quite a lot out of his little verse from Isaiah 6:1. So, instead of trying to wring more blood out of that particular turnip, he finds another set of mnemonic images to help his readers remember the details he wants to get across about the author of the Gospel, St. John the Evangelist. Understanding this final section on the “condition of the author” can be a bit tricky, however, because it depends on some elements not plainly in view to the contemporary reader. In medieval editions of the text, Thomas’s prologue would have been printed beneath Jerome’s prologue, along with a short commentary by Thomas on Jerome’s prologue. It was a common practice of the day to start any biblical commentary with one of Jerome’s prologues—a clear testament to Jerome’s abiding impact as a biblical authority throughout this period. Unfortunately, Jerome’s prologue and Thomas’s commentary on that prologue are not included in most contemporary The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1131 printed editions of the Commentary.35 This is unfortunate because leaving out Jerome’s prologue may leave the reader wondering what Thomas is talking about in his own prologue. So, for example, with regard to the name of the author, Thomas tells us in his prologue that “John” is interpreted as “in whom is grace,” since “the secrets of the divinity cannot be seen except by those who have the grace of God within themselves.” What is Thomas’s source for this analysis of the name “John” as one “in whom is grace”? One source is the famous Alcuin of York, whom Thomas cites in the Catena aurea in a comment on John 1:6–8. Another is the Venerable Bede, whom Thomas quotes giving this same interpretation of the name “John” in the Catena aurea at Luke 1:11–14. If we move on from these references and look at Thomas’s commentary on Jerome’s prologue, we find him making the same point: “For he [that is, Jerome] describes the author from his name, saying, ‘This is John,’ in whom there is grace—1 Cor 15:10: ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’” The biblical reference here is odd, however, given that the single verse from 1 Corinthians 15:10 stating “by the grace of God I am what I am” could scarcely be considered sufficient evidence for the claim that the name “John” means “in whom there is grace,” especially since the First Letter to the Corinthians was written by Paul, not John. Let me suggest that the verse from 1 Corinthians 15:10 is not intended to prove the philological point about the meaning of John’s name; rather it advances the theological argument. That is to say, Thomas has read in other sources—namely, Bede and Alcuin—that the name “John” means “in whom there is grace.”36 The theological It is missing, for example, from the 1980 Magi Press volume containing Weisheipl’s translation. One can find an English translation of Jerome’s prologue with Thomas’s commentary on it done by Fr. Joseph Kenny, O.P. at http://dhspriory.org/thomas/SSJohn.htm#02 (accessed July 28, 2017). These have been placed below the prologue we are discussing in this article, an arrangement that makes less sense when it becomes clear that one needs information from Jerome’s prologue to understand Thomas’s. 36 Thomas and his medieval sources may be entirely correct about this derivation of the name “John,” as it turns out. Some modern commentators suggest that the name “John” (in English), which is derived from the Latin Ioannes, which is in turn a form of the Greek Iōánnēs (Ἰωάννης), might be a form of the Hebrew name Yôḥanan (‫)יֹו ָחנָן‬, which means “Graced by Yahweh.” It would not have been at all uncommon in the ancient Jewish world, of course, to have had a symbolic name of this sort. 35 1132 Randall B. Smith point—that is to say, the theological significance of this detail about John’s name—is that John knows what he knows about God through God’s gracious gifts, not through His own merit or unaided efforts. John knows what he knows, in other words (his contemplation is “high,” “full,” and “perfect”) because these things were revealed to him by God. Of the four topics Thomas set about to discuss with regard to the “condition of the author”—name, virtue, symbol, and privilege—we have treated the first, John’s name. But as we have seen, the point is not merely to give the author’s name; the point is to describe, as Thomas says, “the condition of the author” (conditio auctoris). Those who understand the resonances that accompany the medieval use of the word auctor and its related close cousin auctoritas (from whence we get our English word “authority”) will know that, in this context, describing the “condition of the author” has nothing to do with describing the psychological or biographical background of the author. It has to do rather with the nature of the man’s authority to speak on the topic at hand. And in this case, his name reveals the nature of his authority: namely, it is by the grace of God that he is what he is. The same consideration concerning the nature of John’s authority underlies Thomas’s next comment—about John’s virtue. “As concerns his virtue,” says Thomas, “John saw the Lord seated, because he was a virgin; for it is fitting that such persons see the Lord: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart’ [for they shall see God] (Matt 5:8).” Again, the point here is not a psychological one about John’s background; it has to do with John’s worthiness, his fittingness, for the task of writing about God. To make his point, Thomas returns one last time to his opening biblical thema verse in order to suggest that we can think of the one who says, “I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty,” as John, even though the verse itself is uttered by the prophet Isaiah, since John is the one who superlatively has a vision of the Lord that is high, full, and “perfect.” As we discussed above with regard to Thomas’s use of biblical epigraphs as prefaces for his sermons, what underlies these cross-textual references is an essentially Christocentric understanding of the text. Although it was admittedly Isaiah who originally uttered the phrase “I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lofty, and the whole house was full of his majesty,” Thomas can use it to describe John because John was the one who most truly “saw the Lord”— indeed, in person—who was able to see clearly how “the whole house The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1133 was full of his majesty” by hearing his words and seeing his deeds, and who, at the foot of the Cross, saw how God’s majesty “filled completely the temple,” perfecting all those “living stones” that God is “building up into his spiritual temple” (cf. 1 Pet 2:5). Thus, it was John who most truly “saw the Lord,” and as the Beatitudes tell us, it is the “pure of heart” that “see the Lord.” The detail about John being a virgin is something Thomas gets from Jerome’s prologue, which, as I mentioned above, the reader would not necessarily know unless he or she was reading an edition that reproduced that prologue. “This is John, the Evangelist, one of the disciples of the Lord, a virgin chosen by God,” says Jerome in the first sentence of that prologue. This is an odd reference, however, not so much because we think that John had a wife: there’s no mention of one in the Gospels, nor in particular is there any mention of John having a wife when Christ from the Cross gives the care of his own mother to John. The oddity derives from the fact that Jerome also seems to think that it was John’s wedding at Cana at which Jesus performed his first miracles, but that Jesus called him away from the wedding “when he wanted to marry.” It is unclear where Jerome has gotten this odd little detail. But again, it is the theological point that is the key one in both Jerome’s prologue and Thomas’s commentary on it: “the Lord, hanging on the cross,” says Jerome, “commended his Mother to him [ John], so that a virgin might look after the Virgin.” Who is the “virgin chosen by God”? Thomas’s audience would know that this is Mary. When he quotes St. Jerome describing John the Evangelist as “a virgin chosen by God,” they would catch the significance: as the Spirit came to give birth to the Word-made-flesh, so too John, in his own way, gives birth to the Word by “enfleshing” the Word in words—a birth that is made possible only by the work of the Holy Spirit. The point about the wedding at Cana makes more sense in this context. As Mary was to be married to Joseph but was instead married more fully to God, so too John, although he intended to marry at Cana, was instead married more fully to Christ. With this, we have covered, with regard to the “condition of the author,” his name and his virtue, both of which, as we have seen, bear upon the nature and character of his “authority.” The final two items on the list—John’s “symbol” and his “privilege”—will similarly bear upon the nature and character of that authority. With regard to the first of these, John “is described as to his symbol,” says Thomas, for “John is symbolized by an eagle.” 1134 Randall B. Smith It was of course a commonplace by Thomas’s day to represent the four Evangelists with the four “living creatures” that surround God’s throne in Revelation 4:7 and, earlier, in Ezekiel 1:1–14: a man, an ox (or bull), a lion, and an eagle. John’s symbol is the eagle, says Thomas, because he, in a special way among the Evangelists, expresses the divinity of Christ. The other three Evangelists, concerned with those things which Christ did in his flesh, are symbolized by animals which walk on the earth, namely, by a man, a bull calf, and a lion. But John flies like an eagle above the cloud of human weakness and looks upon the light of unchanging truth with the most lofty and firm eyes of the heart. And gazing on the very deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which he is equal to the Father, he has striven in this Gospel to confide this above all, to the extent that he believed was sufficient for all.37 And finally we come to last of the items that bear upon the nature and character of John’s “authority”—namely, his “privilege” (privilegium): John is said to be “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see John 21:20). “And because secrets are revealed to friends,” says Thomas, “Jesus confided his secrets in a special way to that disciple who was specially loved.” Thus, it says in Job 36:32 that, “from the savage”—that is, from the proud—“he hides his light”; that is, He (Christ) hides the truth of his divinity. But John, as we know from what Thomas has already said above, was “pure of heart.” He was as the bride awaiting the bridegroom: as the Virgin Mary awaiting the Spirit. There is no “seeing” here without loving, whether it be the Wordmade-flesh or the word of God in the Sacred Scriptures. What the proud and arrogant scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’s day could not see, John, the simple youth who was loved by Jesus and loved him in return, was able to see. It was not superior human wisdom that revealed the fullness of Christ’s divinity to John; it was a receptiveness to Christ’s love. John did not demand first that his intellect be satisfied as a precondition to his love of Christ. Rather, he loved first, and only then was his vision made high, full, and perfect. The question now is: Will his readers approach God’s Word with a receptivity similar to that of the author? Will they be savage, proud Prologue, 11. 37 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1135 and arrogant—like those from whom God hides His light? Or will they be “pure of heart” like John, the one whom Jesus loved and who loved Jesus in return and, thus, was granted a special contemplative vision of His divinity? I propose that what Thomas is attempting to do in his prologue is to set before his students a clear choice between two distinctly different approaches to the highest Wisdom: one in which they sit in judgment of it, and the other in which they allow it to sit in judgment of them. On this view, the choice readers make about how to read a text will make all the difference in whether they are able to read it well and understand what it has to teach. In Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, Alasdair MacIntyre compares the major presuppositions of what he calls “the encyclopaedic stance” of modern thought—“that truth not only is what it is, independent of standpoint, but can be discovered or confirmed by any adequately intelligent person, no matter what his point of view”—with that of an earlier, classical view of the philosophic craft that held that “a prior commitment was required” on the part of the student. 38 The kind of transformation required, argues Professor MacIntyre, was “that which is involved in making oneself into an apprentice to a craft, the craft in this case of philosophical enquiry.”39 “The philosophy of craft tradition” that characterized premodern philosophy of the sort practiced by Aquinas “presented the mind as inadequate until it had conformed itself to the object which theology presented for its attention.”40 It was essential, therefore, that the enquirer learn first “how to make him or herself into a particular kind of person” before he or she could move forward “towards a knowledge of the truth about his or her good and about the good.”41 May I suggest, then, that the usual modern method of writing a prologue to a text reflects the modern encyclopedic stance toward the philosophical project: that anyone prepared with sufficient background information, no matter his or her point of view or prior ideological commitments, is capable of reading and learning what a text is meant to teach. This is why many modern prologues tend to read like encyclopedia articles. Communicating relevant background information was not alien to the intentions behind Thomas’s prologue, but it was also not his Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy, and Tradition (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 60. 39 Ibid., 61. 40 Ibid., 69. 41 Ibid., 61. 38 1136 Randall B. Smith primary aim, and we will misjudge him badly if we think he is attempting to do what a modern prologue does but doing it rather less well. Thomas’s prologue was designed to bring about the sort of transformation that MacIntyre describes above—into a particular kind of person.42 It was meant as an exhortation to enter into a practice and a tradition of philosophical enquiry of a certain sort. And it was precisely in this way, therefore, that Thomas’s prologue served the purposes of the classic philosophical protreptic. Classical Protreptic and its Purpose For those not acquainted with the term, a philosophic “protreptic” was, as the Greek term suggests, an “exhortation” that had “as its explicit aim the winning of a student for philosophy,” according to Mark D. Jordan in one of the best articles on the genre.43 One of the most famous of these was Cicero’s Hortensius, now lost, which Augustine credits with having won him over for philosophy before he was eventually converted to Christianity. Cicero’s Hortensius is sometimes said to have been adapted from an earlier work by Aristotle, the Protrepticus, which was reportedly one of the most famous and influential books of philosophy in the ancient world. It too, like the Hortensius, is now lost. Sections of larger works could also serve a protreptic function. “This is famously true,” for example, argues Professor Jordan, “of the first two chapters of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which borrow textually from his Protreptikos.” There are also well-known examples of philosophical protreptic in Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations,44 as well as in See ibid., 133: “The concept of having to be a certain sort of person, morally or theologically, in order to read a book aright—with the implication that perhaps if one is not that sort of person, then the book should be withheld from one—is alien to the assumption of liberal modernity that every rational adult should be free to and is able to read every book.” 43 Mark D. Jordan, “Ancient Philosophic Protreptic and the Problem of Persuasive Genres,” Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric 4, no. 4 (1986): 309. 44 See, for example, Tusculan Disputations 5.2.5–5.4.11, a section that begins (in the English translation of Charles D. Yonge) with this encomium: “O Philosophy, thou guide of life! thou discoverer of virtue and expeller of vices! what had not only I myself, but the whole life of man, been without you? To you it is that we owe the origin of cities; you it was who called together the dispersed race of men into social life; you united them together. . . . You have been the inventress of laws; you have been our instructress in morals and discipline; to you we fly for refuge; from you we implore assistance; and as I formerly submitted to you in a great degree, so now I surrender up myself entirely to you. For one day spent well, and agreeably to your precepts, is preferable to 42 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1137 Lucretius’s De rerum natura.45 There are protreptic moments scattered throughout the Platonic dialogues, but the protreptic character stands out perhaps nowhere more prominently than in the Gorgias and the Republic, both of which seem especially designed by the nature of give-and-take between the various interlocutors to convince the reader that, to make progress in wisdom, he or she must become a certain kind of enquirer. Even the lives of the various philosophers, such as those preserved by Diogenes Laertius and others, were said in antiquity to have served as invitations to the way of life of the philosophic school.46 Nor was the practice of composing protreptic discourses confined to philosophy. There were protreptics to music (Chamealon), medicine (Galen), rhetoric (Themistius), and later, even a protreptic to martyrdom by Origen. Indeed, Basil the Great’s famous Address to an eternity of error. Whose assistance, then, can be of more service to me than yours, when you have bestowed on us tranquillity of life, and removed the fear of death?” (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1877). 45 See, for example, De rerum natura 2.7–32 which (in the English translation of William Ellery Leonard in Lucretius: on the Nature of Things [New York: E. P. Dutton, 1921]) contains this exhortation to the Epicurean philosophy of life: . . . naught There is more goodly than to hold the high Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise, Whence thou may’st look below on other men And see them ev’rywhere wand’ring, all dispersed In their lone seeking for the road of life; Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank, Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil For summits of power and mastery of the world. O wretched minds of men! O blinded hearts! In how great perils, in what darks of life Are spent the human years, however brief! O not to see that nature for herself Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off, Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear! Therefore we see that our corporeal life Needs little, altogether, and only such As takes the pain away, and can besides Strew underneath some number of delights. 46 See Jordan, “Ancient Philosophic Protreptic,” 314, esp. n40, and Bernard Frischer, The Sculpted Word: Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). 1138 Randall B. Smith Young Men on Greek Literature was often listed in ancient manuscripts under the heading logos protreptikos. Practitioners of nearly every discipline considered it important, it seems, when they were writing texts that might be read by potential students, to compose exhortations to engage in the study of the discipline and to adopt its goals and standards of excellence. As Professor Jordan’s survey of ancient protreptic shows, the character of individual protreptics varied greatly depending upon the views of the philosophical school.47 And yet we can perhaps discern a pair of common goals among all such protreptic works. The first is suggested by a comment attributed to Philo of Larissa, a second-century-BC member of the Platonic Academy, who is said to have compared the goals of the philosopher and the physician.48 According to Philo, the physician’s first task was to offer therapy for illness and his second was to refute the advice of false counselors; so too with the philosopher, his first task was to show the good of philosophy and his second was to refute accusations, attacks, and malicious assaults against it. As the physician must both treat the causes of illness and aid what produces health, so the philosopher must remove what begets false opinion and shore up healthy thought.49 These two were not mutually exclusive, of course. Treating the causes of illness certainly aids in producing health. But, along with keeping the patient away from bad things, optimal health depends upon the physician instilling in the patient a knowledge of and a desire for good things, things conducive to his or her flourishing rather than destructive of it. Or, as MacIntyre reminds us, to become a successful apprentice to a craft tradition, one must learn to distinguish “between what in particular situations it really is good to do and what only seems good to do to this particular apprentice but is not in fact so.”50 One crucial role of the protreptic, therefore, writes Jordan argues that protreptic would be difficult if not impossible to define as a “genre in the ordinary poetic sense, that is, as dictating a certain combination of form, diction, and subject-matter,” the problem being that “each school’s notions about the human good issue[d] in views about how the good [could] be taught, and these views issue[d] in judgments about appropriate modes of composition,” and so we find that “different protreptics . . . exhibit different motives in relation to the differently conceived philosophic ends” (“Ancient Philosophic Protreptic,” 328–29). 48 Stobeaus, Anthology 2.7.2. 49 See Jordan, “Ancient Philosophic Protreptic,” 316–17. 50 MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, 61. 47 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1139 Professor Jordan, was to compare the claims to knowledge of the other schools or disciplines with those of the true philosopher in such a way as to show that “every other form of knowledge is found lacking.”51 To engage in the study of the discipline and to adopt its goals and standards of excellence was also, by necessity, an invitation to the way of life. The sort of decision envisioned here is captured nicely by Professor MacIntyre’s use of the analogy of apprenticing to a craft. When one chose to become an apprentice, one was not merely choosing to engage in a particular form of technē, one was choosing, as well and as importantly, to enter into an entire way of life and to orient one’s goals according to the standards of excellence handed down by one’s teachers. Thus, as Professor Jordan points out, students—that is, potential future apprentices—had to “be won” at several different levels: “for the love of wisdom generally, for the choice of a particular school, for full commitment to the rigors of an advanced discipline.”52 There was, in other words, what we might describe as an “existential” element to the protreptic exhortation: it was designed to bring about a choice. As Professor Jordan argues: Protreptics are just those works that aim to bring about the firm choice of a lived way to wisdom—however different the form of those works and their notions of wisdom might be. . . . Each author confronts a hearer whose choice is the target of many other persuasions. The unity of the philosophic protreptic [as a genre]—and its great rhetorical interest—would seem to lie in this ‘exigence,’ in the hearer’s moment of choice before waysof-life.”53 Thomas’s Prologue as a Protreptic With the goals of the classical protreptic in mind, let us consider again what Thomas achieves in the Prologue to his commentary on the Gospel of John. First, he subtly challenges the claims to knowledge of the other philosophical schools, showing that John expresses in a more complete and unified way the truth they sought imperfectly. Is this not the point of going through all those different approaches to the existence of God—in order to show that John’s Gospel encompasses all of Jordan, “Ancient Philosophic Protreptic,” 321. Ibid., 309. 53 Ibid., 310. 51 52 1140 Randall B. Smith them “more perfectly”? So too, is this not the reason Thomas adopts the classic Stoic division of the disciplines—natural philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics—in order to show how “the Gospel of John contains all together what the above sciences have in a divided way, and so it is most perfect”? John’s contemplation, recall, was “high,” “full,” and “perfect”: it achieved the height because it rose to a knowledge of God; it was “full” in that it saw accurately how God’s power extended throughout all of creation; and it was “perfect” in that it is this knowledge which brings us to our ultimate goal. Thomas’s prologue does what other protreptics set out to do: show the superiority of a certain knowledge as the highest form of wisdom—one that can bring the prospective apprentice, if he or she is willing to enter into the discipline required, to his or her ultimate goal: a life of blessedness, of true human flourishing. It is important to remember that the students for whom Thomas was writing this prologue would have previously gone through a strict regimen of philosophical study with the members of the Arts Faculty at the University of Paris.54 Fr. Weisheipl, as a biographer of Thomas, describes the setting: The study of the liberal arts and the acquisition of philosophy were functions of the Arts Faculty in the university or studium. Approximately eight years were devoted by medieval students to acquiring these tools—roughly equivalent to our four years of high school and four years of college. After the full course had been completed in “the humanities,” the young man, generally in his mid-twenties, would begin his study of the Sacred Text, having already heard many sermons in Church and having received much instruction at home.55 In the “Brief Catalogue of the Works of Saint Thomas Aquinas” by Gilles Emery at the back of Jean-Pierre Torrell’s definitive biography, St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and his Work (trans. Robert Royal [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), the Lectura super Ioannem is dated “with reasonable certainty” to Thomas’s second period of teaching at the University of Paris, “probably during the years 1270–1272” (Torrell, St. Thomas Aquinas, 1:339). Weisheipl’s judgment about the dating of the text was the same (Weisheipl, Commentary, 9 [“Introduction”]). There is little doubt, therefore, about the audience for these lectures. 55 Weisheipl, Commentary, 6 (“Introduction”). 54 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1141 Contemporary professors of theology would immediately recognize the problem and sympathize with the challenge Thomas faces here. Before him would have been students who had spent eight years reading sophisticated and intellectually rigorous philosophical texts. Many of them would have undoubtedly been proud of these accomplishments and their newly acquired abilities in the arts. By the same token, likely the only introduction these same students would have had to the Bible might have been the simple, pious interpretations they had heard from their parents or a local parish priest whose education both theological and otherwise may well have been spotty at best. When such students would have compared the simple, pious stories they knew from the simple, pious preaching they had been accustomed to hearing over the years, they certainly could have been forgiven for having found the biblical texts lacking a certain something in terms of intellectual firepower. 56 The classic example of a gifted young scholar who was so proud of his abilities in dialectic that it led him to imagine he could dispose of the business of scriptural commentary without much trouble was young Abelard who, in his Historia calamitatum, tells the story of how, when he had gone to study at the school of Anselm of Laon, he dismissed the importance of listening to masters lecture on the Scriptures, suggesting that he could do a better job, given his skill in dialectic, after just one night: I, who had as yet studied only the sciences, replied that following such lectures seemed to me most useful in so far as the In this regard, we might do well to recall Augustine’s warning in Confessions 3.5.9 about not being fooled by the ostensible simplicity of the Scriptures, as he was when he was younger, preferring the eloquence of Cicero to what he considered to be the childishness of the Christian Scriptures: “I resolved, therefore, to direct my mind to the Holy Scriptures, that I might see what they were. And behold, I saw something not comprehended by the proud, not disclosed to children, something lowly in the hearing, but sublime in the doing, and veiled in mysteries. Yet I was not of the number of those who could enter into it or bend my neck to follow its steps. For then it was quite different from what I now feel. When I then turned toward the Scriptures, they appeared to me to be quite unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully [Cicero]. For my inflated pride was repelled by their style, nor could the sharpness of my wit penetrate their inner meaning. Truly they were of a sort to aid the growth of little ones, but I scorned to be a little one and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as fully grown” (trans. Albert Outler, in The Confessions of St. Augustine [Mineola, NY: Dover, 2002]). 56 1142 Randall B. Smith salvation of the soul was concerned, but that it appeared quite extraordinary to me that educated persons should not be able to understand the sacred books simply by studying them themselves, together with the glosses thereon, and without the aid of any teacher. Most of those who were present mocked at me, and asked whether I myself could do as I had said, or whether I would dare to undertake it. I answered that if they wished, I was ready to try it. Forthwith they cried out and jeered all the more. ‘Well and good,’ said they; ‘we agree to the test. Pick out and give us an exposition of some doubtful passage in the Scriptures, so that we can put this boast of yours to the proof.’ And they all chose that most obscure prophecy of Ezekiel. I accepted the challenge, and invited them to attend a lecture on the very next day.57 So too, at the University of Paris during the 1260s and early 1270s—that is to say, precisely the time when Thomas would have been writing this Prologue—“a radical form of Aristotelianism was being developed by certain Masters in the Faculty of Arts at Paris (by now really a faculty of philosophy), such as Siger of Brabant, Boethius of Dacia, and others.” So writes John Wippel. “Often if not accurately referred to as Latin Averroism,” continues Msgr. Wippel, “this movement was marked by the total dedication of its leaders to the pursuit of the purely philosophical life. At least in some instances, initially they were not particularly concerned if some of their philosophical conclusions happened to be at odds with orthodox Christian belief.”58 We need not attribute to such students or their teachers in the Arts Faculty a full-fledged doctrine of “double-truth,” the view that religion and philosophy can serve as separate sources of knowledge that might arrive at contradictory truths without detriment to either Peter Abelard, Historia Calmitatum, trans. Henry Adams Bellows (St. Paul, MN: T. A. Boyd, 1922), ch. 3. 58 John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000), xv. The classic study of Siger and his colleagues in the Arts faculty at Paris and their disputes with the likes of Thomas and Bonaventure is Fernand Van Steenberghen, Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1980). “Radical Aristotelianism” was the name Van Steenberghen gave to those who favored the wisdom of Aristotle over “sacred doctrine” (sacra doctrina). 57 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1143 (a controversial attribution to them of a view they might not have held) to imagine that, for students who had gone through this rigorous course of education in the Arts, it would have been easy for them to mistake their own experiences with the reality of the thing and assume that the Bible was for simple folk, whereas the sort of highminded, high-level education they were receiving as a student in the Arts was for the more “enlightened.” Thomas’s challenge in these circumstances would have been to convince such students that the books of the Bible were worthy of their highest, deepest, and fullest intellectual efforts—indeed, that in the pages of this supposedly “simple” book, they would find the very heart of what their previous studies in philosophy had only begun to prepare them for. On this view, John’s Gospel offers the highest form of wisdom and access to the most perfect form of beatitude. Thomas does this by showing how the sort of contemplatio that characterizes John’s Gospel is superior to, because encompassing of, other modes of philosophical pedagogy. It is important to note, however, that, in formulating his protreptic on behalf of the wisdom of Sacred Scripture and its exhortation to the necessary disciplines of humility in reading and study this entails, Thomas did not seek to negate the potential pedagogical value of all other approaches to wisdom or all other forms of philosophy. Rather, his vision was broad enough to include the Arts and grant them their proper autonomy within a course of education with sacra doctrina at its summit, serving a fundamentally architectonic role with regard to the rest. We might thus fruitfully compare what Thomas sets out to accomplish in his prologue with something MacIntyre suggests in Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry about Thomas’s Summa: that it was a work of instruction comprehending and integrating into itself “that in the other disciplines which theology needs, and providing also the framework within which the other disciplines have to be understood.”59 MacIntyre, like Wippel,60 points us to the intellectual challenges presented especially by the reception of the newly discovered and freshly translated Aristotelian works of natural philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics. The problem, as MacIntyre identifies it, was that: MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, 131. See n. 57 above. 59 60 1144 Randall B. Smith If the physical and metaphysical works [or Aristotle] were assigned to the Faculty of Arts, then teachers in that faculty would be entitled to pronounce independently on matters on which theology had been sovereign and, when the original ban on the teaching of those works by the Faculty of Arts came to be disregarded by the late 1240s, earlier Augustinian fears were confirmed by the growth of Averroist teaching in support of heterodox conclusions concerning the mortality of the soul and the eternity of the world.61 Yet, “it was only after Albertus Magnus had set new standards in the presentation of Aristotle’s own views,” argues MacIntyre, “that the extent to which theology itself might have to become a philosophical discipline became clear.”62 Thomas Aquinas was, of course, Albert’s preeminent student in very many ways, but especially in locating a theological framework within which the Aristotelian insights in natural philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics could be given their proper scope and autonomy and, precisely in this way, serve the ends of theology, not by dictating to them, but by engaging them in what Professor MacIntyre describes as “an active dialectical encounter”—one that “both the Averroist insistence on the autonomy of philosophy and the conventional Augustinian theology found no room for.”63 It is for these reasons among others that MacIntyre sees the Summa as constituting “an affront to the thirteenth-century Parisian version of those institutional academic boundaries in which both agreements and conflicts [were] conventionally defined.”64 Whether one agrees fully with MacIntyre’s assessment here, especially its characterization of the thirteenth-century challenge Thomas faced in such starkly bipolar terms—Augustinian versus Aristotelian—the undeniable fact remains that Thomas chose to include arguments from natural philosophy and metaphysics in a very explicit way in a biblical prologue, not something that would have occurred to, say, Bernard of Clairvaux.65 Something had clearly MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, 132. Ibid. 63 Ibid., 133. 64 Ibid. 65 There is no need for me to defend Professor MacIntyre’s work; its quality speaks for itself. But it might be worth noting that the distinction he is setting out in these chapters, delivered originally as the Gifford Lectures, was meant to be taken as setting forth in broad terms a dialectical-philosophical problem. 61 62 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1145 changed between Bernard’s biblical commentaries and Thomas’s. What that something was must be accounted for not only in terms of a different institutional setting (university rather than monastery) but also and primarily in terms of a new set of intellectual challenges— challenges that prompted Thomas to judge the need to preface his commentary on the Gospel of John with a new sort of protreptic appeal to his students that Bernard, as a monk preaching to monks in a monastery, would have felt no need to make. Thomas’s protreptic was designed, I have argued, to exhort students who might have been tempted to make the mistake St. Augustine did before them, failing to see the true profundity and deeper significance of the biblical texts, having first been educated in the works of classical philosophy, and concluding that the Scriptures were “quite unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully”— or, more likely in their case, Aristotle.66 Thomas’s students would not have been the first, nor would they be the last, to imagine that the Scriptures were “of a sort to aid the growth of little ones” but not something for educated readers and, “swollen with pride, looking upon themselves as fully grown,” to decide that the Scriptures had nothing serious to offer them.67 Thomas suggests, rather—indeed, he shows by means of his display of remarkable skill in the arts of both philosophy and rhetoric (one does not compose a prologue of this complexity without an admirable degree of rhetorical skill)—that the Scriptures contain wisdom worthy of their most strenuous intellectual efforts and that both He was not attempting to describe in a detailed way the historical setting of the debates in and around thirteenth-century Paris. To put this another way, it is important to respect the differences between the nature and purposes of a text such as John Wippel’s The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (see n. 57) and those of a text like MacIntyre’s Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry. We should respect those differences in much the same way we have to respect the differences between Etienne Gilson’s discussion of Thomas Aquinas’s thought in The Christian Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and his discussion of the same in Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages. In a similar vein, I trust the reader will understand that my comparison between Thomas and Bernard is meant to be extreme. Admittedly I might have chosen a relatively more obscure figure from earlier in the thirteenth century whose differences from Aquinas would have been more subtle. But there was really no need for such scholarly subtlety here. For our present purposes, I wanted the comparison to be stark and clear. 66 Augustine, Confessions 3.5.9; see n. 55 above. 67 Ibid. 1146 Randall B. Smith philosophy and the arts could serve as appropriate handmaids to this instrument of sacra doctrina. On this view, the goals the pagan philosophers sought after imperfectly are supplied by John’s Gospel in a more perfect fashion. Indeed, on this view, having read John’s Gospel, one can then return to the writings of the philosophers and comprehend them more excellently because those writings will then be understood finally within their proper context and directed toward their proper end. The philosophical pedagogy of the philosophers (natural philosophy, ethics, metaphysics) is now recast as propadeutic to sacred doctrine, and sacred doctrine becomes the guiding discipline, architectonic with regard to the others. The philosophical ascent to the First Truth now culminates in sacred doctrine, which is the privileged revelation of the Mind of God Himself. The perfecting Wisdom is the Word made flesh. The key to understanding Nature, Being, and Ethics is found in the Creator’s revelation of Himself in Christ. Who better is there to reveal the true nature of things, our proper place within the created world, and how best for humans to flourish than the Creator Himself? These considerations bring us back to the question I posed above: What should one set out to accomplish in an introduction or prologue? What would be involved in preparing a reader for the task of reading and reading well? The contemporary practice is to provide the reader with a detailed scholarly apparatus that provides the historical, biographical, and literary background to the text. Thomas’s approach, I have argued, was fundamentally protreptic in nature: it sought to help the reader to understand the value of the text by first understanding what it values and by exhorting the reader to enter into the spirit of the text. Good teachers know that students will not remember a text unless they take it seriously, and they will not take it seriously unless they consider it important. The first step in any pedagogical endeavor, then, is to show one’s students why a text to be read is important—indeed, important for one’s life. Dozens of modern studies on the “affective” dimensions of education suggest that students must “care” about educational material or they will not retain it. The object of knowledge must be “lit up,” as it were, by some sort of emotional connectedness. Each thing we come to know must have an emotional resonance that accompanies it or it will cease to be meaningful and its full significance will be lost. Often enough, these discrete bits of information will not even The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1147 be retained by the memory unless their overall “significance” is felt. “Signification” has an “affective”—that is to say, an “emotional”— component. Students who are not eager to learn and interested in what is being said will not learn, no matter how much information one tries to force into their eyes or ears. 68 What ancient and medieval scholars schooled in the arts of rhetoric and philosophical protreptic understood that we in the modern world often forget is that a necessary prerequisite for growth in wisdom when reading a text is a preparation of both the mind and the heart: a preparation of the soil, as it were, for the seeds to be planted there. An effective protreptic is one that calls the reader into a deeper engagement with the words of the speaker or the text, calling upon the reader to read as though what is being said might be crucially important for one’s life. The question we might ask is this: Is this sort of preparation for reading best done by giving the reader pages of historical, biographical, and textual background information? The issue for those schooled in classical rhetoric and acquainted with the ancient tradition of philosophical protreptic is whether, having read or heard the prologue of the book, I am more interested in reading the book, or less? Did I, for example, stop reading partway through the prologue or get so bored that I had no desire to read the book at all? That would be a shame and, to my mind, would suggest a poor sort of introduction. Professor Jordan concludes his article on protreptics with the following admonition: “Protreptics are just those works that aim The literature on this dimension of learning is capacious, and this is not the place to go into the details. But for a sample of the discussion and some of the results of research, the reader might glance at, for example: Robert Leamnson, Thinking About Teaching and Learning: Developing Habits of Learning with First Year College and University Students (Sterling, VA: Stylus, 1999), esp. 11–23 and 33–83; Shawn M. Glynn and Thomas R. Koballa, Jr., “Motivation to Learn College Science,” in Handbook of College Science Teaching ed. Joel J. Mintzes and William H. Leonard (Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association Press, 2006), 25–32. Many of the students who study educational theory are aware of “Bloom’s Taxonomy”—that is, Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive dimensions of learning: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Fewer are aware that this was only the first part of Bloom’s project and that he and his colleagues subsequently published another volume they viewed as equally crucial on the “affective” dimension of education: David R. Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom, and Bertam B. Masia, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook II: Affective Domain (New York: David McKay Company, 1964). 68 1148 Randall B. Smith to bring about the firm choice of a lived way to wisdom—however different the form of those works and their notions of wisdom might be.”69 “Each author confronts a hearer whose choice is the target of many other persuasions. The unity of the philosophic protreptic [as a genre]—and its great rhetorical interest—would seem to lie in this ‘exigence,’ in the hearer’s moment of choice before ways-of-life.”70 As Jordan also makes clear in his survey, protreptic texts can come in many different forms: stand-alone essays, parts of dialogues, epistles to friends or disciples, and even commentaries on the works of others. It would not be odd, then, given this background, for an author such as Thomas to use a prologue to a biblical commentary as a protreptic to the reading of Scripture, constructed in such a way as to produce a sense of the cognitive importance of the text to be read—as well as the overriding respect with which it should be approached—and serving as a bright guiding light to the students trained in philosophy now coming for the first time to sacred doctrine, expecting them perhaps to be something of an intellectual disappointment. So too, the goal of Thomas’s protreptic was to produce in his young philosophically trained listeners a certain “volitional or cognitive state [or both) at the moment of decision about a way-of-life.” “Will you enter into the serious business of reading this text,” he asks his listeners, in effect: “Are you open to the Word and to his sanctifying Spirit? Will you let this text change you in entirely unforeseen ways, by means of things not dreamt of in your philosophy? The choice now, dear students, is yours. Which path will you set out upon? The one John reveals, which is the way of Christ, the Word made flesh? Or the way of the pagan philosophers, who can teach you much, but bring you only so far and no further. They cannot make you a temple of God, filled with the majesty of God. They will not make you alter Christus. Will you choose Christ? Is He the means by which you will make the ascent to the Highest Principle of All Things and to your ultimate blessedness? Or will you opt for another route—a poorer one that will neither reveal the highest principles as clearly nor effect your union with them as surely?” Thomas’s protreptic appeal to his students in this prologue to embrace fully the serious study of Sacred Scripture contains, I would suggest, at least two important lessons for us as we approach our own highly educated university students. The first is that we, like St. Jordan, “Ancient Philosophic Protreptic,” 330. Ibid. 69 70 The Structure of Thomas’s Prologue to the Gospel of John 1149 Thomas and Pope St. John Paul II, must never cease to emphasize the notion that there can be no ultimate antagonism between the truths of faith and the truths of reason. They are, rather, complementary ways of the mind rising to the Truth, and the Truth is like the water flowing from above that nourishes the fertile soil of the human mind.71 The second, related lesson would be that we must be able to show our students once again, as Thomas did his, that the Scriptures are not merely the cultural artifacts of an outmoded age filled with pleasant stories for children. They are, quite the contrary, texts that have their source in the highest Wisdom that can communicate to those who have a clear mind and a generous spirit the world’s most profound truths. And thus they remain, even now, even in our ever-so-sophisticated age of modern philosophy and science, just as they were in Thomas’s ever-so-sophisticated age of philosophy and science, the surest guide to human life, human understanding, and N&V human happiness. The image of water flowing down from above nourishing the soil was suggested to me by Thomas’s use of the same image in his first principium address, the address in aula, whose thema verse was taken from Psalm 103:13: “Rigans montes de superioribus suis de fructu operum tuorum satiabitur terra [Watering the mountains from places above, the earth is sated with the fruit of your works].” For John Paul II’s most developed discussion of the relationship between faith and reason, consult his 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio (“On the Relationship Between Faith and Reason”). 71 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1151–1175 1151 “Partnership with God”: Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace Rudi A. te Velde Tilburg University Tilburg, NL Introduction: Natural Desire for the Supernatural? This essay is meant to contribute to the still continuing debate within contemporary Thomism on the theme of the natural desire for the vision of God, which was set off in 1946 with the publication of Henri de Lubac’s influential book Surnaturel.1 Recently, we witnessed a remarkable resurgence of the controversy about de Lubac with the publication of Lawrence Feingold’s The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters and the vehement attack on Feingold’s book by John Milbank in his The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concerning the Supernatural, which, in turn, evoked the informed defense of Feingold’s critical approach to de Lubac by Reinhard Hütter in his “Thomist Ressourcement”: A Rereading of Thomas on the Natural Desire for the Vision of God.2 These Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: Etudes historiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946). Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters (Rome: Apollinare Studi, 2001); John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005); Reinhard Hütter, “Desiderium Naturale Visionis Dei—Est autem duplex hominis beatitudo sive felicitas: Some Observations about Lawrence Feingold’s and John Milbank’s Recent Interventions in the Debate over the Natural Desire to See God,” Nova et Vetera (English) 5 (2007): 81–131. See also Hütter, “‘Thomist Ressourcement’—A Rereading of Thomas on the Natural Desire for the Vision of God,” in Dust Bound for Heaven: Explorations in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012). For a useful overview of the debate and more literature, see 1 2 1152 Rudi A. te Velde discussions prove that the position of de Lubac with regard to the natural desire still evokes controversy after more than a half century and that a reasonable consensus on this important issue within Thomism, and in Catholic theology at large, is lacking. Most Thomist interpreters would agree, I suppose, with attributing to Aquinas the notion of a natural desire of human creatures for God, specifically for knowing or seeing God in his essence.3 At the same time, we find in Aquinas the view that the vision of God is granted only by way of a supernatural gift; seeing God is something that exceeds the natural power (facultas naturae) of human beings. De Lubac apparently felt that this could be formulated only by way of a paradox: the soul is naturally open to the vision of God that, nevertheless, can be granted only supernaturally. In Surnatural, he states his position in the short formula “Natural desire for the supernatural,” and he adds to this the ominous statement that “most theologians who reject this formula, reject together with it the very doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas.”4 I am inclined to reject this formula, not so much because I think it is unmistakably false, but because it tends to conceal the aspect of discontinuity in the relationship between nature and grace (supernatural). There is a sense in which the natural desire (for the vision of God) is precisely not directed to the supernatural communion with God. The dimension of the “supernatural” refers to a promise of fulfillment nature could not have dreamt of. In other words, it is by reason of the “natural desire” that one is open (Aquinas would say capax) to something one can receive only as a (supernatural) gift; but this does not mean that the natural desire already “knows” of or expects such a gift. The natural desire does not function as a horizon of expectation. Aquinas typically stresses the novelty and the unexpectedness of what the gift of grace discloses for human longing.5 What one cannot find in Aquinas, in my opinion, is the suggestion Nicholas Healy, “Henri de Lubac on Nature and Grace: A Note on Some Recent Contributions to the Debate,” Communio 35 (Winter 2008): 535–64. 3 Cf. the remark made by Fergus Kerr: “Few now doubt that when Thomas taught that human beings have a natural desire for the vision of God he meant what he said” (“Quarrels about Grace,” in After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism [Oxford: Blackwell, 2002], 137). 4 De Lubac, Surnaturel, 431: “‘Désir naturel du surnaturel’: la plupart des théologiens qui repoussent cette formule, repoussent avec elle la doctrine même de saint Thomas d’Aquin.” 5 Cf. the classic passage in Isa 64:4, cited in the very first article of the Summa: “The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee.’ Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1153 that the world, as it were, is naturally waiting for the Gospel,6 as if the message of the Gospel is the true fulfillment of the common search of mankind through history for meaning and truth. In the debate surrounding de Lubac, the idea of the natural desire often functions in an apologetic way, as if nature is implicitly and unconsciously Christian in its deepest desires. What I want to do in this article is to look anew and with a fresh eye to Aquinas’s thoughts on the beatifying vision—the Christian answer to the question of human happiness—and what it means to say that such a vision is possible only by grace. In what follows, I will focus on the concept of grace, since it is important to see that grace is something more than merely an additional means to an end to which the ability of (human) nature does not reach; it also inaugurates the intersubjective relationship between God and the human being, their “partnership” in faith and love. Therefore, I will begin with the definition of grace in terms of a “participation in the divine nature.” The use of the term participation with respect to grace brings us, in the next section (“Grace as ‘Participation in the Divine Nature’”), to reflect on the essential difference between creation (participation in being) and the additional gift of divinization (deificatio). In a third section (“Some Aspects of the Relationship between Nature and Grace”), I will discuss some essential features of the relationship between nature and grace—not exhaustively, only insofar as required by the interpretation of Aquinas’s view concerning the twofold human happiness: on the one hand, the ultimate perfection that is proportionate to human nature, and on the other hand, the supernatural happiness of the promise of salvation and eternal bliss in God beyond the limits of human earthly existence. Finally, in the concluding section (“Natural Desire for God and the Twofold Happiness”), I will try to reconstruct the problem that Aquinas intends to solve by his doctrine of grace as participation in the divine nature. Grace as “Participation in the Divine Nature” In line with the patristic doctrine of deification, Aquinas assumes that grace confers to the human soul a divine-like (deiformis) character by which she is raised to a close kinship with God himself. Through grace, God effects a divinization of the human person, who becomes thereby a “partaker of the divine nature by way of a participated likeness.” In support of the thesis of grace as divinization, Aquinas often cites the This phrase is borrowed from Kerr, “Quarrels about Grace,” 135. 6 1154 Rudi A. te Velde well-known text from the second letter of Peter (1:4): “[God] has given us most great and precious promises, that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature.”7 The “partakers” in this text is read by Aquinas in the sense of “participation.” The gift of grace is “nothing else than a certain participation of the divine nature”; through grace man becomes “god-like,” a “god through participation” (Deus per participationem).8 According to this view of deification, grace entails a radical transformation of the soul into a new God-like mode of being. Among modern biblical scholars, the text of 2 Peter 1:4 is controversial because of its putative Hellenistic tone. For instance, Ernst Käsemann (a Lutheran theologian) has said of this text: “It would be hard to find in the whole New Testament a sentence which, in its expression, its individual motifs and its whole trend, more clearly marks the relapse of Christianity into Hellenistic dualism.”9 For him, “dualism” is clearly meant as a negative qualification that suggests a non-biblical view of salvation by escaping from this corruptible world to gain access to a higher incorruptible divine reality. Several attempts are being made to read 2 Peter 1:4 differently, not so much from “Greek” presuppositions, but rather in line with the relational thought of the Old Testament. For instance, looking for an alternative to the dualistic “Greek” reading, A. Wolters has proposed to read the passage in Peter from the perspective of the idea of “covenant” (see note 9). The phrase “partakers (koinonoi) in the divine nature” should be taken, then, in the sense of “partners of God.” In the new covenant founded by Christ, people are invited to become partners of God. Instead of the model of participation and its ontological dualism, a personal and relational way of interpreting grace within the relationship between God and man is proposed. According to the Vulgate version: “maxima et pretiosa nobis promissa donavit: ut per haec efficiamini divinae consortes naturae.” Cited in Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae [herafter, ST] I-II, q. 110, a. 3. Cites also other places: Summa contra gentiles [hereafter, SCG] IV, ch.4; ST I, q. 13, a. 9, ad 1; I-II, q. 50, a. 2; II-II, q. 85, a. 2, ad 1; Questiones disputate de anima, a. 7, ad 9. 8 ST I-II, q.112, a.1: “Donum gratiae . . . nihil aliud sit quam quaedam participation divinae naturae.” See also I-II, q. 62, a. 1; q. 110, a. 3; a. 4; Questiones disputate de anima, q. un., a. 7, ad 9. For the expression deus per participationem, see ST I-II, q. 3, a. 1, ad 1, and I, q. 13, a. 9. 9 Ernst Käsemann, “An Apologia for Primitive Christian Eschatology,” cited by A. Wolters, “‘Partners of the Deity’: A Covenantal Reading of 2 Peter 1:4,” Calvin Theological Journal 25 (1990): 28–44. For the debate around “divinization” in modern theology, see Fergus Kerr, “Deified Creaturehood,” in After Aquinas, 149–61. 7 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1155 I mention this controversy about the Hellenistic background of 2 Peter 1:4 because I think that, from Aquinas’s perspective, a relational reading is not necessarily opposed to the ontological concept of grace as “participation in the divine nature.” When he refers to the passage in 2 Peter 1:4 in developing the theological concept of grace, his intention is not exegetical; he is not trying to reconstruct the biblical understanding of grace on the basis of a meticulous exegesis of all the relevant texts. His definition of grace is a speculative concept in his own right and with an intelligible necessity of its own that does not stand in need of an independent biblical justification. Nevertheless, it finds a fitting confirmation in 2 Peter 1:4 in the same manner, for example, as the passage on the name of God in Exodus 3:15 confirms the metaphysical thesis of the identity of essence and existence in God.10 A speculative concept does not describe in a direct and concrete way the human experience of religious attitudes and relationships. There exists always a certain distance between the speculative language of theology (the “language of understanding”) and the experimental/confessional language of the Bible. So, if one wants to characterize the biblical view of grace in covenantal terms as a human–divine “partnership,” then the speculative approach of Aquinas consists in a reflective inquiry into the conditions under which the human being can be truly called “partner” of God. Now, for Aquinas, these conditions are not yet fulfilled by the fact alone that humans are “creatures” of God. The human being, considered precisely as a creature, is not yet in the position that it can be understood to be a “partner” of God. Under the heading of grace, Aquinas reflects on the conditions under which a personal community (convivium) between the human being (creature) and God (creator) is conceivable. Such a personal relationship with God is not yet implied in creation. Creation may be the necessary condition of the free revelatory communication of God according to his grace in the sense that grace requires a rational creature ordered to God as its end, but creation is not the sufficient condition of the realization of the full intersubjective sense of the man–God relationship. Grace is, therefore, something extra to (created) nature. Grace is thus added to nature, to what a creature essentially is in its ontological constitution. This means that the act of creation is presupposed to grace and that creation itself is not a matter of grace Cf. SCG I, ch. 22: ‘Hanc autem sublimem veritatem Moyses a Domino est edoctus . . . etc.’ 10 1156 Rudi A. te Velde (unless in the weakened sense that creation is not necessary but an act of divine generosity). On the part of God, therefore, one has to distinguish between two levels of activity, two ways in which God is active in relation to something else. The first is the act of creation through which God shares his Being with others (by way of participation), and the second is the act of grace through which God shares “Himself,” that is, to let others enter into the divine sphere. Grace is essentially an act of “sharing oneself,” an act of self-communication that constitutes a relation of friendship and of communion between the human being and God. It is through grace that God reveals himself to the human creature so that we may be led to the vision of God and may find our happiness in this most intimate union with God. Grace is a free initiative on the part of God by means of which the human being is established in a relationship with God. Grace has to do with God disclosing himself freely and letting himself to be known by the human creature. Aquinas expresses this in a precise and formal language: “No created intellect can see God through His essence except insofar as God conjoins Himself to the created intellect through His grace in order to be intelligible to it.”11 God can be known in himself only when he lets himself be known through grace, opens himself to the human intellect. Thus, grace means the free initiative of God to bring the human creature into a direct relationship with himself wherein he will show himself, according to the hope connected with faith, as he is.12 A structural similarity can be noticed in the way these two acts of God ad extra,13 creation and grace, are conceptualized by Aquinas. Both acts are conceived in terms of communicatio, which is the Neoplatonic term for the way a cause expresses itself in something else. Its basic meaning is not so much linguistic (personal) communication between human beings, but ontological: by causing something else, the cause may be said to share or to communicate its proper perfection to its effect, which bears, consequently, a likeness (similitudo) of the cause. The effect may be said to share a likeness of its cause, or to “participate” a likeness of that perfection that is origi ST I, q. 12, a. 4: “Non igitur potest intellectus creatus Deum per essentiam videre, nisi inquantum Deus per suam gratiam se intellectui creato coniungit, ut intelligibile ab ipso.” 12 Cf. 1 John 3:2: “Videbimus eum sicuti est.” 13 The operation of grace is, formally speaking, not ad extra, since it does not result in an effect distinguished from God. 11 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1157 nally and essentially present in the cause. The terms communicatio and participatio belong together, as they describe the one and same causal relationship, each from a different point of view. Now, how should we describe the difference between the communicatio of creation and that other form of communicatio according to grace? What is the reason of the difference in the twofold communication on the part of God? We may describe the gift of grace in a yet informal way as the free act of self-communication of God to the human creature. However, the act of creation can also be characterized as a form of “self-communication.” By creating beings of all kinds, God makes others to participate in the perfection he himself essentially is—namely, being (esse)—and in this way, things are created in a likeness of God. “Being” is the proper effect of God’s operation, and since the proper effect is the expression of the very nature of the cause, one must say that God’s nature consists in being: God is Ipsum Esse and, as such, the cause of the being of all things. Creation, therefore, can be regarded as a form of “self-communication,” since the creature has received everything it has from God and is, as a being, immediately related to God as its cause. Creation, however, is certainly not a form of “self-communication” if one understands thereby that the creature has received a part of the divine “self,” such that the creature is at least semi-divine in character. The creature is not divine; it is, as a being, really distinct from the divine being itself. Thus, one must say that, in creation, God does not communicate himself as himself, in its proper divinity, but as distinguished from God himself, thus in such a way that, in each creature, the identity of essence and being that defines God is negated in a determined manner. Because of this distinction between essence and being, each creature is precisely as a creature distinguished from God. This also means that God “in the singularity of his substance” remains hidden from the perspective of creation. The created world does not offer a transparent access to God himself. Now, characteristic for grace is that God communicates himself in his divinity and lets himself to be known to man as God. Under the formal denominator of grace, Aquinas takes into account the conditions under which a personal “communion” (convivium) between God and man is possible. Such a communion is, as such, not yet included in the relationship of creation. Although creation is an essential precondition of God’s free self-communication, God himself, in his essence, remains hidden behind his similitudo in creatures. Creation 1158 Rudi A. te Velde opens the realm in which an encounter and communion between God and man can take place. At the same time, that such an event of God disclosing himself to man actually takes place—thus opening the history of salvation in which mankind is drawn towards God—is, from the perspective of nature, a wholly unforeseeable and unexpected gift. Some Aspects of the Relationship between Nature and Grace Perhaps it is unnecessary to mention the fact that, in the case of grace, what is meant is always specifically Christian grace, the grace that comes to us by Christ’s work of salvation.14 Human beings find access to the saving grace of God through the life and deeds of Jesus Christ. This makes it the more remarkable that, in the Summa theologiae, Aquinas treats the subject of grace apart from and prior to the Christology in the tertia pars. The subject of grace is treated in the secunda secundae (I-II, qq.109–14), which is devoted to the practical-ethical life of man in the light of his movement toward God. The notion of grace is introduced here, in the systematic context of the secunda secundae, as one of the principles, next to law, by means of which God helps the human person in moving himself towards the good that is God.15 Grace is, thus, introduced as a form of divine assistance, enabling us to live a good life, informed by the divine love of charity. In this context the concrete and effective form of God’s grace in Christ’s work of salvation is set aside methodically. The focus here is on the essential idea of grace as enabling a relationship of the human being with God. From the perspective of this relationship, one must say, first, that only God is the effective principle of grace, and second, that the effect of grace consists in a union with God. As Aquinas says: “For just as it is impossible for anything to set fire but fire, so it has to be God alone to divinize, by sharing communion in the divine nature by means of a participative assimilation.”16 The gift of grace intends a divinization of the human creature by being elevated by God to a participation in God’s own life. The systematic place of “grace” is determined by its difference from “nature.” Their relationship is established by two axioms: first, grace presupposes nature (“gratio praesupponit naturam”), and Cf. ST III, q.22, a.1 Cf. the prologue of q. 90 of ST II-II: “Principium exterius movens ad bonum est Deus, qui et nos instruit per legem, et iuvat per gratiam.” 16 ST I-II, q. 112, a. 1: ‘Sic enim necesse est quod solus Deus deificet, communicando consortium divinae naturae per quandam similitudinis participationem, sicut impossibile est quod aliquid igniat nisi solus ignis.” 14 15 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1159 second, grace perfects nature, not destroys it (“gratia perficit naturam, non tollit”). As regards the first axiom, one must keep in mind that nature here means created nature, of which God is the principle and the end. Nature is not a neutral domain of things existing in their own right. Although nature is characterized by immanence, it is open to transcendence insofar as it has received its being from God. Nature is, therefore, essentially ordered to God as its end. As a correlate of grace, nature has, moreover, the restricted meaning of rational nature—thus human (or angelic) nature, which has the capacity to reflect upon itself and can become conscious of the origin of its being. As was said above, nature (creation) is the work of God, and it differs, however, from the work of grace. There is a discontinuity between nature and grace, in the sense that grace is something that is “superadded” to nature.17 Only in relation to created nature already existing in its own domain can God be a supernatural principle that orders (human) nature to an end beyond its natural competence. The question now arises of why the addition of “grace” is thought to be necessary if (human) nature is already a good work of God. Why the supplement of a grace by which man is enabled to do something beyond his natural means? One possible motive of grace consists in the restoration of what has been lost as a consequence of original sin. The good creation is damaged by sin and needs, therefore, the medicine of grace. It needs to be stressed, however, that, for Aquinas, the systematic meaning of grace does not consist primarily in being God’s answer to human sin. Even without sin, thus in supposition of the integrity of nature, grace is still needed to attain salvation. Why is that? The ultimate good of the visio Dei requires that God unites himself as knowable object with the human intellect (see note 11). Human beatitude is founded in a union with God (coniunctio ad Deum), and this union cannot be part of nature, part of a thing’s essential endowment (debitum naturae). The gift of grace consists in a certain divinization of man, which cannot, as such, be an effect of creation. This is not a defect of creation. The work of grace is not a supplement to creation is the sense that the work of creation would otherwise remain incom Compare the following text from In Boetii De trinitate, q. 3, a. 1, ad 2: “Deus in prima rerum conditione hominem perfectum instituit perfectione naturae, quae quidem in hoc consistit, ut homo habeat omnia quae sunt naturae debita. Sed supra debitum naturae adduntur postmodum humano generi aliquae perfectiones ex sola divina gratia, inter quas est fides, quae est ‘dei donum.’” 17 1160 Rudi A. te Velde plete. One must even say that God cannot make a creature that is united with him by nature, since, Aquinas argues, to become united with God in knowledge requires a divine power on the part of the creature. A creature cannot be deiformis other than by being raised by God beyond its creaturely condition to the level of God himself. Seeing God through his essence is properly a divine act, and as such, it exceeds the competence of any created (finite) nature (excedit facultatem naturae). It now becomes clear that there exists an essential difference between, on the one hand, the constitution of nature in its own order, of a creature in its natural being and operation, and, on the other hand, the elevation of the human being to the level of God himself, as being called to share the divine life of eternal bliss. It is a difference with respect to the communicatio Dei, God’s self-communication to others. An illuminating statement about this difference is to be found in the Commentary on the Liber de causis, where, in a Dionysian fashion, Aquinas distinguishes between the many gifts of creation (such as “being,” “life,” and “intelligence”) and the ultimate gift of divinization. The highest perfection of becoming God-like cannot be bestowed on rational creatures according to the “universal influence” of God’s power in the created effect, since it consists in being united with God himself (coniunctionem ad Deum). “But he [Dionysius] understands divinity only in virtue of the connection to God, not in virtue of the universal influence upon created things. For the former is more properly divine, because, in God himself what he himself is is greater than what he causes in other things.”18 As we see, the work of creation is itself not an effect of grace, but something that is presupposed to grace. If grace should be the absolutely free self-communication of God to man, then what is presupposed to this is human nature as something non-divine and not in itself already connected with God in faith and love. Grace cannot, therefore, be reduced in any way to the work of creation; it is a necessary supplement, not part of a thing’s nature. Now, if this is the case, one must apparently distinguish between God’s will with respect to creation and his will of grace. Aquinas indeed makes this distinction, right in the beginning of his treatise on grace in the Summa. God’s love, he says, is creative, and that means it is not a response to an already existing goodness, but produces the goodness of the object Commentary on the Book of Causes, trans. Vincent A. Guagliardo, O.P., Charles R. Hess, O.P., and Richard C. Taylor (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1996), 27. 18 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1161 of love. Well, one must say that God’s creative love is twofold: “One sort of love is a general love [dilectio communis] in accord with which God ‘loves all things that exist’ (Wis 11:25) and in accord with which he grants natural being on all things. The other sort of love is a special love [dilectio specialis] in accord with which God draws the rational creature beyond the status of his nature to a participation in the divine good.”19 Here “love” is used in its proper and full meaning, since with this love of grace, God wills for the human creature an eternal good, himself. Thus grace is first and foremost a sort of love or personal favor: God is said to love man beyond the condition of his nature and wants for him a supernatural good, himself; he wants him to share in his own divine life of eternal bliss. The fact of this twofold love of God raises, again, the question of the why of grace. What is grace good for? Why is it needed? Why can the natural desire of the human creature—which is a desire caused by God’s common love—not be the sufficient ground of its fulfillment in the beatifying encounter with God himself? Apparently nature has a limitation included. This limitation concerns its finiteness, not a defect of nature caused by sin or a shortcoming of God’s creative power, which should be then repaired by grace. The limitation of nature is nothing else than its finiteness, the fact that, in each creature, “being” is limited to a nature determined by species and genus. The consequence of this finiteness is that the human being cannot reach to God’s infinity through its natural powers. And this is why the rational nature of man is not the sufficient ground of the act of faith, which has as its object God himself. The conclusion must be that we have here an essential discontinuity between the orders of nature and of grace. From the perspective of nature, God is desired and loved, not “in person,” but as the common ground of the (natural) being of all things. The other principle says that nature is perfected by grace, not destroyed. Here the accent lies on the continuity between nature and grace. Thomas often speaks of grace in terms of an assistance (auxilium) whereby God helps the human creature in its movement toward ST I-II, q. 110, a. 1: “. . . differens consideratur dilectio Dei ad creaturam. Una quidem communis, secundum quam diligit omnia quae sunt, ut dicitur Sapientia 11, 25; secundum quam esse naturale rebus largitur. Alia autem est dilectio specialis, secundum quam trahit creaturam rationale supra conditionem naturae, ad participationem divini boni. Et secundum hanc dilectionem dicitur aliquem diligere simpliciter: quia secundum hanc dilectionem vult Deus simpliciter creaturae bonum aeternum, quod est ipse.” 19 1162 Rudi A. te Velde the good and the end. The concept of grace presupposes a teleological interpretation of nature, an intrinsic finality that is systematically conceptualized under the heading of providence. The exercise of divine providence has two modalities, first by way of God working immanently in the operations of all things, and second in a special way with regard to the rational creature, which is not only passively moved but moves itself through reason and free will to its end. In the case of human rational creatures, the providential governance of God takes up a special form adapted to the natural perfection of their rationality, as well as to the dignity of their end.20 As regards the dignity of their end, human creatures reach the ultimate end, which is God, through their own operation of knowing and loving God, while other non-rational creatures move to their end by way of assimilation. The special governance with respect to man consists in law and grace: in order to enable us to direct our lives to the good, God instructs us by the law and helps us by grace. Through grace, God strengthens the human will with the virtues of charity and hope, and his intellect with the virtue of faith, so that man actually can attain the good of “eternal life” to which he is “predestined.”21 It is clear that grace must be understood as an instrument of God’s predestining providence. The complex relationship between nature and grace is marked by an aspect of continuity, as well as of discontinuity. In view of the ongoing controversy on the natural desire for God, it appears to be difficult to find the right balance between continuity and discontinuity. The emphasis on the aspect of continuity leads, for instance, to de Lubac’s position of the “natural desire for the supernatural.” It is as if human nature is imprinted with a fundamental desire that is already ordered (predestined?) to the end of the vision of God.22 In See SCG III, ch. 111. “Predestination” falls under the general category of providence (pars providentiae), but as applied in the order of grace. By predestination, God orders the rational creature to the (supernatural) end of eternal life (see ST I, q. 23, a. 1). 22 Nicholas Healy has formulated this question as follows: “Is there a supernatural finality imprinted on our nature, prior to grace?” (“Henri de Lubac on Nature and Grace,” 548). What is meant may be more or less clear, but one should realize that this formulation is completely unintelligible from the perspective of Aquinas. What is called ‘supernatural’ cannot be, by definition, included in our nature; and we cannot have something supernatural prior to grace, because grace consists precisely in the gift of a supernatural principle. As happens often, 20 21 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1163 this case, nature is understood as, by itself, already ordered to an end that can be attained only through supernatural grace. Nature, then, seems to be equipped with a finality that, paradoxically, exceeds the active power of that nature. This is problematic because of the consequence that supernatural grace will become a requirement of nature, since, without grace, the finality of nature would fail. The opponents of de Lubac are unified in their fear that his position jeopardizes the gratuity of God’s grace. By saying A (creation, natural desire for beatitude), God would be obliged, as it were, to say B (grace, supernatural fulfillment of human desire for God). But putting the emphasis on the aspect of discontinuity will not help to find the right balance. It can easily be a return to the unsatisfying traditional two-story model of nature and grace, treating grace in relation to nature as essentially extrinsic and adventitious. The story is well-known: while Thomas writes, quite innocently and without problem, that there is a natural desire to see God, the Thomists of the sixteenth century, following Cajetan, argued that this natural desire to see God presupposes already the effect of grace on the finality of nature. So they assumed an already supernaturally graced desire. The underlying (Aristotelian) principle is that a strictly natural desire, according to Cajetan, does not extend beyond the capacity of nature (“naturale desiderium non se extendit ultra naturae facultatem”).23 Nature must be sufficient to itself as regards its natural finality. There is no doubt that Thomas taught that human beings have a natural desire for the vision of God. Knowing the essence of God in itself is what fulfills the desire of the human rational nature, since the desire concerns the full perfection of the intellect according to its proper object, “truth” (or “being”). In other words, only the many problems in the debate on grace are created by ill-conceived and sloppy formulations. 23 Compare Robert Spaemann’s excellent summary of the consequences of Cajetan’s principle that the desire of human nature must be proportionate to nature: “The thought of a ‘desiderium naturale,’ which points in nature beyond nature, would, according to the theologians of the sixteenth century, make salvation a right, and grace would cease to be a gift. The consequence of this was that one superimposed a hypothetical purely natural destiny of man, a ‘finis naturalis,’ onto the actual destiny given in salvation history; and thus the fateful construction of a ‘natura pura’ came into being. God, so the theory goes, could have created man also “in puris naturalibus.” The destiny of salvation is purely accidental in relation to human nature” (Philosophische Essays [Stuttgart: Reclam, 1983], 26–27; English translation in Healy, “Henri de Lubac on Nature and Grace,” 543). 1164 Rudi A. te Velde vision of the absolute essence can fulfill adequately the openness of the human intellect for truth and being. But, from this, one cannot conclude—and this is essential—that human beings are, in a concrete and factual sense striving, moved by their natural desire to reach the vision of God from the formal perspective as beatifying object (ut obiectum beatitudinis), knowingly or not. The thesis of the natural desire abstracts from the issue of how the ultimate end of the vision of God may be in fact attained. This is the reason why the formula “natural desire for the supernatural” is ill-conceived and not sufficiently thought through. Natural Desire for God and the Twofold Happiness Consistently and throughout all his writings, Aquinas distinguishes between two forms of human happiness. The ultimate good of human beings is twofold, he says. On the one hand, there is the “happiness” the (non-Christian) philosophers have in view—that is, the ultimate good of man as proportioned to his nature and to which his natural powers correspond (fines connaturalis). This happiness consists, according to Aristotle, in the contemplation of the truth as far as it is possible in this life. On the other hand, we have the happiness about which the Christian religion speaks—that is, the promise of salvation and eternal bliss in God beyond the limits of human earthly existence. The happiness as understood by Christians consists in the beatifying vision of God himself, according to the 1 John: “We shall see God as he is” (3:2). For man, to attain this ultimate good exceeds his natural powers, and thus, an additional principle (grace) is required by which he is ordered to the supernatural end (finis supernaturalis). Perfect human happiness consists in being united with God in knowledge and love. This happiness is not merely something of the eschatological future; already in this life, through the theological virtues of hope, faith, and love, man is united with God in an anticipatory way (inchoative). The distinction of a twofold “ultimate good,” one of which apparently is not wholly “ultimate,” is not easy to understand and raises several questions. What Aquinas certainly does not mean is to distinguish between two factual forms of life, a Christian form of life versus a non-Christian form of life based exclusively on (human) nature and its intrinsic possibilities. It seems to me that he is not really interested in the alternative of a secular way of life apart from the Christian revelation. His starting point is not so much “nature” taken as prior to historical revelation in order to show its possible receptivity to the event of the “supernatural.” Thomas starts, rather, with the doctrine Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1165 of Christian faith stating that perfect human happiness consists in the vision of God. The essential question to be asked is then not so much whether human happiness in fact consists in the vision of God’s essence, but rather, how to argue for its truth. The approach can be described as follows: given the fact that, as we (Christians) hold in faith, the ultimate end of man consists in the vision of God (still independently of the question of whether grace is required in order to attain this end), how can we understand this truth? In other words, how can we deduce from the dynamism of human (intellectual) nature that the ultimate perfection of such an intellectual nature must be understood to consist in the perfect knowledge of the absolute essence? This, what I call “intellectual dynamism,” is what the phrase “natural desire” refers to.24 In the beginning of the prima secundae, we see Aquinas arguing, step by step, that human happiness must be understood to consist essentially in the vision of the divine essence (q. 3), and this prior to the issue of how this happiness may be in fact attained, per naturalia or by supernatural grace (q. 5, a. 5).25 Given human nature, and given the teleological drive of that nature (its appetitus for knowledge), the ultimate perfection of the human being cannot consist in something other than in the perfect knowledge of the absolute (divine) essence. This deduction of the human perfect good is, in its essential structure, based on Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia in book 10 of the Nicomachean ethics. According to Aristotle in book 10, perfect happiness consists in the bios theoretikos, the philosophical life of contemplation. The best way of living for man, Aristotle says, is the philosophical life dedicated to the best part of man, his intellect (nous), which is something divine in man. For, if the proper and best part of the human soul is the thinking part, the intellect, then it follows that the human perfect good is to be found in the excellent activity of the intellect: knowing the truth about reality. The philosophical life of the intellect is a way of life that transcends, to a certain extent, the body and bodily needs. It is as if the Cf. the opening sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: “All men by nature desire to know.” 25 Although Aquinas acknowledges a natural desire for the vision of the divine essence, this should not be understood as a “natural desire for the supernatural” (de Lubac). This whole formula is ill-conceived. If one speaks of the “vision of the divine essence” as being the highest form of knowledge that adequately fulfills the openness of the human mind (see ST I-II, q. 3, a. 8), the requirement of grace is not yet part of it. 24 1166 Rudi A. te Velde philosopher seeks to become pure intellect, undisturbed by the vicissitudes and necessities of bodily life. The so-called self-sufficiency (autarkeia), which is a defining feature of eudaimonia, is most of all found in the contemplative activity of the intellect. The wise man, more than any other, transcends the needy and dependent condition of mankind; contemplating the truth is he perfectly satisfied and sufficient unto himself. The almost superhuman character of the happiness of theoretical life raises an objection: would such a life not be too high for man? “For it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him” (Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics 10.1177b29). To this traditional warning against human hubris, Aristotle responds with an appeal to go for the highest: “We must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us.” (1177b34). This famous passage on the bios theoretikos demonstrates the fundamental dualism of Greek philosophy and its understanding of human nature. In many respects, man is un-free and dependent: as a bodily creature, he is not self-sufficient, but stands in need of food, shelter, and other external goods. He is a mortal creature and exists, as such, far below the immortal gods who live their happy life of undisturbed contemplation. The ideal of the bios theoretikos seems unattainable for the fragile and mortal beings we are. For Aristotle, however, we must go, as far as possible, for the immortal life and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us, for even if it be small in quantity, much more does it surpass everything in power and worth. For Aristotle, the happiness of theoretical life implies, thus, that we must try to transcend our bodily and needful mode of existence. Man is body and spirit: the ultimate perfection of man consists in the full actualization of this spirit—that is, of his intellect—as far as possible considering the limits imposed by the body. This Aristotelian conception of (theoretical) happiness is discussed by Aquinas in article 6 of the Summa question on human beatitude, where it is asked whether “beatitude consists in the contemplation of the speculative sciences.”26 From this answer, it becomes clear that this happiness of philosophical wisdom must be understood as rela ST I-II, q. 3, a. 6 (“utrum beatitudo consistat in consideratione scientiarum speculativarum”). 26 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1167 tive to the human being as embodied spirit, since the human search for wisdom is intrinsically restricted by the condition of the senses. This is why the happiness of wisdom cannot be the true and perfect happiness. It represents an imperfect happiness, a certain participation of the perfect happiness.27 For the human being, this imperfect happiness of philosophical wisdom is something to strive after; for the angel, however, being an intellectual creature without body, this happiness is his realized possession (aliquid naturae). This is important because it means that the connatural happiness of human (or angelic) creatures belongs to the order of (finite) nature itself. Given the finite determinedness of nature, the difference in the twofold happiness will follow logically from it, one according to nature (aliquid naturae), the other beyond nature ( finis naturae).28 Aquinas’s anthropology is more complex than the body–soul dualism of Greek philosophy. For him, man is not only embodied spirit, a spiritual soul that is the form of the body ( forma corporis), but also finite spirit, created in its being by God. The human soul transcends the material body insofar as it has a spiritual/intellectual nature, but even in this respect, as an immaterial substance, it has still a cause of its being. Here we see the ontological difference between materiality and finiteness. The human spirit, in search of its perfection as an intellectual being, may try, as much as possible, to transcend its body (and bodily needs), but it still remains a finite creature, as the angel is, susceptible of a perfection in which its nature as such ( finis naturae) finds its fulfillment in God, as a principle on which the whole of nature depends. This means that, for Aquinas, the Greek happiness of philosophical contemplation does not reach further than the finite realm of the world. Medieval ontology allows for more degrees of reality than Aristotle’s dualistic ontology. According to the latter, one must distinguish between the corporeal reality of nature, on the one hand, and the eternal reality of the divine, which is pure form, on the other. Being is composed either of matter and form or of merely form. The Aristotelian deity is, in this sense, pure form, form without matter. “Divine” is, then, a qualification of a mode of existence that tran Ibid.: “. . . consideratio scientiarum speculativarum est quaedam participatio verae et perfectae beatitudinis.’ 28 See ST I ,q. 62, a. 1: “Sed ultimam beatitudinem, quae facultatem naturae excedit, angeli non statim in principio suae creationis habuerunt: quia haec beatitudo non est aliquid naturae, sed naturae finis” (emphasis added). 27 1168 Rudi A. te Velde scends the changeability and contingency of corporeal reality. The divine is permanent, without change, and self-sufficient. In medieval ontology, however, the status of “pure form” is attributed to the angels, spiritual beings that are part of creation and, therefore, dependent for their being on God. Aquinas follows Aristotle in his formal deduction of the nature of human happiness. For him, too, happiness must consist in the theoretical operation of the intellect with respect to that intelligible object in which the natural dynamics of the intellect finds complete fulfillment. The object capable of fulfilling completely the intellectual desire for truth must be the absolute essence itself, the essence of the first cause of the whole of reality. From the transcendental—that is, unrestricted—character of the intellectual openness for truth, we can deduce that our intellect comes to rest only in the knowledge of the absolute essence. This is the argument based on the “natural desire.” In the recent debate on de Lubac’s legacy, the notion of “natural desire” often functions in a different sense. It is taken in the sense of a concrete active tendency of human beings in their natural condition, prior to grace—an innate desire for the beatific vision, according to some, or only a desire for God under a natural respect, according to others.29 In both cases, “natural desire” is taken to mean that people in their concrete existence long and strive toward God, whether or not identified as such. Aquinas, however, does not reason from (concrete) nature to (Christian) grace. On the contrary, he goes from the fact to the intelligibility of the fact: given the fact that, according to Christian faith, perfect happiness consists in the vision of God, how then can we understand that this must be the case? We see, with Aristotle, that all men naturally desire to know. Since an effect is known through its cause, there still is a desire for knowledge as long as there remains something to know about the causes of reality. Only when we know the essence of the first cause will the desire of the intellect come to rest.30 The way in which perfect happiness (of knowing the divine essence) can be achieved depends on the divine assistance of grace. This next step introduces a new theological element that is absent The precise point of disagreement between the party of de Lubac and his opponents such as Feingold, Hütter, and Long, is formulated by Healy as follows: “Is there a supernatural finality imprinted on our nature, prior to grace?” (“Henri de Lubac on Nature and Grace,” 548). 30 See ST I-II, q. 3, a. 8. 29 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1169 in Aristotle. The path of philosophical wisdom appears to be not sufficient to bring the intellectual desire to its complete fulfillment. The reason is that the fundamental distinction between the finite realm of creation and the infinite being of God cannot be bridged through the finite powers of man himself. The beatitude of “eternal life” consists in, so to say, the “lively” connection of the finite with the infinite, and this connection cannot be effected by the powers of (finite) nature itself. What is needed is a supernatural principle—that is, grace—by which the human spirit is raised beyond its natural ability to the knowledge and love of God himself. Within the realm of (human) nature, the full perfection consists in the philosophical contemplation of the truth, as conceptualized by Aristotle in his Ethics. But this kind of happiness is still imperfect, since its falls short of the complete fulfillment of the intellect’s desire in the knowledge of the divine essence. So, there are two kinds of happiness: the natural happiness of the philosophical life and the perfect mode of happiness that connects finite human life with its infinite source in God himself and, therefore, requires a supernatural assistance on the part of God. Grace as Participation of the Divine Nature The debate around de Lubac and his Surnatural has not only to do with the problem of finding the right balance between “on the one hand” and “on the other hand,” between the intrinsic finality of human nature for God and the absolute gratuity of grace. There is something in grace itself that is responsible for what seems to be a structural tension in any sound theological account of grace. Grace is a form of love between unequal partners: it is out of love that God does want to draw man to himself, to let him share in the good of eternal life, so that he may not get lost in the finiteness of human existence, enclosed in itself by the fact of death, but without thereby jeopardizing the divinity of God and the humanity of man. It is through grace that God intends to bring the human creature into a direct and intimate relationship with himself: man is drawn into God, into the inner life of God. Can this properly be thought without in some way acknowledging the immense risk for God, as well as for man, involved in this supernatural “adventure”? God and man are extremely unequal beings: the one creator, the other a creature. How could they become “partners”? A relationship of friendship and love requires some sort of equality between the friends, as Aristotle knew so well. They must able to love each other and return their mutual gift of love in a free manner. God’s special 1170 Rudi A. te Velde love (of grace) for man is, therefore, extremely risky. In a certain sense, man is not able, by himself, to respond to his love; he must be prepared by God, by God’s grace, so that he can love God (with the love of charity) through his own voluntary act and, at the same time, an act of such a love in which God can recognize himself, a love that attains to God in himself. Only a love that is really divine can be recognized by God. Can, then, a creature love God in such a manner that it attains to God himself? God must assimilate man to himself, make him “divine-like,” but in such a way that the human response to God’s love must be a free response. The vision of God, it became clear, is itself something divine, something of which no other being than God alone is capable.31 For a human being, it cannot be a connatural goal. He only can be called for it, predestined by God’s elective love causing in the human soul a dignity and perfection that transcends his status as creature. Through grace, man is granted access to the community with God, sharing the good of divine life itself, which is, as such, not a connatural good and, thus, not a desirable good from the perspective of his nature. Here we see emerging the decisive point of Thomas’s account of grace. The vision of God is connatural only to God himself, since it requires a divine nature. For it to become a “connatural” end for man, either he must receive a new nature—but then he is not human any more—or he must, while retaining his human nature, receive somehow an additional nature that makes him akin to God. Thomas formulates this as follows: “by the nature of his soul [man] participates in God’s nature, in accord with a certain likeness, by being in a way generated or created again [per quandam regenerationem sive recreationem].”32 Because of this new (participated) nature, we are said to be generated again as “sons of God.” Only by participating in God’s nature but nevertheless remaining human is man able to exercise the divine act of the vision of God. But why exactly does the nature of the human soul need to receive in itself a sort of additional nature? Why use these strong words of what is almost a new creation? Let us try to explain this by starting from the will. The human will, Thomas says, is not by nature sufficiently ordered to God as object of beatitude. In order to convert itself to God (in the specific sense: ut obiectum beatitudinis), the will Cf. SCG III, ch. 52: ‘Videre autem Deum per ipsam essentiam divinam est proprium naturae divinae.’ 32 ST I-II, q. 110, a. 4. 31 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1171 must be converted by a supernatural principle. Only when God converts the human soul to himself can man freely convert himself toward God, because his will is now, so to say, “empowered” in a way it was not before. At issue here is the fundamental finiteness of created nature: no creature can, by its own power, rise above its creaturely condition to the level of the Creator himself. Through grace, man is raised beyond his status as a creature to the level of God himself so as to become a “child of God,” a member of God’s family, as it were. Through grace, man is endowed with certain supernatural principles of operation over and above his natural powers. God “infuses” into man some forms or qualities by which he is able to perform certain acts ordered to the supernatural good of eternal life. These additional principles of operation are called “theological virtues”: hope, faith, and love (charity). They are virtues: they dispose the human subject to act well in relation to a certain end and good. By infusing the intellect with faith and the will with hope and love, God enables the human person to act in relation to God himself. An act of charity, for instance, proceeds from the corresponding virtue that is an intrinsic form of the will, enabling the will to move itself to its act and, thus, to be master of its act instead of being moved by an extrinsic agent. For Thomas, it is not enough for the human will to be moved (by the presence of the Holy Spirit in the soul) to love God: it must move itself to love God. Now, by the virtue of faith, the human intellect is enlightened so that it comes to know some truths about God that lay outside the reach of the light of natural reason. By the virtues of hope and love, the human will acquires an inclination to the supernatural good to which its natural inclination is not sufficiently ordered. One may say that the theological virtues inform and empower the human intellect and will beyond their natural range; they give man an additional power of knowing and willing with regard to a good that does not lie within the reach of his nature and that, therefore, is not a desirable good in relation to his nature. This latter point sounds quite paradoxical: the infused virtues do not dispose the faculties of intellect and will in relation to a good that suits human nature! Acting according to human virtues makes the subject a good human person. But the theological virtues are, strictly speaking, not human virtues:33 they do not perfect man in relation to his human nature. Because the theological virtues are not human virtues and do not dispose man toward a good corresponding Cf. Questiones disputate de caritate, q. un., a. 2, ad 15. 33 1172 Rudi A. te Velde to human nature, Thomas thinks it necessary to posit a “participated divine nature” in the human soul in addition to the essential nature, a nature in relation to which the infused virtues can be understood to be virtues, making man act in accordance with his divinely transformed nature. While the human virtues are “dispositions whereby a man is fittingly disposed with reference to the nature whereby he is a man, the infused virtues dispose man in a higher manner and towards a higher end, and consequently in relation to some higher nature— that is, in relation to a participation [in him] of the divine nature.”34 This is also why Thomas thinks it is important to distinguish between the gift of grace and the virtues that proceed from grace. While the infused virtues are located in the potencies of the soul—they are habits of knowing and willing in a certain way—the (created) quality of grace itself is located in the very essence of the soul. Grace is prior to the infused virtues in the same way that the essence is prior to the potencies that flow from the essence. In the following passage, Aquinas summarizes his view concerning grace and the infused virtues characteristically in terms of participation: “For as man in his intellective power participates in the divine knowledge through the virtue of faith, and in his power of will participates in the divine love through the virtue of charity, so also in the nature of the soul does he participate in the divine nature, after the manner of a likeness.”35 The reason for Aquinas to speak here of “participation” is that he wants grace to be an immanent principle, an inherent form or quality, a likeness of God in the creature through which God moves the human person in such a way that he moves himself—suaviter et prompte—toward attaining the good of eternal life.36 Conceived in terms of participation, the virtues of faith and of charity by which God lets man know and love himself are not meant to be a sort of detour through which God ultimately knows and loves himself via the human soul. The human soul does not remain passive under its transformation by the grace of God. Rather, through participation, the soul receives a form by which the human person is able to perform ST I-II, q. 110, a. 3: “Virtutes autem infusae disponunt hominem altiori modo, et ad altiorem finem: unde etiam oportet quod in ordine ad aliquam altiorem naturam. Hoc autem est in ordine ad naturam divinam participatam.” 35 ST I-II, q. 110, a. 4. 36 Cf. ST I-II, q. 110, a. 2: “Illis quos movet ad consequendum bonum supernatural aeternum, infundit aliquas formas seu qualitates supernaturales, secundum quas suaviter et prompte ab ipso moveantur ad bonum aeternum consequendum.” 34 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1173 the (divine) act of knowing and loving God really by himself, as proceeding freely from himself. They are acts of the human self as transformed and renewed by grace. The concrete interplay between God’s gracious initiative and the free human response is very complex and difficult to analyze. There is no question of God doing one thing and man doing his part as a sort of cooperation. In this regard, Aquinas’s subtle analysis of the process of conversion is telling. Conversion, in the religious sense of the word, may be described as a free response on our part to God’s offer of friendship and love; it has the structure of responding to a call, of saying “yes, I come.” To start a friendship among equal human partners is often difficult enough, not to mention a friendship among such unequal partners as the human being and God. The initiative must clearly come from God’s side. It is his invitation, wanting to share his own divine life with others, with human beings. But how can a human person respond freely to this divine initiative of grace? If God decides to direct a human person to himself as object of beatitude, it will happen infallibly. God liberates anyone he wants to liberate in a most certain way. How then can a human person respond freely if he cannot frustrate the divine will? For Aquinas, turning toward God must be a free act of the will by which man freely chooses to abide in the good that God offers to him. In cannot be a matter of God moving the human soul toward himself apart from the free act of the will by which man moves himself towards God. But at the same time, this free response of the human will is made possible by God’s grace. God is not like a creature waiting with respect for the free decision of another creature. Only God can make our will to will freely without violence or force. In other words, man cannot open himself freely toward God (as object of his beatitude) without God opening this freedom towards Him. The conditions of beginning a human–divine friendship are, thus, very complex. Without a free response by the human partner, there cannot be a mutual relationship of friendship, but the divine partner must found the conditions (that is, the communication of a likeness of his nature) under which a free human response to God’s invitation can take place. In analyzing the interaction between God’s gracious initiative and the free human response, Aquinas distinguishes three subsequent stages in the conversion of the will.37 First, in order to receive the See ST I, q. 62, a. 2: “Triplex est conversio in Deum.” 37 1174 Rudi A. te Velde gift of grace (donum habituale) the human will must convert itself to God. It must open itself so as to receive the gift of grace from God. But the will cannot convert itself to God unless it is converted by God’s drawing the human will toward himself, according to the well-known text from Lamentations: “Convert us, O Lord, to Thee, and we shall convert ourselves.”38 Second, having received from God the gift of grace, the human person is able to convert himself by his own free act to God in virtue of the intrinsic quality of grace he has received. This voluntary act of conversion by which the human being directs himself to the (supernatural) good that is God makes him worthy of supernatural beatitude (meritum beatitudinis). The voluntary conversion toward God by which man merits the good of eternal life requires the gift of grace, since it is only by a free will informed by grace that a human person can perform meritorious acts, acts that make him worthy of the supernatural good of eternal life. Grace cannot consist only in God’s externally moving the human soul toward himself; it must also entail a gift of God (donum habituale)— that is, a created quality in the soul by which the human being is able to move himself, as through an intrinsic principle, towards God. Finally, the ultimate conversion of the will is that of the perfect love whereby man fully enjoys God. “Triplex est conversio in Deum”: the conversion by which man prepares himself for the gift grace, the conversion by which the will informed by grace, moves itself voluntarily towards God, and the conversion by which the will enjoys eternal life in God and becomes beatus, which is the reward for the meritorious acts. This subtle analysis of the different roles the human and the divine actor play within the conversio of man toward God shows nicely See ST I-II, q. 109, a. 6, ad 1: “Conversio hominis ad Deum fit quidem per liberum arbitrium; et secundum hoc homini praecipitur quod se ad Deum convertat. Sed liberum arbitrium ad Deum converti non potest nisi Deo ipsum ad se convertente.” In confirmation of his (anti-Pelagian) claim that man cannot open himself to God unless insofar as opened by God’s grace, Thomas cites two texts from the Old Testament, one from Jeremiah—31: 18; “Converte me, et convertar: quia tu Dominus Deus meus”—and the other from Lamentations (5:21): “Converte nos, Domine, a te, et convertemur.” The translation of the English Dominicans misses the point; it renders the convertemur in a passive voice (“we shall be converted”), while Thomas reads it in a medium voice (“God lets me convert myself towards Him”). More references to the passage from Lamentations appear in De veritate, q. 24, a. 15, ad 1; SCG III, ch. 149; ST I, q. 62, a. 2, ad 3; q. 23, a. 5; Quodlibet I, q. 4, a. 2, sc 1. 38 Thomas Aquinas on Human Desire and God’s Grace 1175 how sensitive Aquinas is in describing the human–God relationship in a noncompetitive way. One almost wants to speak here of God respecting human freedom, only the word “respect” does not express properly the (re)creative presence of God’s grace in the human soul, enabling the will to respond freely to God. Grace enables a form of love/friendship between unequal partners. As we said above, it is out of love that God wants to draw man to himself, inviting him to the good of eternal life, but without thereby jeopardizing the divinity of God or the humanity of man. To this supernatural good of eternal life man has no natural prerogative. Thanks to his intellectual nature he is capax of it, but entering actually into this relationship with God N&V requires an inner transformation through grace. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1177–1207  1177 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life1 Oliver Treanor Pontifical University Maynooth, Ireland The Eucharist, which is the principle of the Church’s regeneration in every age, is also the heart of priestly vocation. It is doubly appropriate, therefore, to consider the significance of the Eucharist afresh: what we do as priests when we offer Mass; what we believe about it; what it means to us; what it means for “being parish.” If we are to make the Mass a regenerating experience in the challenging situation ahead, we have to rediscover its vitalizing goodness for ourselves— constantly, over and over again. And as we do so day by day, Sunday by Sunday, through the course of the rich and fruitful liturgical year, the Eucharist will unfold its own plan for us as intended by Christ. For, when we celebrate the Eucharist well, we are mysteriously transformed by it—we and our parish communities—since it is here, in this perfect act of worship, that Christ “draws us into himself ”2 and makes us his own possession. It is a universal fact of faith that the Mass reshapes and transforms the community it creates. It breathes life into our sense of Church. It changes the nonevent of “being merely present” into the deeply satisfying experience of sharing bodily with others in Christ—no This essay was delivered by Oliver Treanor at the time of his recent retirement from the theology faculty of the Pontifical University, Maynooth, to the Presbyterate of Down and Connor at their Diocesan Priests’ Conference. 2 Pope Benedict XVI, Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of the Church’s Life and Mission, Sacramentum Caritatis (2007), §70. 1 1178 Oliver Treanor longer just “one in a crowd,” but “members of the same family” that is Christ’s own. Feeding our need for meaningful fellowship, good liturgy makes us part of a network of relationships constantly strengthened by hearing God’s word and receiving Christ’s body,3 constantly invigorated by giving thanks to the Father in the power of his Holy Spirit. Over time, this experience becomes a vibrant part of the Catholic lifestyle of the parish, of offering ourselves and everything we do as a sacrifice of praise and gratitude to God in Christ. And as the Eucharistic nature of our life continues to take shape across the years—in our families, our schools, our hospitals, our rest homes—we will find that the actual community the Eucharist effects will protect and perfect that root instinct for belonging we so cherish and call “the parish,” even when we have to redraw pastoral areas and amalgamate with neighboring flocks of our Catholic faithful. Thus, I am going to consider a few key ideas to help us look at this program for renewal, developing the reflection under three headings: (1) the Priest and the Eucharist; (2) the Eucharist in itself; and (3) the Eucharist, Sunday, and the Parish. The Priest and the Eucharist. The question is sometimes asked: “What exactly does the priest do as a priest?” What is his essential task, given that much of his time is taken up with services that people from other walks of life also offer? He is not a social worker, though he may do social work, or a schoolteacher, though he visits schools and even takes class. He is neither a sports manager nor a youth leader, though he sometimes sets up sports teams, accompanies pilgrimages, supports the local youth club, and so on. Fundamentally, he is summoned to gather God’s children into the kingdom. Another way of putting this is to say that he is commissioned to announce the Gospel, since it is through the proclamation of the Good News that the people of God are assembled and formed into the kingdom. Indeed, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, this is the priest’s first task.4 Hence, priests are never merely “qualified professionals.” We are called to this work that is entrusted to us as a sharing in Jesus’s messianic mission by sharing in his priestly personhood. We are ordained to this service, commissioned and sent as apostolic delegates by the Holy Spirit. This is why we are rightly thought of (like Jesus was) as spiritual fathers, shepherds, and pastors of eternal life. Ibid., §76. Second Vatican Council, Presbyterorum Ordinis, §5. 3 4 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1179 Although the preaching of the Gospel is our primary work, it is neither the central function of priestly ministry nor its principal task. That privilege is reserved to the celebration of the Eucharist. Vatican II states: “[The ministration of priests,] which begins with the announcement of the Gospel, draws its force and power from the sacrifice of Christ and tends to this, . . . which in the Eucharist is offered through the priests’ hands in the name of the whole Church” so that their entire ministry “is directed to this and finds its consummation in it.”5 This is because “the Eucharist is the source and summit of all preaching of the Gospel, . . . [since] the other sacraments and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate are bound up with the Eucharist and directed towards it,” given that, “in the most blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself.”6 It is at Mass, therefore, that the point of the gathering and evangelizing is made clear: to offer to God the spiritual sacrifices of the congregation in union with that of Christ, thereby completing the oblation of his body, the Church.7 Catholic faith believes that, at the Lamb’s Eucharistic feast, the ongoing grace of salvation runs its saving course dynamically through history, sanctifying time itself and sanctifying all who form Christ’s one body. In every Mass, indeed, the entire creation is gathered up under Christ’s headship, is placed under God’s kingly rule and power by insertion into his Son’s eternal self-giving to the Father in the heart of the Trinity. Without the ordained, this could not happen. For, they are coredemptive collaborators with and in the one Redeemer, acting in nomine Ecclesiae and in persona Christi. Hence, the Council confidently asserts that, “in the mystery of the Eucharistic sacrifice, priests fulfill their principal function,” since it is here that “the work of our redemption is continually carried out”8. From this sublime and extraordinary fact, it follows that the priest himself is ordered toward the Eucharist in an extraordinary way. His very being is Eucharistic—his humanity and his manhood—and so is everything he does, no matter how mundane. This is because, by sacramental ordination, he is ontologically conformed to self-sacrifice after the manner of the Christ he serves. What St Paul calls Ibid., §2 (italics mine). Ibid., §5. 7 Cf. 1 Pet 2:5, 9; Col 1:24; Rom 12:1–2; 15:15b–16. 8 Vatican II, Presbyterorum Ordinis, §13 (italics mine). Cf. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, §§2 and 7. 5 6 1180 Oliver Treanor on all the baptized to do—“offer your bodies, I urge you, as a living sacrifice, consecrated and fit for God’s acceptance” (Rom 12:1)—the ordained priest already is. His state of life, his priestly “I,” consecrated and offered to God, exists as a living memorial of Calvary and Easter through its co-identification with the body and blood of Christ in the sacrifice of the Mass (“This is my body . . . my blood”). For those in his parish who receive his ministration, he will be an efficacious sign of the very presence of Christ in their midst, a kind of sacrament in his own right of the Eucharistic mystery that enriches their lives.9 Consequently, his true identity—what he is as a priest, which shows itself in what he does—is found and intensified in his person-toPerson relationship with Christ in the action of the Mass and in the sacred species afterward10. In such grace-filled communion with God’s Son, he discovers his inner unity, his integrity. For Vatican II’s Decree on the Life and Activity of Priests, Presbyterorum Ordinis, it is always through a specifically Eucharistic Christology that the priest unifies his interior life with his (often perplexing and frustrating) external activities: “[Since] pastoral charity flows especially from the Eucharistic sacrifice, this sacrifice is therefore the centre and root of the whole life of the priest, so that he strives to make his own what is enacted on the altar of sacrifice. But this cannot be achieved unless priests themselves penetrate ever more intimately through prayer into the mystery of Christ”11. This mutually12 self-defining union of Christ with his priests was So, St Peter Chrysologus in one of his sermons writes: “How unique is the duty of the Christian priesthood! For there a man is himself sacrifice as well as priest; there a man does not look for something outside of himself to offer to God; there a man brings with himself and in himself and for himself a sacrifice to God; there the victim is not consumed and the priest never completes his task; there the victim is slain but lives, the sacrificing priest cannot complete the stroke” (Sermon 108; text in The Divine Office II, 562). 10 In §80 of his 2007 post-synodal exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict XVI observed: “Priestly spirituality is intrinsically Eucharistic” (italics mine). In that same section he continued: “The seeds of this spirituality are already found in the words spoken by the Bishop during the ordination liturgy: ‘Receive the oblation of the holy people to be offered to God. Understand what you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.’” 11 Vatican II, Presbyterorum Ordinis, §14. 12 Thus, not only can we priests say with St. Paul in Colossians, “[Our] real life is Christ” (3:4); we must also say, as in Galatians, that Christ has no other life than ours: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20; cf. Matt 25:35–45 and Acts 9:4–5). 9 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1181 a favorite and recurring theme in Pope St. John Paul II’s meditations. His 2004 traditional Holy Thursday Letter, for example, expressed his thoughts this way: “We [priests] were born from the Eucharist. If we can say the whole Church lives from the Eucharist, we can say the same thing about the ministerial priesthood: it is born, lives, works and bears fruit ‘de Eucharistia.’ ‘There can be no Eucharist without the priesthood, just as there can be no priesthood without the Eucharist.’”13 These sentiments echoed his last great encyclical on the subject—Ecclesia de Eucharistia—of the year before: “The Eucharist is the center and summit of the Church’s life and likewise of priestly ministry; the Eucharist is the principal and central raison d’etre of the sacrament of priesthood.”14 When a truth so great as this is allowed to settle and take shape, it deeply affects the whole of a priest’s consciousness. It shows in his humble desire to model himself on the Eucharistic self-giving of Christ, on the fractioned Bread and the poured-out Cup, in which are contained all the mysteries of Jesus’s life for God and for others. It also shows in a proactive celibate love that is freely embraced and lived out day by day as a way of embodying the Church’s indissoluble union with Christ, her Bridegroom, and his with her. And so, when he says Mass, the priest is able to give a substantial and credible witness in his own person to the kingdom-already-in-our-midst as he prepares the marriage banquet for the wedding guests whom he has gathered and evangelized. Finally, it shows in his habit of prayer. From the epicenter of the Mass, his priestly worship surges up and overflows as a daily Magnificat of gratitude to God for Christ so that—as the “Introduction” to The Prayer of the Church has it—“in the fulfilment of the Divine Office the praise and thanksgiving he offers in the celebration of the Eucharist is extended to the different hours of the day.” The Eucharist Itself When we look at the Eucharist, we are looking at the poverty and humility of Christ. Here is the antidote to the original pride and disobedience that separated us from God. In this sacrament, sin is confounded and overturned in the Second Adam, who took to himself Pope John Paul II, Letter to Priests for Holy Thursday 2004, §2 (accessed August 4, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/2004/ documents/hf_jp-ii_let_20040406_priests-holy-thursday.html), quoting his own Gift and Mystery: On the Fiftieth Anniversary of My Priestly Ordination (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 77–78. 14 Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003), §31. 13 1182 Oliver Treanor the broken history of our resistance to grace, reversed its outcome, and brought us back again to God. By his humble impoverishment, he turned everything around, he who now gives himself to us as the Bread of Life, absorbing the guilt in his own body, taking responsibility for it as head, and then offering himself to his Father in repentance and to us in forgiveness. The Eucharist is the ultimate expression of that self-offering whereby Christ reconciles all things perfectly and unites them amicably with each other once again by drawing them back into himself. Coming to us in the form of bread and wine, he presents himself in the lowliest manner possible. It is as if he were challenging us to think of any other way he could make himself so small for the world’s sake or make his saving purpose easier to grasp and tell him how. Who could dare to try once he has learned how to read the sacramental sign? For, contained in the mystery of the Eucharist are all the forms of Christ’s kenosis, or self-emptying, by which he overturns and empties out humanity’s sinful self-assertion and restores our true likeness to God through our likeness to him—his humble birth in the manger, his hidden childhood, his simple trade, his homeless vagrancy as a young rabbi, his nakedness on the Cross, and his unceremonial burial in another man’s grave. After Calvary, he had nothing left to give, and the Eucharist is the sign of this. Everything was poured out with his last breath, his Spirit of life, and the water and blood from his corpse—cleaned out and emptied, just like the empty chalice after communion and the purified paten. This is what love brought God to and what love brings man to, the divine love that is self-impoverishing, served as food and drink to unite man with God and God with man in the One who is both. What the Eucharist therefore shows, as the abiding gift of God, is that his death that we celebrate was no tragic accident of fate, as some have suggested, but a thing carefully planned long in advance to gather us together. A deliberate initiative of the divine humility on behalf of sinners, a long-term love patiently biding its time. Its sacramental enactment the evening before at the Supper summed up and dramatically fulfilled all the Old Testament signs, symbols, and events that, over a thousand years, prefigured it. At the same time, it anticipated the new pass-over to resurrection through suffering. It also ensured that his self-sacrificing death for men should remain present and active as the thanksgiving memorial of the Church’s worship. Since this memorial is no homage to the dominance of death, but The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1183 rather to the love that is life, the Mass would continually unleash the indomitable life of that Easter love without which our hope in him would have left us “of all men the most to be pitied.”15 Hence, the Eucharistic action of the Last Supper may have signaled the end of Christ’s life in the flesh, but not of his messianic mission in the Spirit to the poor and imprisoned, to the sick and the sinful. Instead, it recapitulated and condensed it so that now, entrusted intact to his apostles, his service to others and his communion with them might, through their breaking of bread, be projected outward to the ends of the earth. In this way, Jesus provided for the healing and liberation of the whole world through the Eucharistic mission of his Paschal body, the Church. And that mission always begins again with us. In offering his body as bread broken to be consumed, Christ gave his very Person to the disciples, his actual Self: donating his blood to them as wine poured out, he handed over his entire Life16 and, donating both together, bequeathed to all generations his totality. Thus, even at the risk of misunderstanding, his sacramental action indicated the depth of intercourse he desired with his Eucharistic Church. Married people would immediately grasp what he meant from their experience of spousal intimacy, even celibates like St Paul would make the connection, and the Mystics too would understand, as would anyone familiar with the Old Testament’s predictions of the New Covenant as a marriage bond, a wedding feast. The espousal that that first Holy Thursday proposed was consummated, in fact, by his death and sealed by his resurrection. Eucharistic communion was the result: an extension of the Incarnation to include not only the natural union between God and Jesus the man as his Son but also the union of all of us with the Father by our insertion into Christ baptismally and our participation in him Eucharistically 1 Cor 15:17–19. In the Hebrew mentality, “body” (soma) refers to the whole man, the personal identity, oneself, a meaning retained in modern culture where the first person singular denotes embodied reality such that we equate ourselves with our physical form. Similarly, for the Israelites, “blood” (haima) meant life itself (as the Blood Transfusion Service today reminds us in their advertising slogan). Hence, Jews, then as now, never drank the blood of animals, since blood is the principle of life and life belongs to God alone. This is precisely why Christ wished his disciples to drink his blood: so that they might share in the life of God himself and so in the divine nature. The Apostles would have been shocked by his offer, perceiving as they did the implication of the Eucharist and its astounding disregard for one of their most time-honoured taboos (Cf. John 6:60 and 66–67). 15 16 1184 Oliver Treanor as sons in the Son by adoption. A holy wedlock between God and his people, of the divine nature with our humanity, his flesh and bone with ours, his blood with our blood. In Jesus, the affianced God kept his promise of marriage to Israel, faithfully pledging his nuptial vows and manfully carrying them out. To this end, the divine bridegroom stripped himself of all he possessed on Good Friday and opened his arms on the Cross to take a creaturely bride in matrimonial embrace. And so, the two have become one in the life-engendering union of body and spirit. Every Eucharistic liturgy since then rejoices in his spousal fidelity and loving kindness,17 and every Rite of Communion in his indissoluble marital commitment. For those who partake worthily, the Eucharist means the survival of that marriage relationship beyond death and, consequently, their survival too. Being the sacrament of the resurrection as well as of Christ’s death, it effectively removes all the barriers to unity with God in this world and the next, whether sin or mortality or time or space. Indeed the Mass is the arrabon, or “first course,” of the heavenly wedding feast where the bride of the Lamb will sit enthroned in the perfect fellowship of the Triune God as the Communion of Saints. In the wording of the consecration—the ipsissima verba Christi— the nuptial poverty and humility of the Eucharist are underscored by the expression “given up”: “This is my body which will be given up.” The expression conveys the “totality” mentioned earlier as synonymous with sacrifice. It means “utterly abandoned,” “discarded,” “Fidelity” (emet) and “loving-kindness” (hesed) were the consistent characteristics of the Old Testament God of the covenant. Their attribution to him runs like a steady current through the entire course of the history of salvation in the stream of consciousness of the inspired ancient writers. In the New Testament, John’s Prologue was to incorporate the twin terms in its proclamation of the incarnation of the Logos, translating them as “truth” (aletheia) and “grace” (charis), respectively. Contrasting the newness revealed in Jesus with the archaism of the Mosaic dispensation, St. John writes: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. . . . Though the law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ” (1:14, 17). It is interesting to consider how the same evangelist, only a few chapters later (ch. 6), presents Jesus’s teaching at length on the Bread of Life, the only one of the four to do so, and comes back to the theme again in ch. 15—the True Vine speech. This shows the typically Eucharistic perspective with which the Fourth Gospel views the whole mystery of Christ’s Incarnation and Paschal event, a perspective that recognizes in the Eucharist the definitive realization of God’s covenant. 17 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1185 “betrayed,” “handed over,” and “immolated.” This verb form used in the Last Supper narrative by Jesus is the one that John’s Gospel attributes also to the Father when he says that “God so loved the world that he gave [as a gift] his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”18 Romans uses it to make the same point, only stronger, stressing the sacrifice: contrasting God’s gift with the testing of Abraham (whose son ultimately was not required), Paul measures the cost of a love that “did not spare his own Son but gave him up [delivered up, deserted] for us all.”19 It turns up again in Galatians, when Paul recognizes in Christ’s humble obedience the Son’s acceptance of his forsakenness for the sake of the Father’s plan and his active collaboration with it: “The Son of God loved me and gave himself up [lit. “giving himself up”] for me.”20 In the verbal consistency of all these texts, the Spirit of the living Word articulates what the Eucharist witnesses to silently: the single-minded concordance of the Trinity in showing mercy to a sinful world, a Christocentric mercy by which the Father redeems and restores and reconciles and unites in the power of the Spirit. Even those who oppose God contribute to his plan. So, in the Passion story, the same act of “giving up” Jesus (paradidōmi) is attributed to sinners. Judas, for example, asks the chief priests, “What will you give me if I deliver him [paradóso] to you?”21 And the Fourth Gospel records that Pilate “then handed him over [parédoken] to be crucified.”22 Thus, the Gospels present Jesus’s betrayal and desertion as a confrontation between divine love and human sinfulness, with God’s Son as the point of confrontation where the conflict will be resolved. It is this that Jesus accepts, enduring the desolation of Golgotha, the shock of betrayal, the trauma of brutal arrest, and fearful exposure to the forces of hatred and jealousy, indifference, and contempt. He does so in order to end the impasse between law and trespass, between justice and condemnation, and so bring about the resolution that is forgiveness and grace. But, to achieve his purpose, he must withstand wholesale rejection by Jew and Gentile, by compatriot and foreigner, by friend and stranger, by sinners, and even—it seemed—by heaven itself 23. John 3:16. Rom 8:32. 20 Gal 2:20. 21 Matt 26:15. 22 John 19:16. 23 Mark 15:34; Matt 27:46. Thus is the unimaginable and inexpressible power of God to save the world unveiled: the more God is despised and rejected, the 18 19 1186 Oliver Treanor When a priest takes up the Host and Chalice at the consecration, it is this he holds in his hands: the stricken, rejected Christ and the life-giving mercy that streams from his abject humiliation and destitution. Speaking Christ’s words in Christ’s own person as he bends over the gifts, he makes present again the sign that “contemporizes” the redemption, which is always fruitful and forever new. This is what constitutes the heart of Christian faith and makes the Church the Church, what the people of God pin their hopes on and what enables them to face life and accept death with a peace the world cannot give, and with good reason. For, they know at this moment with the certainty of faith that the Christ we worship in the Eucharist is no merely past historic figure, but rather a present continuous saving presence who, as Augustine famously observed, is closer to us than even we are to ourselves. This is just what the Lord intended them to know. In the accounts of the Last Supper left by St. Luke24 and St. Paul,25 Christ particularizes his gift with the additional emphatic “for you” as he hands his disciples the fragmented bread of his body, repeating the phrase (in Luke) with the out-poured wine of his blood. In the Greek texts, the plural is used (“for ye”), but in English, singular and plural forms are (conveniently) the same. They are the same for Christ too. Once again he wishes to be “handed over,” this time literally into the hands of each, and all, at the distribution of Communion. His self-giving is in the first instance a singularly personal engagement with communicants, since, in his eyes, no one is lost in the crowd. At the same time, his gift, being for all, turns crowds into community by drawing them through the Eucharist into himself. That was always his way—in his public ministry, at the supper, on the Cross, at his glorious resurrection. No individual was ever less important than the whole, just as the whole Church is as much to him as each particular member, since it is his body and all his body’s members are, with Christ as head, one Christ, which explains why the Church (for all its visible divisions in history) is only one by nature, as the Creed professes. more he reveals his true nature as Compassion. This is what St. Paul meant in Romans when he wrote: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (5:20b; cf. Eph 3:20). 24 Luke 22:19, 20. 25 1 Cor 11:24. These two narratives are commonly referred to as the Pauline tradition, in distinction from the Petrine, as recorded by Mark, whose account is closely followed by Matthew. The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1187 By feeding us in this particularized way he wishes to touch us as Saul of Tarsus was touched, to move us as Mary Magdalene was moved, to astonish us like the disciples at Emmaus, and to hearten us as Simon Peter was heartened by the breakfast of bread and fish on the shore of the lake at Easter. This is why the Eucharist is not solely the abiding presence of the Lord in himself, to be gazed upon in wonder and adoration (“Behold the Lamb of God!”). It is indeed that, but it is also nourishment to be received, even as we are received by him, to bring about lasting union with him both sacramental and existential, a common union of being (what we are) and of living (what we do) within the common life and being of his one beloved Church. And so, to every baptized person he says, “This is for you!” For, unless the Sacrament is consumed, it cannot achieve the end for which it was instituted and for which Jesus died and rose again, that of completing the process begun at baptism of complete insertion into his body by full incorporation into his Church. This “for you” therefore means that the Eucharist is intrinsically phenomenological—that is to say, not only significant in itself but also ordered toward a felt experience of joyful meeting and easy familiarity with Christ. Children from the parish feel this on the day of their First Communion. So do priests at their ordination Mass. And so do parishioners receiving the Last Rites who greatly desire the holy Viaticum to take on their last journey. It is no surprise then that, as the Gospel tells us, the first reason Jesus called the Twelve was that they might “be with him,”26 be his companions. The word literally means “bread-sharers” (cum-pane), sharing intimate fellowship as closest associates, trusted disciples. Only from such companionship with Jesus does the Church’s ministry emerge and are disciples (followers) commissioned as apostles (those who are sent) and dispatched as preachers27 of the Good News. Being sacramental, this intimacy with Christ is a wholly human phenomenon involving all the senses: the visibility of the species, the sound of the breaking of the host, the taste of the cup, the smell of both, the feel of the hand, the touch on the palm, in the fingers, on the lips, and on the tongue, the eating and drinking, and the swallowing and digesting. Today, as in the time of the Apostles, the remarkably tactile, physical “event” of sacramental encounter with Christ is meant to be, as much for us as for the Twelve, absolutely life Mark 3:14a. Mark 3:14b. 26 27 1188 Oliver Treanor changing,28 really memorable and enduring. And all this because it is highly personable and relational so that we might enjoy lively human fraternity with him as good friends do who look forward to each other’s company and for whom nothing is too much. As St. Cyprian of Carthage put it in the third century and St. Benedict in the sixth, it is so that we might “prefer nothing whatever to Christ as he preferred nothing to us.”29 Hence, Eucharistic communion is not only a matter of intellectual assent—however indispensable sacred doctrine in fact is for giving the experience its basis in truth as our solid ground for believing. It is a matter of the heart too, of the affective part of us that recognizes in Christ a completely attractive personality. Here is one we would like to know better, one whose interest in us draws out of us our better selves, one who inspires a real love for him in response to his love for us in the Eucharistic mystery—as St. Teresa of Avila discovered, and St John of the Cross and Thérèse of Lisieux and Matt Talbot and Edel Quinn, and so many like them. As in the receiving of gifts at Christmas or birthdays, the “for you” resonates at the deepest levels of self-consciousness. Something inside you leaps! Stirring memories of words from a magical childhood past (“This is just for you”; “That parcel was left for you”), these are words that still define you, name you, single you out as one much loved— and consequently empowered to give love in return. All this Christ wishes to do for us superlatively in the Mass. Then, it is for you, as distinct from against you, in the way that ‘Emmanuel’ is “God-with-us” and not “opposed-to-us.” It is the same idea: God in Christ providing moral support, which is why he came into our history in our flesh and comes again now Eucharistically. With us in every way possible in order to be our God, always for us as God on our side, forever taking our part, defending us as our advocate, making allowances, making peace, bringing us back, bestowing collective identity, and acknowledging us as his own, his chosen ones. This is Christ’s mind and will at the Rite of Communion. Everything in the Mass leads to this consummate moment, as he intended. For this he has been preparing us from the Penitential Rite, through the readings, in the canon, so that his personal solidarity with us might be tasted at its source and be appropriated as grace: a bond that is both one-to-one and constitutive of God’s family, of the parish. 1 John 1:1–4. See The Divine Office, III, 202 (On the Lord’s Prayer, no. 15) and 107* (The Rule of St Benedict, ch.72.12), respectively. 28 29 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1189 Such is the nature of the Church, with each in Christ and Christ in all, and all in all. “We, though many,” wrote St. Paul, using the same language here about the Church that he used of the Eucharist, “are one body in Christ and individually members one of another.”30 None of us is absorbed or annihilated (as is Buddhism’s aim, nirvana31), but rather assumed into the warm breast of divine charity, each of us cherished for his distinctness and all of us perfected in the unity of our relatedness, like the inseparable relatedness of the three distinct Persons of the one undivided Godhead. Hence, the Eucharist makes the Church the reflected image on earth of the Holy Trinity. So complete is Christ’s self-giving that, on the Cross, he gave away ownership of his own identity altogether. To find it again, he must find us, all of us, and all together. He discovers his completed self, therefore, only in his Church,32 and his Church is established and completed in Eucharistic communion. Since we are his body, then, without us, he would be a dismembered head. No man’s head can survive severed from his body, not even the man Christ’s. Though he be God’s Son, with his Father in glory, Jesus never relinquished his bodily humanity; hence, he can never relinquish us. Of the three forms his body has taken in time—the fleshly form born of Mary, the Eucharistic bread of life, and his ecclesial form, the Church—the last constitutes the fullest manifestation of Christ’s presence in the world. Just as we who receive the Eucharist find our true life in him, so he lives his true life in us. Henri de Lubac’s consideration of this led him to say: “The Mystical Body (the Church) is the body par excellence, that with the greatest degree of reality and truth; it is the definitive body, and in relation to it the individual body of Christ himself may be called a figurative body, without any detraction from its reality.”33 This is not to take away either from the doctrine of the Incarnation or of transubstantiation. Indeed, the full reality of the mystery requires both. But it does mean that only in the Church, because it is his body, does Christ the head find himself in himself, and before the Father in the Spirit. He has no other life than ours, no other way of living in the world than through us. And since there can be no Church without Eucharist, nor Eucharist without Jesus of Nazareth, it follows that this one, undivided body of God’s Son shows itself as Rom 12:5. Cf. 1 Cor 10:17. That is, bliss through extinction. 32 Eph 1:22–23. 33 The Splendor of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986),133–34. 30 31 1190 Oliver Treanor it actually is in the full communion of those who partake of the one bread and one cup, the Sunday assembly of the parish. It is here, as Vatican Council II teaches,34 that the entire reality of Christ’s Church is to be found in its essence, dynamically present and active in every diocesan Eucharistic congregation as the unique universal sacrament of salvation. Which is why each parish and its Sunday parish Mass is of irreplaceable importance in God’s plan for the continued survival and redemption of the human race. This point we now need to examine more closely, given its importance for our main theme. The Eucharist, Sunday, and the Parish. From a steadily deepening understanding of the Eucharist—not only “What it is” or “How it is so,” but even more, the “Why”—comes the possibility of a better, more inclusive way of celebrating the community Mass. When we realize Christ’s intention here, why he chose to give himself in this way, a fresh vision emerges for building up the parish in all its dimensions. It is the Eucharist in the first place that makes the Church, and not the other way about—that comes second. The parish is able to celebrate the Lord’s Supper only because Christ first established his community in his eternal self-giving on the Cross. In that one sacrifice of his body and blood to the Father, now bestowed perpetually on us in the form of a sacred banquet,35 he lets us participate in his self-offering to God so completely that we are instantly shown to be his one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.This is because: Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, §§1, 9, 26; Vatican II, Unitatis Redintegratio, §3. In his reflection on the way Christ’s sacrifice is displayed in the Eucharistic celebration of the Mass, Robert Sokolowski cites Léon-Dufour’s point that “[Just as] the [Last] Supper symbolizes (efficaciously) the sacrifice of Christ on the cross [so] the Mass likewise symbolizes (sacramentally) the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but it does so by way of the Supper” (X. Léon-Dufour, Sharing the Eucharistic Bread [New York: Paulist Press, 1987], 287). Sokolowski then takes this idea to show the possibilities for the Eucharist’s reception by a postmodernist mindset that deems appearance and perception to be as significant as ontology—as indeed the theology of sacrament does. The way a thing presents itself, he observes, prescribes by its nature the appropriate response to it. He goes on: “Our celebration does re-enact the sacrifice of the cross, but it does so only through the perspective on that sacrifice that was held by Jesus at the Last Supper. . . . In the Eucharist we look back at the death of Jesus, but we look back at it as profiled through the Passover anticipation by Christ. Only because the sacrifice of the cross was embodied and preenacted at the Last Supper can it be reenacted and sacramentally embodied now” (Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1994], 28). 34 35 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1191 “In giving his sacrifice to the Church, Christ has also made his own the spiritual sacrifice of the Church, which is called to offer herself in union with the sacrifice of Christ. This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council concerning all the faithful: ‘Taking part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which is the source and summit of the whole Christian life, they offer the divine victim to God and offer themselves along with it.’”36 In other words, just as Christ is not fully himself without his body the Church, which completes who he is, neither is his sacrifice complete until every bodily member is included in his total self-offering as head of the body to God37. This unique reality, which appears whole and entire in every Eucharistic community throughout the world, is localized and activated in the life of the parish because it faithfully re-presents his sacrifice, thereby making communicants sharers in his resurrection too, members even here and now of his risen body, rendered present to us in the form of the bread of life.38 Since Church is Eucharist, the parish is the Church in its full reality. Therefore, every parish of the diocese owes its ecclesial existence to, and finds itself as the Church in, the Eucharist sanctioned by the local bishop. In 2003, Pope John Paul II expressed the principle at work here in the following way: “The Eucharist is the sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated down the ages. . . . [So] the Church, while pointing to Christ in the mystery of his passion, also reveals her own mystery. . . . Her foundation and well-spring is the whole of the Triduum paschale, but this is as it were gathered up, foreshadowed and ‘concentrated’ forever in the gift of the Eucharist”39. To describe the Church in this way—and hence the parish—as a communion in the Trinity (a oneness with the Father, through the John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §14, citing Lumen Gentium, §11. This is why St. Paul can legitimately say: “I rejoice in my sufferings, . . . and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24). 38 Contemplating this profound unity between ourselves and Christ, Pope Benedict uses three texts from St Augustine to help him express the mystery here: “The great Bishop of Hippo, speaking specifically of the Eucharistic mystery, stresses the fact that Christ assimilates us to himself: ‘If you have received [the signs of the body and blood of Christ] properly, you yourselves are what you have received’ (Sermon 227). Consequently, ‘not only have we become Christians, we have become Christ himself ’ (On John’s Gospel 21.8) [since] ‘one should not believe that Christ is in the head but not in the body; rather he is complete in the head and in the body’ (On John’s Gospel 28.1)” (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, §36). 39 John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §§11 and 5, respectively (italics original). 36 37 1192 Oliver Treanor Son, in the Holy Spirit), means that parishioners have access to that joy for which human beings were created and for which they are destined eternally in the kingdom. The Mass applies to us the fruits of the kingdom that Christ won for mankind in every age by his perfect reconciling act. St. Paul succinctly defined that kingdom as “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,”40 and these are the benefits Christ passes on to us in the Mass, all of them gifts of superlative worth, each a pearl of great price. What greater desire after all does one have than for peace of mind, for peace of heart? What price could be put on deep joy such as children feel, the joy of innocence? What innocence is so precious as that of adult righteousness and integrity, of knowing we are “at rights” with God, mature in holiness and ready for his coming to us in all the ways he does: in other people, in the ordinary everyday conversations and situations, and at our death, whether sudden or otherwise. In a society where depression is commonplace and suicide has reached bewildering proportions, with people stressed and unhappy, marriages under strain, relationships empty of Christ, the gifts of the kingdom that pour from the Eucharist are there to be cherished and prized. Available, accessible, offered freely and generously, they feed the hungry hope that, as one writer put it: “Even in our sinful world grace has an absolute priority over guilt, the power of the triune God’s redeeming love [is] totally victorious, the mystery of light is much greater than the mystery of darkness or iniquity. [For,] we have entered a history immersed in salvation in which ‘the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’ ( John 1:5).”41 It is a heartening and liberating truth that confidently stands against the pessimism of our time reflected in the dark culture of contemporary art, drama, literature, and music. And all of us, exposed day by day to Godless negativity through radio and television, need to be reminded of it regularly so that our faith might be strengthened and increased by the habitual experience of divine love at first-hand, at its source. If the Eucharist and its spiritual blessings are to inundate parishioners’ daily existence—to fertilize and enrich their mentality, their outlook, and their decisions—they need to be led through the liturgy Rom 14:17. Frederick M. Jelly, Madonna: Mary in the Catholic Tradition (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1986), 116, citing Karl Rahner, “The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 3, Theology of the Spiritual Life (Baltimore, MD: Helicon, 1967), 140. 40 41 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1193 spiritually. That is the reason they come to Mass. Some celebrants, however, consider that the sacred rites and their significance are insufficient to hold the people’s attention or interest. They resort oftentimes to so-called “creative liturgy” to compensate for what they imagine is lacking in the rubrics.42 This is a grave mistake, as many Mass-goers will tell you.43 The faithful who practice regularly are not there to be entertained, but rather nourished. They want to meet Christ.44 Those others who come only because they have to— for reasons of solidarity at times of bereavement for example or for weddings—will not find the occasion entertaining anyway. There are better ways to be entertained outside the Church. A growing number of Catholics (and not just the elderly who remember how differently things used to be done) say they do not experience at Mass now any sense of the sacred, or the sacrifice of Calvary, or the presence of God, or the challenge of the Gospel, or any encouragement to follow it. In reply, they might be told that the Eucharist is a banquet too, a meal where the People of God come like a family does, to eat together and express love for one another as brothers and sisters do. As at any familial meal, everyone must be I know of a case in which clowns and acrobats from a visiting circus are invited to perform during the Sunday Masses every year during the circus season. One celebrant had a goat brought in during Lent to reinforce the Trocaire campaign appeal that year (the sacristan resigned immediately). Less dramatic forms of creative activity, but no less wildly distracting, are: the passing of a microphone through the congregation “to let them have their say” during the homily; the distribution of Christmas stockings and Easter eggs to “every child in the audience”; the inclusion of “Dad’s pipe and tobacco” in the funeral offertory procession; and the solo rendering by the celebrant of a certain football anthem on the morning of the Big Match after Communion (justified as a sung Intercessory Prayer). 43 “It is to be lamented,” wrote Pope John Paul II, “that, especially in the years following the post-conciliar liturgical reform, as a result of a misguided sense of creativity and adaptation there have been a number of abuses which have been a source of suffering for many. A certain reaction against ‘formalism’ has led some . . . to consider the ‘forms’ chosen by the Church’s great liturgical tradition and her Magisterium as non-binding and to introduce unauthorized innovations which are often completely inappropriate” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §52; cf. §10). Pope Benedict reiterated the point in Sacramentum Caritatis §3: “The changes which the Council called for need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development of the rite itself, without the introduction of artificial discontinuities.” Later that year in his Letter to Bishops (July 7th), he returned to the point about ritual tradition and warned again that “creativity frequently led to deformations of the liturgy.” 44 John 12:20–21—the great desire of the human heart in every age. 42 1194 Oliver Treanor involved and show their talents so they will feel appreciated and want to come again (maybe) next Sunday—or whenever. It is certainly true that liturgical changes over the last half century have brought a different emphasis and change of ethos in the way Mass is celebrated, a change from the predominantly transcendental to the anthropocentric. Many positive effects have resulted from the personalist-inclusivist character of the celebration and the introduction of specific ministries of readers and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion and, increasingly, the permanent diaconate. But the last five decades have also seen a different element enter in that is distractingly secularist in its approach and alien to the New Testament concept of koinonia.45 It is this that accounts for those anomalies, misguided “creative” innovations, adaptations, or departures from legitimate liturgical tradition and its unity of historical development that Pope John Paul (as noted earlier) termed “abuses which have been a source of suffering for many.” Among the laity, for instance, the idea is now prevalent that the Mass so “belongs to them” that they have the right to introduce their own personal touches to the celebration at will. (“this is my wedding” or “our family funeral”). Following what they see in televised state funerals or weddings and encouraged by the profiteering of funeral directors and wedding organizers, they can demand additions or alterations to the Mass that are not in the Catholic tradition This term, of extraordinary depth and richness among the inspired writers, is used most frequently by Paul and found also in Luke’s Acts and the First Letter of John. It is translated by the RSV as “sharing” or “participation” and in other translations as “fellowship” or “brotherhood.” The two variants actually throw light on each other and elucidate the reality here.There is fellowship or brotherhood because of what Christians share and participate in. It is the common union or communion of the baptized in Christ and with Christ and each other that brings about such a transformation in their very nature as human beings that Paul described it as an altogether new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15).The change was marked by their new filial relationship with God through Christ’s reconciling act and was effected by their full initiation into the New Testament churches. It manifested itself in a common life together, in united mind and heart through fidelity to the teaching of the Apostles, in charitable sharing of their material goods, and especially in their different way of worshipping God—namely, by the common celebration of the one bread and one cup of the Lord as the proclamation of his death in expectation of his second coming. Such liturgical worship and way of joyful living was the fruit of the one Spirit that was poured out on them and that generated their unity, or koinonia, as the one body of Christ, the Church (cf. Acts 2:42–47, 1 Cor 12:12–13, and 1 John 1:3). 45 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1195 and reflect a fatal individualism in society today that is contrary to the Eucharist’s universal ecclesial significance. Because this happens when emotions are highly charged as a result of bereavement or marriage fever, the local priest (even if he has reservations about their plans for the liturgy) can be so intimidated as to feel powerless to voice an objection and even less able to prevent what might happen on the day. This attitude of private ownership is the symptom of an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery. Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, desacralized as the banquet of the covenant in Christ’s blood, the Mass is seen as no more than a meal among friends, a social ritual whose importance derives from the nonreligious, passing significance attributed to it by the occasion, a rite of passage in a common fellowship no different from that in the pub or the sit-down meal later at the hotel. “Liturgy is never anyone’s private property,” affirmed Pope John Paul decisively, “be it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated.”46 And, in a tone more scathing than was usual with him, he explained the reason: “The Sacred Liturgy expresses and celebrates the one faith professed by all and, being the heritage of the whole Church, cannot be determined by local Churches in isolation from the universal Church.” He spoke equally firmly of “the great responsibility which belongs to priests in particular for the celebration,” given that “no one is permitted to undervalue the mystery entrusted to our hands: it is too great for anyone to feel free to treat it lightly and with disregard for its sacredness and its universality”.47 On the question of the nature of the Eucharist as sacrifice and banquet and the relationship between the two aspects, John Paul began and ended his pontificate with two major statements that stressed the unity of the mystery and the inherent harmony of its twofold integrity. For him, this was no matter of transitory importance, but rather one of vital, permanent significance, as it must be for all who love the parishes they serve as priests and who spend themselves making them vibrant faith communities, true manifestations of the Church that Christ instituted. Together the statements are, as it were, like arms embracing all his teachings on the Eucharist and the life of the Church in the years between. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §52. Ibid., §§51, 52. 46 47 1196 Oliver Treanor First, in his 1980 letter Dominicae Cenae,48 he observed: [This] drawing together and this union, the prototype of which is the union of the Apostles at the Last Supper, express the Church and bring her into being. But the Church is not brought into being only through the union of people, through the experience of brotherhood which the Eucharistic banquet gives rise to. The Church is brought into being when, in that fraternal union and communion, we celebrate the sacrifice of the Cross, when we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (I Cor. 11:26), and later when, being deeply compenetrated with the mystery of salvation, we approach as a community the table of the Lord in order to be nourished there, in a sacramental manner, by the fruits of the holy sacrifice of propitiation. Therefore in Eucharistic Communion we receive Christ himself; and (by) our union with him, which is a gift and a grace for each individual, . . . we are also associated in the unity of his Body which is the Church. Only in this way, through faith and that disposition of mind, is there brought about that building up of the Church, which in the Eucharist, truly finds its “source and summit.” And in his last encyclical on the Eucharist twenty-three years later, he makes the same point again: The gift of Christ and his Spirit which we receive in Eucharistic Communion superabundantly fulfils the yearning for fraternal unity deeply rooted in the human heart; at the same time it elevates the experience of fraternity already present in our common sharing at the same Eucharistic table to a degree which far surpasses that of the simple human experience of sharing a meal. Through her communion with the body of Christ, the Church comes to be ever more profoundly “in Christ in the nature of a sacrament, that is, a sign and instrument of intimate unity with God and of the unity of the whole human race” (Lumen Gentium §1).49 Pope John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae (1980), §4. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §24. 48 49 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1197 It is clear from this that the Eucharist is able to bind in unity not because it is either banquet or sacrifice, but because it is both. To lose sight of either dimension is to devalue the nature of the communion it effects. It is also to miss the point of what a parish is. The Eucharist expresses and renews the Church whose nature is unity and peace. The parish is the Church. Therefore, the Eucharist expresses and renews the unity and peace of the parish. It is only Christ’s body and blood that creates and sustains a parish, that heals it and reconciles it, refreshes its youth and vigour; and it does so as the sacrament of his Supper, which in turn is the sacrament of his redeeming sacrifice. The practical implications that follow are important. From a balanced perception of the twofold reality of the mystery, a priest, keeping in mind what Christ is doing in the Eucharist and believing in the power of the Eucharist to change people’s lives, will want his congregation to have greater awareness of the mystery too and to come to see for themselves the impact that liturgy should be having on their daily life. As Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium put it, the faithful are to be encouraged to take part in the Mass not “as strangers or silent spectators,” but as participants “in the sacred action, conscious of what they are doing.”50 Exactly what active participation might mean has not always been understood in the way the Council intended. Some have interpreted it as involving as many as possible in as many external activities as possible. The more people do, the more they participate. But, in 2005, the eleventh General Synod of Bishops corrected this notion when it placed first on its checklist of real participation at Mass the spirit of constant conversion. In agreement, Pope Benedict XVI observed somewhat wryly that “active participation in the Eucharistic liturgy can hardly be expected if one approaches it superficially.”51 What he meant was that only “a heart reconciled to God [can] make genuine participation possible.”52 Making distinction between “genuine” and “superficial” participation is helpful because it draws attention to what is actually important here—namely the quality of the congregation’s engagement with the Mass. This is not something determined by outward appearance only. Merely to be active is not necessarily to be involved. What determines quality involvement is the spiritual Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, §48 (cited in Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, §52). 51 Benedict XVI, Sacamentum Caritatis, §55. 52 Ibid. 50 1198 Oliver Treanor preparedness for the grace that flows in corresponding measure to one’s interior active disposition before the Eucharistic reality. Among the personal dispositions required for fruitful engagement with the action of the Mass, Pope Benedict, drawing from the Propositions of the eleventh General Assembly, specified an examination of conscience with sacramental confession when necessary, recollection and silence before Mass begins, and the Eucharistic fast. In other words, a meaningful act of divine worship presupposes the same preparation by the faithful as is expected of the celebrant. To encounter Christ in Word and Sacrament, conscious that we are entering into the mystery of salvation; to be moved by the banquet of sacrifice; to be alert to its implications for our whole manner of living—none of this comes about without prior deliberation. Genuine active participation in the Eucharist therefore begins every time we make a decision to let the mystery unfold itself to our minds and hearts and take steps to prepare for the privilege of worshiping God as he desires, “in spirit and in truth.”53 This process will inevitably be accompanied by the effort “to participate actively in the life of the Church as a whole, [which includes making] a missionary commitment to bring Christ’s love into the life of society.” 54 Again, speaking on the practical level here, Sacrosanctum Concilium’s four constitutive components of public worship, in the hands of a competent pastor, still comprise the key opportunities for a true and fruitful, active participation by the flock. First of all, the faithful should be “instructed by God’s word,” whose voice is the preacher. This means God’s word as revealed in the Church’s Sacred Scriptures, doctrines, and teachings, and as expounded by the homily—Not nonbiblical texts or hymns-in-place-of-the-psalm, and not the life story or opinions of the homilist or a homily substitute on forthcoming events or parish building projects or financial business or the like. Second, they should be nourished at the table of the Lord’s body. Third, they should give thanks to God—for the incomparable gift of his Beloved Son and their sanctifying Spirit in the ongoing plan of creation and salvation. And last, they should be encouraged to do that which makes the Mass different from any other act of worship—namely, offer “the immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest but also together with him, [and at the same time] learn to make an offering of themselves [so that] they might John 4:23–24. Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, §55. 53 54 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1199 be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and each other.”55 The vocabulary here is very precise. The faithful “should be instructed,” “should be nourished,” “should be encouraged,” and “should learn.” This shows how the Council envisaged lay participation at Mass and, at the same time, highlights and specifies the priest’s role in facilitating a grace-filled sharing in the liturgy every Sunday. Such participation does not come about automatically. A shepherd leads his sheep to green pastures. By means of the divine word, he shows them where to find still waters. Using the crook of admonition and staff of encouragement, he guides them along the right path. He prepares the Eucharistic banquet of the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the flock and, with the oil of the Spirit, affirms their hope in the promise of the life of lasting peace in the Lord’s own dwelling place. And, in this way, parish community and parish identity is continually molded and re-formed in Christ, healed and reconciled in his Spirit, united and pacified with the Father, built up and strengthened in the Trinity, and regenerated and sanctified by God’s grace. This is not, therefore, by human resources, and yet it is not without human collaboration. For this is Christ’s work among us and within us, Christ conducting his eternal worship of his Father through us whom he has made priestly members of his priestly body. He it is who, by means of sacred rites and sacred words carried out faithfully by sacred ministers, himself shepherds, enfolds, and churches his sheep. And this is because, as St. Augustine taught, “all good shepherds [are] in the one shepherd, are all one reality”; therefore: Let them feed the sheep—it is Christ who feeds them. The friends of the bridegroom do not speak with their own voice, but greatly rejoice because of the bridegroom’s voice. He is feeding the sheep when they feed them; and he says “I feed,” since in them is his voice, his love. . . . He, the one shepherd, feeds his sheep in these shepherds, and they in the one. So let them all be in the one shepherd, and speak with the one shepherd’s voice, for the sheep to hear, and to follow their shepherd, not any at random, but the one. All should in him speak with the one voice, and not with different voices56. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, §48. St. Augustine, Sermon 46.29–30 On the Shepherds (text in The Divine Office III, 581). 55 56 1200 Oliver Treanor At the heart of good liturgy, with its genuinely inclusive participation and sanctifying proactive celebration, is the simple truth that Mass should never just be said or heard or merely attended, but rather prayed. It is, after all, the Christians’ act of worship, the highest and most noble homage that can be rendered to the Holy Trinity by man, the great outpouring of gratitude that alone is acceptable to him on behalf of the whole creation, given its fallen state. The Eucharist, prayed, is precisely all this because Christ redeemed us with it, instituted it for us as the perfect form of prayer so that it is always in union with his high priestly prayer of thanksgiving that we offer our thanksgiving to the Father through him. This being the case, the Sunday Mass is seen to encompass the Mind and Spirit of God himself, which is why it alone satisfies in full the honor that is his due. To pray the Mass with God’s Mind and Spirit—in Christ and the Holy Spirit—is to become absorbed in the words as they are uttered and in the sacramental actions that accompany them and give the words their life. Ultimately, it is to become absorbed in the Word that is the Gospel of the day, with its ancillary readings from the Old Testament and Epistles. To the spiritually attentive, the prayers of the Missal57 will crystallize the good news of that Gospel, refracting its many hews of nuanced meaning and its joy-filled relevance. They will also inspire us with fresh ways of following it, the better to receive the Word made flesh now made bread for us that we might become what we consume and be wholly consumed by what we have received. Just as good shepherding draws the faithful by example, so the focused concentration of the celebrant will draw his parish with him into the heart of the Eucharistic mystery Sunday by Sunday contemplatively. As he does so, the dignity of the celebration will be enhanced by his economy of movement in the sanctuary. Only actions that directly center the congregation’s attention are appropriate, not the superfluous twitching of fingers or waving of outstretched arms or shuffling of feet, nor fidgeting during the reading by lectors nor And this requires greater concentration now than before the retranslation of the prayers of the Missal. If we accept the challenge this poses, it will require, in advance, several readings of the Collect, Offertory, and Concluding Prayers, plus the Entrance and Communion Antiphons, and from time to time a reflective rereading of the Eucharistic Prayers especially for their rhythm and punctuation pauses, as well as the many Prefaces that almost certainly will trip the reader if read for the first time only during Mass. 57 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1201 studious scrutiny of the congregation, nor head signals to altar servers, and so on. Priests are rarely conscious of these nervous idiosyncrasies that their congregations are certainly aware of and that enthral the fascinated gaze of the faithful, distracting their attention hypnotically from the action of the Mass. Unnecessary page turning back and forth, frenetic searching for the proper Preface, and indecision about which Eucharistic Prayer, are also clear signs that this Mass has not been properly prepared for in advance. They communicate a lax attitude that can come across only as indifference and can run through a crowd like a virus. What further instills the sense of gracious nobility to the occasion is the use of authentic materials at the altar and its environs: wax candles, for example, and not oil-filled imitations; an oil lamp before the tabernacle and not an electric bulb; fresh flowers or natural greenery, not artificial bouquets; pure linen corporals and purificators and towels; crystal water bowls and cruets; gold and silver for chalices and patens, not pottery or wood. The worship of God is worthy of the best, and the best comes down to the most basic things used to honor him. Because good quality artifacts bespeak the solemnity of the event,58 they affect the celebrant’s state of mind for the good. They also come under people’s notice for the good during Mass—as such things do when they are out to dine or on holiday—and give an awareness that what they are doing this Sunday is special, just as, too, a bright environment and pleasant smell on entering a church immediately create the impression of serenity and well-being here, of good order and evident care for the house of God and the parish’s place of worship. All such details help build up the ethos that we rightly call Catholic, that concerns itself with everything in life from the ground up that serves the dignity and privilege of our living with God. But also of import, the attention given to these things makes parishioners feel cared for and worthy of care. What is done for the sanctuary and for the liturgy is done for them—and they know it—to enrich their common life in the body of Christ and enable them to return love for Love in the Holy Spirit, whose temple they are. “Whose temple they are”: ultimately this is what the Sunday Mass is about throughout the year: Constructing the Corpus Christi—the local Church—from the one Corpus Christi—the Eucharist; making As is shown at Christmas and Easter for instance when a special effort is usually made, or at a wedding or ordination, or the priest’s own jubilee Mass. Sunday celebrations through the rest of the year deserve no less. 58 1202 Oliver Treanor the parish as a Catholic community a place fit for God to dwell in, in our midst, a place where newcomers will instantly feel at home, feel that here again is their Church from Church, whether they be visitors passing through, families moving in to stay, or neighboring parishes clustering together to pool spiritual resources; making it a parish area where God and man move easily in and out of each other’s lives, at one with every other Catholic parish in the diocese and throughout the world and yet still distinct in character, with its own particular history and tradition, a place its sons and daughters are proud to come from. Sunday Mass makes a parish a community that draws its strength and identity from Christ, baptized into him in the Church where their parents were married, and from which they will be buried. This community, unafraid to be Christ’s associates and companions, bear witness to him in the modern world as their predecessors from here have done for generations past. So, finally, it must be asked: how does this first, central, and principal self-identifying act of Catholic life and faith, the weekly celebration of the Eucharist, make the parish what it is in all its distinctness and in its universality? We ask this because, from the outside, one parish looks much the same as any other, really. Everywhere you find the same mix of people doing similar things in similar ways, with similar backgrounds, the same type of family stories and memories, personal desires and fears, pains and joys. So what impact, what difference, does the Sunday Mass make on any parish or cluster of parishes on the inside to make it what it should be in God’s eyes? To outline an answer, we must go back to our original reflection on what a priest’s task is in whichever parish he serves. He is called and sent to gather God’s people into the kingdom by announcing the Gospel that culminates in celebrating the Eucharist, since this completes the insertion into Christ’s body that began at our baptism. The aim of his mission then, the outcome toward which all priestly ministry is directed, can be summed up in three concept terms that translate worship and faith into the secular life of a community that identifies itself as Catholic and organizes itself as Christ’s Church in “this” or any parish:59 “sacramental style”; “Eucharistic attitude”; and finally “Eucharistic consistency.” “Sacramental style” is a way of looking at the world and ourselves that recognizes sanctity in everything that exists. All created things That is, how the Lex orandi and Lex credendi express themselves as Lex vivendi from one Sunday to the next. 59 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1203 speak of Christ, who speaks to us of God: the incarnate Son who impressed his wisdom on all he created and then took material form to enter into that creation as man! After the Incarnation, all things put us in touch with Christ. To eyes able to see the inherently sacramental potential in any thing, the sacramental life of the Church makes eminent sense: seven outward signs of invisible grace working visibly for the good, bringing to God’s created children the highest form of being. Now we too have the potential to put other people in touch with God—all of us sacraments of a kind, efficacious channels of the divine life and divine love to others, sacraments like the seven instituted in Christ and by Christ to make his risen presence felt in the world we inhabit, all of us fruitful occasions of grace for the encounter between Christ and other men and women and children because we ourselves live an ecclesial sacramental existence. And, so, we have the ability to leave other people better off for having met us, for having had dealings with us. More than this is needed however. The Eucharist is not simply one sacrament among seven, but the source of the other six, the center from which they spring and their apex, their summit or culmination to which they return. This is because, whereas the other six bestow the fruits of the redemption Christ won for us, the Eucharist is Christ himself, and its celebration is the re-presentation of his saving sacrifice and his Easter triumph. Therefore, sacramental style in living requires Eucharistic awareness, a “Eucharistic attitude,” if it is to be properly sourced, centered, and made complete. What this entails for building up the spiritual life of the parish is extending the act of worship on a Sunday morning (or the evening vigil) out into the sacramental existence of the rest of the week. As Pope Benedict put it: Christianity’s new worship includes and transfigures every aspect of life: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). Christians, in all their actions, are called to offer true worship to God. Here the intrinsically Eucharistic nature of Christian life begins to take shape. The Eucharist, since it embraces the concrete, everyday existence of the believer, makes possible, day by day, the progressive transfiguration of all those called by grace to reflect the image of the Son of God (cf. Rom 8:29ff.). There is nothing authentically human—our thoughts and affections, 1204 Oliver Treanor our words and deeds—that does not find in the sacrament of the Eucharist the form it needs to be lived to the full.60 The “Eucharistic form of life”—that which conforms daily living to the Eucharist itself, and to the thanksgiving worship of God that it celebrates—is necessarily self-sacrificing. When we realize this and take it to heart, then we adopt the “Eucharistic attitude.” It is a spirituality based on that text in Romans in which St. Paul urges the early Christians: “Offer your very selves [lit. ‘your bodies’] to him as a living sacrifice of praise, the worship offered by mind and heart. No longer conformed to this present age, let your minds be re-made and your whole nature thus transformed. Then you will be able to discern the will of God and know what is good, acceptable and perfect.”61 From this, two things become clear. One is that it is through worshipping God and through habitual prayer that the proper disposition emerges for responsible and mature Christian life. Therefore, the Sunday act of worship, with full, authentic participation, is absolutely crucial to the holiness of parishioners. Occasional attendance will not do, nor mere presence in the pew. Pastors really have to spell out for their congregation the nature of what they are doing at the Eucharist and the goal they should be working towards of forming a Eucharistic mindset as part of a whole new sacramental way of relating to reality—in particular, the self-sacrificing nature of loving others for the sake of Christ in the Mass, in the family, at work, in the social-secular milieu in which they move during the course of the week. And point number two is that, deeply embedded in a genuine Eucharistic attitude and Eucharistic form of living, there is “Eucharistic consistency,” the third of the three concept terms. Human spiritual maturity does not exist without moral responsibility. Therefore, it is presumed that a communicant is in the state of grace consistent with the significance of Communion before receiving the Eucharist, otherwise the act is vacated of its meaning. Since the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood expresses a unity already there with the baptized person, not to be in unity with Christ and his Church because of grave sin and yet approach the sign of communion would be more than an untruth; it would be a sacrilege and, therefore, could never achieve its purpose.62 Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, §71. Rom 12:1–2. 62 Cf. 1 Cor 11:28–29. See also John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §36. 60 61 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1205 It is a fact that there are Catholics now who receive at Mass even though their lives are not in harmony with the Gospel, but rather at variance with Catholic teaching. The commonest cases at the present time are of cohabitation, divorce and remarriage, abortion, artificial contraception or fertility treatment (in vitro fertilization, which involve multiple abortions, as well as defiling the sacramental act of marriage), homosexual unions, and the scandal that arises from the public nature of most of these. “Eucharistic consistency” needs to be restored in such situations before Catholics are legitimately eligible again to receive Holy Communion. And this is effected through sacramental confession and absolution. The nature of the Eucharist as sacrament of redemption requires this, as does its signification of the Church’s unity as the fullest manifestation in our midst of Christ’s victorious presence and power over sin and its damnable consequences. It is in this area, perhaps more than most, that the parish faithful need the shepherding referred to earlier. It would seem that many do not even know what the Church’s teaching is on these matters and little less understand the reasoning behind that teaching. As St. Paul observed in his letter to the Romans: “How will they believe unless they have heard, and how will they hear unless they have a preacher (of the good news). So faith comes from what is preached, and what is preached comes from the word of Christ.”63 The fact that, so often, serious moral decisions are made without even consulting what the Church has to say is itself an indication that lay people today take more guidance from current political debate and soap operas on television than they do from the sources of revelation. To justify this, the argument is made that faith is a private matter and everyone must follow his own conscience, to which a truly ecclesial parish would reply that such a position is not Catholic, but rather belongs to the Protestant tradition. Furthermore that conscience, being the faculty of understanding, requires sound education, since—as are all areas of human understanding—it is subject to error, misinformation, confusion, self-deception, and blunting through neglect. Furthermore still, that Catholic conscience, being at the service of Truth, takes its direction from God himself and his holy word, which is beyond fault, that word that he has entrusted in its entirety to his spouse the Church, whose sacred tradition and teaching authority—as Vatican Rom 10:14–17. 63 1206 Oliver Treanor II’s dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum affirms—are two of the three sources of divine revelation. As regards faith’s private and public nature, the Bishops’ Synod on the Eucharist and the papal post-synodal exhortation had the following additional point to make: Worship pleasing to God can never be a purely private matter, without consequences for our relationships with others: it demands a public witness to our faith. Evidently, this is true for all the baptized, yet it is especially incumbent upon those who, by virtue of their social or political position, must make decisions regarding fundamental values, such as respect for human life, in its defense from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one’s children and the promotion of the common good in all its forms.64 These values are not negotiable. Consequently Catholic politicians and legislators, conscious of their grave responsibility before society, must feel particularly bound, on the basis of a properly formed conscience, to introduce and support laws inspired by values grounded in human nature. There is an objective connection here with the Eucharist (cf. 1 Cor 11:27–29).65 What makes the parish a parish, as distinct from a town commune or an urban social entity or any other type of organized human communality, is its total fidelity to the Eucharist as a way of life. It is this that makes of it an ecclesial communion. Whether we are thinking of present existing parishes, or future clusters over a wider geographical region, it is the Sunday by Sunday faithfulness of the faithful to the Mass that sustains the Church through the changes of history, builds it up like a temple (construction in progress), and renews it in holiness through the generation of life and regeneration of spirit as our ancestors did since the time of St. Patrick. In our own diocese that history of fidelity, which eventually shot through the rest of Ireland like the flames of an Easter fire, carefully enkindled its very first sparks. It was among us that Patrick began his incendiary of faith, and it was here that he chose to come back to die. Although in his Confessions he does not mention the Eucharist specifically, it was Here a footnote reference is made to Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae. 65 Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, §83. 64 The Sunday Mass: Center and Summit of All Parish Life 1207 he who ordained those who handed it on, and we have been doing so ever since in that strong tradition that to date has never died. Today it is to us that that Eucharistic flame has been entrusted for handing N&V over and handing on. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1209–1241 1209 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, and the Natural Desire for a Supernatural End Jacob W. Wood Franciscan University of Steubenville Steubenville, OH Although it met with an initial flurry of resistance,1 Henri de Lubac’s theological thesis that man has a “natural desire for a supernatural end,” together with his historical thesis that the denial of such a desire lies at the heart of modern secularism, became the generally accepted Thomist consensus until the close of the twentieth century.2 Recently, however, the consensus has begun to wane. Few disagree that de Lubac’s thought on the natural desire for God remains significant for contemporary theology. After all, it bears an important relationship to the thought of Joseph Ratzinger as found throughout curial documents published under Ratzinger’s tenure as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as his pontifical documents as Pope Benedict XVI.3 However, beginning with the completion of For an account of de Lubac’s troubles both with the Roman Curia and within the Jesuit Order, see Joseph A. Komonchak, “Theology and Culture at Mid-Century: The Example of Henri de Lubac,” Theological Studies 51 (1990): 579–602. 2 For a summary of this consensus, see Edward Oakes, “The Surnaturel Controversy: A Survey and a Response,” Nova et Vetera (English) 9 (2011): 627–34. 3 See Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi (2007), §12. I am also grateful to Matthew Gonzalez, who made me aware of an important discrepancy between the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium. While the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published under John Paul II, describes only a “desire for God” (CCC, §27) and, thus, prescinds from debates in the schools over whether the formal terminus of this desire is the natural knowledge of God, the vision of God as first cause, or the beatific vision, the Compendium of the 1 1210 Jacob W. Wood Lawrence Feingold’s dissertation in 2001 and its subsequent publication in 2010, a number of scholars have begun to question the historical, metaphysical, and theological consistency of de Lubac’s thought.4 There are three criticisms common to these recent critiques. Historically, it is alleged that the natural desire for a supernatural end introduces a novel interpretation of Aquinas into the Thomistic tradition. Metaphysically, it is alleged that de Lubac’s theological novum compromises the natural knowability of human nature’s telos, and consequently our ability to know the natural law. Theologically, it is alleged that the natural desire for a supernatural end compromises the gratuity of grace. The purpose of the present article is neither to prove nor to disprove de Lubac’s understanding of the natural desire for a supernatural end. It is, rather, to suggest a more comprehensive historical-theological context for de Lubac’s theological anthropology, and so to indicate where a proof or disproof might be found. It would not be found in the historical argument. De Lubac’s idea of a natural desire for a supernatural end is not an historical novum; it was a foundational commitment of the Thomism of the Aegidian tradition, which was established by Giles of Rome, OESA (Aegidius Romanus), one of Aquinas’s students at the University of Paris. Nor would it be found in the metaphysical argument. The Aegidian tradition affords more than one way to balance the anthropology of a natural desire for a supernatural end with an account of the natural law, relying upon a clear distinction between nature and grace. If anything, it would be found in the theological question of the gratuity of grace. But, even here, de Lubac’s Aegidian context makes the question more subtle than is generally realized. For, while all the members of the Aegidian tradition agreed that there is a natural desire for a supernatural end, they disagreed quite divergently as to how a theological account of Catechism of the Catholic Church, published under Benedict XVI, speaks of a “desire to see God” (CCCC, §§ 2 and 533; emphasis added). 4 The dissertation is Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God according to St. Thomas Aquinas and his Interpreters (Rome: Apollinare Studi, 2001); the published edition is The Natural Desire to See God according to St. Thomas Aquinas and his Interpreters (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010). See also: Reinhard Hütter, Dust Bound for Heaven: Explorations in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012); Steven Long, Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010); Christopher Malloy, “De Lubac on Natural Desire: Difficulties and Antitheses,” Nova et Vetera (English) 9 (2011): 567–624; Bernard Mulcahy, Aquinas’s Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henri de Lubac: Not Everything is Grace (New York: Peter Lang, 2011). Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1211 that desire should be articulated. Their opinions, highly developed but little examined, can infuse contemporary debates on this question with an additional level of subtlety. The article will be divided into five sections. The first will explain the natural desire for a supernatural end as bequeathed to the Aegidian tradition by Giles of Rome, while the second will examine four figures who developed Giles’s understanding within the tradition that followed him: Michael Paludanus, Giovanni Berti, Fulgence Lafosse, and Michelangelo Marcelli. The third section will explain how de Lubac utilized these Aegidian figures to articulate the natural desire for a supernatural end in his works on nature and grace from the beginning of his career until just before Humani Generis. In de Lubac’s first articles on nature and grace, he relies on Berti: human nature necessarily has a natural desire for the vision of God; de potentia absoluta, God could withhold the grace necessary for that vision, but de potentia ordinata, we could hardly imagine him doing so. In Surnaturel (1946) de Lubac relies on Marcelli, although there remains some question as to whether de Lubac embraced Marcelli’s more extreme conclusion: there is a distinction between the human species as such and the human species made in the image of God; the human species made in the image of God necessarily has a natural desire for the vision of God and must be given grace; and in order to create the human species without a natural desire for the vision of God, de potentia absoluta, God would have to create the human species not in the image of God—that is, without intellect and will. In “Le mystère du surnaturel” (1949), he relies on Lafosse: spiritual natures, including human nature, have no definite end (whether natural or supernatural) until God assigns them one; when God creates a spiritual creature and assigns an end to its nature, that spiritual creature has a natural desire for the end that God has assigned to it; in this order of Providence, God has assigned human nature a supernatural end, the vision of God; and, de potentia absoluta, God could withhold the grace necessary for that vision, but de potentia ordinata, we could hardly imagine him doing so. The fourth section will argue that, while Humani Generis condemned Marcelli’s position, it did not condemn the other Aegidian positions. Consequently there is a significant ambiguity about whether de Lubac’s natural desire for a supernatural end falls under the condemnation. His early works and “Le mystère du surnaturel” do not; Surnaturel might, if interpreted as embracing Marcelli completely. 1212 Jacob W. Wood Be that as it may, having already moved on from Marcelli before Humani Generis, de Lubac denied that he fell under the condemnation and continued his support for Lafosse in greater detail in L’Augustinisme et théologie moderne and Le mystère du surnaturel (both in 1965). The fifth section will argue that, although de Lubac’s previous move toward Lafosse enabled de Lubac to avoid the condemnation of Humani Generis in the moment (whatever may be said about his previous work in Surnaturel), it created a “teleological vacuum” that compromised his ability to give an adequate account of the natural law. Nevertheless, there are other resources in de Lubac’s thought bearing affinities to that of Paludanus and Berti that could help de Lubac’s thought overcome that challenge. What would remain would be to complement an Aegidian account of the natural law with a suitable defense of the gratuity of grace. Paludanus most readily supplies such a defense, but de Lubac was wary of him because he does so by conceding the existence of a natural end for man. Berti more tenaciously holds to the idea that man’s sole end is the vision of God, but his defense of the gratuity of grace with the potentia absoluta/ordinata distinction is proportionately more tenuous. Giles of Rome (Aegidius Romanus) A fact well known to theologians in the early twentieth century but now largely forgotten is that the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine (OESA) developed and maintained its own theological tradition throughout the middle ages and early modern period alongside the more well-known Dominican, Franciscan, and Jesuit theological traditions.5 The “founder” of the tradition, so to speak, was Giles of Rome, OESA (1246–1318). Giles was a student of Thomas Aquinas from 1269 to 1272, during Aquinas’s second Paris regency.6 In 1287, the Augustinian Order adopted Giles as its official doctor, together with Thomas An excellent introduction to the tradition and its major thinkers can still be found in E. Portalié, “Augustinianisme,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. Alfred Vacant, E. Mangenot, and Emile Amann, vol. 1, no. 2 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1903), cols. 2485–501. See also Adolar Zumkeller, Theology and History of the Augustinian School in the Middle Ages, trans. John Rotelle (Villanova, PA: Augustinian Press, 1996). The order is today known simply as the Order of St. Augustine (OSA). 6 David Gutiérrez, The Augustinians in the Middle Ages, 1256–1356: History of the Order of St. Augustine, vol. 1, pt. 1 (Villanova, PA: Augustinian Historical Institute, 1984), 139. 5 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1213 Aquinas where the thought of Giles was unclear.7 Giles thus stands at the fount of a theological tradition that might reasonably be called “Thomist” by intent, even if it gave rise to a somewhat different sort of Thomism than the Dominicans or the Jesuits would develop. A summary of Giles’s thought on the natural desire for God can be found in his Treatise on God’s Influence upon the Blessed 8 and in the Ordinatio of his Commentary on the Sentences.9 In the former, Giles offers quinque viae from natural reason why only the beatific vision can satisfy an intellectual creature’s desire for God. While space will not permit us to reproduce all the arguments here, the first gives the general sense of the others: Now, we can enumerate five ways by which it can be shown unassailably that our beatitude is God in himself, and that nothing below God, and nothing other than God, can beatify not only us but also the angels. . . . The first way proceeds in this manner: It is self-evident [per se notum] that if some vessel can hold so much wine, less wine than that cannot fill that vessel. For example, if some vessel can hold a bottle’s worth of wine, or a couple of gallons, or however much wine, less wine than that cannot fill that vessel. Since, therefore, a soul and an angel can hold as much good as God himself is, less good than God himself can fill neither a soul, nor an angel (and according to Augustine in Confessions 10, “we are not happy until we say ‘we have had enough,’” i.e. until we are filled with joy and the goodness of Ibid. Giles of Rome, Tractatus de divina influentia in beatos, in Tractatus (Rome: Antonius Bladus, 1555). 9 Giles’s Sentences commentary has come down to us in two forms. There is a reportatio, known only in a few manuscripts, that gives a shorter list of questions. This has recently been edited by Concetta Luna in Aegidius Romanus, Opera Omnia, vol. 3, no. 2 (Florence: Edizioni del Galuzzo, 2003). The other is an ordinatio of which Giles completed only books I and II (book III, published in the seventeenth century, is reputed by contemporary scholars to be a forgery) and which expresses a much more complete account of his thought. The best editions are Commentarius in Primum Sententiarum, ed. Augustino Montifalconio (Venice, 1521), and Commentarius in Secundum Sententiarum, 2 vols. (Venice, 1581). Since I do not cite the reportatio in this article, I will refer to the volumes of the ordinatio simply as In I Sent. and In II Sent. (the latter actually consisting of two volumes, as noted). Unless otherwise cited as from an English translation edition, all English translations are my own work, whether from such Latin editions as these or from de Lubac’s French, etc. 7 8 1214 Jacob W. Wood God). Therefore, seeing as we can hold as much good as God is, less good than God cannot beatify and fulfill us.10 Giles’s argument had important ramifications for the doctrine of his order on the natural desire for God. By arguing that the satisfaction of our natural desire requires the fulfillment of all our capacity for goodness, he excludes the possibility of any naturally achievable beatitude for human nature, which leaves some of our potential for God unfulfilled. Giles adds to his reasons against the possibility of natural beatitude in his Ordinatio. There he explicitly imagines man “if he were created in pure nature” (. . . si fuisset creatus in puris naturalibus).11 Such a condition would be unthinkable for two reasons. First, man would not be able to attain his end a priori, because “the end of a rational creature is the vision of God, which is above nature [supra naturam].”12 Second, it would be unthinkable a posteriori because man, without even the gift of original justice, subject to the natural antipathy of the flesh and the spirit, would not be able to persevere in moral goodness. Man would be “not only avertible, but averse from God.”13 Giles of Rome, De divina influentia in beatos, ch. 1. “Possumus autem enumerare quinque vias, per quas irrefragabiliter ostendi poterit, quod Beatitudo nostra est ipse Deus per seipsum, et quod nihil infra Deum, et nihil aliud a Deo potest beatificare non solum nos sed etiam angelos. . . prima via sic patet: est enim per se notum, quod si aliquod vas potest capere tantum vinum, minus vinum quam illud, non potest illud vas replere: ut si potest capere vas aliquod quintam vini, vel modium, vel quantumcunque vinum, minus vinum quam illud non potest vas illud replere. Cum ergo anima et angelus possit capere tantum bonum quantum est ipse Deus, minus bonum quam ipse Deus non potest nec animam nec angelum replere: et secundum Augustinum 10 Confessionum non sumus beati donec dicamus satis est, idest donec sumus gaudio et bonitate Dei impleti: ideo potentes capere tantum bonum quantum est Deus, minus bonum quam Deus nos beatificare et replere non potest. Quod autem nos possimus tantum bonum capere quantum est Deus, patet ex hoc quod sumus ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei. Nam secundum Augustinum anima est imago Dei ex eo quod eius capax et particeps esse potest” (Tractatus fol. 21rb). 11 Giles of Rome, In II Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 1, corp. (2:fol. 443A). 12 Ibid.: “Finis creaturae rationalis est divina visio, quae est supra naturam” (2:fol. 442B). Cf. In II sent., d. 33, q. 2, a. 2, corp: “Nec dicimus, quod in visione divina sit principaliter beatitudo nostra, sed dicimus, quod sine visione divina non potest esse beatitudo nostra” (“Nor do we say that our beatitude consists principally in the vision of God; rather, we say that our beatitude cannot take place without the vision of God”) (2:fol. 490A). 13 Giles, In II Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 1, corp.: “Si fuisset creatus in puris naturalibus, 10 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1215 Since, in a state of pure nature, humanity would be able neither to persevere in moral goodness nor to reach beatitude, Giles argues that the gift of original justice can be said to be “due” to human nature, lest human nature be deprived of the possibility of reaching its only end. “Original justice was due to human nature at its institution, even if not absolutely and simply yet according to a certain fittingness of God’s goodness and justice, lest man were made averse from God without fault.”14 In applying the word debitum in such a strong sense to any gratuitous gift of God, even the preternatural gift of original justice, Giles clearly supersedes the thought of his magister. Thomas was very cautious to avoid the word debitum in any discussion of the gratuity of God’s gifts.15 Even so, we should call to mind that Giles’s debitum is relative, not absolute. Absolutely and simply speaking, God could withhold original justice; it is only in view of fittingness that we imagine that God could not withhold it. It is a delicate distinction, yet such was the balance that Giles had to strike in the light of his commitment to the unicity of man’s final end and his rejection of any possible resting place for our natural desire short of the beatific vision. quia haberet necessitatem se avertendi, deberet dici creatus non solum avertibilis, sed aversus” (“If [man] had been created in pure nature, then since he would of necessity turn himself away [from God], he would be said to have been created not only avertable, but averse [from God]) (2:fol. 443A). 14 Ibid.: “Debebatur enim naturae humanae in sui institutione originalis iustitia, etsi non absolute et simpliciter, tamen secundum quandam decentiam divinae bonitatis, et iustitiae, ne homo sine culpa produceretur a Deo aversus” (2:fol. 444B). 15 When Aquinas uses the word debitum in relation to original justice, he is discussing a debitum ex parte subiecti—the debt on our part of keeping our souls in order—not any debt on God’s part of giving us that right ordering. While examples of this usage abound, we may note in particular: In II Sent., d. 20, q. 2, a. 3, corp.; De malo, q. 5, a. 4, ad 7; ST I-II, q. 89, a. 5, ad 3. In one text, Quodlibet IV, q. 11, a. 2, ad 2, Aquinas does use the substantive, debitum, apposite to “iustitia originalis,” but his language is rather more reserved than that of Giles. The question to which Aquinas is responding is whether the first motion of the soul in unbelievers is a mortal sin. In the corpus of the article, Aquinas argues emphatically in the negative. If the first motion of souls wounded by sin is not a sin, how much more so the first motion of a soul in a state of integral nature or pure nature that has never been wounded by sin. 1216 Jacob W. Wood The “Aegidian” Tradition The scholastic tradition arising from within the Augustinian Order was known as “Aegidian,” after Giles (“Aegidius” in Latin).16 This tradition had a difficult history. It suffered severe academic decline in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.17 Following the excommunication of Martin Luther, who was himself a member of the order, it was yet more severely wounded when entire provinces of the order were lost at the Protestant Reformation.18 Nevertheless, in spite of difficulties in numbers and in influence, the Aegidian tradition continued to exist in the post-Tridentine period as a theological alternative to the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits. The chief difficulty facing the Aegidian tradition in the post-Reformation period was the advent of two extreme Augustinianisms: those of Michel de Bay (“Baius”; 1513–1589)19 and of Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638).20 Both of these Augustinianisms shared important commitments with the Aegidian tradition: first, the beatific vision is the only possible end for human nature;21 and second, human nature is subject to a certain natural rebellion of the body against the soul, such that the human person is not able to persevere in the good on his/her own, even if created in a hypothetical state of pure nature.22 But there were also two significant differences: first, Baius and Jansen absolutized Giles’s notion of debitum; and second, they applied it to the gifts of supernatural grace and glory instead of preternatural justice. For Baius, God would be constrained to grant It was at times also known as “Augustinian.” But, given the variety of “Augustinianisms” in the medieval and early modern periods, I will refer to it exclusively as “Aegidian.” 17 Gutiérrez, The Augustinians in the Middle Ages, 1/2:123–26. 18 David Gutiérrez, The Augustinians from the Protestant Reformation to the Peace of Westphalia, 1518–1648, History of the Order of St. Augustine, vol. 2 (Villanova, PA: Augustinian Historical Institute, 1979), 19–42. 19 The works of Baius relevant to this controversy are collected in Michael Baius, Opuscula theologica (Louvain, BE: Joannes Bogard, 1566). The propositions censured by Pius V can be found in Denzinger, 43rd ed., English ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012), nos. 1901–80. 20 The main work of Jansen relevant to this controversy is the posthumously published Cornelius Jansenius, Augustinus, 3 vols. (Louvain, BE: Jacques Zegers, 1640). 21 For Baius, see De meritis operum, bk. 1, chs. 2–3 (Opuscula theologica, 3–7). For Jansen, see De statu purae naturae, bk. 2, chs. 2–3 (Augustinus, 2:cols. 681–92). 22 For Baius, see De prima hominis iustitia, bk. 1, ch. 4 (Opuscula theologica, 52). For Jansen, see De statu purae naturae, bk. 2, chs. 20–21 (Augustinus, 2:cols. 867–76). 16 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1217 us not only original justice in a state of pure nature but also the beatific vision as our reward for keeping the natural law.23 For Jansen, God would at least not be constrained to grant the beatific vision to purely natural acts, but God would be constrained in strict justice to create us in original grace in order for us to have the opportunity of reaching our final end.24 In either case, what were for Giles and the other scholastics God’s gifts become his strict debts: glory for Baius25 and grace for Jansen.26 Opinions diverged within the Aegidian tradition over how best to continue to defend the natural desire for a supernatural end in this period: One approach was to deny the application of Giles’s debitum to supernatural grace by conceding the idea that humanity has a natural end alongside its supernatural end. This approach is found in the work of Michael Paludanus, OESA (1593–1653). In his Treatise on our End and on Beatitude,27 Paludanus borrows from the sixteenth-century Jesuit Francisco Suárez and teaches that man has an innate, natural desire that terminates in naturally achievable knowledge of God.28 Paludanus adds that this naturally achievable end cannot be called our “final end,” nor can it be called a “different” end from our supernatural end. It is an imperfect participation of our final end, which, though it does not satisfy all of our capacity for God, is still satisfying in a certain respect.29 Paludanus’s position had the advantage of Baius, De meritis operum, bk. 1, ch. 2 (Opuscula theologica, 5–7). Jansen, De statu purae naturae, bk. 1, ch. 2 (Augustinus, 2:col. 685). 25 Baius, De prima hominis iustitia, bk. 1, chs. 9–11 (Opuscula theologica, 61–66). 26 Jansen, De statu purae naturae, bk. 1, ch. 15 (Augustinus, 2:cols. 745–52). 27 Michael Paludanus, Tractatus de fine et beatitudine (Louvain, BE: Andrea Bouvetius, 1664). 28 Ibid., disp. 13, pt. 2 (Louvain, 254B–55A). On Suárez, see Francisco Suárez, De ultimo fine hominis ac beatitudo, disp. 16, sect. ult., no. 2, in Opera Omnia, Vol. 4 (Paris: Vivès, 1856), 154. As for the nature of that beatitude, see disp. 15, sect. 1, no. 3: “Dicendum est consequenter, hanc beatitudinem [naturalem] consistere in perfectissima naturali conjunctione cum Deo per intellectum et voluntatem, quantum ex creaturis naturali lumine intellectus cognosci potest” (“Consequently, we should say that this [natural] beatitude consists in a most perfection natural union with God through our intellect and will, insofar as he can be known by the natural light of the intellect from creatures”) (ibid., 4:145). 29 Paludanus, Tractatus de fine et beatitudine, disp. 13, pt. 3: “Respondeo, in beatitudine naturali Deum se non habere sicut formam aut actum beatificantem, qui immediate sic nobis coniungatur ut eum possideamus. Nosque se ipso perficiat (quo modo se habet in beatitudine supernaturali). Nullum enim donum 23 24 1218 Jacob W. Wood avoiding any difficulty with the gratuity of the vision of God. Yet his conciliatory approach hardly won over fellow Aegidians, who sought a more faithful preservation of their Aegidian patrimony. A second approach was to concede the application of Giles’s debitum from praeternatural justice to supernatural grace but to reintroduce Giles’s distinction between an absolute debt and a debt of fittingness. This approach can be found in the works of Enrico Noris, OESA (1631–1704), Fulgenzio Bellelli, OESA (1675–1742), and Giovanni Lorenzo Berti, OESA (1696–1766). Berti gave the most complete systematic presentation of their thought.30 As Berti reasons, man cannot be said to have a right to grace and glory under any circumstances because those gifts lay outside our natural faculties; we have no right and title to what we cannot achieve of our own accord.31 However, even if there is no need to postulate a natural beatitude for man, a state of pure nature is not altogether unthinkable. God could de potentia absoluta create man in a state in which his only final end, the beatific vision, was outside his reach.32 Such persons would ordinis naturalis eo modo Deum homini potest coniungere; sed habet se solummodo tamquam obiectum alicuius nostri actus, illius scilicet cognitionis abstractivae, quae ad naturalem beatitudinem requiritur” (“I respond that in natural beatitude God is not related to us as a form or beatitfying act, which is united to us in such a way that we possess him and he perfects us with himself, as he does in supernatural beatitude. For there is no gift in the natural order that can unite God to man in that way; rather, he is related to us only as the object of an act of our own, namely, the abstractive cognition that is required for natural beatitude”) (fols. 256B–57A). 30 Giovanni Berti, De theologicis disciplinis, 10 vols. (Naples, IT: Gaetano Migliaccio, 1776–1784). This work is a careful, deliberate, and sustained explication of this branch of the Aegidian tradition. The main works of Noris and Bellelli, while still of intellectual value, were composed more as defenses amidst polemics. For Noris, see Enrico Noris, Vindiciae Augustinianae (Brussels, BE: Lambert Marchant, 1675). For Bellelli, see Fulgenzio Bellelli, Mens Augustini de creaturae rationalis ante peccatum (Lucerne, CH: Anna Felicitas Hauttin, 1711) and Mens Augustini de modo reparationis humanae naturae post lapsum adversus Baium et Jansenium, 2 vols. (Rome: Bernabo, 1737). For a more thorough bibliography of primary sources for this period, including unpublished works, see Winfried Bocxe, OESA, Introduction to the Teaching of the Italian Augustinians of the 18th Century on the Nature of Actual Grace (Louvain, BE: Augustinian Historical Institute, 1958), 6–10. Bocxe also contains transcriptions of extracts from a number of manuscripts on 55–99. 31 Berti’s response to this principle begins at Additamentum, bk. 12, ch. 2 (De theologicis disciplinis, 3:fol. 79B). 32 For a helpful history of the term potentia absoluta, see William J. Courtenay, Capacity and Volition: A History of the Distinction of Absolute and Ordained Power Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1219 be called by desire to see God but not ordered by grace to do so.33 Nevertheless, we can hardly imagine a state in which God would do so if we consider de potentia ordinata the Providence by which God arranges all things for the good.34 A third approach was to concede the application of Giles’s debitum to supernatural grace but to relativize human nature’s end. This approach can be found in the works of Fulgence Lafosse, OESA (ca. 1640–post-1684).35 On the surface of things, Lafosse and Berti seem to agree: God could create man and not order him to the beatific vision; and this would not be contrary to God’s justice absolutely, even if it would be contrary to his Providence.36 But where, for Berti, being called to the vision of God by desire is a necessary feature of human nature, even if being ordered to it by grace is not, Lafosse argues that even our call to the beatific vision is contingent. In every state, man desires that end that God had assigned to him; but, since God has called man in this state to the beatific vision, human nature has a natural desire for its supernatural end.37 The contingency of this desire’s end opens up for Lafosse, as for Paludanus, the possibility of a natural beatitude for man in a state in which man has been neither called by desire nor ordered by grace to the beatific vision. But, where Paludanus thinks that human nature as we presently experience it could be satisfied by a natural beatitude, Lafosse thinks that human nature as we presently experience it has been so altered by its call to the beatific vision that it cannot. This does not mean that the beatific vision is in any way due to human nature once humanity has been called to it. Similarly to Berti, Lafosse argues that having a natural desire for the vision of God does not make the vision due human nature, since the fulfillment of that desire lays outside our nature’s reach.38 (Bergamo, IT: Pierluigi Lubrina, 1990). A similar position to that of Berti was already foreseen by Suárez, who, though he thought it unlikely, at least affirmed it as possible; see Suárez, De ultimo fine hominis ac beatitudo, disp. 4, sect. 2, no. 7 (Opera Omnia, 4:43). 33 Berti, Additamentum, bk. 12, ch. 3 (De theologicis disciplinis, 3:fol. 83A). 34 Ibid. (De theologicis disciplinis, 3:fols. 83B–84B). 35 Jean-Robert Armogathe, “Histoire des idées religieuses et scientifiques dans l’Europe moderne,” Annuaire de l’École pratique des hautes études, Section des sciences religieuses 117 (2008–2009): 330. Lafosse’s main contribution to the Aegidian tradition is Fulgence Lafosse, Augustinus theologus, 3 vols. (Toulouse, FR: Guillaume Bosc, 1676–1683). 36 Lafosse, Augustinus theologus, 3:52. 37 Ibid., 3:169. 38 Ibid., 3:174, 182–83. 1220 Jacob W. Wood A fourth approach was to concede the application of Giles’s debitum to supernatural grace, even in an absolute sense, but to relativize human nature itself. This approach can be found in the Institutiones Theologicae of Michelangelo Marcelli, OESA († 1804).39 Like Berti and unlike Lafosse, Marcelli sees a necessary connection between God’s creating human nature and his calling it to himself with a natural desire for the vision of God,40 and like Jansen, Marcelli even goes so far as to say that, when God made intellectual creatures with such a desire, “he was bound” (tenebatur) to order them to order them to himself by grace.41 To preserve the gratuity of grace, Marcelli Michelangelo Marcelli, Institutiones theologicae, 7 vols. (Foligno, IT: Francesco Xavier Tomassino, 1847–1851). 40 Ibid., 3:345–46. 41 Marcelli preserves Berti’s distinction between an absolute debt and a relative debt in name only; the logic of his thought cannot be held together without completely denying it. See Ibid., 3:344–45: “Quod antequam argumentis confirmare incipiamus, animadvertimus non loqui nos de potentia Dei absoluta. Si namque Deus alterius ordinis hominem produceret, non dubitamus quin posset illi suae gratiae donum denegare. Sed loquimur de potentia, ut inquiunt, ordinaria. Supposito nempe quod hominem ad imaginem ac similitudinem suam condiderit, quum ratio imaginis ordinationem importet ad Deum ipsum intuitive videndum tamquam ad ultimum finem, quem absque gratiae auxilio assequi non valet, tenebatur Deus aliquo titulo supernaturalis gratiae ornamento illum fulcire. Dixi, aliquo titulo: hoc est, non propter exigentiam rei creatae, sed propter decentiam Creatoris, ut verbis utar Eminentissimi Norisii” (“Before I begin to confirm this with arguments, let me point out that I am not speaking about the absolute power of God. For if God were to produce man in another order, I have no doubt that he could deny him the gift of his grace. Rather, I am speaking about what people call God’s “ordinary” power. Indeed, supposing that he made man in his image and likeness, then, since the nature of an image implies an ordering toward seeing God himself intuitively as our ultimate end, which cannot be achieved without the assistance of grace, God was bound by some claim to support him with the adornment of supernatural grace. When I said ‘by some claim,’ I meant not because of any exigence belonging to a created thing, but because of the Creator’s decency, to use the words of Cardinal Noris”; emphasis original). While, on the one hand, Marcelli preserves the distinction between God’s potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata in the sense that he states it, he is unable to sustain it conceptually. His logic breaks down in two ways. First, Marcelli uses stronger language to describe what God must do for a human nature with a natural desire for God. Upon deciding to make such creatures, God was—quite literally—“bound” (tenebatur) to give them grace. Contrast that with Berti, who says the opposite: God “was not bound by any claim” (nullo titulo teneretur) to give us grace at all (Additamentum bk. 12, ch. 3 [De theologicis disciplinis, 3:fol. 83A]). It is the logic of Marcelli’s absolute debitum that leads him to say that a state of pure nature is not, as it was for Berti, a state 39 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1221 therefore suggests that, while God can de potentia absoluta create man and not call him to the vision of God, this would entail having to create man not in the imago dei.42 Since, however, being made in the imago dei is synonymous with having a reason and free will,43 the unstated conclusion—which was understood by others to have been implied by Marcelli’s argument—is that for God to make man in a state of pure nature would require that God de potentia absoluta perform the impossible by an extraordinary act of divine power: make an irrational-rational creature.44 Theologically, at least, God is not constrained to grant us the beatific vision. But the metaphysical means of avoiding that constraint require a voluntarist extremism that the rest of the Aegidian tradition had carefully avoided. De Lubac’s Work Prior to Humani Generis: From Berti to Marcelli to Lafosse De Lubac was aware of the Aegidian tradition and relied upon it throughout his career to articulate his doctrine of a natural desire for a supernatural end. In the first article de Lubac wrote on nature and grace (1931),45 he explicitly references Berti’s branch of the Aegidian tradition as a helpful means of upholding the natural desire for a supernatural end without lapsing into Baius’s and Jansen’s “strict debt” of grace.46 The topic addressed in that article concerned the possibility of in which humanity is called by desire but not ordered by grace to the vision of God. Since Marcelli cannot envision a rational creature that is not called to the vision of God by desire, and since he cannot envision a creature who is called to the vision of God without being ordered to it by grace, he has to envision a state of pure nature as one in which human nature is not rational. 42 Marcelli, Institutiones theologicae, 3:345–46. 43 Ibid., 3:345. 44 See Gioacchino Sestili, In Summam theologicam S. Thomae Aquinatis Ia. Pe., Q. XII, A. I.: De naturali intelligentis animae capacitate atque appetitu intuendi divinam essentiam: theologica disquisitio (Rome: A. et Salvatore Festa, 1896), 150. 45 Henri de Lubac, “Deux Augustiniens fourvoyés: Baïus et Jansénius,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 2 (1931): 422–33, 513–40. 46 Ibid., 400, especially note 38.This text was included in Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: Études historiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946), 33–34. De Lubac is describing the historical circumstances of challenges to the Aegidian tradition. Bellelli, de Lubac observes, was criticized for denying the possibility of pure nature, as though his doctrine were no different from that of Baius. In fact, Berti rightly defended Bellelli, because, while both denied the possibility of pure nature in order to preserve the supernatural character of nature’s destiny, Baius (and later Jansen) denied it in order to form an anthropology in which all of human existence is effectively carried out in a state of pure nature. 1222 Jacob W. Wood a state of pure nature, defined as a state in which man is neither called by desire nor ordered by grace to the beatific vision. By maintaining the call but denying the ordering, Berti’s branch of the Aegidian tradition protected the supernaturality and gratuity of the vision.The reverse was true of Baius and Jansen. Baius denied the possibility of a state of pure nature because he denied that the call has a properly supernatural end, and Jansen denied the possibility of a state of pure nature because he denied that the ordering to our final end is properly gratuitous. De Lubac returned to the Aegidian tradition in his second article on nature and grace (1934) in order to defend the tradition from criticism by Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange.47 Garrigou-Lagrange had effectively accused Berti’s branch of the Aegidian tradition of Baianism of failing to distinguish between a natural order with a naturally achievable end and a supernatural order with a supernaturally achievable end: anyone who postulates a natural desire for a supernatural end naturalizes the vision of God.48 In response, de Lubac added to his previous support for Berti’s Aegidianism an argument from authority: not only had Berti’s branch of the Aegidian tradition denied a strict debt of grace on God’s part, but in combining the affirmation of a natural desire for a supernatural end with the denial of a strict debt of grace, it gave the authentic interpretation of Thomas Aquinas.49 Quoting a text of Robert Bellarmine that de Lubac takes as a summary of the entire scholastic tradition, including Aquinas, de Lubac notes that the vision of God “is natural with respect to desire, but not with respect to achievement.”50 The implication is that it was Garrigou-Lagrange who naturalized the end of man, not Berti. When, in 1946, de Lubac republished these two articles on nature and grace in part I of Surnaturel,51 he bolstered his previous support Henri de Lubac, “Remarques sur l’histoire du mot ‘Surnaturel’,” Nouvelle Revue Théologique 61 (1934): 225–49, 350–70. 48 Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “La possibilité de la vision béatifique peut-elle se démontrer?” Revue Thomiste 38 (1933): 669–88. Cf. de Lubac, “Deux Augustiniens fourvoyés,” 400. In Surnaturel, the reference to the Aegidian tradition was moved to the discussion of pure nature (101n1) and has been separated from the reference to Garrigou-Lagrange. 49 De Lubac, “Remarques sur l’histoire du mot ‘Surnaturel’,” 248n2. 50 Robert Bellarmine, De gratia primi hominis 1.4, in Opera omnia, vol. 5, ed. Justin Fèvre (Paris: Vivès, 1873), 191: “Respondeo beatitudinem finem hominis naturalem esse quoad appetitum, non quoad consecutionem” (quoted in De Lubac, “Remarques sur l’histoire du mot ‘Surnaturel’,” 248n2). 51 For a helpful chart that indicates how and where de Lubac’s early work on nature and grace was included in his later work, see Michel Sales, “Introduc47 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1223 of the Aegidian tradition with a more detailed defense against the criticism of Garrigou-Lagrange. Calling the Aegidian tradition “the Augustinian School par excellence,”52 de Lubac claimed that tion,” in the 2010 edition of de Lubac’s Surnaturel published by Lethielleux (Paris), p. xiv. 52 De Lubac, Surnaturel, 164–65: “L’école augustinienne par excellence, ou du moins par dénomination propre—celle que forment les ermites de saint Augustin—est plus formelle encore. Illustrée successivement par Frédéric Gavardi, par Henri Noris, par Fulgence Belleli [sic] et par [Jean] Laurent Berti, elle maintient au milieu des contradictions sa doctrine inchangée. C’est par erreur qu’on lui prête communément, dans l’intention de la distinguer de l’école janséniste, l’idée d’une possibilité métaphysique de la ‘pure nature’ et d’une nécessité seulement ‘morale’, du surnaturel, en raison de la sagesse et de la bonté du Créateur. Du moins cette nécessité morale – attenta Dei providentia – concerne-t-elle chez eux non pas la fin, mais le moyen; le secours de grâce et la lumière de gloire, non la destinée elle-même; ou, si l’on préfère, le don effectif de la béatitude à l’individu, non l’ordination de la nature à cette béatitude. La créature raisonnable, dit par example Gavardi, ne peut avoir d’autre fin dernière que la possession de Dieu; tel est son principal point de départ pour établir que Dieu doit la créer ‘dans la grâce’. Selon Noris, il serait moralement impossible que, dans l’état d’innocence, l’appétit sensible ne fût point soumis à la raison. Selon Belleli [sic!] et Berti, Dieu doit pareillement à sa sagesse et à sa bonté d’accorder à l’homme la grâce, c’est’à-dire le moyen qui seul lui permettra d’atteindre sa fin; car, étant donné que l’homme est fait à l’image de Dieu, c’est-à-dire doué de raison, il est ordonné à voir Dieu. Aucun d’eux ne met en doute que la fin de l’être spirituel ne soit en toute hypothèse la béatitude, telle que la définissait saint Thomas, c’est-à-dire ce que nous appelons et ce qu’ils appellent eux-mêmes la fin surnaturelle.” (“The Augustinian School par excellence, or at least by proper title—that which the Hermits of St. Augustine formed—is still more formal. Achieving distinction successively through Frédéric Gavardi, Enrico Noris, Fulgence Bellelli, and Giovanni Lorenzo Berti, it maintained its doctrine unchanged amidst opposition. Wrongly do people commonly attribute to them the idea of a metaphysical possibility of pure nature and a merely ‘moral’ necessity of the supernatural, in virtue of the wisdom and the goodness of the Creator, intending to distinguish them from the Jansenist School. At the least, according to them, this moral necessity—in view of God’s providence—concerns not the end, but the means; the help of grace and the light of glory, not the destiny itself; or, if one prefers, the effective gift of beatitude to the individual, not the ordering of nature to this beatitude. For example, rational creatures, says Gavardi, cannot have a final end other than the possession of God; such is his principle point of departure for establishing that God must create them ‘in grace.’ According to Noris, it would be morally impossible that in a state of innocence the sensible appetite not be at all submitted to reason. According to Bellelli and Berti, God owes it equally to his wisdom and to his goodness to afford man grace, the means that alone permit him to attain his end; for, 1224 Jacob W. Wood Garrigou-Lagrange’s criticism confuses two distinct questions: the supernaturality of man’s end and the gratuity of the means of obtaining it. The Aegidian tradition had never called into question the supernaturality of man’s final end, nor had they ever suggested that God has any “debt” of offering glory to humanity (that was Baius’s position). The whole question of a “debt” (albeit a debt of fittingness) concerned the means (grace), not the end (glory).53 If all de Lubac did in Surnaturel was continue his support of Berti, there would have been significantly less controversy in the years that followed. However, where, in his previous articles, de Lubac relied on Berti’s branch of the Aegidian tradition exclusively, de Lubac includes in Surnaturel several positive references to Marcelli. With Marcelli, de Lubac acknowledges a distinction between man considered “as a species” and man considered “in the image of God.”54 As a species, man can be considered apart from a supernatural end, but insofar as human nature is created in the image of God, it must (a) be endowed with reason,55 and (b) be called to the vision of God.56 De Lubac does not explicitly attribute this position to Marcelli, but based upon this Marcellian distinction, de Lubac goes on to summarize Marcelli thus: “From the fact that God ordered man to the vision of himself as to his ultimate end, by establishing [man] in his image, it follows that a state of pure nature is impossible.”57 Following this application of the species–image distinction to Marcelli’s understanding of human nature, de Lubac proceeds to deploy the de potentia absoluta–de potentia ordinata distinction in support of the gratuity of grace: granted that man is made in the image of God, endowed with reason, he is ordered towards seeing God. None of them calls into question the fact that the end of spiritual being in every hypothesis is beatitude such as St. Thomas defined it, what we call and what they themselves call a supernatural end.”) 53 Ibid., 168–70. 54 Ibid., 168. 55 Also see De Lubac, “Remarques sur l’histoire du mot ‘Surnaturel’,” 248n2: “Étant donné que l’homme est fait à l’image de Dieu, c’est-à-dire doué de raison, il est ordonné à voir Dieu” (“Granted that man is made in the image of God, that is to say, that he is endowed with reason, he is ordered towards seeing God.”). 56 De Lubac, Surnaturel, 168. 57 Marcelli, Institutiones Theologicae, 3:146: “. . . ex quo Deus, ad imaginem suam condendo illum, ad suipsius ordinaverit visionem, tanquam ad ultimum finem, sequitur impossibilem esse statum purae naturae” (quoted in de Lubac, Surnaturel, 166). Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1225 We could not dream of contesting, [Marcelli] says in the name of his entire school, that God could, by his absolute power, designate such an other end for man as pleases him; that is enough for man not to have any right to require anything [from God], since if the introduction of the concept of “ordered power” renders hypotheses objectively realizable, it does not confer any new title at all upon a creature of which it could boast.58 With the deployment of the absoluta–ordinata distinction in consort with the species–image distinction, de Lubac thus sets up the first two steps of Marcelli’s argument. He does not, however, draw the conclusion explicitly. De Lubac’s use of Marcelli leaves de Lubac’s thought subject to a certain ambiguity at this point in his career. Does he intend for us to draw a conclusion that he is unwilling to state—namely, that a man who was not called to the vision of God would be a man who was not made in the image of God? Or has he not read Marcelli thoroughly enough, such that (a) he confuses Marcelli’s position with that of Berti or (b) he does not realize the full extent of the consequences of Marcelli’s position? De Lubac does not answer these questions in Surnaturel. In fact, the difficulty in answering them is compounded by the fact that his earlier defenses of Berti also appear in Surnaturel. Intellectual charity suggests that we not accuse de Lubac of embracing an extreme position without sufficient evidence to do so. But his use of Marcelli does at least raise an important question as to his precise understanding of the natural desire for a supernatural end. At first glance, de Lubac seems to resolve the ambiguity of Surnaturel by solidifying his support for Marcelli in the subsequent article, “Le mystère du surnaturel” (1949).59 As in Surnaturel, de Lubac continues to see the context for his discussion of a natural desire for a supernatural end in sixteenth-century responses to the errant Augustinianisms of De Lubac, Surnaturel, 169. “Nous ne songeons pas à contester, dit-il au nom de toute son école, que par sa puissance absolue Dieu puisse désigner à l’homme telle autre fin qu’il lui plaît; cela suffit pour que l’homme ne soit en droit de rien exiger, car, si l’introduction du concept de ‘puissance ordonnée’ réduit les hypothèses objectivement réalisables, elle ne confère pour autant à la créature aucun titre nouveau dont celle-ci pourrait se prévaloir.” 59 Henri de Lubac, “Le mystère du surnaturel,” Recherches de Science Réligieuse 36 (1949): 80–121. 58 1226 Jacob W. Wood Baius and Jansen,60 he continues to employ a distinction between man considered “in his species” and man considered as made in the image of God,61 and he alludes to the distinction between God’s potentia absoluta and God’s potentia ordinata to describe God’s ability to make man in a state of pure nature.62 As in Surnaturel, therefore, this chain of thought would seem to bring de Lubac to the doorstep of Marcelli’s impossible-possibility. De Lubac even goes beyond Surnaturel and rejects out of hand Berti’s idea that human nature’s calling to the vision of God is necessary; he affirms unequivocally with Marcelli the idea that human nature’s calling to the vision of God is contingent.63 It would seem, therefore, as if “Le mystère du surnaturel” should be read as a clarification in which de Lubac solidified his commitment to Marcelli. However, there is reason to take caution before suggesting that de Lubac’s articulation of the natural desire for a supernatural end in “Le mystère du surnaturel” should be aligned with Marcelli. If we look beneath the surface of words that appear to align with Marcelli, we find very quickly that the conceptual framework undergirding those words is no longer that of Marcelli; it is that of Lafosse. Spiritual nature, de Lubac now explains, radically differs from lower natures. Other natures have a fixed end that they achieve by their natural powers, while spiritual nature lacks a determined end in itself.64 When God chooses to create a spiritual creature, he therefore has to do two things: (1) decree an end for that spiritual nature,65 and (2) create concrete individuals (that is, persons) who share in that nature and desire its end.66 This process results in a certain tension between nature and the persons who possess it. The nature, considered in itself, lacks an end and so is a mystery.67 The persons with the nature, on the other hand, have a single, determined end that gives definition to their nature insofar as it has been received Ibid., 90. Ibid., 105–06. 62 On God’s potentia absoluta, see the reference to God’s “sourveraine liberté” on ibid., 104; on his potentia ordinata, see ibid., 92: “Et par conséquent, semble-t-il, le Dieu juste et bon ne saurait m’en frustrer, si ce n’est pas moi qui par ma propre faute me détourne librement de Lui” (“And consequently, it seems, the good and just God would have no way of depriving me of it unless I, by my own fault, freely turn myself away from him”). 63 Ibid., 87. 64 Ibid., 106. 65 Ibid., 101. 66 Ibid., 103. 67 Ibid., 113. 60 61 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1227 by them in history.68 To consider humanity “in its species” is not to consider human nature apart from its intellectuality; it is to consider human nature apart from the decree of God establishing an end for human nature and so to consider human nature apart from any natural or supernatural call.69 To consider human nature “in the image of God” is not, as it was for Marcelli, to consider human nature with the addition of intellectual powers; it is to consider the consequences arising from creating individual members of an intellectual species who possess the powers inherent in that species: they have intellect and will, as they would in any hypothesis, but they also possess an element of mystery arising from the primal indetermination of the nature that they have received.70 Two consequences follow from this Lafossian view of human nature. The first is that, even though de Lubac now clearly acknowledges the possibility of a state of pure nature in which humanity is neither called nor ordered to the vision of God, reflection by natural reason on that hypothetical state is rendered practically useless for the purpose of expositing the natural law in this historical state:71 Ibid., 92. It is in this sense that de Lubac can say: “Le désir de Le voir est en nous, il est nous-mêmes [The desire to see him is in us; it constitutes our very selves]” (111). 69 Ibid., 105: “Considérée en elle-même, statiquement pour ainsi dire, ou encore ‘dans son espèce,’ ma nature n’est que ce qu’elle est: il n’y a pas en elle, répétons-le, le moindre élément surnaturel. Mais pas plus qu’on n’avait le droit d’envisager sinon par manière de dire un sujet réel avant sa position dans l’être par l’acte créateur, pas davantage on ne pourrait réellement envisager cette nature avant d’y voir inscrite sa finalité surnaturelle” (“Considered in itself, statically, so to speak, or even ‘in its species,’ my nature is what it is: there does not exist in it, let’s say it again, the least supernatural element. But just as one would have no right to imagine, in a manner of speaking, a real subject situated differently in being by the Creator’s action, so neither would one be able to imagine this nature in a real sense prior to seeing its supernatural finality inscribed upon it”). 70 Ibid., 118: “Une doctrine chère aux Pères de l’Église est que l’homme est à l’image de Dieu non seulement par son intelligence, sa liberté, son immortalité, sa domination sur la nature, mais encore et surtout, en fin de compte, par ce qu’il y a d’incompréhensible en lui” (“A teaching dear to the Fathers of the Church is that man is in the image of God not only on account of his intellect, his freedom, his immortality, [and] his dominion over nature, but also and especially, at the end of the day, because he has something of the incomprehensible in himself ”). 71 Ibid., 99: “Donc l’idée d’une ‘pure nature’. . . appairaît inapte au service qu’on en attendait” (“Thus, the idea of a ‘pure nature’ . . . would appear inapt for the service that it was expected to render”). 68 1228 Jacob W. Wood When you postulate another order of things, then whether you like it or not, you postulate at the same time another humanity, another human being and, if I may so speak, another me. . . . Between this man who, according to the hypothesis, is not destined to see God and the man who I am in reality, between this futurible [man] and this existing [man], there is nothing more than an entirely ideal, an entirely abstract identity. Then again, perhaps I’ve conceded too much by saying that. For the difference between these two does not just concern individuality; it concerns nature itself.72 In that other state, man technically possesses the same nature as we do in this state, provided that we abstract our consideration of human nature from the question of nature’s end and view the nature itself as a mystery. But, since any rational reflection on the nature has to be based upon the end that God has decreed for it, and since God has decreed a different end for nature in that state, there is next to nothing that nature in that state can tell us about nature in this state. Although de Lubac’s Lafossian anthropology therefore makes it impossible to derive an account of the natural law by reflection on pure nature, it would be open to the possibility of deriving an account of the natural law by reflection on nature as we presently experience it, were it not for the second consequence. The second consequence is that, even in this historical state, it is not possible to demonstrate by natural reason that the end of human nature is the vision of God. Since the end of human nature depends upon a voluntary decree of God, Revelation is a necessary precondition Ibid., 93: “En posant un autre ordre de choses, on pose du même coup, qu’on le veuille ou non, une autre humanité, un autre être humain et, si l’on peut dire, un autre moi… Entre cet homme qui, par hypothèse, n’est pas destiné à voir Dieu, et l’homme que je suis en réalité, entre ce futurible et cet existant, il n’y a encore qu’une identité tout idéale, tout abstraite. Peut-être même est-ce là déjà trop concéder. Car la différence entre l’un et l’autre n’affecte pas seulement l’individualité, mais la nature même.” See also ibid., 95: “Si l’on me parle d’une autre nature hypothétiquement réalisable avec une autre finalté dans un autre univers, je ne me sens plus avec elle qu’un lien purement abstrait, quoi qu’il en soit des traits de ressemblance qu’on lui confère, peut-être d’ailleurs arbitrairement, avec la nôtre” (“If one were to speak to me of another, hypothetically realisable nature, with another finality, in another universe, I would only perceive a purely abstract connection with it, even though such a one were to confer upon it (perhaps, for that matter, arbitrarily) strands of resemble with our nature”). See also ibid., 88–89. 72 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1229 in order for us to give a teleological account of human nature with any certainty.73 To unaided human reason, human nature possesses an irreducible air of mystery.74 Any attempt to reduce this mystery to a “system,” such as had been the case in the great systems of the Dominican and Jesuit Thomists,75 necessarily compromises some essential aspect of it.76 This second consequence is a curious development. It seems to ignore the fact that the Aegidian doctrine of a natural desire for a supernatural end was founded upon arguments that Giles of Rome thought were metaphysically demonstrable and, in his words, “unassailable.” It similarly seems to ignore the fact that two of the principal representatives of the Aegidian tradition referenced in the course of de Lubac’s career drew up systems that were every bit as elaborate as those of the Dominicans and Jesuits: Berti (in ten volumes) and Marcelli (in seven volumes). But, as we shall see with reference to de Lubac’s future work, it was an essential—if peculiar—feature of Lafosse’s understanding of human nature’s indeterminacy, and one that de Lubac, in his embrace of Lafosse, came to accept. Humani Generis and “The Twins” In 1950, the year after “Le mystère du surnaturel,” Pope Pius XII weighed in on the controverted question about the natural desire for a supernatural end by censuring those who “corrupt the true gratuity of the supernatural order, since they affirm that God cannot establish beings endowed with intellect, without ordering and calling them to the beatific vision.”77 Although de Lubac was widely interpreted as the intended object of this condemnation, he himself denied that Ibid., 105. This is what is meant when de Lubac says: “ce n’est pas le surnaturel qui s’explique par la nature, au moins comme postulé par elle: c’est la nature qui s’explique, aux yeux de la foi, par le surnaturel, comme voulue pour lui.” (“You do not explain the supernatural by nature, that is, as postulated by it; you explain nature, in eyes of faith, by the supernatural, as willed for it”). 74 Ibid., 113. 75 On the prevalence of these systems, see ibid., 81. On the limits thereof, see ibid., 109, and throughout. 76 Ibid., 114–16. 77 Pius XII, Humani Generis, §26: “Alii veram ‘gratuitatem’ ordinis supernaturalis corrumpunt, cum autument Deum entia intellectu praedita condere non posse, quin eadem ad beatificam visionem ordinet et vocet” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 42 [1950]: 570). 73 1230 Jacob W. Wood his thought fell under it.78 Apart from the question of the personal intention of Pius XII, which is difficult if not impossible to ascertain,79 part of the difficulty in assessing de Lubac’s place with respect to this condemnation concerns the nuanced tradition upon which he was relying and the manner in which his thought had already undergone three stages of development with respect to this tradition. As we have seen, the entire Aegidian tradition affirmed the existence of a natural For a list of quotations and passages in which de Lubac made this denial, see Susan Wood, Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in Henri de Lubac (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 15. Cf. Sales, “Introduction,” xi. 79 De Lubac recounts that Pius XII spoke positively of his teaching when he met the Pontiff in 1946 (At the Service of the Church, 61, cited in Andrew Swafford, Nature and Grace: A New Approach to Thomistic Ressourcement [Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014], 59). The Pontiff ’s words were ambiguous: “Ah! I know your doctrine very well.” De Lubac says they were spoken in a “friendly tone” and that the newly elected superior general assured him, after meeting with the Holy Office and the pontiff, that his work was not in question. In his address to the entire delegation of the Society, the pontiff counseled the members of the Society to “accommodate” themselves to the character of the people of their day but exhorted them not to change what is immutable. While he spoke of a “new theology” as something that primarily mitigates against the immutability of dogma, he never named any theologian in particular. According to the Pontiff, the members of the Society should take care that “In proponendis et proferendis quaestionibus, in argumentationibus ducendis, in dicendi quoque genere deligendo, oporteat sui saeculi ingenio et propensioni sapienter orationem suam accommodent. At quod immutabile est, nemo turbet et moveat. Plura dicta sunt, at non satis explorata ratione, ‘de nova theologia’ quae cum universis semper volventibus rebus, una volvatur, semper itura, numquam perventura. Si talis opinio amplectenda esse videatur, quid fiet de numquam immutandis catholicis dogmatibus, quid de fidei unitate et stabilitate?” (“In proposing and stating questions, in formulating arguments, and in choosing the manner of their speech, it is necessary for them to accommodate their language wisely to the temperament and inclination of the age. But let no one disturb or change what is immutable. Many things have been said (but without a good enough reason) ‘about a new theology’ that revolves with all the things that always revolve, always progressing yet never reaching a destination. If people want to embrace this opinion, what will become of unchanging Catholic dogmas, or the unity and stability of the faith?”). See Pius XII, “Allocutio ad Patres Societatis Iesu In XXIX Congregatione Generali Electores,” September 17, 1946 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 38 [1946]: 384–85). Balanced though it may have been, Pius XII’s words were taken as a warning, and this “warning” was published on the front page L’Osservatore Romano the following day. See Henri de Lubac, Mémoire sur l’occasion de mes écrits, Oeuvres complètes 23 (Paris: Cerf, 2006), 62. 78 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1231 desire for a supernatural end, but that tradition did not universally agree as to how such a desire should be articulated. To review: • In his early articles, de Lubac voiced support for Berti. Berti relativizes the debitum. Humanity would be endowed with intellect and called by desire to the beatific vision in any hypothesis, but would not necessarily be ordered to it by grace; de potentia absoluta, God might create humanity for the beatific vision without giving it the means of attaining that end. • In Surnaturel, de Lubac voiced an ambiguous support for Marcelli. Marcelli relativizes nature itself. In any hypothesis in which humanity is endowed with intellect, it must be called by desire and ordered by grace to the beatific vision; de potentia absoluta, God might create humanity without calling or ordering it to the beatific vision, but that would require making humanity without intellect. • In “Le mystère du surnaturel,” de Lubac followed Lafosse. Lafosse relativizes the debitum, as well as nature’s end. Humanity would be endowed with intellect in any hypothesis but, in every hypothesis, would of necessity be neither called by desire nor ordered by grace to the beatific vision. Even if God created human nature and called it to the vision of himself, de potentia absoluta, God might create humanity for the beatific vision without giving it the means of attaining that end. Carefully read, Humani Generis condemns the view that humanity, in any hypothesis in which it is endowed with intellect, must be both ordered and called to the beatific vision. This view was not universally shared among the theologians of the Aegidian tradition. Only Marcelli falls under the condemnation in a strict sense. Berti allows for a state in which humanity is not ordered to the beatific vision by grace, even if it is called there by desire.80 Lafosse allows for a state in which humanity is neither called by desire nor ordered by grace. Marcelli, however, requires that, in every hypothesis in which humanity is endowed with intellect, God must call and order it to the It is upon this distinction that Agostino Trapè, OESA (1915–1987), one of the last great theologians of the Aegidian tradition, sought to defend the tradition after the promulgation of Humani Generis. See Agostino Trapè, “De gratuitate ordinis supernaturalis apud theologos augustinienses litteris encyclicis ‘Humani Generis’ praelucentibus,” Analecta Augustiniana 21, no. 3 (1950): 217–65. 80 1232 Jacob W. Wood beatific vision—and that is precisely what Humani Generis condemns. Was de Lubac’s natural desire for a supernatural end condemned by Humani Generis? As expressed in his nearest publication to its promulgation, “Le mystère du surnaturel,” certainly not. With Lafosse, de Lubac acknowledged the possibility of a state in which man, endowed with intellect, is neither called nor ordered to the vision of God. As the desire was expressed previously in Surnaturel, perhaps it was condemned. If de Lubac intended fully to support Marcelli’s idea that, in any state in which human nature is endowed with intellect, it must be called and ordered to the beatific vision, then, yes, it was condemned; if de Lubac did not realize the consequences of Marcelli’s position (as we may suspect from his failure to state the conclusion at that time or to reject Berti), then it was not. A more careful interpretation would be to say that Humani Generis condemned what, in actual fact, is Marcelli’s position, that there is a chance that de Lubac supported Marcelli in 1946, and that, whatever the case may be about de Lubac’s support for Marcelli in 1946, he had moved on by 1950 and abandoned Marcelli for Lafosse.81 De Lubac’s shift from Marcelli toward Lafosse is developed in his subsequent works on the natural desire for a supernatural end, “the Twins”: Augustinisme et théologie moderne 82 and Le mystère du surnaturel 83 (1965). Those works were originally intended to be elaborations of de Lubac’s previous publications: Augustinisme et théologie moderne was supposed to be an expansion of part I of Surnaturel, in which de Lubac’s ambiguous support for Marcelli appears, and Le mystère du surnaturel was supposed to be an expansion of the article by the same name, in which de Lubac makes a turn from Marcelli toward Lafosse. Looking back on these texts, de Lubac later reflected that, although he had expanded them, he had not changed “the least point While the compositional history of Humani Generis is not known, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that a Roman theologian assisting in the drafting process after having read Surnaturel and hostile to the natural desire for a supernatural end might suggest censuring what he took to be the conclusion implied by Surnaturel. He would thereby, however, have missed his mark in two ways: first, because de Lubac never actually states the condemned conclusion; second, because, perhaps unbeknownst to the drafter (owing to the proximity of “Le mystère du surnaturel” and Humani Generis), if de Lubac had ever held the condemned conclusion, he had moved on from it by the time Humani Generis was promulgated. 82 Henri de Lubac, Augustinisme et théologie moderne (Paris: Aubier, 1965). 83 Henri de Lubac, Le mystère du surnaturel (Paris: Aubier, 1965). 81 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1233 of doctrine.84 That may be true with respect to Le mystère du surnaturel, but it is certainly not the case with respect to Augustinisme et théologie moderne. While large sections of Surnaturel are repeated verbatim in Augustinisme et théologie moderne, de Lubac actually went back and substantially edited the section in which he praises the Aegidian tradition so as to soften his references to Marcelli.85 His references to Marcelli remain intact materially: he still references the species–image distinction; 86 he still associates being made in the image of God with being called to the vision of God; 87 and he still deploys the absoluta–ordinata distinction with its unspoken conclusion.88 Yet, if we read de Lubac’s “additions” carefully, we find that he uses them to empty Marcelli’s terms formally of any force they might have had by introducing into his treatment of Marcelli the Lafossian understanding of the species– image distinction he had developed in “Le mystère du surnaturel”: For someone like Lafosse, like Bellelli, like Berti, the [image of God] is above all, as it was for St. Augustine and for all the Fathers, as well as for St. Thomas, the soul itself, considered in its superior part, with its natural powers of reason and free will. . . . If the consideration of “image” adds anything to the consideration of “species,” it is solely in the sense that it is a more complete and more concrete view of the same reality.89 De Lubac, Mémoire sur l’occasion de mes écrits, 124: “L’un, le Mystère du surnaturel, développe dans le même ordre, et sans y changer le moindre point de doctrine, l’article publié sous ce titre. . . en 1949 . . . Le second, Augustinisme et théologie moderne, reproduit de même fidèlement, en la grossissant de textes nouveaux, la première partie du vieux Surnaturel” (“The one, The Mystery of the Supernatural, develops in the same order, and without changing the least point of doctrine in it, the article published under this title . . . in 1949. . . The second, Augustinianism and Modern Theology, likewise reproduces faithfully, while enriching it with new texts, the first part of the old Surnaturel”). 85 De Lubac, Augustinisme et théologie moderne, 293–305. 86 Ibid., 301. 87 Ibid., 301–2. 88 Ibid., 302–3. 89 Ibid., 302: “Pour un Lafosse, pour un Belleli [sic], pour un Berti, elle est avant tout, comme pour saint Augustin et pour tous les Pères, comme aussi bien pour saint Thomas, l’âme elle-même, considérée dans sa partie supérieure, avec ses puissances naturelles de raison et de libre vouloir. . . . Si la consideration de l’ ‘image’ ajoute quelque chose à la consideration de l’ ‘espèce’, c’est en ce sense seulement qu’elle est une vue plus complete et plus concrete de la même réalité.” 84 1234 Jacob W. Wood More tellingly, de Lubac also eliminates the necessary connection between possessing intellect and will and being called to the vision of God. Immediately after he refers to the Aegidians as Augustinians “par excellence,” we read, concerning their tradition: Neither do they preoccupy themselves with drawing up an entire system of thought; like Giles of Rome long ago, they base themselves on Scripture and hardly seek to know what can or cannot be demonstrated by reason. When they discuss the point in question, they are voluntarily restrained: “Our opinion is this: the possibility of the beatific vision cannot be proven demonstrably by the light of natural reason.”90 This observation develops the critique of metaphysical demonstrations and of systems that de Lubac first suggested in “Le mystère du surnaturel.” There, it was confined to a series of general critiques of the Dominicans and Jesuits. Here, he goes so far as to suggest that Giles of Rome himself was unconcerned for metaphysical arguments and that the Aegidian tradition as a whole was unconcerned for systematizing in theology. At this point, de Lubac commits two historical errors. The first is with regard to Giles of Rome. As we saw above, Giles was intentional about engaging in the very kind of metaphysical demonstration from which de Lubac seeks to dissociate him. The second is with regard to the Aegidian tradition. Systematization was as much a concern of that tradition as of any other: Aegidians could boast such systematizers as Berti (whose main work encompassed no less than ten volumes) and Marcelli (who bequeathed to his order a more “modest” seven volumes). Where, then, does de Lubac get the idea that “the possibility of the beatific vision cannot be proven demonstrably by the light of natural reason”? If we follow up the reference for the quotation he uses to support the idea, we find that it is taken from Lafosse,91 and that, on the page preceding it, Lafosse had just committed the Ibid., 294: “Ils ne se préoccupent pas non plus d’un effort de pensée intégrale; comme jadis Gilles de Rome, ils se fondent sur l’Écriture et ne cherche guère à savoir ce qui peut ou ne peut pas être démontré par la raison. Quand ils traitent de ce dernier point, ils sont volontier restrictifs: ‘Sententia nostra sit ista: possibilitas visionis beatificae non potest probari demonstrative solo lumine naturali.” 91 Lafosse, Augustinus theologus, 3:139. 90 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1235 same error.92 Lafosse’s opinion represents not the common opinion of the entire Aegidian tradition, but the particular thought of Lafosse as distinct from other significant members of the tradition. Lafosse is quoted in a footnote by de Lubac thus: Since, therefore, this elevation cannot be known naturally, nor consequently can our innate appetite for the beatific vision be known naturally, it follows that the arguments, which we make to prove this sort of appetite, are not purely physical and natural arguments, but theological and radically supernatural arguments, insofar as they are based upon revelation and the faith by which we believe that man has been elevated by God to a supernatural order and to the level of grace and glory. They are nevertheless partly physical and natural: insofar as it is shown by probable argument that man should have been elevated to a supernatural end, and consequently that he desires it naturally.93 Ibid., 3:138. Recounting three opinions about the demonstrability of the possibility of the vision of God, he concludes: “Tertia tandem sententia defendit possibilitatem visionis Beatificae nullatenus nec ex ulla suppositione probari posse naturaliter demonstrative: haec est mens omnium ferme Theologorum, maxime vero Thomistarum, ex nostris quoque eandem opinionem tutantur quamplurimi, Aegidius Rom[anus]; [Thomas de] Argentinas [sic], Aegidius Lusinatnus, [Johannes] Puteanus, [Andreas] Landon, [Augustinus] Gibbon [de Burgo]” (“Only the third opinion does not in any way defend the possibility of the beatific vision, nor does it defend the idea that it can in any hypothesis be proved naturally and demonstratively. This is the mind of nearly all theologians, but especially the Thomists. Many of our confrères also hold the same opinion: Giles of Rome, [Thomas of] Strasbourg, Giles of Santo Ireno, [Jean] Dupuy, [Andreas] Landon, [Augustin] Gibbon [de Burgo]”). He acknowledges that others in the Aegidian tradition think that the possibility can be proven demonstratively, but says that they think that such a demonstration first requires an encounter with Revelation. 93 Lafosse, Augustinus theologus, 3:184: “Cum igitur haec elevatio non possit naturaliter cognosci, nec consequenter appetitus innatus ad visionem beatificam. Quare argumenta, quae nos ad probandum hujusmodi appetitum, non sunt argumenta pure physica, et naturalia, sed theologica et radicaliter supernaturalia, in quantum fundantur supra revelationem et fidem, qua credimus hominem esse elevatum a Deo ad ordinem supernaturalem et gradum gratiae et gloriae. Sunt tamen ex parte physica et naturalia : quatenus probabili ratione ostenditur hominem debuisse elevari ad finem supernaturalem, et consequenter ipsum appetere naturaliter” (cited in de Lubac, Augustinisme et théologie moderne, 294n2.). 92 1236 Jacob W. Wood In short, Lafosse thinks that we cannot demonstrate by natural reason the concrete possibility that human nature has been called to beatific vision because there is nothing in human nature that necessitates its having been called to the beatific vision. Arguments seeking to demonstrate that we have in fact been so called, and based on our present experience of natural desire, can and will only ever be probable. Our elevation to the beatific is, Lafosse says, a supernatural mystery. As such, only faith can teach us about it with certainty.94 A more systematic and overt presentation of de Lubac’s Lafossian anthropology can be found in Le mystère du surnaturel. Here again, de Lubac makes it clear that he agrees with Lafosse that the calling of human nature to the beatific vision is contingent and that this calling creates in man a natural desire for the vision of God. This enables de Lubac to take up the question of Humani Generis explicitly.95 Need humanity, in all hypotheses, be called to the beatific vision? De Lubac’s response is negative. But all the same, does a natural desire for the vision of God, which results from an ontological call, constitute a positive ordering to the beatific vision? De Lubac’s response is emphatically negative. There is an infinite distance between our capacity for the vision of God, with the desire that results from it, and the sanctifying grace that orders us to that end.96 God remains free in every hypothesis in which he has called us to the beatific vision not to give us the means of fulfilling a call that has been contingently imprinted on our nature. Since Lafosse admitted the possibility of a state in which man is not called to the vision of God, de Lubac also feels constrained to speculate as to what that end might look like. He suggests two possibilities, both of which he acknowledges to be inconclusive. In the first hypothesis, human life would culminate in the natural knowledge Ibid., 3:139. After the sentence quoted by de Lubac in the body of the text, Lafosse continues: “Visio Beatitifica non potest probari etiam ut possibilis argumento demonstrativo naturali: consequentia valet, quia Apostolus eo textu [Rom. 6:23: “Gratia Dei vita aeterna”] probat visionem Beatificam, quae est vita aeterna esse mysterium fidei supernaturale, inquantum est mysterium gratiae” (“It cannot even be proven by a natural, demonstrative argument that the beatific vision is possible: the consequent is valid, because in that text [Rom. 6:23: ‘the grace of God is eternal life’] the Apostle proves that the beatific vision, which is eternal life, is a supernatural mystery of faith insofar as it is a mystery of grace”). 95 De Lubac, Le mystère du surnaturel, 111. 96 Ibid., 116–17. 94 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1237 of God. However, this knowledge cannot constitute a final terminus for human nature because abstractive knowledge in fact increases our desire for vision rather than quieting it.97 Human nature would therefore terminate in a limitless search, spurred on by its unfulfilled desire. There could be “a certain joy” in this search, but then again, it would seem ultimately frustrating to search forever without growing closer to the object of our search.98 In the second hypothesis, man would not be spurred on by his knowledge of God, but rather by his ignorance of God. We would wait in the darkness of our expectation in the hope that we might one day achieve the satisfaction of our soul’s capacity for the vision of God, not knowing whether such a satisfaction were possible.99 This too is problematic because, if the goal of this natural hope is not reached, the result will be despair.100 Human nature not called to the beatific vision must have as its telos some definite act,101 but de Lubac ultimately acknowledges that he is unable to come to a definite conclusion as to what that act is supposed to be.102 Lafosse had never said what he thought the end of human nature would be in a state in which it was not called to the beatific vision. De Lubac is unable to do so either. Conclusion De Lubac’s inability to ascertain a suitable response to the question of “What would the final act be for a man who was neither called nor ordered to the beatific vision?” arises from an insoluble ambiguity in Lafosse’s understanding of nature. Since Lafosse relativizes nature’s end, Lafosse’s understanding of pure nature entails a hypothetical man that experiences life so fundamentally differently from the way we do that reflection upon such a hypothetical man is of no usefulness for understanding humanity in our present state. It opens, one might say, a teleological vacuum. Lafosse’s difficulty with regard to human nature’s natural end leads to a difficulty with regard to the natural law. To return to one of the questions with which we began this article, Lafosse could hardly assist de Lubac in overcoming contemporary objections in regard to Ibid., 247. Ibid., 247–49. 99 Ibid., 252. 100 Ibid., 253. 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid., 254–55. 97 98 1238 Jacob W. Wood the natural law because Lafosse’s understanding of the teleology of human nature is fluid. It is for that reason inaccessible to reflection by natural reason in a state of elevated nature, whether directly, because the end to which elevated nature is called is supernatural, or indirectly, because the teleology of pure nature would be different from the teleology of elevated nature. In spite of this difficulty, I would like to suggest two ways in which the doctrine of a natural desire for a supernatural end might account for the natural law if situated in the context of the Aegidian tradition. A Ressourcement of Paludanus In the fifty years prior to Surnaturel, several theologians had proposed some sort of return to an Aegidianism inspired by Paludanus.103 De Lubac was critical of this idea. He thought that the admission even of an imperfect, natural participation in the vision of God weakened the nature of the human person.104 Yet de Lubac also acknowledged that, although the beatific vision is a supernatural act, it includes within itself super-eminently all the perfection of human nature as such. Included within this perfection is the knowledge of God attainable by natural reason. Such knowledge, de Lubac suggests, is contained within the beatifying act as a secondary, “accidental” beatitude.105 The act that de Lubac describes as accidental beatitude is the same act as neo-Scholastic Thomists generally considered the end of man in a state of pure nature to be. In other words, while de Lubac considers the vision of God as the end of natural desire as such, he does acknowledge that this very same desire carries us toward the fulfillment of all that human nature can achieve of its own accord. Since such fulfillment is the very act that neo-Scholastic critics use to build an account of nature and the natural law, it would seem that the natural law objection to de Lubac’s thought could be reconciled on this basis. The first of these was Sestili, De naturali intelligentis animae capacitate atque appetitu intuendi divinam essentiam. More well-known are Pierre Rousselot, L’intellectualisme de Saint Thomas, 2nd ed. (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1924), and Guy de Broglie, “De la place du surnaturel dans la philosophie de saint Thomas,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 14 (1924): 193–246 and 481–96. 104 De Lubac, Surnaturel, 450. 105 Ibid., 462–63. 103 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1239 A Ressourcement of Berti One might reasonably object that an accidental end is not sufficient to ground a teleological account of nature and the natural law; only an ultimate end will suffice. In that case, another way to respond to de Lubac’s critics would be to propose a return to Berti. Berti has the benefit over Lafosse of asserting that there is a single end for man, and he has the benefit over Paludanus of saying that such an end is man’s ultimate end. Shifting our attention to Berti can move the contemporary discussion about the natural desire for a supernatural end forward in three ways. Each of these ways concerns an objection that might be raised against Berti’s understanding of nature. First, one may object that the demonstrations offered by the Aegidian tradition seeking to show that the end of man’s natural desire is the vision of God are not demonstrative. If the invalidity of those proofs were shown, then it might continue to be objected that the Aegidian tradition cannot provide a single, fixed, naturally knowable telos for human nature. At present, however, contemporary scholarship is not familiar enough with the Aegidian tradition to make that determination. Giles may have offered five ways, but his five arguments underwent seven hundred years of development. A defense or rejection of them should engage with that tradition the same way that a defense or rejection of any other aspect of Thomism engages with significant figures in the Thomistic tradition. Second, one may object that the goal of identifying a single, fixed, naturally knowable telos for human nature is not so much theoretical as it is practical: we identify such an end so as to identify how human actions and human society ought to be ordered and to provide general principles that can be applied to particular situations by human law. On this objection, the Aegidian tradition’s natural desire for a supernatural end is—literally speaking—“impractical,” because human actions can only be ordered towards the vision of God by grace. Thus, the Aegidian tradition might make humanity’s teleology knowable, but it makes the natural law practically useless. There are two ways to respond to this objection. The first is to observe, as we did above with regard to a ressourcement of Paludanus, that man’s supernatural end contains within it all of man’s natural perfection. If human actions cannot be actively ordered toward the vision of God without grace, they can still be ordered towards that natural perfection. The natural desire for a supernatural end is therefore open to the exact same practical use as other accounts of the natural law. 1240 Jacob W. Wood But one might continue to object that only an ultimate end is a sufficient basis for human action. It is an important critique but not a fatal one, because the Aegidian tradition was aware of this impracticality. To put it colloquially, the Aegidian tradition saw the impracticality of the natural desire for a supernatural end as a feature, not a bug. It laid the groundwork for a powerful apologetic concerning the need of individuals to be perfected by grace and the need of society to be perfected by the Church.106 Part of de Lubac’s criticism of neo-Scholastic Thomism is that its reliance on pure nature destroyed that apologetic, leading to a disappearance of the sense of the sacred and to the advance of secularism.107 Third, and finally, one may shift from the natural law objection to a theological objection about the gratuity of grace. Until now, de Lubac’s critics and his followers have largely been locked in a battle of gratis asseritur gratis negatur on the question of whether natural desires must have naturally achievable ends: his critics assert that natural desires must have a naturally achievable end and so a state of pure nature must be possible; his supporters assert that they need not, and so a state of pure nature is not possible. If, however, the natural desire for a supernatural end is understood in the context of the Aegidian tradition’s application of the potentia absoluta–ordinata distinction to an Aegidian debitum of grace, then a fruitful debate on the applicability of that distinction to the gratuity of grace would be a helpful way of moving discussions of the natural desire for a supernatural end forward. The difference between Dominican/Jesuit Thomists and Aegidian Thomists is not that the former admit the possibility of a state of pure nature and the latter do not; it is that the former define pure nature as a state in which humanity is neither called nor ordered Already in the thirteenth century, Giles emphasized the ecclesial apologetic inherent in the natural desire for the vision of God over and against the Dominican theologian John of Paris. See Giles of Rome, De ecclesiastica potestate, in Giles of Rome’s On Ecclesiastical Power: A Medieval Theory of World Government, ed. and trans. Robert Dyson (New York: Columbia, 2004). See also John of Paris, De potestate regia et papali, in Jean Leclercq, Jean de Paris et l’écclesiologie du XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1942), 173–260 (English translation in On Royal and Papal Power, trans. J. A. Watt (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1971). 107 This argument permeates de Lubac’s thought. See especially Henri de Lubac, “Causes internes de l’atténuation et la disparition du sens du sacré,” in Théologie dans l’histoire (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1990), 2:13–30, Augustinisme et théologie moderne, 135–223 and 284–330, and Le mystère du surnaturel, 19–78. 106 Henri de Lubac, Humani Generis, Desire for a Supernatural End 1241 to the vision of God, while the more prominent members of the latter, such as Berti, think of pure nature as a state in which humanity is called to the vision of God but not ordered to it. The question at stake is whether either or both of these hypotheses is consistent and realizable. Both possibilities are consistent with Humani Generis. But it has been a long time since the question was debated on those terms. A ressourcement of Aegidian Thomism for the purpose of continuing discussions of the natural desire for God should not in any way lead to theological relativism or to historical reductivism. De Lubac was wrong to represent the Aegidian tradition as non-demonstrative and non-systematic. At least concerning the natural desire for God, Aegidian Thomists sought to be as demonstrative and systematic as their Dominican and Jesuit counterparts. Consequently, if a ressourcement of the Aegidian tradition is to inform contemporary debates about de Lubac, that ressourcement will have to respect the nuances, subtleties, and divergences within the Aegidian tradition. Doing so offers a fruitful way forward for contemporary Thomists by avoiding historical and metaphysical detours for which any of the great Scholastic traditions can render an account. Instead, it indicates where the true theological divergences among the traditions are located. The promise of such a ressourcement is that it offers the opportunity to continue that conversation in which the great figures of the Scholastic tradition were engaged. What spurred them on in their debates was that they agreed with Giles: whatever the truth about our natural desire for God, we should seek to demonstrate it “unassailably.” Such was the hope and the challenge that animated the Thomists of the Scholastic tradition; Thomists of the present age can and should be animated by nothing N&V less comprehensive and nothing less worthy. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1243–1249  1243 Vatican II on the Religions: A Response Gerald O’Collins, S.J. Jesuit Theological College Parkville, Victoria, AU In a recent review essay on my The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions,1 Eduardo Echeverria took issue with me on many points.2 Let me choose eleven of his objections, treat them in the order in which they appear in his article, and refer intratextually to what he wrote. First, Echeverria challenged my position that, when human beings accept God’s revelation, they receive something that sets them on the way of salvation (839–40). Pace Echeverria, revelation and salvation may be distinguishable, but they are not separable, as years ago Juan Alfaro used to insist when citing the Johannine language of Christ being our Light (revelation) and, hence, simultaneously our Life (salvation). Joseph Ratzinger also prompted me into taking up this position. His study of St Bonaventure’s concept of revelation allowed him to retrieve the notion that divine revelation is actualized in its outcome, human faith. God’s self-revelation exists in living subjects, those who respond with faith. In a lecture given in 1963, Ratzinger insisted that “revelation always and only becomes a reality where there is faith. . . . Revelation to some degree includes its recipient, without whom it does not exist.”3 Receiving in faith the offer of 1 2 3 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. “Vatican II and the Religions: A Review Essay,” Nova et Vetera 13, no. 3 (2015): 837–73. This article will be cited in my present text and notes simply by page numbers in parentheses. Joseph Ratzinger, “Revelation and Tradition,” in Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger, Revelation and Tradition, trans. W. J. O’Hara (London: Burns & Oates, 1966), 26–49, at 36. 1244 Gerald O’Collins, S.J. divine self-revelation is a saving grace, which sets believers on the way of salvation. Later on, Echeverria remarks that, by associating revelation and salvation, I probably mean “that the purpose of revelation is salvific.” He adds at once: “If so, I think we must say that this salvific purpose is not always realized.” Yes, I do agree that “an individual must respond in faith to God’s self-revelation in order to receive salvation” (855), and—I would add—must continue responding with such faith. But we do not know how many people, either Christians or those of other faiths, will offer such a sinful resistance to revelation as to finally block its saving purpose being realized. Hence I would not state that “this salvific purpose is [italics his] not always realized,” but rather that “this salvific purpose may not always be realized.” Echeverria goes on to claim that the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium §16) “speaks of the widely realized possibility of inadequately responding” to God’s revelation. He adds: “in other words, the salvific purpose of revelation is not always realized” (856). Vatican II, however, spoke of a serious and fearful possibility; Echeverria turns this into an actuality (“is not always realized”). Second, rather than call into doubt—as Echeverria asserts—that the Church is not only a sign but also an instrument of salvation for all people (844), I accept this wholeheartedly and have spelled out the kind of (instrumental) efficient causality exercised in the Church’s intercession for “the others.” Such intercessory prayer is inspired by a love, through which the faithful assembled for the Eucharist join themselves to Christ’s high priestly intercession for the whole human race.4 Third, I felt quite sad to find Echeverria dismissing Jews as “mere theists” (844). How can such language be reconciled with what St. Paul wrote in Romans 9 and 11 about God’s “irrevocable” gifts to the Jewish people, with what Vatican II taught about the “great spiritual heritage common to Christians and Jews,”5 with the teaching of St. John Paul II about “the people of God of the old covenant, which has 4 5 See Gerald O’Collins, “The Church and the Power of Prayer for ‘the Others,’” Horizons 41 (2014): 211–29. See also, more briefly, my The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions, 164–65. Second Vatican Council, Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, §4. Vatican II on the Religions: A Response 1245 never been revoked,”6 and with what Pope Francis wrote in his 2013 exhortation Evangelii Gaudium?7 Later on, Echeverria states that “theistic religions enjoy some knowledge of God derived from general revelation, derived from elements of goodness, truth, and beauty found in these cultures and religions” (855). Presumably this picture applies to the story of the Old Testament, since he has already named Jews as “mere theists.” Does Echeverria want to deny that special revelation was mediated through God’s saving acts in the history of his people and though the words of the prophets? Fourth, Echeverria disagrees with my interpretation of the teaching of John Paul II in the 1990 encyclical Redemptoris Missio: that the Church serves the Kingdom of God and not vice versa. He quotes the Pope’s words about the “the temporal dimension of the kingdom” remaining incomplete “unless it is related to the kingdom of Christ present in the Church” (848). But “being present in” is not synonymous with serving. The Holy Spirit is present in the Church as in a temple. But do we want to say that the Spirit, therefore, “serves” the Church? While being an historical reality that extends beyond the Church to all human beings, the Kingdom is present in a special way in the Church. Yet that does not mean that the Kingdom serves the Church. Fifth, I do not “separate the universal headship of Christ over all humanity from the Church” (848). Following Thomas Aquinas, I distinguish (without separating) the universal headship of Christ from his headship of the Mystical Body. Sixth, Echeverria writes: “O’Collins does not attend to the important distinction between God’s general revelation . . . and his special revelation” (850). This is true in the case of The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions. As the Council did not apply the qualifiers “special” and “general” when it spoke of revelation, I did not introduce this terminology myself. Two years before, in an earlier book, I had dedicated an entire chapter to “general and special revelation.”8 If Echeverria had opened this book, he could not 6 7 8 Pope John Paul II, 1980 speech in Mainz (Germany), Acta Apostolicae Sedis 73 (1981): 80. Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, §247: “As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism a foreign religion” (see further §§248–49). Gerald O’Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 56–95. 1246 Gerald O’Collins, S.J. have said that I “reject” the “distinction between general and special revelation” (851). Seventh, Echeverria is right in saying that, apart from God’s full, perfect, and complete self-revelation in and through Jesus Christ (Dei Verbum §4), the divine revelation is “imperfect [and] incomplete.” But does it follow, as Echeverria maintains, that such revelation that is found elsewhere “by its very nature is not salvific”? How can such (imperfect and incomplete) revelation be “supernatural in origin,” as he states (851), but not “supernatural” in its (saving) effect? Are we meant to think that the divine revelation that came to such figures as Abraham, Moses, and the prophets was not in any sense salvific because this revelation was “imperfect” and “incomplete”? Was no salvation mediated to them when they responded in faith to God’s self-revealing initiatives? At the Second Vatican Council, Nostra Aetate observed that “the Catholic Church rejects nothing of those things which are true and holy” in other religions. Rather, “it is with sincere respect that she considers those ways of acting and living, those precepts and doctrines, which, although they differ in many [respects] from what she herself holds and proposes, nevertheless, often reflect a ray of that Truth, who illuminates all human beings [see John 1: 9]” (§2; italics added). By recognizing what is “true and holy,” Nostra Aetate uses a double-sided terminology that, implicitly, distinguishes (but does not separate) the two dimensions of the divine self-communication: revelation and salvation. While saying of other religions that their “ways of acting and living,” along with their “precepts and doctrines,” “differ” in many respects from what the Catholic Church teaches, the Council acknowledges the mysterious impact of Christ in these religions and on their followers.9 Since what is “true” among them reflects “the Truth”—that is, the Word of God—presumably, what is “holy” among them also comes from the Word who is the life of human kind ( John 1: 4). How can the Word, even through a revelation that may be incomplete and imperfect, illuminate all human beings without conveying to them also something of God’s offer of salvation? 9 I summarized this teaching as: “Official Catholic teaching acknowledges the living, personal relationship between these ‘others’ and God, mediated by the One who is the Truth of God in person” (The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions, 163). Echeverria dismisses this as my “verbal sleight of hand” (860). But was it a fair comment on what Nostra Aetate taught? Vatican II on the Religions: A Response 1247 As Ratzinger pointed out back in 1963 (see my first point above), “revelation always and only becomes a reality where there is faith.” Revelation does not happen without a recipient responding with some kind of faith. Faith, however feeble and limited it may be and however it is attacked by evil, is always in some sense salvific: in some sense it sets the recipient of revelation on the path of salvation. Echeverria seems to imagine, contra the young Ratzinger, that revelation can exist without faith. Eighth, Echeverria maintains that “God’s grace may reach individuals despite but not through their religions” (861). This means that their religions contribute nothing to these individuals receiving God’s grace (presumably understood as saving grace). In fact their religions create difficulties in the way of their salvation; it would be better that they did not follow their religions. “Despite” has such ominous overtones, as we can see from an example in a sports paper: “the sprinter reached the finishing line in third place, despite suffering a torn hamstring.” This torn hamstring contributed nothing to his achievement. In fact it created only difficulties, and he would have been better off without it. If Echeverria means what he says, he presents a similar picture about the bad impact of the religions of the world, other than Christianity. How then could Nostra Aetate have spoken of “true and holy” elements in these religions (see above), elements that contribute to individuals receiving God’s grace? They can be saved through these elements, not despite them. In Redemptoris Missio, John Paul II stated: “The Spirit’s presence and activity affects not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions” (§28; italics added). The Pope clearly affirms here that the Holy Spirit acts in and through the cultural and religious traditions of our world. We must conclude that this presence and activity, to some extent and in some degree, mediates saving grace to individuals who follow their religions. Given the active presence of the Spirit, these religions can and do bring God’s grace to their followers. They are not saved “despite” their religions. Ninth, Echeverria queries the view that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam “worship the same God” (862), spending most of his time on the case of Islam. He quotes what John Paul II said to young Muslims in a memorable speech in Casablanca: “We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, [and] the God who created the world, and brings his creatures to their perfection” (865n103). A letter sent in 1076 by Pope Gregory VII to the Muslim king of Mauretania (in modern Algeria) expressed the faith he shared with the king by 1248 Gerald O’Collins, S.J. saying: “We and you must show in a special way to the other nations an example of charity, for we believe and confess one God, although in different ways, and praise and worship him daily as the creator of all ages and the ruler of this world.” The Pope ended by praying “in our hearts and with our lips, that God may lead you to the abode of happiness, to the bosom of the holy patriarch Abraham, after long years of life on earth.”10 Nevertheless, Echeverria tries hard to mitigate such teaching and finishes by saying: “Even if Muslims refer to the same God, that doesn’t make Islam a salvific religion” (868). In spite of the positive elements in Islam, explicitly acknowledged by Lumen Gentium §16 and Nostra Aetate §3, he refuses to accept that the faithful followers of authentic Islam receive anything toward salvation through their faith. I prefer to follow Gregory VII and John Paul II, whose speech in Casablanca has more to add on Muslim life and faith.11 Tenth, when I wrote of Jesus (and not the Church) being the norm for dialogue with others and for proclamation of the good news, Echeverria detects a “separation between Jesus and the Church” (870). But surely we should primarily understand the Church in the light of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, resurrection, and sending of the Holy Spirit, and not vice versa? Pope Francis has warned us against a “self-referential Church” and encouraged members of the Catholic Church (and, indeed, other Christians) to make Jesus their constant criterion for discernment and action. So far from separating Jesus and the Church, I stressed what happens at every Eucharist when the faithful lovingly join themselves to the high priestly intercession of Christ our high priest and share in his intercession.12 We are taken up into him, and not vice versa. Eleventh, Echeverria ends by suggesting that “perhaps the most unfortunate thing in his [my] book is that there is nothing in it” that encourages the missionary commitment of the Catholic Church (873). But the theme of my book was Vatican II’s teaching on the other religions, not the missionary mandate of the Church as proposed by the Council. I was not minimalizing that mandate, but had chosen another topic. Even so, pace Echeverria, my book 10 11 12 For details, see my The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions, 23–24. For the full text of this speech, see Pope John Paul II: A Reader, ed. Gerald O’Collins, Daniel Kendall, and Jeffrey LaBelle (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2007), 148–58. O’Collins, The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions, 165. Vatican II on the Religions: A Response 1249 contained a number of passages on the mission of the Church and desire to share Jesus with others.13 Twelfth, there are misspellings and pieces of misinformation that call for correction. For instance, Echeverria states that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s investigation of Jacques Dupuis’s Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism “involved conversations [in the plural] with the CDF that began in the spring of 1998” (838n3). To be sure, the CDF’s procedures against Dupuis began in the spring of 1998, but he knew nothing of this before receiving a nine-page document accusing him of various doctrinal errors in October of 1998. His one and only meeting with the CDF eventually came on September 5, 2000. There was no series of conversations that began in the spring of 1998.14 In writing this response I could press on and challenge other claims made by Echeverria, but enough has been said. Let me conclude by observing that, thus far in my life, I have authored or co-authored sixty-eight published books. But I have never before had any of my N&V books reviewed so negatively and at such length. 13 14 For instance, ibid., 143–48, 200–1. For a complete account of the Dupuis affair, see Gerald O’Collins, On the Left Bank of the Tiber (Brisbane, AU: Connor Court, 2013), 213–51. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1251–1279  1251 Ad Father O’Collins Eduardo Echeverria Sacred Heart Major Seminary Detroit, Michigan I am grateful to Fr. Gerald O’Collins, S.J., for his response to my article review1 of his book The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions. Let me also extend a word of gratitude to the editors of this journal for their invitation to respond to Fr. O’Collins’s response. O’Collins identifies eleven objections in my article review to which he responds (although, honestly and respectfully put, he mostly ignores my arguments against his views). Rather than deal with each of his responses, however, I think that his objections may be conveniently organized into three groups that address several key questions I raised. The first group deals with the question “is there revelation within other religions?” O’Collins and I agree that there is, that the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II also judge that to be the case, but we differ as to the nature of that revelation, how it is known, its effects upon its recipients, and hence, the corresponding distinction and unity of the modes of revelation, general and special revelation (objections 1, 3, 6, and 7). Indeed, we even differ as to whether Vatican II moved beyond the distinction between general and special revelation. Without leaving the first group of objections behind us, I will also briefly consider a second group of objections (8, 9, and 11) because of their relevance to the relationship between faith and general revelation. O’Collins thinks that persons who never hear the Gospel can nevertheless attain salvation through their response in faith to God’s general revelation alone. There is a third group of Eduardo Echeverria, “Vatican II on the Religions,” Nova et Vetera (English) 13, no. 3 (2015): 837–73. 1 1252 Eduardo Echeverria objections (4, 5, and 10) that focus on the question regarding the relationship between Christ, the Church, and the Kingdom of God. O’Collins’s theses are: “the Church serves the Kingdom of God, and not vice versa,”2 and “we should primarily understand the Church in the light of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, resurrection, and sending of the Holy Spirit, and not vice versa.” Distractions Regarding the first group of objections, O’Collins distracts the reader’s attention from the real issue that divides him and me—and, I argued, Vatican II and John Paul II—by claiming that I challenge his “position that, when human beings accept God’s [general] revelation, they receive something that sets them on the way of salvation,” or as he also says “on the path of salvation” (emphasis added). Later in his response, he makes the same point, but this time, he says that I refuse to accept that (in spite of the positive elements in Islam) the faithful followers of authentic Islam receive anything toward salvation through their faith” (emphasis added). But that is not the position he took in his book, and hence that is not the position I challenged in my article review. These emphasized phrases in the three quotations from O’Collins suggest that I oppose Vatican II’s use of the traditional category of praeparatio evangelii: “Whatever good or truth is found amongst them [non-Christian religions] is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel.”3 But I explicitly embrace this position (842, 855) as one of the important doctrinal teachings regarding non-Christian religions in Vatican II documents.4 Gerald O’Collins, “Vatican II on the Religions: Response,” in this present issue of Nova et Vetera (English) (15, no. 4 [2017]). See also O’Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer: A Christian Approach to Salvation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 236, and The Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014), 108. 3 Lumen Gentium §16. 4 Another distraction blocking the perception of what I was actually saying about Jews is O’Collins’s “sadness” at my referring to Jews as “mere theists.” He asks, “How can such language be reconciled with what St. Paul wrote in Romans 9 and 11 about God’s ‘irrevocable’ gifts to the Jewish people, with what Vatican II taught about the ‘great spiritual heritage common to Christians and Jews, [. . . etc.]?” But the opposition O’Collins sets up here is fanciful because he ignores the context in which I refer to Jews as mere theists. Of course I, too, along with O’Collins, affirm the teaching of St. Paul and Vatican II. But, as O’Collins also correctly notes, this is “special revelation . . . mediated through God’s saving acts in the history of his people and through the 2 Ad Father O’Collins 1253 Actual Objections The position of O’Collins that I actually opposed in my article review is that the knowledge of God’s general revelation, which is God’s self-revelation in and through the works of creation and conscience, is in itself salvific. For O’Collins, there is a correlation between revelation and faith in the sense that not only is faith indispensable for receiving God’s revelation so that the salvific purpose of revelation may reach its goal,5 but also it seems that, for O’Collins, revelation becomes a reality in or through faith: “Revelation and salvation cannot, as it were, hang in the air without reaching their ‘object’ and being accepted (or rejected) by their addresses. . . . Revelation and salvation simply cannot happen outside the experience of human beings.”6 Elsewhere he says, “Divine revelation is actualized in its outcome, human faith.”7 Or he adds in his Response to me: “God’s self-revelation exists in living subjects, those words of the prophets.” In fact, not only do I agree, but I said as much in my article review (“Vatican II on the Religions,” 866n109). Now, the context in which I referred to Jews as “mere theists” is Lumen Gentium §16, where Jews and Muslims are referred to as those “who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His Church.” The only (uncontroversial) point I was making here about Jews (and Muslims), and which I take Lumen Gentium §16 to be making, is well stated by Dutch philosophical theologians Jeroen de Ridder and René van Woudenberg: “Christians will think it crucially important that God is a trinity, while Muslims and Jews are bound to emphasize that God is one in every respect (which they will take to entail that He is not a trinity”) (“Referring to, Believing in, and Worshipping the Same God: A Reformed View,” Faith and Philosophy 31, no. 1 [2014]: 46–67, at 61). Equally uncontroversial for the Catholic Christian is Lumen Gentium §14’s statement: “Basing itself upon sacred Scripture and tradition, it [sacred Synod] teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. For Christ, made present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church.” I took both these points as implied in the statement of Lumen Gentium §16 that I cited above—namely, that Jews and Muslims are referred to as those “who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His Church.” Does O’Collins disagree? 5 This is how O’Collins puts his point about the correlation of faith and revelation in his book Rethinking Fundamental Theology: Toward a New Fundamental Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 166. 6 O’Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology, 72. Thirty years earlier, O’Collins made the same point almost verbatim in his book, Fundamental Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 59. 7 O’Collins, Second Vatican Council, Message and Meaning, 9. 1254 Eduardo Echeverria who respond with faith. . . . Revelation does not happen without a recipient responding with some kind of faith. . . . Echeverria seems to imagine . . . that revelation can exist without faith.” It certainly seems that, for O’Collins, revelation becomes a reality in or through faith. I challenged this view, calling it an “actualistic theology of revelation” in my review article.8 If this is not what O’Collins means then I am at a lost to understand him. Yes, there is no salvation without the knowledge of divine revelation, but the converse does not follow—namely, no revelation without salvation, as the above quotes suggest and as he insists in his book, The Second Vatican Council on Other Religions. I admit that I am puzzled by this latter claim because it suggests that O’Collins conflates the difference between ontological and epistemological matters. But revelation necessarily includes both an objective (ontological) dimension and a subjective (epistemic) dimension. By the former, I mean the ontological objectivity of the historical reality of special revelation: the words and deeds of God’s self-revelation, which culminate in Christ, who is the fullness and mediator of all revelation, as a condition of knowing revelation and as a condition of its saving significance. So, for example, the condition under which the bodily resurrection of Jesus is true depends on the state of affairs that Jesus actually rose bodily from the dead. It is true independently of whether anyone knows it to be true, and hence its being known is not a necessary condition for it being a revelation of God or for it being true. Regarding the subjective dimension, it refers to the act of God’s self-presence, indeed the act of God’s revealing himself in a living subject by the power of the Holy Spirit, enabling man to respond in faith to the objective reality of revelation. In that sense, God’s objective revelation demands an internal revelation in the O’Collins claims that this is the early Joseph Ratzinger’s view. The limits of this response prohibit me from giving an alternative account of Ratzinger’s theology of revelation. I give an account of his theology of revelation in my article “Revelation, Faith, and Tradition: Catholic Ecumenical Dialogue,” Calvin Theological Journal 49 (2014): 25–62, esp. at 48–60. Suffice it to say here that we would misunderstand Ratzinger if we took him to be saying that the Scripture becomes revelation when it is actually known to man in faith, as if Ratzinger is suggesting that the verbal character of Scripture remains external to revelation. No, that would be a version, in Ratzinger’s own words, of an “extreme actualistic theology according to which the Word of God only takes place in the word of Scripture as a new event each time it is read” (Joseph Ratzinger, Commentary on Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol.3 [New York: Herder and Herder, 1969], 167–98, 262–72, esp. at 270n12). 8 Ad Father O’Collins 1255 recipient of that revelation, but that subjective dimension of revelation comes into its own by being realized in the subject only if it is positioned in relation to the objective revelation. If we distinguish, then, between objective and subjective dimensions of revelation— and we must, since the conditions that make something true are distinct from the conditions under which I know it to be true—it follows that, pace O’Collins, objective revelation can exist without faith, revelation without salvation. Modes of Revelation: General and Special Moving on to O’Collins’s position regarding the correlation between faith and general revelation, a prior question must be considered: What is the distinction between the two modes of revelation, between general and special revelation? Briefly, general revelation is God’s revelation of himself to all men in and through the works of creation. Regarding this revelation, God reveals himself to all men at all times and all places, such that men, in principle, may know something of God’s existence, of his attributes, and of his moral law (Rom 1:20; 2:14–15), and hence this “revelation is not limited to certain people, places, or times, but is truly general.”9 It is ubiquitous because “it comes to us through conditions [created realities and conscience] that are present at all times and places.”10 Therefore, in principle, all have access to some knowledge of God via his general revelation. By contrast, according to Dei Verbum §2, special revelation is God revealing himself specially in and through salvation history, a history that runs through the events and people of Israel and culminates in the concentration point of that history in Jesus Christ, who is the mediator and fullness of all revelation. Jointly constitutive of God’s special revelation are its inseparably connected words (verbal revelation) and deeds, which are intrinsically bound to each other because neither is complete without the other: the historical realities of redemption are inseparably connected to God’s verbal communication of truth in order that we may, as Catholic theologian Francis Martin puts it, “participate more fully in the realities mediated by the words.”11 In other words, a core presupposition of Dei Verbum De Ridder and Van Woudenberg, “Referring to, Believing in, and Worshipping the Same God,” 47. 10 Ibid., 50. 11 Fr. Francis Martin, “Some Directions in Catholic Biblical Theology,” in Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Craig Bartholomew et al., Scripture and Hermeneutics 5 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 65–87, at 67–68. 9 1256 Eduardo Echeverria §2 is that “without God’s acts the words would be empty, without His word the acts would be blind,”12 as was admirably stated by Reformed theologian Geerhardus Vos. Moreover, special revelation, by contrast with general revelation, “is spatiotemporally limited—it comes to us through historical events at special times and places and then through the testimony of others about these events.”13 O’Collins claims that Vatican II “did not apply the qualifiers ‘special’ and ‘general’ when it spoke of revelation,” and hence he did not use this terminological distinction in his book. He rebuffs my claim that he rejects this distinction by urging me to look at his earlier book Rethinking Fundamental Theology,14 in which he devotes an entire chapter to general and special revelation. Yes, he does reflect in this earlier book on the modalities of revelation, but I still maintain that he rejects the traditional meaning of this distinction in the Catholic tradition (not to mention Evangelical and Reformed as well), as I briefly described it above, and its corresponding duplex ordo cognitionis. The latter refers to a “twofold order of knowledge [that is] distinct both in principle and also in object,” according to the Decreta Dogmatica Concilii Vaticani de Fide Catholica et de Ecclesia Christi, the dogmatic constitution of the First Vatican Council (1870) on the Catholic faith, Dei Filius: “In its [epistemic] principle, because in the one we know by natural reason, in the other by divine faith; in its object, because apart from what natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries that are hidden in God that can never be known unless they are revealed by God.”15 So, although it is true that Vatican II does not use these words—for example, the term “general revelation”—the concepts and, hence, the realities to which these words refer is present in Dei Verbum §2: “God, who through the Word creates all things (see John 1:3) and keeps them in exis As Geerhardus Vos, “The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline,” Inaugural Address as Professor of Biblical Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, May 8, 1894, First Presbyterian Church, Princeton (repr. in Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980], 3–24). 13 De Ridder and Van Woudenberg, “Referring to, Believing in, and Worshipping the Same God,” 50. 14 O’Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology, 56–95. 15 Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matter of Faith and Morals, ed. by Peter Hünermann, 43rd ed., trans. and ed. Robert Fastiggi and Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), no. 3015. 12 Ad Father O’Collins 1257 tence, gives men an enduring witness to Himself in created realities (see Rom. 1:19–20).” It is also present in Dei Verbum §6: “As a sacred synod [Vatican I] has affirmed, God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from created reality by the light of human reason (see Rom. 1:20).” Indeed, Dei Verbum §6 implicitly affirms this very teaching by referring in note 6 to Vatican I’s Dei Filius, chapter 2 (“On Revelation”): “The same 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 things through the natural light of human reason, for ‘ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature. . . has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made’ [Rom 1:19–20].”16 I made these very points in my review, but O’Collins ignores them in his response. Thus, there is no justification for not attending to this distinction in his book on Vatican II and non-Christian religions simply because the words are not used, since both the concepts and realities to which they refer are, nevertheless, present in Dei Verbum. Natural Reason Furthermore, both Dei Verbum and Vatican I’s Decreta Dogmatica (ch. 4: “On Faith and Reason”), not to mention the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§31–35) and John Paul II’s 1998 encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (§§8–9, 19–20, 22, 67), affirm that this knowledge of God via general revelation is acquired, in principle, through natural reason. Significantly, there are naturally knowable elements of truth and goodness—that is, known in principle not only pre-philosophically, spontaneously and universally but also through natural theological arguments, which are reflective and theoretical. Thus, the Catholic position gives natural reason some positive role in acquiring knowledge of God mediated by the things that he has created. Aidan Nichols, for one, is right that, for Vatican I, the “natural light of human reason” meant “human reason tout court, with no attempt to lay down in advance what mode or style of human rationality that might be.”17 Be that as it may, natural human reason possesses the possibility of coming on its own power to knowledge of the existence and attributes of God. This is a principle of Catholic thought according to the duplex ordo cognitionis. Ibid., no. 3004. Aidan Nichols, O.P., Epiphany: A Theological Introduction to Catholicism (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), 16. This is also the view of Fergus Kerr, O.P., in “Knowing God by Reason Alone: What Vatican I Never Said,” New Blackfriars 91, no. 1033 (May 2010): 215–28. 16 17 1258 Eduardo Echeverria Moreover, in the concrete conditions of life, there are obstacles hampering human reason’s actual functioning, impeding its proper functioning and its natural ability of grasping the truths about God mediated through creation. So, another way was made available so that natural human reason could properly function so as to grasp the truth about God’s existence. That other way is the testimony of the divine Word-revelation: our natural knowledge of God’s general revelation is the fruit of knowing the testimony of the Word-revelation. Therefore, the fathers of Vatican I write, “It is to be ascribed to this divine revelation that such truths among things divine that of themselves are not beyond human reason can, even in the present condition of mankind, be known by everyone with facility, with firm certitude, and with no admixture of error.”18 This very point is reiterated by Vatican II in Dei Verbum §6.19 But this makes divine revelation relatively necessary only respecting divine truths that, in principle, do not exceed reason’s grasp, truths that are in principle naturally knowable. Such revelation makes it easier for human reason, in a concrete situation, as a de facto actuality, to acquire natural knowledge of God derived from the things that have been made. Undermining the Distinction between General and Special Revelation To get to the main point, although O’Collins accepts the distinction between general and special revelation, he undermines the difference between these modes of revelation by denying, first, that the knowledge acquired through general revelation is received through natural reason. Second, according to O’Collins, persons who never hear the Gospel can nevertheless attain salvation through their response in faith to God’s general revelation alone. In other words, non-Christians are saved by their “response” to their own religion that contains elements of truth and goodness that are, in fact, also God’s general revelation. In short, general revelation in itself is salvific. O’Collins’s position results in conflating general and special revelation. O’Collins affirms, “All human beings have access to this general revelation of God mediated through the beautiful and orderly works of creation and through their own inner spiritual reality.”20 But O’Collins affirms that the activity of acquiring saving knowledge of God through created reality is a matter Denzinger, Compendium, no. 3005. Ibid., no. 4206. 20 O’Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology, 58. 18 19 Ad Father O’Collins 1259 of authentic faith even for the non-Christian. He makes this point in expressing some misgiving about natural theology: My main misgiving about natural theology is that the term could readily suggest that drawing conclusions about the existence and nature of God from the created universe is a merely natural exercise of unaided human reason. Beyond question, the active presence of the risen Christ and his Holy Spirit need not be consciously felt, but in a wide variety of ways this presence is extended to everyone. Right from the beginning, God has freely called all men and women to the supernatural destiny of eternal life; that call affects every human act, including the activity of reflecting on the knowledge of God available through created reality. In that sense, while they may not be aware of this, those who practice “natural theology” are always engaged with “supernatural theology.”21 In this connection, O’Collins is concerned, as a matter of fundamental theology, and not natural theology, with “the conditions that open human beings . . . to accepting in faith the self-communication of God.”22 O’Collins conceives the correlation between general revelation and faith to be such that persons who never hear the Gospel can nevertheless attain salvation through their response in faith to God’s general revelation alone. The problematic assumption here is not that there is the possibility of general revelation within other religions manifesting truth and goodness, but rather that the knowledge of such revelation in itself mediates saving faith.23 In other words, the problem is not that “Christ is ontologically and causally exclu Ibid., 15. Ibid., 15. When he is not considering natural theology’s function with respect to fundamental theology, O’Collins’s position on natural theology as such is traditional, given that it concerns “Reflection on reasons for accepting the existence of a personal God [that] normally comes from those who already believe in God. . . . Far from replacing belief, their arguments for the reasonableness of belief in God arise from prior faith in and experience of God” (ibid., 29). Such reflection is concerned with “meaning, evidence, and truth (understanding truth in terms of what we can justifiably claim to know and conclude from the evidence)” (ibid., 34). This position is entirely within the boundaries of Catholic thought. O’Collins places natural theology within the dynamic of fides quarens intellectum, and this make it necessarily a posteriori, rather than a priori, a “second moment” within that dynamic. 23 O’Collins, Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning, 137. 21 22 1260 Eduardo Echeverria sive to salvation, but not necessarily epistemologically.”24 This is the position of Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium §16 and John Paul II, which I call “accessibilism” to contrast it with a broad inclusivism, which is O’Collins’s position.25 The difference between these two is well put by William Lane Craig: “Genuine inclusivists believe that salvation is not merely accessible to but is actually accessed by persons who never hear the gospel. Inclusivism may be broad or narrow, ranging all the way from universalism to narrow particularism.”26 Terrance L. Tiessen helpfully defines “accessibilism”: “Accessiblism asserts that Jesus Christ is exclusively God’s means of salvation but that there is biblical reason to be hopeful about the possibility of salvation for those who do not hear the gospel. It grants that non-Christians can be saved but does not regard the religions as God’s designed instruments in their salvation.”27 Thus, supporting accessibilism (as the Church does) neither undermines the singular uniqueness of Jesus Christ—namely, that salvation is “proper to him alone, exclusive, universal and absolute”28 —nor diminish the necessity of the Church’s missionary mandate. These two reasons distinguish accessibilism from a broad inclusivism. In Lumen Gentium §16, the Council addresses the important question regarding the possible fate of the unevangelized who, through no fault of their own (the “invincibly ignorant”), have failed to respond to the Gospel. Can the inculpably ignorant be saved by Christ apart from the knowledge of Christ? If so, then, the knowledge of Christ Gavin D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 7. 25 I describe O’Collins’s brand of inclusivism—namely, “inclusive pluralism” à la Jacques Dupuis—in my article review (“Vatican II on the Religions,” 838–39). 26 William Lane Craig, “Politically Incorrect Salvation,” in Christian Apologetics in the Modern World, ed. T. P. Phillips and D. Ockholm (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995), 75–97, at 84 (emphasis added). 27 Terrance L. Tiessen, Who can Be Saved? Reassessing Salvation in Christ and World Religions (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 483 (see also 33–34). Tiessen rightly understands that “accessibilism can be traced in Christian thought back to the second century” and “is now strongly affirmed in official Roman Catholic documents” (ibid., 22). 28 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus (“On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church”) (2000), §15: “Jesus Christ has a significance and a value for the human race and its history which are unique and singular, proper to him alone, exclusive, universal and absolute. Jesus is, in fact, the Word of God made man for the salvation of all” (accessed August 1, 2017, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/ documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html). 24 Ad Father O’Collins 1261 is not epistemologically necessary to access the saving benefits of Christ’s saving work. But the council did not answer that question in Lumen Gentium §16 without considering the necessary conditions29 that must be met for the possibility of non-Christians being saved apart from explicitly acknowledging and responding to Christ and his saving works. The constraints of this response prohibit me from considering those conditions here.30 Suffice it to say that, although these conditions “must be fulfilled in order to avoid culpability,” they are, as Francis Sullivan correctly notes, not a “cause of salvation.”31 In other words, invincible ignorance of the Gospel is a condition of, but Ralph Martin gives a detailed exposition of the necessary conditions under which the invincibly ignorant may be saved: “1. That non-Christians be not culpable for their ignorance of the gospel. 2. That non-Christians seek God with a sincere heart. 3. That non-Christians try to live their life in conformity with what they know of God’s will [through general revelation]. This is commonly spoken of as following the natural law or the light of conscience. It is important to note, as the Council does, in order to avoid a Pelagian interpretation, that this is possible only because people are ‘moved by grace.’ 4. That non-Christians welcome or receive whatever ‘good or truth’ they live amidst—referring possibly to elements of their non-Christian religions or cultures, which may refract to some degree the light that enlightens every man (John 1:9). These positive elements are intended to be ‘preparation for the Gospel.’ One could understand this to mean either a preparation for the actual hearing of the gospel or preparation for, perhaps, some communication of God by interior illumination” (Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012], 9). 30 Do these conditions set the boundaries of invincible ignorance? No, says Pius IX’s Singulari Quadem (1854). He speaks there of the invincibly ignorant as not being subject to any guilt in this matter of the one true Church. Still, he adds: “Now, who could presume for oneself the ability to set the boundaries of such ignorance, taking into consideration the natural differences of peoples, lands, talents and so many other factors?” Indeed, Pius writes: “Far be it from Us,Venerable Brethren, to presume on the limits of the divine mercy which is infinite; far from Us, to wish to scrutinize the hidden counsel and ‘judgments of God’ which are ‘a great deep’ [Ps 35:7] and cannot be penetrated by human thought” (The Sources of Catholic Dogma, ed. Roy J. Deferrari [St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1957], 415). See also, on invincible ignorance, Pius IX’s encyclical to the Italian Bishops on August 10, 1863, Quanto Conficiamur Moerore: (Denzinger, Compendium, nos. 2865–67). Herman Bavinck pointedly states: “Even the pope [Pius IX] did not dare to define the limits of this ignorance” (“The Catholicity of Christianity and the Church,” Calvin Theological Journal 27 [1992]: 220–51, at 234). 31 Francis Sullivan, Salvation Outside of the Church? Tracing the History of the Catholic Response (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 77. 29 1262 Eduardo Echeverria not a cause, of salvation. For, the full and sufficient cause of salvation is Jesus Christ. Thus, in O’Collins’s broad inclusivism, man’s reflective engagement regarding the things made by God is already, whether he knows it or not, a question of supernatural faith and, indeed, of grace, mediated by the Holy Spirit, and such faith can be found in persons of any religion. The nature of faith here is such that a person has somehow received the gift of faith from God without any explicit reference to Jesus Christ or the biblical message (Rom 10:17). In O’Collins’s words, this is a “faith triggered by the general revelation of God.”32 O’Collins adds, “Fundamental theology takes up a much wider agenda than simply truths about God, the world, and the human condition that may be available through the ‘natural’ powers of thought.”33 What, then, is this much wider agenda, according to O’Collins? He says that agenda is to show that, “through revelation, including general revelation . . . God calls and enables human beings to enter into the new personal relationship of faith, . . . involving men and women with God as One worthy of unconditional praise, worship, and obedience”34 Thus, O’Collins thinks that this agenda implies the rejection of the natural–supernatural scheme of things with regard to revelation. Why? He says, “Granted that the divine self-communication reached its absolute and complete climax with his incarnation, life, death and resurrection, should we accept or vigorously oppose the belief that all experience of revelation and salvation relates to Christ? As regards the ‘where’ of God’s self-communication, is it true that outside Christ there is neither revelation nor salvation?”35 Let’s be clear here. O’Collins is not merely affirming the universal scope of Christ’s atoning work—namely, that, in God’s all-embracing love, he truly and sincerely desires the salvation of all men in Christ (1 Tim 2:3; John 3:16)36 —as do 2 Corinthians 5:19 (“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself ”) and the CCC: “Jesus, the Son of God, freely suffered death for us in complete and free submission to the will of God, his Father. By his death he has conquered O’Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology, 63 (see further 63–65). Space prohibits me from pursuing the question here of whether O’Collins’s view contradicts Dominus Iesus §7: “The distinction between theological faith and belief, in the other religions, must be firmly held.” 33 Ibid., 14. 34 Ibid., 61; emphasis added. 35 O’Collins, Fundamental Theology [1981], 114. See also 53–54. 36 O’Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer, 219. 32 Ad Father O’Collins 1263 death, and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men” (§1019). Rather, O’Collins wants, in addition, to affirm the “universal significance of Christ for revelation.”37 What does he mean? Christ’s Universal Significance for Revelation? In one sense, O’Collins has in mind the Pauline vision of cosmic redemption, liberating and transforming the whole of creation.38 As Yves Congar puts it, “the restoration or re-formation of nature is included in the redemptive plan and in the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.” He adds, “This . . . implies and signifies that an agreement is in itself possible, that is a certain reciprocal ordering and a certain proportion exists between nature and grace, creational order and order of redemption, civilization and evangelization.”39 It follows from this vision of cosmic redemption that Christians are called to engage in the sanctification of culture by transforming it through God’s grace in Christ. In short, they are called to the work of restoring all areas of culture—indeed, all dimensions of human existence, all of creation itself—to Christ so that “in everything he might be preeminent” (Col 1:18) and of making them share in the redemption he accomplished and, in this way, to be his agents, coworkers, for exercising his lordship in creation. As the Pontifical Council for Culture states: “[A] Christian cultural project . . . gives Christ, the Redeemer of man, center of the universe and of history, the scope of completely renewing the lives of men ‘by opening the vast fields of culture to His saving power.’”40 In sum, the Council explains, “the primary objective of [this] approach to culture is to inject the lifeblood of the Gospel into cultures to renew from within and transform in the light of Revelation the visions of men and society that shape cultures, the concepts of men and women, of the family and of education, of school and of university, of freedom and of truth, of labor and of leisure, of the economy and of society, of the sciences and of the arts.”41 In a more pertinent sense for addressing the question of the salvation of non-Christians, Christ is the mediator of salvation for every Ibid., 220. Ibid., 219. 39 Yves Congar, Jesus Christ, trans. Luke O’Neil (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966), 176. 40 Pontifical Council for Culture, Towards a Pastoral Approach to Culture (1999), §§3 and 6 (accessed August 1, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ pontifical_councils/cultr/documents/rc_pc_pc-cultr_doc_03061999_pastoral_en.html). 41 Ibid., §25. 37 38 1264 Eduardo Echeverria one not only through his redemptive work but also through general revelation.42 I quoted O’Collins above: “Through revelation, including general revelation . . . God calls and enables human beings to enter into the new personal relationship of faith . . . involving men and women with God as One worthy of unconditional praise, worship, and obedience.”43 The focus here is on general revelation and how Christ mediates a saving grace through a person’s response in faith to general revelation alone. O’Collins explains: “[Christ] is the universal and exclusive agent of creation who preserves everything in existence.” “Through him [the Word of God] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” ( John 1:3); “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. . . . All things were created by him and for him” (Eph 1:16). Therefore, “Whenever the created world and its history mediate a disclosure of God, those who receive this disclosure are in fact knowing God through Christ. . . . Christ’s agency is as broad and as old as creation itself.”44 Most important is that O’Collins holds that this “belief [regarding Christ as the Mediator of creation] underpins a conclusion about Christ’s role for salvation.” That is: “Wherever the created world and its inner and outer history mediate God’s grace, those who receive this saving grace are in fact receiving it through Christ. As divine agent of creation, Christ also brings the grace of God through the external world and the inner experience of human beings.”45 His view is then of a grace-endowed creation revelation, O’Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer, 220. See also 32–34. O’Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology, 61 (emphasis added). 44 O’Collins, Fundamental Theology [1981], 116. 45 O’Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer, 228 (emphasis added). O’Collins also gives an account of the “universal presence of Christ” in light of Gaudium et Spes §22: “For, by his incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man” (Interpreting Jesus [Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002; originally Paulist Press, 1983], 204). O’Collins holds that “right here and now he [Christ] has already united everyone to himself ” (Gerald O’Collins, S.J., and Mario Farrugia, S.J., Catholicism: The Story of Catholic Christianity [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 391). In this light, he speaks of “an ontological unity of all humanity in Christ” (O’Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer, 221). He means thereby that, “through his incarnation, Christ moved into historical solidarity with all human beings, as well as with the whole created world. He entered history and became, in a sense, every man and every woman” (ibid., 227). This claim is repeated in explaining the meaning of the “universal presence of Christ and his Holy Spirit”: “in some real sense all human beings are ‘in Christ’ and the Holy Spirit is ‘in’ all human beings”; that is, “Christ was 42 43 Ad Father O’Collins 1265 of a general revelation. But why is it saving grace? Why not common grace, which is an insightful theological concept from Reformational Christianity? And why is it not prevenient grace? Common Grace? Briefly, common grace is a gift of God in Christ through the work of the Spirit, a universal favor that is a non-saving grace at work in the whole of creation, indeed, granted to humanity as such, to believer and unbeliever alike (Matt 5:45) in their post-Fall condition, enabling the recognition of the truth, beauty, and goodness that is present also in the pagan world. For example, is it not common grace that made it possible for the Athenians to know that men are God’s children, as even some of their own poets said, and hence, as his offspring, men live and move and have their being in and through God (Acts 17:28)? But clearly St. Paul does not consider this knowledge of God that Athenians possessed a saving knowledge of God. He refutes their idolatry by concluding from the knowledge they do have that, therefore, “we ought not think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone” (vv. 28–29). Furthermore, he focuses specific attention on the altar “to the unknown [agnosto] God” worshipped by the Athenians in “ignorance [agnouontes]” (v. 23). St. Paul then addresses them from two angles. As Peter Leithart explains: On the one hand, Paul introduces the Athenians to the unknown God (v. 23), identifying this God with the Creator who made humanity from one man and who orchestrates the history of nations so that human beings will seek Him. The unknown God is the God in whom all live and move and have being. This God is the God who raised Jesus from the dead (v. 31). The fact that there is an altar to this God in the Athenian not merely with us (through creation and incarnation) and for us (through his ministry and crucifixion) but also in us” (O’Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology, 298, 302, 311; see also Catholicism, 391). He consistently aligns himself with John Paul II (Redemptoris Hominis, §§8, 13, and 18), who also found Gaudium et Spes §22 particularly important in giving an account of the sense in which Christ is the New Head of all men, of the reborn human race, the New Humanity. O’Collins’s account, as well as its consistency with John Paul II’s own reflections on Gaudium et Spes §22, deserves a careful analysis that I cannot give here, but I do in my article, “The Salvation of Non-Christians? Reflections on Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes 22, Lumen Gentium 16, Gerald O’Collins, S.J., and St. John Paul II,” forthcoming in Angelicum. 1266 Eduardo Echeverria forest of idols is proof that “He is not far from each of us” (v. 27). On the other hand, Paul’s message is a warning. Up to now, the Creator God overlooked (huperorao) Athenian (and general pagan) ignorance, but the time of ignorance (agnoia) is at an end. Paul’s sermon ends with a call to repent of idolatry and specifically of the ignorant worship of the unknown God. Furthermore, adds Leithart, “Paul’s sermon thus reflects a complex relation with Athenian religion. . . . Substantively, Paul treats Athenian religion as a praeparatio evangelii. Were the Athenians to repent, they would both reject and fulfill their traditional faith, rejecting false notions of divine nature and abandoning false worship, but coming to genuine knowledge of a God they have always inchoately known. The temporal frame is crucial to Paul: Once their ignorance was excusable, but now it is culpable. A new time has come, and that time demands repentance.”46 Leithart’s account, let us call it the “Areopagus paradigm” of Acts 17, makes sense of the praeparatio evangelii when engaging non-Christians. We can recognize that the Athenians had some knowledge about God and, hence, that they were not in total darkness, and so we can say that this knowledge implies “some resemblance to truth and reality.”47 But we must also say that some of their claims were false because incompatible with Christian truth claims. Is all Knowledge of God a Saving Knowledge? Moreover, we can also recognize that this knowledge cannot be saving knowledge in itself of God, since it did not result in “glorifying God” or “giving thanks to him” (Rom 1:21). Rather, it issued forth in “idolatry” (vv. 24–25, 29). This conclusion dovetails with St. Paul’s reasoning in Romans 1:20–21: “What may be known about God is plain to [human beings], because God has made it plain to them . . . from what has been made.” Yet, they have spurned this knowledge in favor of idolatry: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish minds were darkened.” That is why St. Paul calls then to repentance. I will return below to Romans 1:20–21. For now, I think we can say that O’Collins begs the question here about the kind of Peter Leithart, “What is Christianity? A View from Acts 17,” unpublished paper presented at a meeting of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, June 6, 2016. I cite these passages with permission from the author. 47 O’Collins, Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning, 49. 46 Ad Father O’Collins 1267 grace that is granted by God in Christ. He just assumes that this grace is a “saving grace.” And at the root of this assumption is a false dilemma O’Collins sets before us.48 He explains: If, on the one hand, we maintain that outside Christ there is no revelation, what of those who profess to know God but who have never heard of Christ? . . . But if, on the other hand, we admit that God is truly disclosed to them, we appear to tamper with the unique absoluteness of Christ’s person and work. It looks as if he ceases to be universally significant for revelation and hence for salvation.49 We may not infer from exclusive salvation in Christ, both ontologically and causally, to a Christo-monistic conception of revelation— namely, to an exclusive revelation in Christ. Certainly not, since the Catholic tradition (as well as Evangelical and Reformed traditions) holds to the proposition that God reveals himself universally in and through the works of creation, and hence there is a general revelation of God in addition to special revelation, salvation history. This revelation makes possible some knowledge of God’s existence, his attributes, and the moral law. Furthermore, we can affirm that knowledge of God is possible without tampering with the “unique absoluteness of Christ’s person and work”50 because generally speaking a saving knowledge of God is not available to men through their response to God’s general revelation alone. I say “generally” because Lumen Gentium §16 considers “the necessary conditions for and actual limitations on the possibility of non-Christians [in particular, the invincibly ignorant] being saved without coming to explicit faith in Christ and membership in the Catholic Church.”51 In contrast, O’Collins’s broad inclusivism does tamper with Christ’s salvific unicity, of his person and work—that is, his unique absoluteness—because O’Collins holds that the knowledge itself of general revelation is salvific and, hence, that men can be saved by the knowledge of general revelation alone. O’Collins says that, “even before accepting the gospel,” non-Christians “already enjoy some elements of revelation Presented in two places of which I know: Fundamental Theology [1981], 114–18, and Jesus Our Redeemer, 233. 49 O’Collins, Fundamental Theology [1981], 115. 50 CDF, Dominus Iesus, §15. 51 Martin, Will Many be Saved? 7. 48 1268 Eduardo Echeverria and salvation.”52 It is one thing to say that some knowledge of God is possibly accessible to them even if they do not have full knowledge of the way of salvation. It is another to say that the knowledge they have is salvific. O’Collins wants to tie revelation and salvation closely together so that he can advance the salvific efficacy of all religions; hence his broad inclusivism. Why is that a problem? Because revelation is intended for salvation but does not necessarily entail it. In the former case, that knowledge may be a preparation for the reception of the Gospel in Christ, who is the full revelation of God. O’Collins does make that point.53 When he does he speaks of “their condition somehow leav[ing] them wounded, at a lower level, and imperfect.”54 But he still regards that condition as a salvific condition, in particular, as “follow[ers] of other religions and receiv[ing] salvation through them.”55 The problem with O’Collins’s view, in this connection, was already raised by James Heft, as I noted in my article review: “Once it is assumed that other believers can be saved through their own religions, how robust can the Christian’s proclamation of the ‘decisive revelation of God in Christ’ be?” In this connection, we have another problem. Romanus Cessario describes it well. Before the Second Vatican Council, ecclesiastical authority cautioned against certain theological positions that threatened to confuse God’s creative presence to the human creature with the realization of the same person’s call to beatitude. The danger here is the risk of emphasizing the pervasive and inclusive character of divine grace in a way that practically eliminates the need for a real grace of justification—one that effectively transforms an impious person into a holy one. But the New Testament makes it exceedingly difficult to glide over the fact that the justification won by the blood of Christ really involves a movement from our being “by nature children of wrath like everyone else” to our being “alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:3, 5).56 O’Collins, The Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning, 119. Ibid., 137. 54 Ibid., 138. 55 Ibid., 137. 56 Romanus Cessario, O.P., Christian Faith & The Theological Life (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 28–29. 52 53 Ad Father O’Collins 1269 O’Collins does confuse God’s presence in general revelation to all men with the realization of their call to the supernatural destiny of eternal life. Given his understanding of the relationship of Christ as Mediator of Creation and Redemption, and hence Christ’s role for salvation, he does emphasize the “pervasive and inclusive character of divine grace in a way that practically eliminates the need for a real grace of justification” for all men. That confusion stems not only from paying no systematic theological attention to resistance, and hence to distortion, misinterpretation, and rejection of the witness of general revelation, but also from the assumption that all grace is saving grace. Sin and Grace Consider, for example, O’Collins’s correct claim that the Holy Spirit is the source of all that is revealed by God as the true, good, and beautiful outside the visible boundaries of the Church in various religions around the world. But again, O’Collins assumes that the response to the universal action of the Spirit in and through general revelation yields not only some inchoate knowledge of God but also salvation. He claims that, with this understanding of the Spirit’s work, he stands in the trajectory of John Paul II’s thought as expressed in his 1986 encyclical letter on the Holy Spirit, Dominum et Vivificantem. In one sense he does, because the Pope sees the Spirit of Truth always and everywhere active in God’s plan of redemption that is mediated by the Holy Spirit. In this plan, “God has freely called all men and women to the supernatural destiny of eternal life.” So, yes, O’Collins is right that all men are included in “God’s project of salvation.” The New Testament makes it quite clear that God’s will and desire is that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (2 Pet 3:9). As the last sentence of Lumen Gentium §1357 puts it, “all men are called to salvation by the grace of God.”58 Therefore, in this connection, we O’Collins mistakenly claims in Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning, 48, that this sentence is in Lumen Gentium §16 . 58 On this, see Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate, §1: “For all peoples comprise a single community, and have a single origin, since God made the whole race of men dwell over the entire face of the earth (cf. Acts 17:26). One also is their final goal: God. His providence, His manifestations of goodness, and His saving designs extend to all men (cf. Wis 8:1; Acts 14:17; Rom 2:6–7; 1 Tim 2:4) against the day when the elect will be united in that Holy City ablaze with the splendor of God, where the nations will walk in His light (cf. Rev 21:23f )” (accessed August 1, 2017, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_ vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html). 57 1270 Eduardo Echeverria can understand that God draws all men to himself by the work of the Spirit through prevenient grace, which is mediated by the Holy Spirit. Thus, in the words of Gaudium et Spes §22: “For since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God alone, in the paschal mystery.” Does this statement not best fit a position appropriately dubbed “opaque exclusivism”?59—exclusivist because the saving work of Christ is ontologically and causally necessary for the salvation of human beings, but opaque because the realization of the possibility of salvation of the invincibly ignorant, to which the prevenient grace of God is mediated by the Holy Spirit, is left to God alone. But, in another sense, O’Collins does not stand with John Paul,60 because he inexplicably ignores John Paul’s emphasis that the “marvelous ‘condescension’ of the Spirit meets with resistance and opposition in our human reality.” In particular, he ignores the noetic effect of the fall into sin that St. Paul presents as “a debased mind” (Rom 1:28; 1 Tim 6:5), “alienated and hostile” (Col 1:21), a “fleshly mind” (Col 2:18; cf. Gal 5:19–21), and “a darkened understanding” (Eph 4:17–18). Against this background, we can understand what the Pope adds: “Unfortunately, the resistance to the Holy Spirit which Saint Paul emphasizes in the interior and subjective dimension as tension, struggle and rebellion taking place in the human heart finds in every period of history and especially in the modern era its external dimension, which takes concrete form as the content of culture and Paul Helm, “Are They Few That be Saved?” in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, ed. Nigel M. des Cameron (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992), 257–81, at 277. 60 O’Collins’s claim to find support in the thought of John Paul II suffers from selective quotation and is made without considering what the Pope says elsewhere on the subject in question. One example is John Paul on Islam. To get a fuller and more accurate vision of the theology of religions adumbrated in the Pope’s thought, and where Islam might fit into that theology, we must consider not only his 1985 address to young Muslims in Morocco (as O’Collins does), but also his 1987 Christmas address to the Roman Curia, his very important chapter on Islam in Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Knopf, 1994), and his General Audience of Wednesday, May 5, 1999, §§2–3. In my article review, I tried to give a sense of the complex nature of John Paul II’s stance toward Islam, particularly with respect not only to the claim made by some that he unambiguously affirms that Muslims and Christians worship the same God but also to the claim that he affirms that Islam is a mediator of salvation— which he never says (pace O’Collins) . 59 Ad Father O’Collins 1271 civilization, as a philosophical system, an ideology, a program for action and for the shaping of human behavior.”61 Thus, O’Collins overlooks sin’s impact on the human mind’s reception of general revelation. But there is also a problem with O’Collins’s account of grace mediated by the Holy Spirit to all men. The grace referred to in God’s calling man to salvation is his prevenient grace through Jesus Christ, a preparatory grace, one that not only enables but also convicts, calls, and illumines man—but not without man’s free response, and hence, the possibility of his rejection or resistance of that grace.62 The predisposing grace to which Lumen Gentium §13 is referring when it states that all men are called by God’s grace to salvation comes from Christ and the Spirit and is such that it is offered to all men. But that does not say anything about this offer’s saving efficacy and finality. “God calls men to be participants in his grace; by what means and with what effect is not here stated.”63 Pace O’Collins, there is a basic difference between “offer” and “call,” on the one hand, and actuality of reception, on the other. Furthermore, the prevenient grace of God mediated by the Holy Spirit does not bypass the matter of whether it is consciously accepted or rejected, because man must freely assent to and cooperate with that grace in order to be justified in faith and sanctified in charity.64 Furthermore, what is the nature of faith here that involves knowing or experiencing God through general revelation? O’Collins gives Romans 1:21 as his answer: faith “should lead human beings to ‘honor’ God and ‘give thanks to him.’” But this biblical reference will certainly not do at all to justify his claim that faith’s knowledge of general revelation involves the recipient in “unconditional praise, worship, and obedience.” O’Collins selectively quotes here without regard to the context in which these phrases occur. The epistemic contact (“having known God”) with general revelation is necessary in order to render man without excuse in resisting the evidence of general revelation—“they do not glorify him as God.” If anything, St. Paul puts the emphasis on resisting and suppressing the manifestation of God given in the visible creation that results in John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem (1986), §§55, 56, and 4. Council of Trent, Decree on Justification (Denzinger, Compendium, nos. 1525 and 1553). CCC §2001. 63 Mikka Ruokanen, The Catholic Doctrine of Non-Christian Religions According to the Second Vatican Council (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 85. 64 CCC §2001. 61 62 1272 Eduardo Echeverria their thoughts become futile and their foolish hearts darkened (Rom 1:21).65 Therefore, such knowledge fails to lead to a true knowledge and acknowledgement of God. That is precisely what St. Paul teaches when he says, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” It is in this connection that we should understand the significance of the last paragraph of Lumen Gentium §16: But very often [at saepius] men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings, have exchanged the truth of God for a lie and served the world rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, “Preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:16), the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.66 So, although we must keep one eye on the Church’s assertions that “all men are called to salvation by the grace of God” (Lumen Gentium §13) and that the prevenient grace of God is mediated by the Holy Spirit to all men in a manner known only to him (Gaudium et Spes §22), our other eye must be kept on the passage from Lumen Gentium §16 because it tempers the salvation optimism of a broad inclusivism, not to mention universalism, that is dominant in our culture. Ralph Martin is right that we need to consider “the pervasive scriptural testimony . . . to the deeply ingrained tendency of a fallen race to resist interior illumination and/or the explicit preaching of the gospel, because they Thirty years earlier, O’Collins did make this very point regarding Romans 1:18ff.: “In fact men have failed vis-á-vis this [general] revelation offered them in creation, and it is on the failure rather than the opportunity that Paul’s emphasis lies in Romans 1. Although God is recognizable, men did not acknowledge honour and thank him, but tried to live from themselves and their own achievement. They despised and falsified the truth about God’s power and nature which was there to be acknowledged in the created world” (Theology and Revelation [Notre Dame, IN: Fides, 1968], 35; see further 6–62, esp. 34–38). I have never found this point made again by O’Collins in any of the sources I have read. 66 There are similar passages in Gaudium et Spes §22, Ad Gentes §9, and Nostra Aetate, §§2–4. 65 Ad Father O’Collins 1273 prefer, as Scripture says, the darkness to the light.”67 In other words, “the Council clearly acknowledges the possibility that those who have never heard the gospel may, under certain conditions, be saved. But it immediately goes on to state that ‘very often’ (at saepius) these conditions are not met and that the salvation of non-Christians who do not meet these conditions is significantly tied to the gospel being effectively preached to them.”68 Lumen Gentium §16 cites Romans 1:21 and 25 in biblical support of its claim that, although God has made known to all men his existence, eternal power, and divine nature in and through the things he has made, confronting all men with the light of general revelation, they stifle and nullify—obliterate, even if not totally—its testimony by their active contrary will. This contrary will is, according to Romans, “the natural condition of the human heart after the Fall”— namely, “self-seeking, rebellious, and prone to deception, idolatry, and immorality.”69 Thus, their response is to that light of general revelation given through creation and conscience, and they are judged on the basis of the truth that has been made available to them in and through that revelation by God’s grace. “In Him Was Life, and the Life Was the Light of All Men” (John 1:4) Throughout his book, O’Collins cites Nostra Aetate §2, which speaks of those things in other religions that are “true and holy” and reflect a “ray of that Truth, which enlightens all human beings.” O’Collins comments: “Even if the text included no explicit [biblical] reference, it obviously echoed the language of the Johannine prologue about the Word being ‘the light of human beings’ (John 1:4), ‘the true light that enlightens everyone’ (John 1:9).” Elsewhere, he says: “This article of Nostra Aetate does not expressly state that Christ is both universal Revealer and universal Savior, but what it says amounts to that. How can he ‘illuminate’ all human beings without conveying to them something of God’s self-revelation and hence also the offer of salvation?”70 And again, he says: “The light of revelation brings the life of salvation, and vice versa.”71 But, here too, O’Collins ignores that the human reception of that light is open to resistance and, hence, to distortion, Martin, Will Many Be Saved? 56. Ibid., 58. 69 Ibid., 89. 70 O’Collins, The Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning, 116 (see also 56 and 122). 71 Ibid., 13. 67 68 1274 Eduardo Echeverria misinterpretation, and rejection. Thus, the offer of salvation, or being called to salvation by God’s grace (Lumen Gentium §13), is one thing, and the actuality of reception is another. But O’Collins assumes that the response to that light is positive, paying absolutely no attention to the difference between the offer, or calling, and its efficacy and finality. Reformed biblical theologian Herman Ridderbos rightly notes that John 1:9 “describes light in its fullness and universality.” But, he adds, “it does not say that every individual is in fact enlightened by the light.”72 Pace O’Collins, therefore, the Word does not illuminate all human beings, because they resist the light. Consider John 1:5 and 10: “And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood it. . . . He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” Both of these verses speak “of the negative reaction of the world to the coming of the light.” Methodist biblical theologian Ben Witherington, III, explains: “The darkness the author talks about is . . . a spiritual darkness that involves not only ignorance of the truth but also moral darkness and fallenness, which lead one to reject the light and life even when they are offered. Thus our author Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997 [1987]), 43. See also Francis Martin and William M. Wright IV, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015), on vv. 10–11: “The Light, which was in the world, is the divine Word through which the world was made. However, the world preferred to ignore the Light: the world did not know him. As St. Paul writes in Rom 1:18, human beings, despite the witness to God in creation, ‘in their wickedness suppress the truth’” (36). See also William Grossouw, Revelation and Redemption: An Introduction to the Theology of St. John, trans. and ed. Rev. Martin W. Schoenberg, O.S.C. (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1965), 29–30: “This is the great event [Incarnation] in history which St. John contemplates with respectful astonishment and loving gratitude: the plenitude of divine Life and Light has come forth from the bosom of the divinity . . . and has appeared among us in the person of Jesus Christ.” O’Collins, of course, heartily affirms this truth, but missing from his account is man’s resistant response to the Light. Grossouw adds: “Almost as great is the tremendous and incomprehensible tragedy of the world: ‘the world knew him not,’ for from the very beginning the darkness has been opposed to the Light (1:5 ff.). John rears his concept of the world on a great antithesis; his history is a drama. The darkness consists in the denial and overthrow of divine revelation. Just as the Light is the manifestation of the divine truth, so the darkness is a futile but terrible attempt to blot out the operation of the Light. The stage of this struggle is the spirit of man. With painful bewilderment St. John observes that the majority of men shun the Light. The world did not receive Him (1:5) and His own rejected Him (1:11). Men have loved the darkness rather the Light (3:19)” (ibid.). One sees nothing of this struggle in O’Collins’s theology of religions. 72 Ad Father O’Collins 1275 wishes to stress the ultimate irony of this all. The creatures reject their own creator when they reject the Son of God.”73 Catholic biblical theologian Rudolph Schnackenberg agrees: The Logos was not just the fundamental and universal principle of light in the divine plan: he also illumined the existence and way of man from within the historical reality of man’s environment or “world.” “He was in the world,” so close to men that they could reach him and cleave to him for their salvation; but the “world,” that is, humanity installed in its earthly, historical home, “did not know him.” This is the brutal and shattering fact, which the hymn signals in a few short words, and re-iterates more poignantly in the following verse (v. 11). Thus the hymn pursues, of set purpose, the thought of the second strophe, the relationship of the Logos to mankind, but depicts the tragic breach in the historical course of the relationship.74 In sum, says Ridderbos insightfully: All this means, then, that what is said about the Logos in vss. 1–4 is directly applied to what one can call the great content of this Gospel, that is, to Christ’s appearance as the light of the world in its confrontation with the darkness (cf. 8:12; 3:19f.; 9:5; 12:35, all passages in which the core concept of 1:4, 5 [and 10] return). For that reason it is not permissible to end the first cycle of ideas, the Word in the beginning and so on, at vs. 4. All the imperfect verbs in vss. 1–4 that describe the preexistence and essence of the Word that was antecedent to all existence and experience have their point and meaning in that they reveal the grand background of the actual situation of proclamation in which the Evangelist and the Christian community know themselves to be: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.”75 Ben Witherington, III, John’s Wisdom, A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), 55. 74 Rudolph Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St John, vol. 1, Introduction and Commentary on Chapters 1–4, trans. Kevin Smyth (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), 255–56. 75 Ridderbos, Gospel of John, 40. Schnackenburg agrees: “Man is called on to make his own active decision (of faith), but that he did not ‘lay hold’ of it when it was within his grasp” (Gospel According to St John, 246). 73 1276 Eduardo Echeverria Furthermore, the purpose of the Gospel of John was “to trace the gospel story to its final and deepest origins and so—taking up the conflict between what he will refer to over and over as darkness and lies versus truth and light—to point out at the outset the importance range of what he is about to narrate and the grounds on which he will call people to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (20:31).”76 O’Collins overlooks that the human reception of that light is open to resistance and, hence, to distortion, misinterpretation, and rejection. Put differently, he overlooks the place of sin that is at the root of man’s resistance. This results in a salvation optimism—a mentality that slides from the proper emphasis of Vatican II, as Martin puts it: “[sliding from] the possibility of some being saved without hearing the gospel to the probability or even certainty that all or almost all will be saved without hearing the gospel.”77 What Is the Relationship between Christ, the Church, and the Kingdom of God? Consider the third group of objections (4, 5 and 10), which focus on the question regarding the relationship between Christ, the Church, and the Kingdom of God. I did not contest O’Collins’s view that the Church is in service to the Kingdom of God. On this point we agree. Yes, the Kingdom of God is broader than the Church, with the latter being in service to the former. For, the Kingdom of God is the plan of God that is realized in and through Christ, encompassing the whole of creation. In my view, and arguably the view of the Second Vatican Council and John Paul II, the Kingdom of God is not identical with the Church because the realization of that Kingdom is an enactment of the great divine work of redemption in its recapitulation—fulfillment and consummation—of all the fallen creation in Christ. “In a word,” as John Paul II wrote, “the Kingdom of God is the manifestation and the realization of God’s plan of salvation in all its fullness” (Redemptoris Missio [1990] §15). “In all its fullness,” I would say along with Yves Congar, refers to the restoration or renewal of creation “in the redemptive plan and in the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.”78 That Ridderbos, Gospel of John, 40. Martin, Will Many be Saved? 17 (emphasis added). 78 Congar, Jesus Christ, 176. See also the entire chapter of Congar’s book entitled “The Lordship of Christ over the Church and the World” (pp. 167–219). This is also the view expressed in Pontifical Council for Culture, Towards a Pastoral Approach to Culture. 76 77 Ad Father O’Collins 1277 this, too, is the teaching of the Council is clear from its understanding regarding the vocation of the laity, 79 the relation between Christ and culture,80 and the cosmic significance of Christ in creation and redemption.81 What I contested is O’Collins’s view of John Paul II—namely, that, in the Pope’s view, “the Church serves the Kingdom of God and not vice versa.” O’Collins makes a similar objection—contested by me as well—when he says that “we should primarily understand the Church in the light of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, resurrection, and sending of the Holy Spirit, and not vice-versa.” I will treat these objections together. In response, O’Collins says that he agrees with John Paul that the Kingdom of God is present in a special way in the Church, but that is not to say that the former serves the Church. This response misses the point that John Paul makes about the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the Church, and which I emphasized in my article review—but which O’Collins mostly ignores— namely, “while remaining distinct from Christ and the Kingdom, the Church is indissolubly united to both” (ibid., §18). What does O’Collins mean by the Kingdom “being present in” the Church? He does not say. But John Paul does. According to the Pope, the redemptive purpose of the Kingdom of God, as far as humanity is concerned, is the Church. John Paul says in, “Christ endowed the Church, his body, with the fullness of the benefits and means of salvation” (ibid.). This fullness of the Church “confers upon her a specific and necessary role,” as well as a “special connection with the Kingdom of God and Christ, which she ‘has the mission of announcing and inaugurating among all people’” (ibid). Furthermore, the Church’s “specific and necessary role,” adds John Paul, her “special connection with the Kingdom of God and of Christ,” is “seen especially in her preaching, which is call to conversion” (ibid., §20). “The proclamation of the word of God has Christian conversion as its aim: a complete and sincere adherence to Christ and his Gospel through faith” (ibid., §46). Therefore, “proclamation is the permanent priority of mission” (ibid., §44), with the corresponding call to conversion. In this light, we can understand Lumen Gentium §31, but see also §36. For a fuller development of the Church’s teaching on the mission of the laity, see Vatican II, Apostolicam Actuositatem (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity). 80 Gaudium et Spes §58. 81 Ibid., §45. 79 1278 Eduardo Echeverria why humanity has no other goal than to belong to this Church, the Body of Christ, in which all is fulfilled (see Eph 1:22–23).82 Ad Gentes §7 makes this very point: “Therefore, all must be converted to Him as He is made known by the Church’s preaching. All must be incorporated into Him by baptism, and into the Church which is His body. For Christ Himself ‘in explicit terms . . . affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church’ [Lumen Gentium §14]” (emphasis added). Indeed, Dei Verbum §8 teaches that the eschatological dimension of God’s self-revelation is such that “the Church constantly moves toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her” (emphasis added). What words of God?—that we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ “out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev: 5:9). That is, “that a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’” (Rev 7: 9). Therefore, in this light, we can understand why “all men are called to belong to the new People of God” (Lumen Gentium §13), the Church, the new and reborn humanity that finds its unity no longer in Adam but in Christ, but also why we read in Lumen Gentium §2 that God’s plan is “to assemble in the holy Church all those who would believe in Christ.” In this connection, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church §769: “The Church, and through her will . . . ‘all the just from the time of Adam, “from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect,” . . . be gathered together in the universal Church in the Father’s presence,’” And again, telling us exactly why the Kingdom of God is in service to the Church, the CCC says: “To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son’s Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is ‘the world reconciled’” (CCC §845; emphasis added). Finally: “This characteristic of universality which adorns the People of God is a gift from the Lord Himself. By reason of it, Aloys Grillmeier, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 1, Mystery of the Church,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 1, trans. Lalit Adolphus et al. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), 140. 82 Ad Father O’Collins 1279 the Catholic Church strives energetically and constantly to bring all humanity with all its riches back to Christ its Head in the unity of His Spirit” (Lumen Gentium §13). So, pace O’Collins, I think we do want to say, in light of the teachings, not only of Vatican II but also of John Paul II, that the Spirit, therefore, serves the Church in order to realize the redemptive goal of humanity in Christ. The CCC §760 makes this very point: Christians of the first centuries said, “The world was created for the sake of the Church.” God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the “convocation” of men in Christ, and this “convocation” is the Church. The Church is the goal of all things, and God permitted such painful upheavals as the angels’ fall and man’s sin only as occasions and means for displaying all the power of his arm and the whole measure of the love he wanted to give the world. Just as God’s will is creation and is called “the world,” so the intention of the salvation of men, and it is called “the Church.” Yes, the Church’s mission is to proclaim the Gospel in light of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit, as O’Collins rightly says, but the redemptive purpose of that mission is to call the whole of humanity together into the Church. “The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation.” As I said in my article review: “Since the Church is the new reborn humanity in Christ, the Kingdom of God serves the Church by virtue of humanity having no other goal than indwelling in this Church, the Body of Christ, in which all is fulfilled with Christ as its head.”83 This conviction, reiterated by Lumen Gentium §14, should surprise no one, since the necessity of faith, baptism, and the Church N&V for salvation is a de fide teaching.84 Echeverria, “Vatican II on the Religions,” 849. I am grateful to Fr. Thomas Guarino, Professor of Systematic Theology at Seton Hall University, for his comments that helped me to improve on some formulations in this article. 83 84 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017): 1281–1298 1281 Book Reviews Das Heil des Menschen als Gnade by Michael Stickelbroeck (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 2014), 230 pp. Only on seldom occasions does one discover in the area of theology of any Christian denomination a book treating the thorny but central topic of grace. This book fills this painfully felt lacuna quite felicitously as it thinks the issue creatively beyond conventional boundaries without imperiling, but rather building upon, the heights theology had already reached in this area. The author, professor of systematic theology at the Catholic philosophical-theological College of St. Pölten in Austria, divides the textbook into a rather long “introduction,” “a historical foundation,” and a “systematic-theological section.” An unequivocal Patristic position and clear definitions of terms distinguish this well organized study. These features come into more prominent focus when comparing this book with other recent German-language, albeit also valuable, contributions to this area such as from the pens of Karl-Heinz Menke and Jürgen Werbick. A comprehensive bibliography of approximately 125 titles and an index of names round off this carefully crafted text. Summaries and citations from pertinent conciliar documents assist the reader in accessing complex issues. The author takes seriously the anthropological—nota bene, not anthropocentric—shift. Divine grace is perceived as an indispensable corollary to human freedom. In a subcutaneous way and from the very beginning of his existence, the human person exercising freedom inchoately experiences God as “the all-overarching reality” (14). In the God-man, Jesus Christ, the human being consciously discovers himself and experiences in the Savior a sublime elevation of human nature, which he actually intends from the very beginning of his existence on the surface of the earth. The author writes, “in 1282 Book Reviews the teaching on grace the material-categorical totality of theology is implied,” and continues by asserting in a normative manner that “in all other theological [Catholic] tractates essential moments of the teaching on grace are absorbed” (24). At the outset, the term “grace” is extensively explained by way of Scripture and the Church Fathers (26–61). On the basis of the Pauline understanding of this key term, the author perceives grace as “χάρις as redemption of humankind through the cross from a sinful state” (34). Building upon this basis, the author juxtaposes and combines the emphasis of the Greek Fathers on ontology, mysticism, and divinization with the Western themes of anthropology, salvation, and ethics. The West tends to emphasize more the mystery of the Incarnation and, thereby, faith’s content—the fides quae. This implies that the Orient focuses on the dimension of an ever personal appropriation of grace—fides qua. To Stickelbroeck’s mind, “the corrective for the Western [form] of a theology of grace would be an openness for [self-]transcendence as co-given in the act of beholding, which implies a turn to a metaphysical understanding of the mystery of personhood” (44). May one here detect an implied affinity of the author for the Russian priest-theologian Pavel Florensky’s (1883–1937) critique of the Renaissance’s turn to perspectival art? The author advocates the need to think “the cosmic-universal” (Maximus the Confessor) and the individual dimensions of grace (Augustine) together. Over and against Hans Küng, who pleads for a purely immanent hominization of humankind, the author takes up the cudgels—quite deliberately along with Karl Rahner—for theosis, for deification as the underlying cause for the Incarnation of God, which needs be thought of indispensably as the hypostatic union of divine and human natures. Significantly, in this context, he appreciates positively the contributions of the Greek theologian Gregory Palamas (ca. 1296–1359). In the ductus of Gaudium et Spes §11 and with the aid of Maximus Confessor, he attempts to avoid a Platonic constriction of the human existence on earth: “Christologically spoken the divinization of Christ does not lead to an unlimited participation [of a human being] with divinity, but rather to an impression and perfecting ‘information’ [the author uses here this word in an original way in order to circumscribe the transformation—cf. the term forma] of human existence and activities corresponding to the original way in which the person of the eternal Son constantly receives its being, insight and volition from the Father. Christ is Son of the Father, insofar He is human” (58). Book Reviews 1283 All-decisive is the assumption of the divine Son’s habitus and divine potency (ενεργεια) as obedience vis-à-vis the Father “by practicing charity” (61). The perfection of human nature occurs in the categoriality of its finitude as the perfection of human being’s divine similitude (61)—“no identification, no transubstantiation,” as the author reminds the reader (68). He thus preserves the difference between grace and divine glory—against Juan Martinez de Ripalda (1594– 1648), who asserted ultimate human similarity with God’s holiness. In the main body, grace is treated under the heading of the celestial dorean (i.e., gratuity), enabling the human person to become co-heir. In agreement with Thomas and de Lubac but in opposition to Cajetan, the author understands grace as not being something “ecstatic.” Nevertheless, the “border concept” of natura pura is preserved—with a nod to the greatest Catholic systematician in the nineteenth century, Matthias Scheeben (1835–1888), and the Fourth Lateran Council (1215)—as otherwise, “grace going beyond creation” would not exist (75). On this point, certainly Bulgakov and de Lubac would register their displeasure. Over and against Hegel, one must think Trinitarian, Stickelbroeck argues, as it is exclusively the Holy Spirit who enables a personal communio from communicatio in and through Jesus Christ. Gratia creata again makes possible the singular elevation of the humanity of Christ into supernature—in a qualified sense, the model for all human beings: from a theoretical esse ad Deum, conceived abstractly, to a personal esse ad Patrem in Filio per Spiritum Sanctum (90–91). Upon this rich background, he discusses in succinct brevity and clarity Augustine, Pelagianism, semi-Pelagianism, Arausicanum II, Luther, Melanchthon, Trent, Jansenism, Molinism, Sertillanges, Lonergan, and justification. In the process, the author evidences himself as a profound expert on Thomistic thought who is also most capable of presenting judiciously and with ample nuance Luther’s and Melanchthon’s positions. The heading “God’s universal saving Will” is robustly buttressed by sound exegetical insights. In addition, this section references pertinent passages from the Second Vatican Council. It describes both a very successful synopsis of a complex intellectual history and a thorough, systematic presentation of the Catholic teaching on grace. In the process, contours of the Christian believer as the possible symphony of freedom and grace appear. In logical and creative continuation of the point d’appui of the celebrated Catholic theologian Scheeben, Stickelbroeck liberates 1284 Book Reviews the term “grace” from a narrowed understanding occasioned by the acrimonious polemics of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and broadens it to the most foundational intention of the Incarnation: deification. The thus-expressed emphasis of personal and dialogical divinization as the final goal of human existence within the context of grace is relatively recent. Paralleling Scheeben, it occurs by virtue of Stickelbroeck’s congeniality with the Greek Fathers. The author sets his position quite firmly in opposition to two significant representatives of Baroque Scholasticism: Bañez and Molina. While arguing very cogently, the two had understood grace in a material and mechanical sense. Likewise also, Stickelbroeck does not leave the reader in a diffuse suspense. In the process, the author often discusses the varied positions of Scheffczyk, Karl Rahner, de Lubac, Ratzinger, Hauke, and Menke. Similarly to Balthasar, also for Stickelbroeck, Maximus Confessor is the lodestar. In this context, the author’s eminent philosophical competence comes to bear. Frequent reference is made to Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Wittgenstein, and Giovanni Sala. This enables him to formulate with remarkable precision. As in all areas, so also here, the Chalcedonian formula is the indispensable orientation. This richly annotated textbook deserves an unqualified welcome. One wishes the author the requisite leisure to translate the insights gained in this book into a robust Mariology. May this review encourage colleagues to offer courses on grace on a more frequent basis. Felicitously, this book promotes Orthodox–Catholic dialogue. It is certainly no hyperbole to claim that this book is one every systematician must dream of writing—this all the more in the year of divine N&V mercy. Emery de Gaál Mundelein Seminary Mundelein, IL Ecce Homo: On the Divine Unity of Christ by Aaron Riches (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), xxi + 279 pp. Aaron Riches begins this extraordinary book by quoting Pope Pius XII’s Sempiternus Rex, in which the Pope emphasized that Christ’s human nature must not be presented as though it existed on its own rather than in the Word. Riches notes that Pius XII’s teaching on the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of the Council of Chalcedon squares with the Apostle Paul’s affirmation of “one Lord Jesus Christ” Book Reviews 1285 (1 Cor 8:6; cf. the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) and belongs to the Church’s fundamental teaching that “the human Jesus . . . shares a unity and identity with God (in the person of the Son and Logos)” (3). On this basis, Riches sets forth the thesis of his book: “Therefore, the only tenable starting point for Christology lies in the absolute unitas of the human Jesus with the divine Son. This opposes any alternative starting point that would begin from a theoretical or ontological separatio of divinity and humanity in Christ in order to proceed discreetly ‘from below’” (ibid.). Central to his argument is the point that no separation from God is needed or helpful in determining what Jesus’s human nature is or does. Riches gives two reasons in support of this argument. The first reason involves a paradox, given the incompatibility of the divine attributes (for example, that God cannot change and is eternal) with creaturely attributes. While differing infinitely from his divinity, Jesus’s humanity cannot be truly known outside the union of his human nature with the divine nature in the Word. Riches remarks that, “if the reality of the human being ‘Jesus’ is ontologically constituted through union with the Logos, the human birth and real crucifixion of this human being is made possible only in the divine unity of the Logos” (5). There would literally be no human nature of Jesus if there were no union of that human nature with the divine nature in the Word, and so understanding Jesus’s humanity cannot involve bracketing his divinity. Second, and correspondingly, no separation from God is needed or helpful for analyzing Jesus’s human nature because, in fact Jesus is verus homo et verus Deus, and so “the fullness and excellence of perfect humanity is constituted by the intimacy of its union with God” (6). Whereas it might seem that union with God makes Jesus less truly human, in fact, it makes Jesus more truly human. To know what is truly human cannot be attempted, therefore, by bracketing God. Rather, human nature becomes more what it distinctly is the more it is united with God. Riches states that “the irreducible difference of the human being in relation to God is perfected in direct (as opposed to inverse) relation to the perfection of the unio of his humanity with the divine Logos” (7). We might think that what is truly human is known and protected in Jesus by downplaying or bracketing what is truly divine. But, in fact, the opposite is the case, as befits the Creator God’s ontological noncompetitiveness with creatures. When we emphasize Jesus’s full divinity, we illumine his true humanity. Riches argues that the same point extends to knowing our own 1286 Book Reviews human nature, which is known rightly when we know it as united to the divine nature in the Word. As Riches puts it, “only the confession of the ‘one Lord Jesus Christ’ maximally preserves the integrity and difference of verus homo before verus Deus” (7). Indeed, Riches makes the point even more strongly, denying that we can begin in any way “from an abstract idea of what his humanity might be apart from that unio” (8). The suggestion is that, to know what true humanity is, we must look to Christ, and we cannot import a concept of true humanity from outside the hypostatic union. Riches has in mind first and foremost the two main Christological heresies, Monophysitism and Nestorianism. Monophysitism appears to strongly affirm the unio, but it does so at the expense of both verus homo and verus Deus. It implicitly assumes that the radical distinction between humanity and divinity involves a separation that threatens the union, and so it blends the human into the divine so as to insist upon the union. It does not see that the distinction of natures in their fullness is actually perfected by the union. Nestorianism, for its part, thinks that separation is what is needed to preserve the radical distinction, and so it weakens the union. In both heresies, the error comes about due to failure to realize that the union itself enables the fullness of the radical distinction between the two natures. The orthodox position therefore should not be conceived as a midpoint between the two heresies (let alone between a supposed Alexandrian divinizing and Antiochene humanizing of Christ), since, in fact, the two heresies agree in their failure to perceive the role of the union in establishing the perfect distinction of the two natures. Rather than being a midpoint, the orthodox position is actually an appreciation for the fact that the hypostatic union is where true humanity and true divinity are most clearly identified and distinguished: union with God does not threaten the truly human but establishes and reveals it. Riches brings forward the example of Karl Rahner, who sought to overcome an overly divine Christology by retrieving a “Nestorian” corrective in the modern era, as reflective of the problematic notion that, in order to accentuate the truly human, we must diminish the union. Riches also mentions the historical-critical separation of the human “Jesus of history” from the divine “Christ of faith.” He adds the broader claim that, in modernity (notably modern metaphysics), thinkers presume that “the difference of x and y is only safeguarded by separatio, a strict autonomy that ensures that no intimacy crosses the basic parallelism whereby each thing remains distinct from its opposite” (11). Here he has the nature–grace debate in view, with Book Reviews 1287 modernity reflected in the post-Cajetanian insistence upon a strict separation of the two through the conception of natura pura and de Lubac retrieving the (in Riches’s view earlier) position that the intimate union of the two is the locus of their real distinction. Riches goes back further to the early medieval period to show the attraction of many thinkers (notably Peter Lombard) to the Nestorian homo assumptus theory of the Incarnation. He gives the post-Cajetan Thomists their due, however, by noting that, despite their insistence upon natura pura, even Thomists such as Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange never show the slightest inclination toward Nestorian Christology. I think that this latter point may be even more instructive than Riches supposes. In fact, the natura pura theory, while meant to underscore the distinction of human nature from grace, never denied that union with God is constitutive of what a “pure human nature” would be. Thomists always conceived of sinless human nature as perfected through knowing and loving God in a profound union, even if not yet in the (distinct and infinitely greater) graced union of beatific vision or adoptive sonship. Riches argues that contemporary Thomists make the mistake of thinking that “the real integrity of human nature must be necessarily compromised by the divine union” when they “prefer to establish the ontological integrity of a ‘theonomic’ principle of nature abstracted from grace, and therefore of the Christian confession” (14). But I note that this “‘theonomic’ principle of nature” is never abstracted from a divine source or divine goal. On the contrary, it is abstracted solely from grace, not from a creaturely union with God. Thus, the issue has to do not with the separation of true humanity from union with the Creator, but rather with the doctrine of creation as involving a proportionate creaturely union distinct from (though profoundly open to) a graced one. This point does not undermine Riches’s central claim, with which the Thomists would fully agree and which Riches brilliantly unfolds: “The bitterly finite experience of the Incarnation is precisely constituted by—and therefore intensified as a result of—the unbreakable unity of the one Lord Jesus Christ” (15). Union with the divine nature in the Person of the Word grounds and strengthens, rather than threatens, Christ’s true humanity. The more we are united with God, the more fully we are truly human, fulfilling all our capacities and potentialities. The three parts of Riches’s book lead the reader through the Councils and into the medieval receptions of the Councils. The first part (chs. 1–3) moves from Ephesus through Chalcedon. Its purpose 1288 Book Reviews is to show the fundamental unity of Leo and Chalcedon with Cyril’s Twelve Chapters, despite certain weaknesses in some of the Tome’s formulations—and with special attention to Chalcedon’s Definitio fidei. Against the Nestorians and Monophysites, both Cyril and Leo emphasize, in Riches’s words, that: “The divine forma that shines forth in miracle and the human forma that succumbs to suffering may be parsed, but only as different manifestations of the one ontological existent (the una persona or una subsistentia). The concrete existent in all cases . . . remains and is the one Lord Jesus Christ” (81). The second part of the book appreciatively surveys Gregory of Nazianzus’s Christology of “mingling,” Dionysius the Areopagite’s theandric Christology, and the doctrine of enhypostatos that is rooted in Cyril of Alexandria and developed by Leontius of Jerusalem and John of Damascus (among others). Against standard patristic surveys such as that of J. N. D. Kelly, Riches argues persuasively that Constantinople II, with its condemnation of the Three Chapters in favor of Cyrillian Christology, is in strong accordance with “the dyoenergist and dyothelitist dogmata of the Third Council of Constantinople (680–681)” (129). Constantinople III took place almost twenty years after the persecution and death of Maximus the Confessor, who stands as a great defender of the Cyrillian insight that the Cross is the incarnate Son’s “perfect act of theandric synergy” (152). Riches’s third part addresses Thomas Aquinas’s recovery in the West of Constantinople II and III (as well as his recovery of the texts of Ephesus and Chalcedon), as well as Aquinas’s appreciation for Cyril and John of Damascus, all of which aided him in overcoming the Christological problems caused by medieval Nestorian tendencies. Here, Riches underscores Aquinas’s commitment to “the singular divine esse of Christ” (162). He shows that what is at stake is that the Incarnation “express fully the whole immutable reality on which it depends: the person of the eternal Son” (166). In this discussion, Riches delves into the longstanding debate about the seeming contradiction between Aquinas’s strong affirmation of Christ’s single divine esse and his argument, in the De unione Verbi incarnati, that Christ possesses a secondary esse as man. He argues that, in fact, Aquinas’s position does not change, but rather, in De unione, Aquinas is simply drawing out an aspect of “the differentiated-unity of the Incarnate Son subsisting in a manner eternal and simple on the one hand, and in a manner temporal and compound on the other” (174). As Riches explains, “because the Incarnate Logos is a complex of natures, his Book Reviews 1289 unum subsistens can be contemplated in terms of different aspects of subsistence (aliter subsistens): he can either be contemplated in himself (in se) or from the point of view of his assuming of human nature (aliter subsistens)” (175). The latter involves positing a secondary esse, but not an existential dualism, since Christ’s esse is the singular esse of the Logos, in which the human nature (with its secondary esse) subsists. Riches then extends his investigation of Aquinas to include Aquinas’s account of how the unity of Christ’s “I” grounds his synergistic and differentiated human willing and how Christ’s human nature is an “instrument” of his divinity, so as to ensure “the absolute difference of human action and freedom within the unitas of the divine filiation” (183). In light of Aquinas’s theology of Trinitarian processio and missio, Riches draws upon Hans Urs von Balthasar and Pope Benedict XVI to affirm that “the filial unity of Jesus with the Father and the hypostatic unity of divinity and humanity in Christ are . . . internal to one another” and “the ‘I am’ of Jesus and the single esse of Christ are . . . rooted in the filial paradox of relation, which is expressed and lived in the Son’s missio to reveal the Father and his Love through obedient submission” (188–89). Riches goes on to treat Christ’s supreme suffering and beatific vision according to Aquinas, showing how the unity of Christ as verus homo and verus Deus governs Aquinas’s insistence that supreme suffering and beatific vision are, in Christ, found in a paradoxical unity (in this regard, Riches differs from von Balthasar and other critics of Aquinas’s position). Aquinas insists upon hypostatic unity even in his evaluation of the dead corpse of Christ. Riches concludes that Aquinas is a true inheritor of Cyrillian Christology. Riches then shows that Scotus, by contrast to Aquinas, seeks to develop the homo assumptus doctrine without falling into Nestorianism. Riches explains, “Whereas Thomas started from the unitas of the humanity of Christ in the unum suppositum of the divine Logos, Scotus sought to account first for the integral humanity of haec natura in order to establish the tenable conditions of the unio of divinity and humanity he yet wanted to maintain” (210). It will be clear that, for Riches, Scotus’s move can only be disastrous. As Riches says, “Scotus was able to grant a new autonomy to the individuated human nature of Jesus, such that he could now specify an ontological density of hic homo that was not constituted by direct recourse to the unum suppositum of the one Lord” (ibid.). I agree with Riches that this move seems 1290 Book Reviews problematic, since it posits (theoretically) a stand-alone human nature that is then inserted into the union, rather than ensuring that it is the union that governs everything about Christ’s human nature. Scotus here appears as something of a proto-Rahner, concerned to focus less on the divine “glory of Christ Pantocrator” and more on “the meager finitude of the particular existence of hic homo” (211). As we would expect, Riches’s question is whether the finitude of Christ as truly human is in fact best defended outside the union: does union with God make the human nature less human? For Scotus, “the human nature of Jesus . . . is individuated and possesses its own human haecceity [though not its own personhood, because the Logos assumes this human nature] apart from the suppositum of the Logos and so outside the hypostatic union” (213). Although Scotus was not formally Nestorian, later Franciscans were. Riches offers two early-twentieth-century examples of such a Franciscan position, to which Pius XII’s Sempiternus Rex responds. Riches also points out that Jon Sobrino falls into a similar problem, to which the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith formally responded in 2006. For Sobrino, the human Jesus “possesses his own ‘whole reality’ apart from the Son, who in a second ontological moment takes on (i.e., becoming united to) the prior ‘reality of Jesus’” (222). This is an obviously disastrous outcome, since, if the Son assumes the whole reality of Jesus, then Jesus’s whole reality is not characterized by being the divine Son. In response to the concern that the lack of a human personhood undermines the true humanity of Jesus, Riches proposes that the answer consists in Aquinas’s account of the secondary esse, which indicates the true creatureliness of the human nature of Christ— and thereby explains the importance of Christ receiving his human nature from Mary. Indebted to Louis Chardon, Riches suggests that the Jesus–Mary relation, which is inextricable from the hypostatic union, gives us insight into the mystical union of the ecclesial body with its Head in one mystical Body. As Riches puts it, “the human nature of the unus Filius includes Marian communio from its incarnate origin” (231). The final chapter of Riches’s book, presented as a “Coda,” takes us further into Chardon’s vision, not only with regard to the place of the Holy Spirit and the Paschal mystery in the Incarnation but also with regard to Mary’s “permanent role of co-belonging to the Cross, and so to the concrete content of the Son’s glorification” (240). Book Reviews 1291 The Jesus–Mary relation that is inextricably present in the Incarnation means that Mary must follow the way of the Cross, the way of dispossession, even from her Son. The book concludes with a brief extension of its thesis into the realm of modern culture, which more and more reflects the separation promoted by heretical Christology. To moderns, true humanity seems to be obtained in separation from God and, thus, in separation from Christ. This book demonstrates that Ressourcement, which retrieves the insights of the Fathers, need not and should not be separated from Thomism. With impressive erudition, Riches shows how Scholastic reasoning, including a metaphysically rich Christology, arises from the problems faced by the Fathers and ultimately from Paul’s proclamation of “one Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 8:6). Riches’s rendering of the Patristic period is sure-footed and profound, and his engagement with Aquinas and Scotus (in relation to the Patristic period) is erudite and, in my view, persuasive in its main lines and in its application to the contemporary situation. Readers may differ here and there from Riches without denying the truth of his central argument about the necessity of grounding Christology in the unio in the Person of the Logos. In sum, I strongly recommend this book as an exemplification of the creative conjunction of Ressourcement and Thomism that, it seems to me, is now necessary for the health and fruitfulness of both. This conjunction will involve differences over the ways in which Thomistic metaphysics or the insights of the great twentieth-century Ressourcement thinkers should be appropriated and assessed. But, as can be seen wherever serious Ressourcement or Thomistic thinkers are at work, the theological project being undertaken is essentially the same, even where certain metaphysical or theological differences are present. A vibrant Ressourcement Thomism, beautifully exemplified by Riches’s book, is in fact the only viable alternative to the liberal-Catholic theology that builds, not as Aquinas does upon Scripture and the Fathers, but upon Schleiermacher, N&V Bultmann, and Troeltsch. Matthew Levering Mundelein Seminary Mundelein, IL 1292 Book Reviews Sacred Liturgy: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church, edited by Alcuin Reid (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 442 pp. For obvious reasons , theologians, philosophers, apologists, and ecclesial authorities have long looked at the declining number of actively involved Catholics since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Many insist that the cause of this unprecedented flight from the pew is a failure to recognize the centrality of the sacred liturgy. The liturgy, either in theory and/or practice, has not been the source and summit of the Christian life. In other words, there have been corrupting “shadows” in the ritual reforms of Venerable Paul VI that have prevented the sacred liturgy from being what it ought, and needs, to be (cf. St. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §10). Aware of these shadows and desirous to recentralize the sacred liturgy in the service of belief and evangelization, in June of 2013, during the year of Faith (2012–2013), an international conference was held at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Participants at the 2013 Sacra Liturgia conference gathered to perform what Don Alcuim Reid called an honest “liturgical examination of conscience” of the post-conciliar liturgy (10). Thankfully, all of the papers presented at the conference have been collected and made available in the text Sacred Liturgy: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church, edited by Alcuin Reid. The text, consisting of twenty-three contributors discussing various elements of the Church’s liturgical life since the reforms of Sacrosanctum Concilium, is bound to either encourage or frustrate, depending upon which side of the liturgical camp one is situated. The text is no less than a robust, theologically rich apologia for the new liturgical movement called for by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (cf. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000]). As one may expect, topics covered include: the mis-application and weaknesses of the reforms of Vatican II, the importance of sacred music and church architecture, and the relationship between liturgical formation and catechesis. Also discussed are questions about the proper “art of celebrating,” the role and responsibility of the bishop in promoting right worship, and the relationship between liturgy and the Church’s social doctrine. Having not the requisite space to comment upon all the fine essays presented in this volume, I will limit myself to remarking on some of the more intriguing and insightful contributions. The brief Book Reviews 1293 introductory address by Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon, France (13–17) effectively sets the tone for the entirety of the text. He emphasizes that the sacred liturgy “is not a peripheral matter” and, as such, it needs to be at “the center of any renewal of the Church” (15). Referencing Sacrosanctum Concilium, he explains that the centrality of the liturgy in ecclesial renewal is due to the “singular efficacy” of the liturgy to foster an encounter with the saving action of Christ. When the liturgy is not what it should be, when it lacks beauty, the encounter with Christ is impeded. Thus, according to Bishop Rey, “liturgical formation is crucial” (16). Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Comlombo, Sri Lanka, provides a sapiential articulation of worship in general, tracing its heavenly origin and man’s progressive participation in this perennial divine act. Entitling his essay “The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church” (19–39), Cardinal Ranjith argues that the very existence and mission of Israel as revealed in the biblical narrative is ordered to a cultic end. This end, which is a call to worship the one true God and lead others to the rightful worship of that one true God, is ordered to, and perfected by, Christ’s self-offering on the Cross and the Church’s continuation of that offering in the sacred liturgy. The cardinal’s Christocentric reading of man’s liturgical activity allows one to avoid many of the “erroneous ideas” that have seeped into the liturgical life of the Church. These ideological errors (of which, he lists three: a false archeologism, a failure to make the distinction between the ministerial and common priesthood, and the reduction of the term actuso participatio to banal “showmanship”) ultimately reduces the mysterious “theo-drama” of the liturgy to parody. One of the highlights of the text is the contribution by Bishop Peter Elliott, auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, Australia, titled “Ars Celebrandi in the Sacred Liturgy” (69–85). Lamenting the false Cartesian dichotomy that is affecting the liturgical life of the Church, the good bishop argues that priest celebrants must integrate “the externals and his own spiritual interiority” (70). Once the Cartesian temptation to separate external actions from internal faith is overcome, each movement and gesture of the priest celebrant will be gracious, unhurried, and never theatrical or contrived. According to Bishop Elliot, the key to overcoming the Cartesian influence and celebrating the sacred liturgy well is threefold: (1) for the celebrant to understand what he is doing through adequate formation (shockingly, Elliott reports that many priests have not read the General Instruction 1294 Book Reviews of the Roman Missal); (2) for the celebrant to intelligently grasp the whole liturgical act through practice—that is, a celebrant must practically know the “shape” of the liturgy and be wholly familiar with the progressive unfolding of the liturgy—and (3) for the celebrant to humbly embrace his role as apprentice and learn the “craft” of celebrating from the living liturgical tradition. When these ends are met, many of the problems plaguing liturgical worship, such as hasty speech and actions, liturgical banality, and the absence of beauty, are evaded. Bishop Elliott’s insightful, practical, and richly incarnational article is a must read for every priest. Marc Aillet, Bishop of Bayonne, Lescar, and Oloron in France provides the reader with a superb article that is both intellectually astute and spiritually enriching. In “The Sacred Liturgy and the New Communities” (163–82), Bishop Aillet examines the liturgical question through the lens of “new communities” and notes that what makes these communities and their apostolates particularly fruitful is their “reconnection” with traditional spirituality and traditional liturgical life. Of particular importance, argues Aillet, is the principal orientation of these new communities, which is fundamentally “Eucharistic” and eschatological. Concomitantly, these new communities also enjoy, to various degrees, a liturgical renewal that further makes their apostolates more and more fruitful. Bishop Ailett comments on three elements of this liturgical renewal: the rediscovery of Latin, the suitability of Gregorian chant, and the importance of obedience to liturgical regulations. Of particular brilliance is Bishop’s Aillet’s stirring defense of Latin within the sacred liturgy. Tracey Rowland’s contribution, “The Usus Antiquior and the New Evangelisation” (115–37), is, as one has come to expect, brilliantly incisive and worth the purchase of the text itself. Drawing upon Alasdair MacIntyre’s “expressivist theory of language,” Rowland argues that the 1960s project to make the liturgy more contemporary by transposing the high sacral language into the vernacular of a low, mundane culture caused the liturgy to become, of all things, “boring” (120). This is, according to Rowland, the result of many “pastoral leaders” adopting a false linguistic philosophy that adhered to an impoverished understanding of the relationship between language and culture. The solution to the problem, writes Rowland, is to once again unite liturgically language and culture via the use of the more poetic usus antiquior. My only critique of this fine article is that I should have liked to see Professor Rowland draw more explic- Book Reviews 1295 itly upon the seminal work of Christopher Dawson in support of her argument. In sum, Don Alcuim Reid deserves applause for not only organizing the 2013 Sacra Liturgia conference but also for making its fruit available to all. The articles presented in Sacred Liturgy provide a solid theological foundation for the desired liturgical renewal so desperN&V ately needed. Richard S. Meloche St. Gregory’s University Shawnee, OK Contemplation and Classical Christianity: A Study in Augustine by John Peter Kenney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), xi + 169 pp. John Kenney’s new study , Contemplation and Classi- cal Christianity, disputes an interpretation of Augustine’s theology as reducible to Platonic philosophy, specifically on the topic of Christian contemplation. As a Platonic philosopher himself, writing his dissertation on Plotinus and the Via Antiqua and publishing on topics related to Platonism and theology, Kenney’s scholarly work disrupts an established trend in Augustinian studies, as exhibited by fellow Platonic philosopher John Rist, to regard Platonism not merely as a source but as the foundation of Augustine’s theology. As Kenney ultimately states in his conclusion: Perhaps we may be better served, therefore, as readers of Augustine not to regard Platonism as simply a rival to his emerging Christian theology or, anachronistically, as its philosophical foundation. We might instead consider it as an alternative transcendentalist tradition, one that Augustine explicitly valued for that aspect of its thought, but which he also regarded as superseded by the more adequate transcendentalism of Catholicism. (166) Contemplation and Classical Christianity traces the development of Augustine’s theology of Christian contemplation from its nascent form in his writings at Cassiciacum while a catechumen to its full stature in his autobiography, the Confessions, especially as portrayed in his vision at Ostia. Chapters one and two of Kenney’s study lay 1296 Book Reviews the foundation for the remainder of the work. Chapter 1 explicates the content of Platonic theology for the reader unfamiliar with Platonism, and chapter 2 recounts the impact Augustine attributes to Platonism for his conversion to Christianity, while also emphasizing the distinct differences between the Platonic philosophy he encountered and the Christian theology he developed. The final three chapters of Kenney’s study detail the development of Augustine’s theology of contemplation from 386–400 AD as distinct from the Platonic philosophy of ascent. Chapter 3 focuses on two treatises from Cassiciacum: De ordine and Soliloquia. De ordine, according to Kenney, expresses great confidence in the ability of reason to ascend from material reality to contemplation in this life. Such an accomplishment, however, similar to Platonic philosophy, is available only to the elite (those educated in the liberal arts). The rest of humanity advances in this world through obedience to authority and achieves contemplation only in the next life. By contrast, in Soliloquia, Augustine places emphasis on the necessity of divine grace to reach contemplation and to remain in such a state permanently. Even within De ordine, the apparent wisdom of uneducated Monica suggests the possibility of a pathway to contemplation other than the study of the liberal arts. The emphasis on divine intervention in his theology of contemplation within Soliloquia distinguishes Augustine’s theology as thoroughly anti-Platonist and, ultimately, develops into full maturation within the Confessions. Chapter 4 covers the development of Augustine’s theology of contemplation following his baptism in 387, up to the writing of his Confessions. In De quantitate animae, Augustine records the seven levels of the soul. While De quantitate animae maintains that a soul may fall back into moral decadence along the path of its ascent, it remains Augustine’s most optimistic text on the permanency of the highest state of the soul, the state of contemplation (101). In Augustine’s monastic writings, De Genesi contra Manichaeos and De vera religione, he transitions from discussing the pathway to contemplation in the context of levels of the soul to ethical advancement. De vera religione develops Augustine’s thought beyond De quantitate animae, as contemplation is presented as never permanent in this life. The human soul is always beset with the temptation to abuse human freedom by turning from the highest good. In Augustine’s texts following his ordination as a minister of the Church, including De utilitate credenda, De sermone Domini in monte, Ad Simplicianum, and De doctrina Christiana, Book Reviews 1297 he emphasizes the universal effects of the Fall and, thus, especially, the universal necessity of grace as mediated through the Church, particularly through Sacred Scripture. The fifth chapter of Kenney’s work is the high point in which he discusses Augustine’s Christian transcendentalism and the full maturation of his theology of contemplation as expressed in the Confessions. Kenney specifically highlights within this chapter the interrelation in the Confessions of Augustine’s autobiography and his exegesis of Genesis in book XII. Augustine’s spiritual exegesis of Genesis pushes back against a denial of transcendentalism by the Manicheans and some Christians and also provides a foundation for Augustine’s transcendental experiences at Milan and Ostia (130, 134). At stake in Augustine’s defense of spiritual exegesis are the most meaningful moments of his life. Defending a spiritual interpretation of Scripture not only validates Augustine’s experiences of unmediated encounter with God but also supplies language for speaking of the transcendental, a geography for the ascent of the soul, and a means for mediated contemplation of the Word. The heart of Kenney’s final chapter focuses on Augustine’s recounting of the vision at Ostia. Kenney interprets the development of Augustine’s theology of contemplation as the result of sustained reflection on his ascent in the garden with his mother, Monica. Meditation on Monica’s presence, according to Kenney, develops Augustine’s thought away from his two-tiered path to contemplation at Cassiciacum and toward a theology of contemplation accessible to both the educated and uneducated through divine grace, ultimately to be fulfilled only in the world to come. In the end, Kenney leaves the reader with a thorough overview of Augustine’s theology of contemplation from prior to his reception into the Church at Cassiciacum to after his ordination to the episcopacy and his narration of the Confessions. While accessible to the soul in this life through grace, Christian contemplation in Augustine’s thought is a foretaste, as Kenney writes, of “everlasting contemplation of a transcendent God in communion with created and perfected souls” (168). Kenney’s work not only carefully details the development of Augustine’s theology with regard to such aspects as the achievability and sustainability of contemplation of the transcendent God during life on earth but also forcefully and powerfully articulates Augustine’s theology of contemplation as Christian theology decidedly distinct from Platonic philosophy. Unlike a Platonic ascent through the use of reason alone, Christian contemplation in 1298 Book Reviews Augustine is accessible only by divine grace and, thus, is available to all, and not merely the elite educated in the liberal arts. Kenney’s analysis presents Augustine as a Christian theologian whose theology, while not unrelated to Platonism, develops according to his reflection on Scripture and experience and is not representative of a mere co-opting of Platonic thought. This work is recommended for graduate students, particularly those with an interest in Augustine’s theology of Christian contemplation, the relation of Platonic philosophy to Augustine’s theological thought, and Christian tranN&V scendentalism. Emily C. Nye University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN