et Vetera Nova Fall 2019 • Volume 17, Number 4 The English Edition of the International Theological Journal Co-Editors Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Book Review Editor James Merrick, Franciscan University of Steubenville 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, University of Dallas 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 Boyd Taylor Coolman, Boston College Michael Dauphinais, Ave Maria University 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 Dominic Legge, O.P., Dominican House of Studies Joseph Lienhard, S.J., Fordham University Steven A. Long, Ave Maria University Guy Mansini, O.S.B., Ave Maria University Francesca Aran Murphy, University of Notre Dame Thomas Osborne, University of St. Thomas (Houston) Michał Paluch, O.P., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas 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., Capuchin College William Wright, Duquesne University Instructions for Contributors 1. 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Nova et Vetera The English Edition of the International Theological Journal ISSN 1542-7315 Fall 2019 Vol. 17, No. 4 Commentary Theology and Culture in Newman’s Defense of the Immaculate Conception: An Essay in Commemoration of the Canonization of Saint John Henry Newman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacob Phillips How Should Catholic Social Teaching Be Taught to Seminarians?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Christian Brugger Catholicism and Democracy in America.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bruce D. Marshall Articles 957 979 993 The Mystery of Christ’s Beatific Suffering: A Speyrian-Balthasarian Proposal Concerning Christ’s Beatific Vision in Life and Death. . . . . . . . . . . Joshua R. Brotherton 1009 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job: Intentio et Materia.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gilbert Dahan 1053 Jesus’s Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels.. . . . Anthony Giambrone, O.P. 1077 The Doctrine of God and the Analogy of Being. . . . . . . . . . . . . Steven A. Long 1101 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guy Mansini, O.S.B. 1119 What Came First? The Sequence of God’s Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John-Mark L. Miravalle 1145 The Metaphysician at Prayer: Thomas Aquinas on Metaphysics and Prayer as “Interpreters of Desire”.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scott J. Roniger 1163 The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions in the Writings of Thomas Aquinas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Rziha 1203 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millennium: The Anthropological Stakes .. . Bernard N. Schumacher 1221 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure’s Literary Style in Medieval Preaching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Randall B. Smith 1243 Book Reviews Augustine’s Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology by Gerald P. Boersma.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael P. Foley 1287 Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary by Brian Davies, O.P... . . . . . . . . . . . . Raymond Hain 1291 The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age by Thomas Albert Howard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jason A. Heron 1295 Ethics as a Work of Charity: Thomas Aquinas and Pagan Virtue by David Decosimo.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Lendman 1297 Five Proofs of the Existence of God: Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz by Edward Feser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joshua Lim 1301 James, First, Second, and Third John by Kelly Anderson and Daniel Keating. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steven C. Smith 1304 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. Nova et Vetera (ISSN 1542-7315; ISBN 978-1-64585-018-2) 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 2019 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. 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Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 957–978 957 Theology and Culture in Newman’s Defense of the Immaculate Conception: An Essay in Commemoration of the Canonization of Saint John Henry Newman Jacob Phillips St. Mary’s University Twickenham, UK Introduction Following the announcement of the date for Newman’s canonization this fall, the Cardinal Archbishop of England and Wales, Vincent Nichols, commented that, “for me the truly remarkable nature of this moment is that this is an English parish priest being declared a saint.”1 It is not just Newman as an English priest which is worthy of comment, but also Newman as an English theologian. This warrants attention, because Newman himself was concerned with establishing a sense of what a distinctively “English” theology might involve. This is most apparent during the Oxford Movement period, of course, when he sought to foster “a religious attitude in a highly cultured society.”2 In a letter to Samuel Rickards from as early as 1826, he suggests that Rickards writes a book on the Caroline Divines, to discover which distinctive doctrine holds them all together. He hopes this will provide some basis for outlining what is distinctive about English Christianity. These divines must be approached, he says, as “a corpus theologicum et 1 2 “Cardinal Hopes Every Parish Priest Will ‘Hold His Head High Today Knowing Cardinal Newman is a Saint,’” https://www.birminghamdiocese.org.uk/news/ cardinal-hopes-every-parish-priest-will-hold-his-head-high-today-knowing-cardinal-newman-is-declared-a-saint. J. H. Walgrave, O.P., Newman the Theologian (London: Sheed and Ward, 1960), 42. 958 Jacob Phillips ecclesiasticum, the English Church.”3 The same impulse re-emerges after his conversion too, for “among his Catholic co-religionists, the same problem of harmonizing religion and culture appeared with a different emphasis.”4 Obvious examples here include the differences in “style” between the London and Birmingham Oratories, with the former being associated with Ultramontane convictions. At Birmingham, however, Newman “deliberately assumed the position of leader of the moderate and conciliatory section of Catholic theologians in countering the Ultramontanism of the Manning-Ward group.”5 The well-known flashpoint of this tension surrounds papal infallibility, toward which the general English disposition is well summarized by comments by Prime Minister William Gladstone, that now “no one can . . . convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another.”6 As another commentator notes, Victorian writings “often contrasted servile Roman Catholics with ‘free born Englishmen.’” 7 Newman’s concern was to defend infallibility in this climate, with his conviction that “to influence public opinion at all strongly,” the new Catholics “would have to rise to the level of national culture and make contact with the intellectual currents of the time.”8 This was important, because in the centuries following the Reformation the national culture had become more-or-less indistinguishable from what Thackeray called “the decorous pieties of Church-of-Englandism.”9 The vilification of Newman in the English popular press shows how deeply the conviction that Catholicism is “profoundly un-English”10 had taken root in the decades before his conversion. The common pejorative flung at Catholic texts and their devotees during this period is “Italianate.”11 There was thought to be an overly emotional, 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 John Henry Newman, The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 309. Walgrave, Theologian, 42. Walgrave, Theologian, 41. Article from 1874, quoted by Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 679. Carol Engelhardt Herringer, Victorians and the Virgin Mary (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), 136. Walgrave, Theologian, 42. Quoted in Edward Short, Newman and His Contemporaries (London and New York: T & T Clark and Continuum), 181. Quoted in Short, Newman and His Contemporaries, 11. Gregory Winterton, “Newman—The Father of Vatican II,” talk at Birmingham Observatory, Neman Association conference “Lead Kindly Light,” June 12, 2010, newman.org.uk/upload/Father of the Vatican.pdf; see also Ker, Biography, 584. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 959 naively affective character to Catholic devotionalism, combined (paradoxically) with an overbearingly totalitarian scholasticism which bound the faithful to precise statements of belief often evincing little relation to Scripture and/or early tradition. In the nineteenth century, this is most apparent in matters pertaining to Marian devotion and dogma. The devotional writer most frequently dismissed as “Italianate” in this period is St Alphonsus de Ligouri, whose devotional writings Newman said were “suitable for Italy, but . . . not suitable for England.”12 In terms of dogmatic theology, this was the era following the promulgation of Ineffabilis Deus, which many in the Oxford Movement had felt was the final nail on the coffin of any claim to Rome as a center of authentically developing Christianity. After all, the formal statement put a distance between Catholicism and the East, not just the Protestantism of the West. But notwithstanding Newman’s avowed concern to bring Catholic devotion and theology into some sort of appropriately “English” form, and his position as “leader of the moderate and conciliatory section of Catholic theologians” in the Second Spring, he himself practiced a marked personal devotion to the Mary as immaculately conceived. He was convinced of this dogma prior to his conversion in 1845, and had the Birmingham Oratory dedicated to it in 1851. He then made the Oratory’s “principle liturgical celebration” the same feast, and gained an early permission to “have the word immaculata inserted in the preface . . . after the word conceptione.”13 The tension at play in Newman’s vocation to rediscover an English Catholicism combined with his devotional proclivities arguably gets its most explicit treatment following the publication of Eduard Bouverie Pusey’s Eirenicon in 1865, to which Newman published his famous response the following year.14 In his response, Newman takes issue with the former’s reservations about Marian devotion and dogma, which were those typical of nineteenth-century English decorum in piety and theology. On Pusey’s dismissal of “Marian excesses” in popular devotion, Newman draws an analogy with the way people converse lovingly with each other in life. He writes: “What mother, what husband or wife, what youth or maiden in 12 13 14 John Henry Newman, Apologia pro vita sua (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 176–77. John Henry Newman, Mary: The Virgin Mary in the Writings of John Henry Newman, ed. Philip Boyce (Leominster: Gracewing, 2001), 60. E. B. Pusey, The Church of England a Portion of Christ’s One Holy Catholic Church, and a Means of Restoring Visible Unity: An Eirenicon, in a Letter to the Author of “The Christian Year” (London, Oxford, and Cambridge: John Henry and James Parker, and Rivingtons, 1865). 960 Jacob Phillips love, but says a thousand foolish things, in the way of endearment, which the speaker would be sorry for strangers to hear?”; and, “what might even be graceful, when it was fresh from the heart . . . presents but a melancholy exhibition when served-up cold for the public eye?”15 Newman thus points out that effusive language is ever-present in loving relationships, so to criticize it is dismissive of the love which is central to faith. This is related to a second response of Newman’s, centred on the promulgation of Ineffabilis Deus. For Newman, the codification of elements of tradition into formal dogma is of course necessary to safeguard against error, but the resulting statement must be distinguished from the reality at stake. That is, Ineffabilis Deus is necessary to set out the terms by which Mary is to be understood as immaculately conceived, but as a formal statement, it merely establishes the boundaries by which the faithful might approach this mystery. It is not the mystery itself, and the semantics of dogmatic formulations are instructive as much for what they do not say as for what they do say. For this reason, Newman can hold that the second typically English reservation—of a totalizing scholasticism belonging to Rome—is also misguided. This is because “theology both uses logic and baffles it.” It is necessary, to “trim the balance of truth [as] at Antioch or Nicaea,” but the process by which this balancing act takes place “is circuitous and elaborate; and is conducted by means of minute subtleties which will give the appearance of a game of skill in matters too grave and practical to deserve a mere scholastic treatment.”16 While these are typically Newmanian responses to a contemporary theological controversy, there is a great deal of background to his statements, and this background is related to his lifelong intention to rediscover and re-envisage English Catholicism afresh. My contention here is that this background is centered particularly on the early development of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This development was something Newman would be concerned to mark with an English “stamp,” not least because it was realized partly through a trajectory of events in England itself. In what follows, Newman’s recourse to affective modes of speech in answer to criticisms of excessive Marian devotions will be shown to have important precedents in the development of the Immaculate Conception, as indeed will the exercise of scholastic logic in the long course which led to its eventual codification. Following Newman’s lead, the Immaculate Conception can emerge as something with particular importance 15 16 John Henry Newman, “A Letter to the Revd E. B. Pusey, D. D. on his Recent Eirenicon” (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1866). Newman, Virgin Mary, 276. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 961 for English theology, and indeed the English cultural experience more broadly. Yves Congar, attending a meal during a visit to Cambridge, took issue with John Robinson’s disparaging comments about this dogma. He famously retorted by saying this doctrine “is the gift of your England to the catholicity.”17 For Congar, this was the particularly English contribution to the universal depositum fidei.18 Newman’s remarks to Pusey point us to various ways in which we can explicate Congar’s conviction extensively. Theology and Culture Before entering into the detail of why Newman’s responses to Pusey are so instructive, it is necessary first to respond to those who might question the rectitude of highlighting cultural affinities for particular junctures in Catholic faith, and then give some further detail on why this issue is important for interpreting Newman. On the first point, any attempt to connect cultural identities with particular Christian doctrines seems at first glance a foolhardy undertaking. Doctrines must, to some extent, surpass the limits of time and place, because teachings are passed from one generation and locality to another. This is of course particularly pronounced with “formally defined dogma.” The Catechism states clearly enough that the “Church’s Magisterium exercises the authority it holds . . . to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas,” for these oblige all “the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith.”19 As put by Vincent of Lerins, one and the same dogma must always and everywhere be interpreted “with the same sense and the same understanding.”20 It is therefore jarring to think articulations with such universal provenance as dogmas could be seen as proximate to a particular cultural context—as if the people inhabiting the 17 18 19 20 Aidan Nichols, O.P., There is No Rose: The Mariology of the Catholic Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2015), 58. Moreover, as seems to happen often with Our Lady, giving attention to things which seem peculiar oddities at first glance soon unlocks all manner of things which then prove themselves centrally important. This has been the case ever since the bishop Nestorius found the title Theotokos theologically clumsy, and could be seen, curiously, as related to the Pusey’s admission of the perception that Catholic Mariology is actually burdensome: “That vast system as to the Blessed Virgin Mary . . . to all of us has been the special crux of the Roman system” (Pusey, Church of England, 101). That is, Pusey—and Newman, originally—saw from the outside that Marian doctrines seemed to be a cross one had to bear, but the latter increasingly found that they were revealed as things which stood at the “crux” of whatever matter they pertained to, and were therefore also “special.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, §88 (“The Dogmas of the Faith”), 2nd ed. (Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2012), 26. Quoted in Ineffabilis Deus. 962 Jacob Phillips places once called Chalcedon or Nicaea could claim that Definition and that Creed as being related to their own distinctive cultural tendencies. But while dogma is universal by definition, the development of doctrine which leads up to a formal definition is of course always culturally situated. The source from whence the Vincent of Lerins quote comes originally acknowledges this, for he states: “It is necessary . . . that understanding, knowledge, and wisdom should grow [crescat] and progress [proficiat] strongly . . . [through] the course of ages and centuries.”21 Understanding, knowledge, and wisdom develop, and if this development is important, so is its contextual situation. The challenge for theologians is to acknowledge this fact without undermining the endurance of the “same sense and the same understanding” of the matter at hand. So it would not be quite so jarring if one were to speak of the Hellenism of the Chalcedonian definition. For Hellenic philosophy and culture of course did deeply inform the way it was formulated, and for that reason they are inseparable from understanding it properly.22 Moreover, Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium, highlights Marian devotion as something which witnesses to the deep interpenetration of cultures with Church teachings, saying: “Through her many titles, often linked to her shrines, Mary shares the history of each people which has received the Gospel and she becomes a part of their historic identity.”23 Newman’s response to Pusey stands in a marked proximity to this second emphasis of the relation between theology and culture. Taken with Pope Francis’s words, we can appreciate why it was so important for him to show that—contrary to contemporary presuppositions—there must be ways in which Mary “shares the history” of the English people and has become “part of their historic identity.” We can also appreciate why this by no means downplays or undermines the universality of the depositum fidei, but rather constitutes one example of its rightful appropriation in diverse settings. Secondly, it is important to state that underlying Newman’s Mariological battle with Pusey are theological loci which lie at the heart of Newman’s oeuvre. Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine had outlined one criterion of authentic development as what he 21 22 23 Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, in Corpus Christianorum, vol. 64, ed. Rolandus Demeulenaere (Turnholti: Brepols, 1985), 177–78 (my translation). On the inextricability of Hellenic philosophy from Nicaea, see Joseph Ratzinger, The God of Jesus Christ (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 88, and Introduction to Christianity (London: Burns and Oates, 1969), 165. Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (2013), §286. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 963 called the “the Assimilating Power of Dogmatic Truth.” This is a power by which the Church, “finding in the non-Christian world all kinds of opinions and other expressions of mind, as well as customs and rites, . . . incorporates them, altering their significance in so doing.”24 In Newman’s own words: “Christianity grew in its proportions, gaining ailment and medicine from all that it came near, yet preserving its original type, from its perception and its love of what had been revealed once for all and was no private imagination.”25As a criterion of authentic development, it is necessary for Newman that the Church takes hold of her differing contexts, and that “the truest idea must be the most comprehensive, and one that will be able to assimilate, without losing its identity, all the others in virtue of the truth and value they contain.”26 The issue for Newman, then, is that there is danger in simply imparting and transposing theological concerns and forms of devotion from contexts alien to the England he seeks to reconvert. Simply to practice some version of Christianity in a temporal or spatial vacuum immune from contextual interpenetrations is something he associates with heresy. Indeed, the claim of Catholicism to be authentic Christianity itself depends, for Newman, on its ability to take shape and reconfigure elements of the contexts in which it finds itself. Newman’s most influential contribution to theology with the Development essay, then, is working away behind his remarks to Pusey, and this is something interpretation of Newman would benefit from a greater awareness of. Moreover, unpacking the detail behind these remarks promises to indicate ways by which his theory can be put to work today in understanding the complex relation between theology and culture more broadly. In short, Newman’s defense of effusive affectation toward Mary and the two-sidedness of his position on the necessity of logic in theological undertakings present themselves as aspects of an English cultural sensibility which have been taken hold of and re-shaped to unlock nascent riches implicit within the tradition. History of the Immaculate Conception. It is well-known that there are at least allusions to Mary’s sinlessness very early on, perhaps most famously St. Augustine’s comment that we are all born mired in sin “with the exception of the holy Virgin Mary,” in regard to whom, he says, “I do not propose to have a single question raised on 24 25 26 Walgrave, Theologian, 268n4. John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 2nd ed. (London: Longman and Green, 1890), 359. Walgrave, Theologian, 269. 964 Jacob Phillips the subject of [her] sin.”27 In late Greek patristic texts, we find a group of writers known as the Philotheotokoi, lovers of the Theotokos, or God-bearer. As Aidan Nichols has pointed out, the title Theotokos being awarded Our Lady by the faithful “implies . . . an incomparable degree of holiness,”28 and poetic exuberance for this unsurpassably holy woman led the Philotheotokoi to adopt turns of phrase which would suggest that, for Mary, there is “a pre-moral” or “supra-moral holiness which finds expression” in that moral perfection which Augustine conceded to Pelagius. Let us consult Germanus of Constantinople, for example, who speaks to God of “she whom you have chosen as a lily among the thorns of our unworthiness,”29 and Sophronius of Jerusalem, who says to Mary, “no one has been purified in advance as you have been.”30 Such statements were to be expected around this period in the East, because there was there a celebration of a feast analogous to that celebrated today, called “the conception of St. Anne.” There is already an impression to take from this: the mode of speech here is poetic. It is therefore looser and more suggestive than formal theology. As poetry, it belongs at bottom to the realm of aesthetics, more concerned with beauty than truth, and less concerned with a rigorous consistency so much as a moving and inspiring of the heart. This is connected with ceremonial and liturgical celebration, the mention of which causes England to enter the scene. What historians consider “the first clear evidence” of this feast being celebrated in the West comes from Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman Conquest, where it is documented as having been celebrated at “established ecclesiastical Anglo-Saxon centres as Winchester, Worcester, Exeter, and Canterbury.”31 Seamus Mulholland claims that the “first definitive and reliable knowledge of the feast in the West comes from England, and precisely Winchester, where it was established by the monks there before 1066.”32 Brian Biggs points to early evidence going back to 1030—and some cite a calendar Winchester from 1035, and a pontifical of Exeter which refers to it from around 1046.33 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 St. Augustine, De natura et gratia 36[42] (in Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum [Vienna: Kirchenväterkommission, 1865–], 60:263; trans. Luigi Gambero in Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999], 226). Nichols, No Rose, 47. Nichols, No Rose, 49n7. Nichols, No Rose, 49n5. Nichols, No Rose, 53. Seamus Mulholland, O.F.M., A Gasp of Love: Duns Scotus, Franciscan Theologian and Mystic (Canterbury: Franciscan International Study Centre, 2011), 240. Biggs as quoted by Mulholland, Gasp of Love, 240n2. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 965 Again, the sources point to the aesthetic realm of liturgical celebration, not scholastic exactitude. Indeed, Nichols comments that “a Latin observer might have deemed the feast a piece of unthinking, piously over-enthusiastic Byzantine Philotheotokoi-ism.”34 Note the word “unthinking.” One might well ask if expressions in the aesthetic sphere are actually unthinking, as such, or just employ different means and manners for expressing thought than formalized discourse. The same applies to speaking of “pious over-enthusiasm.” In The Tempest, Ariel comments to Prospero that, “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!” That statement would not bear theological scrutiny,35 but it is certainly not without meaning, but rather something illustrative and important in its own suggestive and hyperbolic idiom. Either way, it is necessary to acknowledge the vexed question of how it came to be that Anglo-Saxon monks celebrated a feast only otherwise celebrated in the lands of the East. There are different accounts, and it is not easy to discern a clear consensus, although most commentators point to a route of exchange via the Byzantine monasteries in southern Italy.36 However, it should be mentioned that the feast is said to have been celebrated a century earlier in Ireland, so some have suggested it had only crossed the Irish sea. The difficulty with this, is that the earliest Irish martyrology lists it as taking place on May 3, not December 9, which was the date of the Eastern celebration.37 34 35 36 37 Nichols, Rose, 54. Act 1, scene 2. Nichols, No Rose, 53. How it came to the Celts is not known with certainty, but this touches on a subsidiary issue surrounding the genealogy of English Christianity in nineteenth-century interpretation. Various moments in English self-understanding have sought (for obvious reasons) to link English Christianity less tightly to Rome than others, and would say that St. Augustine of Canterbury’s arrival on the shores of Kent is relatively insignificant given the richness of Christian traditions already extant here, which have some genealogy connected the Middle East and not coming via Rome. Some of the anti-papal wing of the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England, for example, make much of this, particularly in connection with the legends surrounding Glastonbury. Now there is evidence that the Somerset levels were connected via trading routes between the ancient Near East and beyond, certainly. But that said, the question of “And did those feet, in ancient times, walk upon England’s mountains green” can confidently be answered “no.” But the framing of the question itself in early nineteenth-century England—and maybe the founding legend behind it—does point to a sense that English Christianity has some direct link to the source, which is why a theme of English Christian exceptionalism appears frequently in art and poetry during this time. 966 Jacob Phillips On balance, the most likely position is that the Anglo-Saxon celebration did not come to England via Ireland, because of this difference in the dates. Remembering the importance of this background for Newman, it is worth mentioning in passing how the possibility of an Irish connection adds a further layer of complexity to the tensions at play in the nineteenth century. While the pejorative “Italianate” is typical of nineteenth-century Englishmen, a more controversial supposition surrounds the inextricability of Irish identity and Catholicism. One of the early controversies of the Oxford Movement surrounded the Irish. Newman was full of admiration for the Irish Catholic experience after his conversion, but he maintained that the faith would have to take shape in a different way on English shores. The complexities at stake here typify his struggles as rector of the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin (now University College, Dublin) between 1854 and 1858, when he referred to himself as a “Catholic Saxon in Ireland.” It is important to bear in mind that there is no trace of the tone of English superiority frequently found in nineteenth-century texts, but there is a strong sense of fundamental differences between the sensibilities of each people on account of their differing histories. As he commented to Gerald Manly Hopkins, the “the Irish character and traits are very different to the English.”38 The question of the transmission of the Saxon celebration of the feast of the Immaculate Conception is thus shown to be potentially vexatious in a nineteenth-century context. This volatility endures well into the twentieth century too, as is shown by an essay in a volume from 1959, edited by Irishman, where the author, H. Francis Davis, slips surprisingly into the second- and first-person voice: You would naturally like to think that we English got [the celebration] from you. But you must be satisfied with having recognized the conception liturgically at a notably earlier date. For, if we had taken it from you, we would hardly have kept it five months from the Irish date on 8th December, only one day removed from the date of the feast in the Eastern Church.39 38 39 Newman as quoted in Gerald Manly Hopkins, Further Letters of Gerald Manly Hopkins, ed. C. C. Abbott (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 413–14. H. Francis Davies, “Immaculate Conception,” in Mother of the Redeemer: Aspects of Doctrine and Devotion, ed. Kevin McNamara (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1959), 84–102 at 95. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 967 Either way, it is clear that the Anglo-Saxons celebrated the feast on the 8th, but that it soon met with difficulties after the Norman Conquest. The providential guiding of the development of Christian doctrine is a fascinating thing indeed, and Nichols claims it was “providential” that the West was so deeply marked by Augustine’s responses to the Pelagian crisis, for it meant that, when “the high immaculatist theology of the Greek church began to percolate through [to the West] it was suitably challenged.”40 And, similarly, H. Francis Davis claims that it is an “historically fortunate accident that the Normans suppressed the feast when they invaded England.” His reasoning is that, when the feast was gradually re-introduced, the newly arrived Normans had to find ways of justifying it, or, as he puts it, “those who re-introduced it had to defend their action.”41 So post-conquest letters from Osbert of Clare, later prior of Winchester, and Anselm the Younger, abbot of Bury in Suffolk, show that the “propriety” of the feast had been “contested” by the Normans, but resurfaced and spread out across England and Northern France against a background of increasingly sophisticated theological discussion.42 With the interchange between Saxon affection and Norman theology, we see the meeting of two different sentiments or tendencies growing to greater understanding through living in close proximity. This is something mentioned in passing in theological books, of course, but will prove important shortly. For what solid theological discussions of the formulation of the doctrine tend to do, quite rightly, is work from allusions in Scripture, to the Protoevangelium, then the famous Augustine quote afore-mentioned, before moving on to important steps made by the Anglo-Norman St. Anselm of Canterbury, followed by, perhaps, Eadmer of Canterbury, William of Ware, and climaxing in Bl. John Duns Scotus. This article is not concerned with the nitty-gritty of all of that theological argumentation, but with showing how this particular interchange provides important background both for Newman’s defense of affective Marian devotionalism and the scholastic tenor of Ineffabilis Deus. Early defenders of the feast, like Eadmer of Canterbury or Osbert of Clare, are engaged in putting something essentially aesthetic into a more cognitive or ratiocinative mode. That is, moving from the suggestive, non-literal, heart-moving, or intuitive manner of expressing divine truths, into the rigorously consistent and fully coherent mode of formal theology. This is interesting, because the passing mentions one does encounter in 40 41 42 Nichols, No Rose, 52. Davies, “Immaculate Conception,” 95. Nichols, No Rose, 53. 968 Jacob Phillips theological books invariably consider that the impulse to ground the pre-existent devotion through reasoned understanding was something distinctively continental, usually Norman.43 The free-flowing exuberance which preceded it, some say, was particularly Saxon, or Celtic. We see an apposite demonstration of this in the opening words to Eadmer of Canterbury’s treatise on the matter, describing how the Saxon celebration was met by the Normal arrival: [In] former times [the Feast of the Conception of St Mary, the Mother of God,] was . . . widely celebrated, . . . by those in whom a pure simplicity and humble devotion to God was strong. But afterwards greater knowledge and a more searching examination of things had puffed up the minds of some, so that the simplicity of the poor was despised, and the celebration of the Feast was done away and utterly abolished as being contrary to reason.44 Insofar as the language of faith is often more rhapsodic that ratiocinative, what we see in these early years is an exemplary example of St. Anselm’s most famous phrase: faith seeking understanding. That is, these early discussions of the doctrine witness to the first-order, spontaneous expression of faith being hammered out in reflective second-order formal thought. Discussions of an English Cultural Sensibility Having shown that Newman’s remarks to Pusey stand on complex historical ground, some attention should now be given to how the juncture in the history of the Immaculate Conception to which Newman seems to allude can also be judged as important according to discussions of “Englishness” in non-theological literature. This excursus will unlock dimensions of Newman’s “Power of Assimilation” which are often neglected by theological scholarship. If, as Newman holds, the Church, “finding in the non-Christian world all kinds of opinions and other expressions of mind, as well as customs and rites, . . . incorporates them, altering their significance in so doing,”45 the study of those “expressions of mind” has importance for theologians too. Moreover, outlining exactly what cultural identities are is one of the most vexed questions of our age. This, in turn, has 43 44 45 E.g., Brian Biggs, “The Life and Works of Osbert of Clare” (PhD thesis, University of St. Andrews), 139 (core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20051698.pdf ); Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1976), 241. Translation in Biggs, “Life and Works of Osbert of Clare,” 139. Walgrave, Theologian, 268n4. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 969 bearing on the ecclesial sphere. To give just one example, Joseph Ratzinger met with considerable resistance for his writings on the interpenetration of European cultures and identities with Christianity, and, ironically, these controversies live on through their perpetuation in the writings of Cardinal Robert Sarah. But according to Newman and Ratzinger this is an unavoidable reality. For the former, “the truest idea must be the most comprehensive, and one that will be able to assimilate, without losing its identity, all the others in virtue of the truth and value they contain.”46 For the latter, insofar as cultures are directed to attaining truth, or better, “touched by truth,” they can transcend their own particularity,47and by doing so, they offer gifts to the universality of the faith. The question here is how the tension between affective sentiments and scholastic exactitude in eleventh-century England, then, participates in what results in what Congar called a “gift of your England to the Catholicity.” The dominant approach to understanding cultural identities in the 1960s came from writers like Raymond Williams. Williams charts the complex trajectory of what he calls an “English” tradition of cultural expression, which he thinks began “in the last decades of the 18th Century.” This tradition, for Williams, is a response to the “great historical changes” of industrialization and the widespread social upheaval it brought with it.48 A similar approach is taken more recently by Paul Langford, who speaks of a developing notion of “Englishness” originating in the 1800s. He says the word originates in 1805, and was well-known by the middle of the nineteenth century. Englishness, in Langford’s work, means “those distinctive aspects of national life that strike either outsiders or insiders . . . as characteristic,” something that came “increasingly [to be] described as a national character.”49 These discussions have become more complex, for many now cite enduring characteristics of English cultural expression arising long before industrialization and empire. Peter Ackroyd is important here, for he charts the development of what he calls “the English imagination,” or “English sensibility,” right back to the earliest instantiations of native literature.50 He 46 47 48 49 50 Walgrave, Theologian, 269. Joseph Ratzinger, “Christ, Faith and the Challenge of Cultures” (1993), http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/incontri/rc_con_ cfaith_19930303_hong-kong-ratzinger_en.html). Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1780–1950 (Harmondsowrth, UK: Penguin, 1963), xiii–xvi. Paul Langford, Englishness Identified (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2000), 7. Peter Ackroyd, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination (London: Vintage, 2004). 970 Jacob Phillips writes, ”a native spirit persists though time and circumstance, all the more powerful for being generally unacknowledged.”51 A similar position has recently been arrived at by Robert Winder, for whom enduring characteristics are rooted particularly in the agricultural developments of the Middle Ages. These are not the first to locate Englishness as more than a by-product of social and economic factors. J. B. Priestley, for example, used “depth psychology” in 1973 “to arrive as close as possible to the essential Englishness of the English.”52 A canonical work of this type is Nicholas Pevsner’s The Englishness of English Art, which lists certain characteristics of this art as enduring, relatively stable, and deeply related with the way people living here approach the world (he was himself an German emigre). A presupposition that there is a certain English sensibility at play in national life is prevalent in Newman’s writings. Throughout his work, he makes reference to something which today would be related to culture, but the word was not used as such in his own time. This can be seen in Ronald Knox’s comments with which Newman would have been sympathetic, that Anglicanism “has come down to us [i.e., the English] . . . as the religion of a nation, adapted to its temper.”53 He relates questions of temperament or “sentiment” to identity, what he calls in the Oxford sermons a “temper of mind” and a “manner of life.”54 After all, how else is one to understand Newman’s comments in the Apologia about Thomas Scott and Hurrell Froude, one being ”a true Englishman,” and the other ”an Englishman to the backbone,”55 or his afore-mentioned comment to Hopkins, that “the Irish character and traits are very different to the English.”56 What is of particular interest here, I suggest, is that writers on “Englishness” from spheres other than theology frequently understand the term with dynamics that can be related to the aesthetic and intuitive celebration of the feast of the Immaculate Conception making a difficult transition into formal and consistent theology as a result of the Norman Conquest. Brian Biggs has commented on Eadmer’s opening words to his treatise as follows: There are no surviving theological tracts from the Anglo-Saxon period concerning the Conception of Mary, and there probably 51 52 53 54 55 56 Ackroyd, Albion, 176. J. B. Priestley, The English (London: Penguin, 1975), 11. Roland Knox, quoted by Short, Newman and His Contemporaries, 55. John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), throughout. Newman, Apologia, 5, 26. Newman as quoted in Hopkins, Further Letters, 413–14. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 971 were none written. In Anglo-Saxon England the celebration of Mary’s conception was a purely spiritual event, without concern over the theological implications of saying that her conception was holy. With the Norman Conquest and the coming of early scholasticism, this approach to religion could no longer be accepted.57 Biggs goes on to claim that “Eadmer regretted that he even had to write his treatise. Although he saw simple piety as superior, he recognized that the religious environment of Anglo-Norman England required that piety be supported by academic theological arguments.”58 A certain reticence toward what Eadmer calls simply “reason,” and Biggs “academic theological arguments,” is not unique to this treatise. Some of the theorists of Englishness afore-mentioned, consider it a recurring trope of what can be termed the English imagination. Ackroyd considers Thomas Browne’s writings from the 1600s as emblematic of a tendency for which “there is no ontology, or metaphysic[s]” but a “delight in demonstration” and a “vast expenditure of energy into words.”59 He speaks of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s annals as taking “Celtic source material and Celtic longings” and rendering them “subdued” by “Latin prose.”60 In the translation of French Arthurian legends in the early twelfth century, he claims the narrative alterations bespeak that “fierce reticence of the Saxons” by removing “the web of psychological generalizations and paradoxical ratiocination” of the plots.61 We see a similar recognition in Priestley, who claims to be convinced to have arrived at “the essence of Englishness” by saying, The English depend more upon instinct and intuition than other West Europeans do. They are not unreasonable, but they are hardly ever strictly rational, and almost always they suspect the closed-in creations of pure rationality: they prefer the open-ended. It is essentially English not to allow the intellect to go its own way and decide everything: it must submit to some shaping and colouring by the instinctive and the intuitive. 57 58 59 60 61 Biggs, “Life and Works of Osbert of Clare,” 131. Biggs, “Life and Works of Osbert of Clare,” 139. Biggs, “Life and Works of Osbert of Clare,” 62. Biggs, “Life and Works of Osbert of Clare,” 109. Biggs, “Life and Works of Osbert of Clare,” 147. 972 Jacob Phillips Such sentiments seem, at best, quaint to contemporary ears, at worst, unsustainable. But they crop up in settings which are very surprising. For example, the social historians of the New Left squabbled over just this English reticence in the 1960s, for there were those for whom Marxism was a typically continental, rational, totalizing system which had to be adapted and reinterpreted if was to take root in England. E. P. Thompson, for example, celebrated what he called an English “idiom” which favors empirical realities over philistine rationalism, used his own pejorative “Parisian” in reference to it, and claimed that “minds that thirst for tidy Platonism very soon become impatient with actual history.”62 It can also be seen in understandings of English Christianity. Ackroyd claims that a distinctively English Catholicism that precedes the Synod of Whitby and Norman Conquest endures in Julian of Norwich, for example, who “rejects the tight juridical procedures of scholastic moral theology,” mirroring the old “hermits and anchorites” of “Cornwall and Northumbria” who exhibited such a stubborn “distaste for regimentation.”63 He goes on: There has never been in England a tradition of theological speculation, in the manner of an Augustine or an Aquinas . . . ; the nearest equivalent to the great Summa . . . of European civilization are the short handbooks for English contemplatives or anchorites.64 Ackroyd makes much of this point, and repeats the fact that “there is no English Aquinas.”65 But there is certainly an early English affection for the Immaculate Conception, which the angelic doctor famously found so difficult to accept. For Newman, an affection for reserve is closely linked to a tendency to focus on affective and empirical reality over against the grand idealist speculation of the Continental mainland. When one reads Newman’s discussions of the Immaculate Conception, his reasoning is nearly always more aesthetic than conceptual, or, one might say, more patristic than scholastic. For example, he usually sees the doctrine as an outworking of the divine maternity and Mary as second Eve, claiming that “an intuition of faith enables us to see how ‘convenient’ or appropriate it was that the Word made flesh should . . . preserve his Mother free from all sin.” This is of 62 63 64 65 E. P. Thompson, “The Peculiarities of the English,” The Socialist Register, 1965, 311–62 (marxists.org/archive/thompson-ep/1965/english.htm). Ackroyd, Albion, 126–27. Ackroyd, Albion, 128. Ackroyd, Albion, 128. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 973 course not convenience in the sense of functional benefit, but the mode of arguing from convenientia, or “fittingness,” a “method . . . used in theology, especially to confirm a point that is known from other sources.”66 “Fittingness” is a key category for theorists of aesthetic philosophy—it defines why a certain word is required in a particular poetic utterance for example, why a certain hue is necessary for the feature of a particular painting. One can put such compelling requirements into formal academic discourse, but it is very difficult, and something is lost by doing so. For Newman this does not deny the importance of reason for understanding the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, nor is there any claim from him that the English tradition is irrational. The point is that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception arises from the meeting point of what philosophers call different faculties of the mind, or what are for scholars of intellectual history, differing emphases in cultural tendencies. The earliest attempts to systematize and give grounding rationales for the doctrine came about due to the meeting of the Saxon, Celtic, and Norman peoples in eleventh- and twelfth-century England. It is therefore interesting that theorists of an English sensibility tend to describe Englishness in terms of the meeting of different tendencies. The most obvious example here is Matthew Arnold, himself a younger contemporary of Newman’s who was permanently marked by hearing him preach when an undergraduate at Oxford. As he wrote to his elder some decades later, “nothing can ever do away the effects you have produced in me, for it consists in a general disposition of mind rather than in a particular set of ideas.” Arnold is, like many others, concerned with a tendency toward reserve or reticence, which he thinks pervades the English imagination. The important point, though, is that he considers this tendency to lie in the unique combination of deeply opposed tendencies, in this case, the Celtic and the German. He considers Celtic traditions to exemplify “a passionate, turbulent, indomitable reaction against the disposition of fact” and the Germanic to be “disciplinable” and “practical” and therefore “spreading its exertions within a bounded field, the field of plain sense.”67 Considering the tension between Britain and Ireland in Arnold’s lifetime, the specifics of this must be treated with care. But, that said, a contemporary Arnold scholar notes these sorts of conclusions “were generally accepted throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.”68 It is difficult to imagine anyone saying today, “no people . . . are so shy, so self-conscious, so embarrassed as the 66 67 68 Boyce, “Introduction,” in Newman, Virgin Mary, 58. Matthew Arnold as quoted in Ackroyd, Albion, 11. Ackroyd, Albion, 228. 974 Jacob Phillips English, because two natures are mixed in them, and natures which pull them in such different ways.”69 Ackroyd claims to find the same tradition of “awkwardness” that Arnold was trying to explain throughout the tradition from “Chaucer, to Auden” and even as far back as Beowulf.70 The key point here is that it has long been considered a tendency of Englishness to combine and interweave different cultural influences. Even the study of the language of Middle English itself, as a tongue which combined and balanced two languages, has led to the conclusion that “it is in the nature of English language . . . to reside at [a] nodal point where two languages or perceptions meet.” 71 Such a quality has been associated with Shakespeare, as a master of “the play of oppositions.” 72 As Samuel Johnson noted, Shakespeare wrote plays which are strictly speaking neither ”tragedies nor comedies . . . [but which mingle both] with endless variety of proportion.” 73 Such thinking is important for Nicholas Pevsner, who works on the basis that a deduction of what Englishness is like will only “be successful—that is approach the truth—if it is conducted in terms of polarities, that is in pairs of apparently contradicting qualities.” 74 And again, such approaches are found in matters pertaining to English Christianity. St. Anselm, for example, has been called “the last of the patristics, the first of the scholastics,” meaning he stands at the point where the two met, and were transformed. This old adage has recently been discussed by R. W. Southern, who agrees that Anselm has “neither the richness of content and breadth of vision of the Fathers, nor the accumulation of materials into large organized bodies of thought . . . which characterize the scholastic centuries.” 75 This combinational tendency has been described as “distinctive precisely because of its willingness to adapt and to adopt other influences,” that “its uniqueness lies [not] in the sum of its differences, but [in] [a] process . . . of absorption and transformation where two hitherto incompatible influences . . . are somehow amalgamated and thereby embedded within a common sensibility.” 76 Interestingly, this absorption and transformation of two hitherto 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 Arnold quoted in Ackroyd, Albion, 228–29. Ackroyd, Albion, 11. Ackroyd, Albion, 98–99. Ackroyd, Albion, 228. Ackroyd, Albion, 226. Pevnser, The Englishness of English Art, 24. R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 442. Ackroyd, Albion, 36. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 975 incompatible influences can be applied to Newman’s work in toto. He was hardly uncritical of English self-understanding, and was sharply critical of it as much as he exemplified it, if not more so. Newman’s difficult relationship with the English sensibility is well described by Harold Weatherby, who charts a particular “common tradition” evinced by people like Edmund Spencer, Richard Hooker, Lancelot Andrewes, and John Donne, and then rebukes “Newman’s departure from [what he terms] the old orthodoxy of England.” He thus concludes that “’Newmanism’ is . . . the name of a new sensibility in English theology . . . determined by two movements: that of loss and that of gain, of exile and homecoming.” 77 A Perfect, Delicate Flower There are definite points of contact between English cultural self-understanding and the development of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and these are mirrored in Newman’s responses to Pusey. In the first place, considering the effusiveness of Marian devotional language as, at bottom, aesthetic, connects it with the early instantiations of the feast’s celebration in Anglo-Saxon England. A reticence toward formal or systematizing modes of discussion is evinced throughout the broader tradition. Secondly, the development of this doctrine is particularly marked by the extensive scholastic discussion required for it to reach the stage of Ineffabilis Deus, and the meeting of different tendencies or habits of mind demonstrated by the Saxon-Norman encounter relates to a “combinational trope” found throughout the broader tradition too. To bring this discussion together, it remains to be shown how pointing to this background to Newman’s responses to Pusey provides an oft-neglected but important insight for Newman interpretation, and to suggest why this finding is of relevance for understanding the relation of theology and culture more broadly. To begin with interpretation of Newman, the key issue here surrounds Newman’s complex reception history. On the one hand, he is undoubtedly one of the finest theologians of the modern era, of whom it is suggested the title of “Doctor of the Church” awaits.78 On the other hand, he is also immensely important in nineteenth-century history, being a public controversialist too. The general upshot of this broad reach of Newman reception 77 78 Harold L. Weatherby, Cardinal Newman: His Place in English Theology and Literature (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1973), 10, 115. Ian Ker, “Newman Should Be the Next Doctor of the Church,” Catholic Herald, February 21, 2019, catholicherald.co.uk/magazine/newman-should-be-the-nextdoctor-of-the-church/. 976 Jacob Phillips is, arguably, a certain bifurcation in discussions of Newman, where historical and cultural concerns are frequently separated out from specialized theological analysis. It is my contention that Newman’s responses to Pusey show one point where these two loci of Newman’s reception meet: he engages in a public controversy, that is, an open letter to a representative of high-church Anglicanism who was once a fellow traveler, but this controversy constitutes an outworking of a key element of his theology proper, namely, the “Assimilative Power” from the Development essay. The more historical/cultural strand of Newman interpretation is likely to focus on the examples Newman uses to make his points to Pusey. To argue against the latter’s supposition that “Italianate” devotion seems a recent phenomenon with no patristic antecedents, Newman does not turn to theology, but to William Shakespeare: “The idea of Shakespeare as a great poet, has existed from a very early date in public opinion; and there were at least individuals then who understood him as well, and honoured him as much, as the English people can honour him now”—yet, he says— “there is I think a national devotion to him in this day such as never has been before.” So, “Catholics have ever acknowledged [Mary]; and yet . . . their devotion to her may be scanty in one time and place, and overflowing in another.” A similar apologetic move can be seen later in Newman’s text. Rather than make recourse to a theological source, Newman invites Pusey to cast his mind back to the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837. He writes of “the strange emotion which took by surprise men and women, young and old, when . . . they gazed on the figure of one so like a child, so small, so tender, so shrinking, who had been exalted to so great an inheritance and so vast a rule, who was such a contrast in her own person to the solemn pageant which centered in her.” 79 Yet, along with these culturally situated arguments, I suggest, Newman is also showing how the Immaculate Conception’s development in England shows the “Assimilative Power” which indicates authentic development. This is how his comments on effusive language should be understood. He writes, “religion acts on the affections; who is to hinder these, when once roused, from gathering in their strength and running wild?” For “they hurry right on their object, and often in their case it is, the more haste, the worse speed.”80 Such comments could equally have been made by the Saxons who celebrated this feast when the Normans arrived. Moreover, he goes on to say that it is not “any safeguard against excesses in a religious 79 80 John Henry Newman, Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Considered (London: Burns and Oates, 1876), 90. Newman, Certain Difficulties, 90. Theolog y and Culture in Newman's Defense of the Immaculate Conception 977 system, that a religion is based upon reason and developes [sic] into a theology. Theology both uses logic and baffles it; and thus logic acts both for the protection and for the perversion of religion. Theology is concerned with supernatural matters, and is ever running into mysteries. . . . But logic blunders on, forcing its way as it can.” Again, this reticence or reserve toward scholastic reasoning is quintessentially English, and can be considered something “assimilated” in a particular way through the development of the Immaculate Conception. Finally, there are some points to be drawn from this about understanding the relation of theology and culture. Beneath this vexed relationship are questions surrounding particularity and universality. As mentioned above, tensions in the study of theology and culture frequently involve the danger of overplaying the relative domain of culture over against the absolute domain of revealed truth. With Newman, he undertakes a remarkable task, arguing for and demonstrating doctrine’s appropriation in a specific cultural context as necessary and even desirable, while also maintaining doctrine itself as corrective to its cultural setting. His defense of the effusive language of popular piety, for example, commends the aesthetic sources of Marian devotion, but uses this to point to something worthy of correction in the English mindset. On the one hand, he agrees that “we owe it to the national good sense, that English Catholics have been protected from the extravagances which are elsewhere to be found,” but on the other he admonishes Pusey that “it seems to me a simple purism, to insist upon minute accuracy of expression in devotional and popular writings.” This can be connected with well-known comments of Newman’s from his Prophetical Office, where he comments on the image of “a poor Neapolitan crone, who chatters to the crucifix,” which would be a typical figure of English derision among common-sense Victorians. But he goes on, “I should be disposed to doubt whether that nation really had the faith, which is free in all its ranks and classes from all kinds and degrees of what is commonly considered superstition.” In this way there is both loss and gain, again, insofar as English cultural sensibilities are critiqued as they are accommodated, being re-established, if you will, and put on their proper footing. Transposing aesthetic or exuberant expressions into a cognitive or formalized mode should indeed be considered a delicate business. As Newman writes, “such a process . . . is conducted by means of minute subtleties which . . . give it the appearance of a game of skill in matters too grave and practical to deserve a mere scholastic treatment.”81 Perhaps this 81 Newman, “Genuine Catholic Belief and Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary,” in Virgin Mary, 271–82, at 276. 978 Jacob Phillips is why it fell ultimately to the subtle, not the angelic, doctor to perform the task. Nonetheless, the end result—after centuries of wrangling—is something which must be considered perfect: something which obliges all “the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith.” In terms of how we understand doctrine and dogma, then, we cannot simply consider the formal articulation of innate or tacit truths something unnecessary or undesirable, any more than Catholic theology can present developments as immune to their spatio-temporal appropriations. To do either of these would be to stand closer to the Eastern than the Western tradition as regards great Marian dogmas. But at the same time, Newman enables the revealed status of Catholic dogma always to maintain its proper place—so this peculiarly English rose among thorns can emerge as both a “delicate” and a “perfect” flower, or, as put by William Wordsworth, as this “tainted N&V nation’s solitary boast.” Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 979–992 979 How Should Catholic Social Teaching Be Taught to Seminarians? E. Christian Brugger St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary Boynton Beach, FL In addressing the question posed in the title, this essay presumes Catholic Social Teaching (hereafter, CST) should be taught as a compulsory part of priestly training curricula. John Paul II famously taught that CST “belongs to the field . . . of theology and particularly of moral theology.”1 All moral theology investigates and clarifies the implications of the truths of faith for living the Christian life. Upper-level seminary courses in applied ethics, such as sexual ethics and bioethics, examine in the light of the Gospel large areas of Christian living such as sex, marriage and family, or health and its care and promotion. CST examines the largest of these areas, overlapping with all the others, inasmuch as it includes in its scope all the goods of life in society, especially, but not exclusively, goods pertaining to the struggle for economic subsistence. The topic is so broad that instructors might find it difficult to identify a clear end to pursue in teaching a course in CST. More will be said on this below, but this much can be said at the outset. All courses in CST should aim to impart a substantive and clear Catholic understanding of the concepts of justice and the common good, and many of the ways these can be protected and promoted in communities, especially through the ministry of priests. This essay argues that all courses in CST for seminarians should be developed, taught, and assessed according to at least five interrelated measures: the theological, theoretical, pastoral/evangelical, interdisciplinary, and ecclesial. Before outlining each, I want to state a presupposition of the John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987), §41 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 80 [1988]: 571). 1 980 E. Christian Brugger essay, which could be argued for, but for which, in the interests of time, no argument shall be given. In using the shop term “Catholic Social Teaching” (or Modern Catholic Social Teaching/Doctrine2), the essay presumes that most, though not all, of the materials drawn upon in teaching a corresponding course will be from the Church’s “social documents”—chiefly papal encyclicals—published over the past 130 years.3 Limiting the essay in this way implies nothing about the value of other courses taught in Catholic social ethics, with titles such as “Faith and Justice,” “Catholic Social Morality,” “Traditions of Social Justice,” and the like. It merely specifies a characteristic that I think should be part of seminary courses. Five Measures Theological Conceptually, CST is thoroughly theological and so it should be taught that way. Christian social ethics must never be detached conceptually from the truths of faith, especially its eschatological truths. Although CST inquires into and practically applies the principles of justice and the common good, and these principles can be derived from philosophical reflection on the requisites of human flourishing, nevertheless, Christian revelation teaches us truths about the nature of the universe, the human condition and possibilities for choice that are inaccessible to natural reason and yet are necessary for rightly assessing social questions and proposing adequate solutions. It teaches that the “social order” in which all participate and upon which CST reflects is at once created, fallen, and redeemed. Humans are made “little less than God” (Ps 8:5); but they “all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory” (Rom 3:23); and even after baptism, they do not do the good they want but the evil they do not want (see Rom 7:19); and yet this present suffering “is preparing for [them] an eternal Some texts distinguish between the terms “Catholic Social Doctrine” and “Catholic Social Teaching”—such as Congregation for Catholic Education [CCE], Guidelines for the Study and Teaching of the Church’s Social Doctrine in the Formation of Priests (1988; English trans. United States Catholic Conference, now United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB])—the former laying stress on the theoretical aspects, the latter on the historical and practical aspects. The terms are used here synonymously. 3 “The social teaching of the Church must be presented in its entirety with appropriate principles of reflection, criteria for judgment, and norms for action. The systematic study of the social encyclicals of the popes is especially recommended” (USCCB, Program of Priestly Formation [PPF], 5th ed. [Washington, DC: USCCB, 2006], §208). 2 How Should Catholic Social Teaching Be Taught to Seminarians? 981 weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17); and so they “look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen” (2 Cor 4:18) in which they hope (Heb 11:1); they “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7), awaiting with eager longing, together with all creation, “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom 8:21), never forgetting that they “must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor 5:10), especially for how they have treated the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, and the stranger (see Matt 25:35–36); and so they depend for spiritual guidance and support upon “the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15). If it is true that “only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light” (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes [GS], §22); and if it is also true that before the glorious coming of Christ, “the earthly and the heavenly city penetrate each other” (GS, §40), then without faith both man and history remain an “unsolved puzzle” (see GS, §21). The truths of creation and human dignity, of human sinfulness and forgiveness in Christ, of baptism, the sacraments, and the Church, and of divine judgment and hope for the kingdom are, as it were, lenses through which CST necessarily views its subject matter. Faith enables us conceptually to maintain the “already but not yet” character of human existence and so to avoid the kinds of misdiagnoses of social problems and false prescriptions that plague purely secular social theories. Without faith, we cannot fully understand the possibilities open to, and limitations besetting, the human spirit. We succumb either to hopelessness and nihilism or to various kinds of utopianism. Christians do not need to make all things right in the world. They need only do what Jesus calls them to, which is to be faithful, as he was faithful, to the will of the Father. A divine reckoning will take place at Jesus’s triumphal return, where the wheat and chaff of human good and evil will be definitively separated, evil’s privations overcome, and the glorious kingdom of God realized in its fullness. At the same time, no good deed, however apparently invisible, ever disappears into the void: After we have obeyed the Lord, and in His Spirit nurtured on earth the values of human dignity, brotherhood and freedom, and indeed all the good fruits of our nature and enterprise, we will find them again, but freed of stain, burnished and transfigured, when Christ hands over to the Father: “a kingdom eternal and universal, a kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace.” (GS, §39) 982 E. Christian Brugger Every effort, therefore, to dispense “true justice” (Zech 7:9) in defense of God’s “little ones” (Matt 18:6), in opposition to the “prince of this world” ( John 12:31), and in deliberate imitation of the “man of sorrows” (Isa 53:3) will be found again polished and transformed in God’s kingdom. Our task as Christians is to build up subject matter for the kingdom within the particular domains God prescribes to us in our personal vocations. God’s redemptive plan for the universe is like a great jigsaw puzzle. The number of pieces is far too great for anyone to know them all, and the scope of the whole too vast for anyone to see. But people can see small parts of the puzzle with relative clarity; and God calls them as individuals and in communities to do their best to assemble these parts. And though assembling small parts may feel insignificant, and the parts themselves sometimes look haphazard, each is necessary for the completion of the whole. And we entrust to God the assembly of all the parts. The analogy, of course, breaks down because building the kingdom is not a matter of assembling preexisting parts like the pieces of a puzzle. God wills that human freedom is a necessary component in the realization of his divine plan. We collaborate with God not merely in assembling the pieces of the kingdom, but in a sense in creating them through our free choices. Since our freedom can be and is used contrary to God’s will, we more or less depart from his plan every time we sin. God forgives our sin when we repent, but he does not make it so the sin never happened. Sin has effects on us and the world around us. So the parts we are called to assemble/create, because of our sin, are in a certain sense in flux. But as soon as we repent, we are called to get back to co-creating the parts as best we can. And, as already said, we entrust the “assembly” of the whole to God. The vexing question of how God can direct a consistent plan for the redemption of the universe and invite us to be real collaborators knowing we will deform parts of the plan is answerable only by appeal to the mystery of God’s providence. In light of this, CST must not be taught as a “fix-it” for the world’s problems, although problems doubtlessly would be less grave if its subject matter were taken more seriously. CST offers practical insights consistent with theological truths for assessing social problems, and ethical principles for replying to the problems as Christians. And however much CST’s proponents yearn for good news for the poor, release for captives, sight for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed (Luke 4:18), they must not measure the fruitfulness of CST’s proclamation by whether it brings about better states of affairs in the world. Its fruitfulness is “measured” by whether its witnesses—collaborators in God’s plan—sincerely resolve through the proclamation and living of its principles to bring the world How Should Catholic Social Teaching Be Taught to Seminarians? 983 into more perfect conformity with the will of God. Moreover, as suggested above, the instruction of CST should keep in the foreground of all the matters it addresses Christ’s urgent warning about the consequences of ignoring social needs (see Matt. 25:41–46). Solicitude should be taken not to cover over or even (all things considered) soften the Lord’s information about the conditionality of sharing in the Kingdom, and warnings about the fact that, as many have and will, so I too may well be found to have condemned myself to be for ever outside it. CST is animated by the enlightened desire, and resolve, to act as the sheep in Jesus’ final “parable” act, and not to act or fail to act as the goats do. 4 Bishops and other seminary leaders should ensure that no theologians (including those who are clerics) “who do not really believe [ Jesus] said it, or meant it, or that he worked miracles to show his privileged knowledge of the matter” are made teachers of CST.5 Finally, instructors should endeavor to show how CST in all its parts, and especially in its developments, is always (or should be) harmonious with prior doctrinal teaching; that, in essence, CST is the re-affirmation and elaboration of the Church’s apostolic teachings on the imperative to do justice and God’s command to seek first his kingdom, even—and especially—in secular affairs. Theoretical By “theoretical” I mean based on abstract normative principles.6 Much in CST is not in this sense theoretical. It is ad hoc, contingent, and temporally relative. But inasmuch as the documents of CST propose a set of general and universal principles (“Principles of CST”) meant to guide reflection on social matters, establish criteria for judgment, and yield directives for action, CST has a distinctly theoretical dimension. In whatever John M. Finnis, “A Radical Critique of Catholic Social Teaching,” in Catholic Social Teaching: A Volume of Scholarly Essays, ed. Gerard Bradley and E. Christian Brugger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 548–84, at 584. 5 Finnis, “Radical Critique.” 6 Since CST is moral theology, it is an exercise of “practical reason” in the classical sense, that is, a course of inquiry and judgment for the sake of action. In this sense, it is not firstly “theoretical” (i.e., not concerned exclusively with knowledge for its own sake). 4 984 E. Christian Brugger way a course in CST is structured—whether chronologically following the publication of ecclesial documents, topically focusing on issues such as immigration and just war, or biographically centering on the social pontificates of individuals such as John Paul II—these principles should take pride of place. Seminarians should memorize them, understand them, be able to articulate them and be able to apply them: they should eat, drink, and sleep the Principles of CST. How the canon of principles is divided and how each principle is formulated are up to the instructor. I formulate sixteen principles, but the catalogue can be formulated differently. Even so, all accounts should ground their catalogue of principles in what I formulate here as the first principle of CST: the primacy of human good: 1. Primacy of the Human Person 2. Justice and the Common Good 3. Conformity of the Social Order to the Moral Order 4. Human Solidarity 5/6. Private Ownership versus Universal Purpose of the World’s Resources 7. Subsidiarity 8. Importance of Marriage and the Family 9. Importance of Religion 10. Dignity of Work and Dignity of Workers (Primacy of Labor over Capital) 11. Morally Responsible Openness to Life 12. Preferential Option for the Poor 13. Fair Wage 14. Right of Labor to Organize 15. Right to Participate 16. Stewardship for Creation Since justice is the guiding norm for social morality, the subsequent principles are various requisites of justice. Each can be likened to a coin where one side concerns the negative moral implications of the principle and the other side the positive implications. The negative side excludes actions that are violative of the principle. These are often more easy to assess, such as: the “importance of religion” excludes the violation of legitimate expressions of religious liberty; “right to participate” excludes arbitrarily barring persons or groups from active participation in national self-determination; “morally responsible openness to life” excludes imposing foreign-aid policies that require as a condition for reception the acceptance of population control measures. How Should Catholic Social Teaching Be Taught to Seminarians? 985 But the positive expressions are rarely easily assessed. How can true marriage and family be positively promoted in education, healthcare, and social welfare policy? Does preferential option for the poor mean more entitlements for the indigent and greater coercive taxation for the gainfully employed? Would limiting the political influence of labor unions be consistent with the right of labor to organize? What are the implications of the principle of solidarity for a national immigration policy? These are complex questions and can be difficult to answer under the best political conditions. Seminarians should be presented with a sound theory of justice (e.g., from Aquinas) and instructed on how each principle has normative implications for justice. They should understand the notion of the two-sidedness of the implications of the principles and helped to see and work out the clearer exclusionary conclusions. They also should be helped to see the complexity of the application of positive norms and discouraged from adopting simplistic practical solutions. This often can be done effectively through the use of case studies that illustrate the problem of unwanted side-effects in the arena of public policy. After drawing provisional conclusions on complex matters, they should be required to defend their conclusion through sound argument grounded in the Principles of CST. The inclusion of a rigorous theoretical dimension will help seminarians to inculcate a theological habit of mind shaped by the Principles of CST. When they see difficult social questions arising from race relations, their mind at once turns to the principle of solidarity. When they see social crises arising from unlawful immigration, they think about how to harmonize the preferential option for the poor with the needs of the common good of the host community. When proposals to nationalize healthcare arise, they ask (inter alia) whether the proposals respect the principle of subsidiarity. When they think about administrating the resources of their parish, or counseling the faithful on moral duties arising from death and inheritance, they think about the related principles of private property and the universal destination of the world’s resources. The opportunities for seminarians to engage in social ministry increase dramatically after ordination to the priesthood. But opportunities for concerted study of the theoretical principles of CST may not. Their coursework in CST may be the only time some of them ever seriously examine the larger theoretical picture of the Catholic Church’s social vision. 986 E. Christian Brugger Pastoral/Evangelical7 “Pastor” means shepherd in Latin. We refer to priests as pastors because they occupy the role of spiritual shepherds for the Christian people. A priest feeds his flock when he teaches the faithful how to put their faith into action in their lives. Before he can do this, he must understand both (1) the faith of the Church and (2) the lives of the faithful. As we said, CST is the branch of moral theology that concerns the implications of faith for life in society. Thus a course in CST should be first and foremost pastoral. By “pastoral” I do not mean it should be less theological and theoretical (or “doctrinal” in the words of the CCE’s Guidelines8). “Pastoral” refers more to the method by which CST is taught than it does to the content. Pastoral means it should be taught practically, that is, with an eye toward the domains of action proper to the students to whom it is being taught. It should assist future priests “to proclaim the Gospel message through the cultural modes of their age and to direct pastoral action according to an authentic theological vision.”9 When CST is taught to laypeople, its purpose is to instruct them on how to engage the world as Christians. Priests too engage the world, but ordinarily by sustaining and fostering the social activity of the laity “to whom this area belongs in a particular way.”10 Priestly intellectual formation therefore should aim at a mature knowledge of human nature, the human condition, and human affairs.11 CST facilitates this by educating future priests about important social, cultural, economic, and political issues.12 To do this, instructors may introduce seminarians to the problems that The Second Vatican Council teaches that pastoral concerns “ought to permeate thoroughly the entire training” of seminarians (Optatam Totius, Decree on Priestly Training [1965], §19); and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace’s Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church [CSTC] (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2005) says that CST should serve as “a guide” for priestly teaching and a “tool” for priestly pastoral service (§11). 8 CCE, Guidelines, §55. 9 CCE, Guidelines, §55. 10 CSTC says its teaching is offered “above all in order to sustain and foster the activity of Christians in the social sector, especially the activity of the laity faithful to whom this area belongs in a particular way” (Ranato Martino’s “Presentation” in CSTC, xxv; emphasis added). 11 “The overall goal of every stage of seminary formation is to prepare a candidate who is widely knowledgeable about the human condition, deeply engaged in a process of understanding divine revelation, and adequately skilled in communicating his knowledge to as many people as possible” (PPF, §138). 12 PPF, §150. 7 How Should Catholic Social Teaching Be Taught to Seminarians? 987 gave rise to the modern tradition of CST. They might help them see the way the “social question” was formulated in the late nineteenth century (i.e., the problem of the horrendous social conditions besetting the urban working class, stemming from capitalist greed during the Industrial Revolution). They could explain how the proponents of nineteenth-century socialism got out in front of the Catholic Church in publishing a vigorous critique of those conditions and calling out the injustices against the working class, but also how the philosophical errors of Marx, Engels, and others vitiated their critique and social prescriptions. Every seminarian should read the Church’s reply to the problem in Leo XIII’s landmark social encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891). Seminarians should be helped to see how the problems of “capitalism” and “socialism” identified in Rerum Novarum reappear over the next 120 years in different forms. The “unbridled capitalism” of Leo’s time will in the latter half of the twentieth century come to signify freedom-as-license in the socio-economic sector: freedom detached from morality; freedom at the service of selfish gain, arbitrary preference, and unjust exclusion. They will see how the Church’s social critique broadens from a focus on a single group—wage laborers—to the general category of “the poor,” sometimes designated by the region of the world in which they abide (the “developing south” [i.e., southern hemisphere] vs. the “developed north”).13 The “socialism” of Leo’s time will come to signify more generally the overzealous intervention of the state, its abusive monopolization of socially significant tasks, its overreach into the personal lives of it members, and so the consequent squelching of rightful freedom, initiative, creativity, and appropriate self-determination that should and must be protected by any political power adequately attending to the needs of the common good. To understand the meaning and scope of application of the Principles of CST, it can be helpful to see the particular contexts in which they have been proclaimed and applied by the popes over the past century. Seminarians should be familiar with the most significant social events and phenomena shaping modern CST’s unfolding. A few examples, not meant to be exhaustive, may include the Industrial Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of the USSR, World Wars I and II, the Great Depression, the establishment of the United Nations, the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons, Vatican II, the “sexual revolution,” the fall of the Soviet Union, globalization, terrorism and religion, the recession of 2008, the Arab Spring, and international development. This dimension was also called evangelical. Good pastors are also John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987), §§14, 21, 22, 24, 25, 45. 13 988 E. Christian Brugger apostolically minded. Thus CST should call forth in seminarians deeper motivation and commitment to assist the faithful to be missionaries in their proper domains.14 When Vatican II teaches that the distinguishing characteristic of the mission of the laity is secularity, it means that the laity serve God precisely “by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God.”15 They bring Christ into homes, hospitals, boardrooms, showrooms, prisons, courthouses, governments, and schools. Animated by faith, hope, and charity, they make Christ known in places to which priests ordinarily do not have access. Priests therefore must be convinced that when the Christian lay faithful occupy themselves rightly with temporal affairs they perform a great and irreplaceable work for the evangelization of the world.16 They must abandon the deep-seated and harmful proclivity of the clerical state to treat the lay faithful working in their proper domains like children; they should see that when working in all corners of the secular realm, the faithful have God’s mandate and often specialists’ knowledge that gives them authority to which priests should appropriately defer and which priests should facilitate in order for a fruitful collaboration between the two states in life to take place. This evangelization includes the remedying of injustices. CST is one of the Church’s most important pedagogical tools for intellectually awakening the faithful to the manifold expressions of justice in society. It therefore should be taught with an eye to helping future priests equip the lay faithful to understand and be prepared to live their apostolic duties. Interdisciplinary Because diverse human goods are realized and realizable only within the civil and political communities—goods pertaining to the interpersonal, economic, and religious wellbeing of individuals and groups—CST concerns itself with a range of allied subjects other than ethics, each itself relatively autonomous its own right, but unified by CST inasmuch as each subject contains proper matter of ethical reflection and analysis. CST’s purpose is to shed the light of Christian insight onto these diverse domains of human existence. Therefore, although CST’s defining field is ethics and its skill-set is moral reasoning, inasmuch as that reasoning is brought to bear upon these other domains, the teacher of CST must have adequate interdisciplinary knowledge. One of the most important allied fields is economics. Seminarians PPF, §137. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium (1965), §31. 16 See Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, §35. 14 15 How Should Catholic Social Teaching Be Taught to Seminarians? 989 should have a basic understanding of economic systems such as socialism and capitalism, of the workings of markets and how government intervention can affect them, of concepts such as profit, supply, demand, exchange, contracts and self interest, of modes of wealth distribution, and of the important distinction between ethics as prescriptive and economics as descriptive. Catholics who do not possess a minimal understanding of economics are liable to support partial solutions. Their priests have a responsibility to assist them to think inclusively about the relevant goods at stake in complex social scenarios and to support solutions that are most apt for protecting and promoting integral human welfare. This means being able to envisage how unwanted and unforeseen—but foreseeable!—side effects often vitiate political initiatives. Seminary instructors should avoid giving seminarians the impression that complex social problems have simple solutions. For example, they must not be led to think that problems raised by the needs of migrants versus the right of nations to maintain sovereign boarders are easily solvable by simplistic inclusionist or isolationist proposals. They should be taught to assess the real needs of the common good of the host country in relation to the legitimate claims of potential immigrants, and to understand what dimensions of national life constitute true common goods, how these are likely to be affected by minor, moderate, or major immigration patterns, and what harmful side effects to potential migrants or to the common good can be acceptable to tolerate in light of the benefits promised by varying incompatible alternatives under consideration. Likewise, when discussing issues related to poverty and human rights, such as the right to housing, fresh water, and energy, sociological facts will obviously have a place in understanding the needs of people and nations. The principle of Subsidiarity, prescribing that assistance, including from the international community, should be kept as local as possible compatible with it being adequately delivered and should be neither over-applied so as effectively to erase the duties of far-away wealthier nations to poorer ones nor ignored in favor of the simplistic and often unjust solution that U.S. intervention is always the way to solve problems. Moreover, issues pertaining to the welfare of families, marriage, and procreation often can only be assessed in light of social facts about how the institutions and practices are faring in certain regions of the world, what ideologies and movements oppose their flourishing, and what legitimate grounds of common action between opponents and Catholics reasonably can be pursued while avoiding scandal and compromising the duty to bear witness to the Christian faith. Finally, the rich–poor dialectic around which so much of modern CST 990 E. Christian Brugger revolves must be treated with care. The common and sadly still-prevalent tendency to frame it in terms of the adversarial principle of class conflict— good guys and bad guys, oppressed and oppressors—as is done in all neo-marxist liberationist ideologies, must be strenuously resisted. CST must not be used to advance ideas that are incompatible with a Christian view of the human person and society. Ecclesial The PPF teaches: “The intellectual formation of the candidate must be directed to the ecclesial dimensions of priestly formation, namely, the teaching office [munus docendi] of the priesthood.”17 In attending to this “ecclesial dimension,” seminarians should be helped to understand three elements of their priestly teaching office: fidelity to the Gospel; fidelity to the magisterium; fidelity to their properly priestly role in the dissemination of CST. First, a priest should be a “faithful, loyal and authentic teacher of the Gospel.”18 He must understand that CST, as stated above, is principally a theological and evangelical endeavor. The Church teaches it in order to advance the reign of God on earth in preparation for the glorious second coming of Jesus. But CST, unlike Catholic sexual ethics and bioethics—in which negative norms defending life and marriage do much of the heavy lifting—emphasizes the application of positive norms of justice. It therefore addresses issues and proposes principles that the secular world often applauds. It tends to be more acceptable than other areas of Catholic moral teaching. Thus there might be a temptation to teach it in trendy ways, in ways that tickle people’s ears and minimize hard truths. But the Church presents its social teaching not as any simple political prescription to social happiness, but as an instrument for proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Seminary instructors should urge seminarians to see it and treat it in this way. When Christians fight for justice alongside non-believers, they do so for a reason unacknowledged (and sometimes strenuously opposed) by their non-believing counterparts. They do so with firm and living hope that the justice to which they contribute is merely an interim and provisional stage in the divinely guided process of renewing all things in Christ. And so they are less tempted to affirm solutions to worldly problems that entail impeding, damaging or destroying human goods, or cooperating in evildoing in such a way as to cause scandal or to compromise the duty to bear perspicuous witness to the Gospel in the world. PPF, §139 (emphasis added). PPF, §139. 17 18 How Should Catholic Social Teaching Be Taught to Seminarians? 991 Second, seminarians should understand that, as men of the Church, priests should always preach and teach “in fidelity to the magisterium.” 19 The PPF states that seminary instruction should “emphasize the intrinsic relationship” between course content and “the ecclesial dimensions of priestly service”; no part of priestly education should ever been seen “in isolation from the Tradition of the Church.”20 This applies to all seminary instruction. But I think it is particularly relevant to CST, which addresses divisive issues such as poverty, punishment, weapons and war, money and taxation, racism, terrorism, and torture. Seminarians are being trained to be ambassadors of a Christian worldview. Defending this, they will certainly meet resistance. Their fidelity to magisterial teaching will be a protection to them and a witness to the Church’s role on earth as teacher of divine truth. This implies, of course, that they are entitled to a full and generous explication of magisterial teaching by their instructors. In those instances where the pronouncements of popes or bishops on social matters are not—or not obviously—harmonious with prior conciliar, papal, or episcopal pronouncements on the same or related matters, these instructions are best not given pride of place in a course on CST. How can seminarians be expected to treat as authoritative for themselves and those for whom they are given responsibility teachings that are promulgated in documents that make no effort to show how their pronouncements derive from and are true developments of—or at very least not inconsistent with—the apostolic faith of the Church? Thirdly, a course in CST should assist future priests to understand and be ready to take up their proper role as educators of the laity. The primary role of priests in disseminating the truths of CST is to exhort and prepare the laity to take their proper place in the social sphere. Priests should be sensitive to the fact that the laity will often be better informed about some secular matters than they are themselves. Where this is the case, they should humbly acknowledge the fact and not act aloof or pretend they are not ignorant. At the same time, while avoiding every semblance of clericalism, priests should confidently take up their role as teachers of moral and theological truth and guardians of the consciences of those whose vocations it is to renew the secular realm. Conclusion Although the numbers of seminarians are down in the West from what they were a half century ago, seminary enrollment today is highly self-se PPF, §139. PPF, §139. 19 20 992 E. Christian Brugger lecting. Most who enter are sincere, self-motivated and devout. They enter wanting to give their whole lives to God and to make a difference in the world. So they are invariably idealistic. This spiritual energy is what helps them endure six to eight years of tight schedules, intense formation, and fishbowl-like scrutiny, in the midst of a secular world that finds their way of life at best a curiosity and at worst preposterous. Seminary formators and instructors are aware of this idealism and do their best to channel the energy in constructive ways, ways that bear fruit in moral maturity, that avoid disillusionment and discouragement, and that assist students over time to replace idealism with realism wedded to the theological virtues. Instructors of CST should be especially aware of the problems to which this idealism can give rise. The “social sphere” is vast and complicated. Spiritually motivated students, who are both idealistic in their desires and inexperienced in the ways of the world and the Christian life, may adopt unrealistic ideas about what is possible in the social realm. Although motivated Christians have always been tempted by the desire to immanentize the eschaton, the temptation with devotees of CST seems to be especially strong: “If we can just get the social formula correct, we can eradicate poverty, establish world peace, overcome greed, racism, sexism, and so on.” The desires are admirable but completely unrealistic. The Principles of CST are not blueprints for an ordered social life or the formulations of techniques which if scrupulously followed produce a satisfying product. They are norms of justice directing choosers to adopt alternatives that are consistent with integral human fulfillment. Original sin and concupiscence ensure that in this life their directiveness will never be fully integral. This does not mean that we concede defeat in the face of injustice. Christians continue to fight, even battles that according to worldly wisdom are unwinnable. But their motive to keep fighting is not an expectation that their efforts will ever result in a perfect world, but a conviction that they are doing the will of the Father. Jesus’s earthly mission of messianic restoration of the people of Israel was a complete and utter failure. He knew the outcome in advance, but was undeterred from carrying out his mission because his motivation came from his resolve to do the will of his Father. So in teaching CST, seminarians should be warned against utopianism. Instructors must not unwittingly lead seminarians to believe that human efforts on behalf of justice will ever realize on earth more than inklings of the peace of Eden and the glory of the kingdom. That kingdom is here in seed form; but its blossom and fruit await the eschaton. The teaching of CST therefore should firmly be contextualized within the already-but-notN&V yet horizons of the earthly reality. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 993–1008 993 Catholicism and Democracy in America1 Bruce D. Marshall Perkins School of Theology Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX I Jesus promises his followers that they will be hated in this world. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” ( John 15:18–19). This is not an isolated thought, whether on the lips of Christ himself or of his apostles. Practically every book of the New Testament speaks clearly of the persecution and suffering Christians should expect to undergo for their faith in Jesus and for living as he commanded. Some, like the Revelation to John, are entirely suffused with it. The terms in which this promise is put can be very stark. When his disciples ask him about “the close of the age,” Jesus tells them: “They will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away” (Matt 24:9–10). This is not simply an end-time warning. Jesus promises the supreme blessing, a reward great in heaven, to those of every time and place who are despised and abused by the world because of their love for him, who do not fall away but bear it out to the end. “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matt 5:11–12). The Christian way of life gets its proper shape from the Cross, which is 1 Portions of this article appeared in First Things, no. 295 (August/September 2019), under the title “No Liberal Home.” 994 Bruce D. Marshall to say from sharing in the passion of Christ. “To you it has been granted that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for him” (Phil 1:29). Jesus repeatedly teaches would-be disciples that to follow him is to take up the Cross, to save one’s soul is to lose one’s life in this world for the sake of Jesus and his Gospel (e.g., Mark 8:34–5). The Cross, after all, is the world’s final rejection of Jesus, and the ultimate act of the world’s hatred of God. To take up the Cross is to share in that rejection and that hatred, to lose one’s life in order to find it. Baptism is an invitation to martyrdom, and a promise of suffering at the hands of the world. When the time comes, even committed followers of Jesus will naturally find it difficult to accept the full depth of their faith’s unworldliness, and to live out the final countercultural consequences of their baptism into the death of Jesus. But to shrink back is to lose one’s life and not to find it. “Do not be surprised at the fiery trial which comes upon you to test you, as though something foreign were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you share in the sufferings of Christ, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Pet 4:12–13). Modern Western Christians, Catholics certainly included, have long since become practiced at ignoring, or domesticating, the blunt insistence of their Scriptures on the world’s abiding enmity toward Christ and those who belong to him, that is, toward the Church. We tend to regard it, like speaking in tongues or snake-handling, as belonging only to the earliest period of the Church’s life. It has no universal and abiding application (or so we maintain). Perhaps some political arrangements and forms of government are inevitably at odds with the Church—that of ancient Rome, for example, with its obligatory veneration of the emperor, or modern communism, with its institutionalized atheism. But we in the modern West have developed a way of organizing our political life that poses no obstacles to the Church’s faith and mission, or at least no obstacles the Church should not be willing and ready to accept. We have devised liberal democracy. Throughout history human civilizations have usually supposed that a workable and coherent society requires agreement on ultimate matters, on the nature and destiny of the human beings who make up the society. A coherent society requires, in other words, a religion, and a high degree of agreement about the truth and goodness of what that religion proposes. The Roman Empire allowed for a great deal of linguistic, cultural, and even religious diversity, as long as there was general public compliance with the modest requirements of the official imperial religion, the cult of the emperor. Christianity, a growing missionary religion that categorically refused to participate in the imperial cult, the Romans understandably saw as a threat to the very existence of their society. For quite similar reasons Catholicism and Democracy in America 995 communist regimes have insisted that their vision of human nature and destiny cannot tolerate the presence of a militant Christianity in their midst. To a greater or lesser degree virtually all Muslim countries have done the same. Liberal democracy in its various forms rejects this ancient premise about the organization of a coherent society. Among the assumptions at its heart is that religious agreement, a more or less common mind about ultimate matters, is unnecessary for social cohesion. Not only is religious agreement needless. Liberal democracies claim to abjure, as a matter of constitutional principle, any interest in the religious commitments of the peoples and societies they organize and govern. They require and promote no religion, and they allow all visions of the true and the good, all religions, to make their claims and flourish as they are able. This deliberate neutrality about ultimate matters is essential to what is “liberal” in liberal democracy. Liberal democracies require agreement not on ultimate matters, but on the rule of law, on procedures by which conflicts between competing visions of the true and the good can be settled, or lived with, in peace. They too will coerce, but only to bring about procedural, rather than religious, compliance. Well into the nineteenth century the Catholic Church held firmly to the ancient idea that a coherent society requires religious unity. In the teaching of Pius IX, which clearly reflected traditional Catholic commitments, the normal situation for the Church is to be legally established and supported by the state, even if this is not always possible in practice. Liberal democracies of the time were correspondingly dubious about the Church’s political aims and their spokesmen regularly wondered whether Catholicism was simply incompatible with a liberal polity. In the ensuing century Catholic thinking on the matter developed considerably, and the Second Vatican Council declared that freedom of conscience and freedom from religious coercion are basic human and civil rights, rooted in the inherent dignity of the human being and taught both by natural reason and the Christian revelation. These declarations have often been repeated and elaborated in subsequent papal teaching. To liberal-democratic eyes, including those of many Catholics, the Church has belatedly caught up with enlightened modernity when it comes to identifying the most humane political arrangements and the proper relationship between the Church and the state. The modern liberal state cannot make anyone love Christ and his Church, and rightly has no interest in trying, but it can and will keep anyone from hating the Church, in just the sense in which Jesus foretells that the Church will be hated: persecuted for her public faith in him. 996 Bruce D. Marshall Recalling a few items of Catholic history in America may lead us to question whether our confidence in enlightened modernity and its political arrangements is as warranted as we have taken it to be. II Catholics first came to British America, to the English colonies of the North American east coast, in the early 1630s. They settled in Maryland, and the first Mass in British America was celebrated by the Jesuit Fr. Andrew White on the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1634. The founder of the colony, George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, was himself a convert to Catholicism. He intended Maryland to be a refuge for persecuted English Catholics, at a time when it was a capital crime for a priest to say Mass in England. Calvert and his son insisted on a policy of religious toleration that was unusual for the day, and initially Catholics, Protestants, and even a small number of Jews lived together in Maryland, each practicing their religion. It didn’t last. By the early eighteenth century Anglicanism was legally established in Maryland and Catholic worship forbidden, under pressure from the Puritan colonies that surrounded it and the English government across the Atlantic. The suppression of Catholicism was vigorous, on the English model, though Maryland’s penal laws did not extend to the public execution of Catholics. They did include double taxation, confiscation of property, loss of voting rights, and provision that, where possible, the children of Catholics be raised as Protestants—should one partner to a Catholic marriage die, their children were to be taken from the surviving spouse and given a Protestant upbringing. Catholics in Maryland were confronted with a hard truth, one that Catholics would face again when British America became the United States. The line between toleration and persecution is thin, whether the persecution be hard or soft. That line is certainly thinner than we would like to believe during the times when toleration has the upper hand. Written assurances of religious freedom are no guarantee that persecution will not gain the upper hand, and perhaps drive out toleration altogether. A potent Catholic presence in the United States awaited the great waves of immigration from Catholic countries in the nineteenth century, first from Ireland and Germany, then from Italy and Eastern Europe. These Catholic immigrants found themselves amongst a native Protestant population that was, on the whole, uneasy with their presence and wary, above all, of their religion. Their worship was legally protected in the federal constitution, but the practice of their religion involved more than the Mass, basic and central though that is. Being Catholic is a way of life that Catholicism and Democracy in America 997 affects every aspect of day-to-day existence, and needs to be deliberately nurtured from cradle to grave. At great expense and sacrifice, and in the face of often quite determined resistance, these immigrant communities labored to build the institutions that would enable a fully Catholic life to be lived in their new country. This meant the construction not only of churches, but of monasteries, convents, and seminaries, and above all of a network of parish schools, colleges, and universities for the education of their children. These generations of immigrants were remarkably successful at building a vibrant Catholic culture in America. Their rapidly increasing numbers and unashamed commitment to their religion largely compensated for their relative economic disadvantage and the ongoing resistance of established Protestantism. That resistance too began to moderate after the First World War. Coincident with these developments, and probably to some extent caused by them, Catholicism began to have a more visible public presence in America, including in American popular culture. In 1928 a Catholic could be nominated for President by one of the major American political parties. Al Smith was soundly defeated, but even the anti-Catholicism of the “Christ-haunted” Protestant South (in Flannery O’Connor’s phrase) was not enough to deter several southern states from carrying for the Democratic nominee. By the 1940s Catholic priests, nuns, and even visionaries could be depicted as appealing and sympathetic characters in award-winning Hollywood productions like “Boys Town,” “Going My Way,” and “The Song of Bernadette.” In the 1950s Bishop Fulton J. Sheen flickered across the black and white screen on American network television, dressed in full episcopal regalia and talking about the meaning of life and the threat of communism in unmistakably Catholic terms. To be sure, a lot of American Protestants still doubted whether Catholics were Christians and thought they were probably going to hell, and said so from the pulpit (some still do). Nonetheless American Catholics understandably become more and more confident that the United States was keeping its constitutional promise of religious freedom to them. Toleration was surely ascendant, if not yet the unchallenged norm, and the prospect of being hated for belonging to Jesus and his Church seemed increasingly remote. Over time assimilation follows immigration, more or less inevitably, and so it was here. As the descendants of European Catholic immigrants became more successful in American life, economically and otherwise, they did not, on the whole, practice their faith less than their parents and grandparents had done (speaking, roughly, of the period from 1918 to 998 Bruce D. Marshall 1968). They did, however, increasingly look for ways to minimize conflict between the teachings and values of Catholicism and those of the American culture and political system in which they now seemed more accepted and felt more at home, and in which they aspired to yet greater success. In 1960, on his way to becoming the first, and so far the only, Catholic president of the United States, John F. Kennedy gave a speech before a gathering of Protestant ministers in Houston on just this point—a priceless encounter of assimilated Catholicism with nativist Protestantism. Kennedy assured the Protestant ministers that he did not see any conflict between his Catholic faith and his responsibilities as President to be “remotely possible.” But, he added, were he somehow to experience a conflict, so unlikely, as he saw it, between his conscience and “the national interest,” he would resign the presidency. He thereby vouched for his personal commitment to the Catholic Church and the Catholic faith, and at the same time for his determination that this commitment would make no difference to the way he conducted himself as President. He would be the first Catholic President, having pledged himself to govern as though he were not a Catholic—or, perhaps more precisely, not to allow his “private” Catholicism (Kennedy’s own term) to take him beyond what any non-Catholic American could rightly expect of the country’s President.2 Kennedy was subjected to a kind of religious persecution. He faced an organized effort to bar him from the highest political office in the land because he was a Catholic. He responded by saying that his private or personal life as a Catholic made no difference to his public life as a politician, at least no difference that anyone would notice or object to. Or less charitably, he held that he could effectively renounce his Catholicism when it came to political matters, while remaining fully a Catholic on the ground of his personal convictions. Kennedy was not, of course, the first person in the history of the Church who, for one reason or another, sought to play down the public significance of his Catholicism, or indeed to hide it from public view altogether. He took this step not in order avoid the loss of property, liberty, or life, as many Catholics before him had done, but to gain political office. The persecution he sought to overcome was of the relatively soft, rather than the truly hard, variety. He was no doubt sincere about “the absolute separation of church and state,” as he put it to the Houston Protestant ministers—about the political nullity of his own Catholicism. Kennedy’s political strategy was, of course, successful (if just barely), The quoted phrases are from the text of the address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on the website of the JFK Library: jfklibrary.org/learn/aboutjfk/historic-speeches/address-to-the-greater-houston-ministerial-association. 2 Catholicism and Democracy in America 999 and his electoral triumph became exhibit A for many Catholics that the U.S. constitutional promise was now wholly fulfilled, and the persecution of Catholics in American liberal democracy irrevocably a thing of the past. This assurance was, in the event, deeply tied to an embrace of the strategy Kennedy himself had marked out. He clearly established a pattern that has since been followed by many American Catholic politicians, and many American Catholic voters. It is quite in order, they say, to accept the moral and social teachings of the Church while voting for politicians and public policies opposed to those teachings. On this view it makes perfectly good sense for a Catholic voter or politician to be, for example, personally opposed to abortion, or personally in favor of just treatment for immigrants, because that is what the Church teaches, while at the same time taking political actions that promote access to abortion or the forced breakup of immigrant families. In this way, they tell us, they act responsibly as Americans, refusing, as the American system requires, to impose their personal religious faith on their fellow citizens, and so avoiding any conflict between their Catholicism and what JFK called “the national interest.” This mentality—privately opposed, but publicly in favor—has rightly been criticized as incoherent. For the justice of that criticism we can briefly mention three reasons. (1) In no important sense is Catholicism private. A person cannot plausibly put her Catholicism, or someone else’s, at the same level of political importance as her taste for Nestlé’s Crunch bars or her distaste for brussels sprouts. Like most religions, Catholicism is an all-encompassing way of life, concerned above all with what is finally true and false, right and wrong. It is not simply a matter of likes and dislikes. (2) To profess that an act is morally evil, while opposing any effort to curtail its occurrence, is self-deception. We rightly judge the intentions and commitments of people, moral and otherwise, by what they do and what they encourage others to do, not by what they say they believe. (3) Surely the American system, the separation of church and state rightly understood, does not require American Catholics to refuse public support for the social teachings of the Church, lest they “impose their faith” on non-Catholics. A Catholic voter or legislator can, for example, accept the Church’s teaching that abortion is intrinsically evil, seek laws coherent with those teachings, and do so as a matter of Catholic conscience, without acting against the basic values of the American political system. Otherwise we are saying that only policies opposed to Catholic social teaching, or at minimum policies enacted only for reasons that have nothing to do with Catholicism, are possible within the American system. 1000 Bruce D. Marshall If this were right, if deeply religious reasons and motivations were illegitimate in the American “public square,” then we would have to say that Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement were illegitimate, and similarly anti-slavery and abolitionism in the nineteenth century. One cannot help noticing that the dichotomy between private belief and public duty now widely taken for granted by American Catholics ironically joins hands with the nativism their immigrant ancestors worked so hard to overcome. To say, for example, that when Catholics publicly oppose abortion or support immigration reform they are impermissibly “imposing their faith” on others is to accept the nativist assumption that Catholic principle is incompatible with responsible participation in a democratic polity. If the American system does in fact require such political self-annihilation on the part of Catholics, then conflict between the American political system and Catholic principle runs far deeper than JFK, even on his darkest nights, would have thought possible. III Kennedy’s speech does raise a good question, though. What difference should being Catholic make to our understanding of, and participation in, American democracy? Kennedy’s answer was, in essence, that it shouldn’t make any difference. That can’t be right, but it does prompt reflection on how Catholic faith ought to shape political commitments in the American system, and in pluralist democracies more generally. For Catholic faith and principle to make a difference in political life is, we need to be clear, inseparable from the possibility that political conflict may result from faithful adherence to those principles. To hold that no conflict is possible, as JFK supposed, entails that Catholic faith and principle can, in the nature of the case, make no political difference. But Catholic principles and the actions they require can be, and regularly are, resisted in democratic societies by those who do not share them. If they made no difference they would not be resisted. The same goes for other forms of religious commitment and equally for adherence to various secular principles, though the proponents of current secular ideologies are generally far less reluctant to acknowledge the possibility of conflict than are religious people, perhaps especially Catholics. We can always forsake principle in order to avoid disagreement, but that simply underlines the fact that commitment to religious principle carries with it the possibility of political conflict. How then should Catholics act, and what should they expect from the political regimes they now inhabit in the West? Well before Vatican II the Catholic Church developed a substantial body of teaching on the place of Catholicism and Democracy in America 1001 the Church and the Catholic faith in modern political life. Two important aspects of that teaching will help answer our question. Among the most basic elements of modern Catholic social and political doctrine is the idea of the common good. Catholics are called upon by their faith and by the explicit teaching of their Church to work for the common good of the societies in which they live. That they should expect to be hated for their love of Jesus does not relieve them of the obligation to work for the social good even of those who hate them. These societies often include lots of non-Catholics, whether they be Protestants, adherents of other religions, or adherents of no religion. In some cases, as in the U.S., non-Catholics make up a considerable majority of the society as a whole, even though Catholics are by far the largest single religious group within that society. Catholics are thus called, by their fidelity to God in Jesus Christ, to work and pray not only for the good of themselves and other Catholics in their society, but for the good of all non-Catholics as well. The Church sees these works of mercy not only as the responsibility of each individual Catholic, but of the Catholic Church as such, and so she has from the beginning built hospitals, schools, and universities, shelters for the homeless and kitchens for the hungry and thirsty. Even before the toleration of Christianity in ancient Rome, the Romans looked on with amazement at the readiness of Christians to care for all the sick, not just their own, and to bury all the dead, not just their own. As the Romans knew, and feared, these were political acts, with world-changing consequences. A further basic element of Catholic social and political teaching, deeply tied to the common good and the social nature of human beings, is respect for the dignity of the human person. Each human being is made in the image of the triune God, and called to eternal intimacy with this God. From this dignity flow rights that are intrinsic to each human being, rights that simply go with being human. These rights are not granted by society, such that they might also be taken away by it, but are prior to society itself and belong to the basis of society and the common good. Among the rights that flow from the divinely given dignity of each human being, the most basic is the right to life itself. If the common good includes all that is necessary to lead a truly human life, then the foundation of the common good, its most basic necessity, is for each human being to be allowed to live in the first place. The right to life is simply the right not to be killed between the natural beginning and end of this life, between conception and natural death. This right belongs to every human being, but above all, and in a completely unqualified way, to the innocent and vulnerable, whom it is never permissible to kill for any reason at all. This conception of human dignity and of the right to life is at the heart of 1002 Bruce D. Marshall social justice as Catholics understand it. Of a piece with it are, for example, the Church’s insistence on care for immigrants and her opposition to slavery and human trafficking, as to all practices that degrade human beings and threaten their lives. Even from these brief comments it will be clear that “the common good” is very much a normative idea. The common good could not be attained by giving everyone what they want, even if that were possible, which it isn’t (in giving some people what they want you will inevitably deny it to other people, who want the opposite). Nor can it be attained by giving the majority what it wants. That depends, obviously, on what the majority wants, and on whether the desires of the majority are in accord with the common good. Since it is normative and content-laden, we should expect that Catholic teaching on the common good will be contested, and even more that the public practices which embody that teaching will be opposed. The Catholic idea of the common good will, when acted upon, cause conflict. There are, as we should expect, other conceptions of the good, common or otherwise, on offer in our democratic society, and these are sometimes in very sharp conflict with the Catholic conception. Up to a point Catholic teaching on the common good and human dignity appeals to natural law, and its truth is thus, at least in principle, available to any human being. The essential elements of human dignity are included, that is, in a divinely given orientation to seek good and shun evil that can never be uprooted from human nature. This commonplace of Catholic moral theology leads some contemporary Catholic intellectuals to suppose that it should be possible to convince anyone who will listen that, for example, abortion is in every case morally evil. Because, they maintain, abortion is against the natural law—which of course it is—any reasonably attentive person can come to recognize that it is evil by recourse to items of knowledge easily available without appeal to religious beliefs of any sort, including Catholic ones. This view comes closer to JFK’s logic than most of its advocates would like to admit. They suppose, in effect, that they can pretend to be atheists and still win the argument. That can happen, of course, but it would be naïve to expect it to happen very often. The natural law is one thing; knowledge of the natural law and action in accord with that knowledge are another. We cannot change our nature, nor can we change the law of our nature. But we can certainly be mistaken about it, including about what the law of our nature requires, about whether nature has a law, and about whether we have a nature in the first place. And we can, as current unapologetic defenses of “post-birth abortion”—infanticide—show, be utterly, and viciously, committed to our mistakes. Catholicism and Democracy in America 1003 When you get down to it, the Church’s idea of the common good is a distinctively Catholic one, and its primary reasons for insisting on that idea are, unsurprisingly, Catholic reasons. The Catholic idea of the common good is rooted in the conviction that we are creatures of the triune God, whose ultimate good lies in intimacy with this God. Augustine put this basic conviction in a way Catholics have remembered ever since: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”3 Nothing can belong to the common good, as Catholics understand it, which does not in one way or another help human beings come to rest in God. That Catholics have distinctively Catholic reasons for the political decisions they make and the social policies they support does not preclude them from agreeing with non-Catholics, religious or non-religious, on those decisions and policies. Jews and Muslims will have their own reasons for sharing with Catholics a desire, for example, to see religious freedom flourish in American society, or to see abortion end. Those reasons will probably overlap to some extent with the reasons offered by Catholics, but they will also differ, especially when it comes to the most basic and decisive reasons. Yet they can fully agree on the political good to be achieved. Of course they can also disagree about it. Either way, that those who belong to the Church act precisely as Catholics in their political decisions does not make them less than fully responsible participants in a pluralist democracy, any more than it does for Jews to act as Jews or Muslims as Muslims. Catholics do not have to pretend that they are atheists in order to make responsible political decisions, any more than the adherents of any other religion do. IV So the Catholic Church teaches, with, since Vatican II, an authority that cannot be exceeded in the Church’s own life. On a Catholic view of things, different kinds of political arrangements can be morally legitimate, as long as they serve the common good of the society they order and govern. This is not to say that all legitimate forms of government are equally good or desirable. With its ringing endorsement of freedom of conscience and freedom from coercion in religion, Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae does tilt toward a particularly characteristic value claimed by modern liberal democracies. Whatever its political system, a just society will not, in the Catholic view, use its system of government to impose anything when it comes to religion, but will allow each religious community to decide what its convictions Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1. 3 1004 Bruce D. Marshall require of it, and to act on those convictions within the broad limits of public order and the common good. Pluralist democracies like our own claim to embody just this ideal. When Dignitatis Humanae became Catholic doctrine in 1965, the suggestion that the on-the-ground reality of Western liberalism basically coincided with its teaching made a good deal of sense. Accordingly the Council’s text on religious liberty was welcomed by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Things have changed a lot since them. As Catholics in colonial America already discovered, religious freedom is not irrevocable in the modern West, even in societies which see themselves as havens for it. As other religious communities have learned, and as American Catholics are once again learning, that Western constitutions enshrine freedom of conscience and religion among their most basic stated values fails to guarantee that Catholics and others will not be subject to religious coercion. The reality of religious life in Western democracies is now often markedly removed from the ideals professed in the founding documents of those democracies, ideals which the Catholic Church herself teaches with particular insistence and clarity. State coercion in matters of religion, demanded and encouraged by potent forces in American society, is an increasingly vivid fact of American life. In one of recent history’s more piquant ironies, the Catholic Church is now the world’s foremost institutional defender of religious freedom, while Western democracies seem increasingly inclined to limit that freedom, and to induce conformity with a distinctively secular conception of ultimate matters. It seems not to be enough, for example, that abortion is legal in all fifty states, and medically assisted suicide in some. Catholic nurses and physicians who object in conscience to these acts must be compelled to participate in them, on pain of losing their jobs, their licenses, and their livelihoods. It seems not to be enough that contraception and abortion are available at government expense to employees of Catholic religious orders and universities; these Catholic institutions must be compelled to pay for them. In these particular cases the coercion sought by the U.S. government and recently contested in the courts is for the moment in abeyance. It would be exceedingly optimistic to suppose that the precarious conscience protections currently in place will not be subject to further pressure, and to renewed demands for coercion aimed at bringing Catholics and other religious Americans into line with the beliefs and values of those who make the demands. As one wealthy secular crusader against conscience protections for religious Americans likes to put it, “We’re going to punish the wicked.” At present the most obvious attacks on the freedom of the Church Catholicism and Democracy in America 1005 and the right of her members to lead a fully Catholic life come from the political left, and focus especially on abortion and sexual morality. The aggressions of secularism—the unashamed culture of death—may mislead us into thinking that the reality confronting the Church is simply the contempt of liberal elites for traditional religion. That would be a mistake. It is the world that hates the Church and wants to silence her witness to Christ, not just liberal elites. Persecution of the Church comes from the political right as well as from the left. In the Reagan years—not so long ago—spies we sent into Christian congregations in pursuit of immigrants from non-approved Central American countries, and priests, religious sisters, and Protestant ministers were jailed for sheltering and feeding these immigrants. What Catholics call the corporal works of mercy (Matt 25) were criminalized by the U.S. government. The current anti-immigrant rhetoric of the American right is, in the end, a demand to reinstate this regime on a much more massive scale. That this resurgent nativism has Catholic acolytes shows that assimilated Catholicism in America, contemptuous of the Church’s teaching on human dignity, isn’t simply a phenomenon of the political left—the heirs of JFK. Of course the cynical open-border policy of the left is just as clearly opposed to Catholic teaching. It barters the suffering of countless immigrant families for the hope of future political advantage in places like Texas and Arizona. Catholics like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have proposed immigration policies for this country in accord with Catholic teaching on human dignity, and drawn scorn from both right and left. Following Catholic principle, they have sealed their own political doom. The reason for the present zeal to attack the freedom of the Catholic Church and other traditional religious communities in the United States is not mysterious or obscure. It is itself a straightforwardly religious zeal, rooted in the fact that we all tend to absolutize our beliefs, especially those bearing on matters we take to be of the greatest, or even ultimate, importance. With that we tend to regard opposition to those beliefs as wicked, an evil that must be rooted out. The ancient idea that a coherent society requires agreement in ultimate matters is a sober recognition of the innate religious zeal of human beings. The Catholic Church, along with some other long-established religious communities, has much experience with this basic human impulse and the dangers it poses. Our deep-seated religious yearning is in truth a restless desire for God, but it can go terribly wrong—especially when we have grown weary of the worldly renunciations our yearning for God requires of us. Just because religious matters are of truly ultimate, indeed absolute, significance, freedom of conscience for those who believe and act other- 1006 Bruce D. Marshall wise must be carefully guarded. Knowing only their own rectitude, the current promoters of religious coercion—the persecution, soft at least for the time being, of traditional religious communities—have no such regard for those who believe otherwise. One might object that for Catholics to worry about persecution just now is inopportune, at best. It fails to help us reckon with the crisis currently confronting the Church in America and elsewhere and, so the objection goes, may easily provide an all too convenient excuse for evading the real issue. Persecution comes from the outside; it is unjust treatment of the Church and her members, rooted in animosity toward the Church’s faith and the witness of her life. What we are now seeing is not that, but the opposite: the just accusation of the state against crimes committed inside the Church. This is an accurate description of the situation we now face. In fact we have to go farther. Not all crimes against the law of the land are sins against God and neighbor. We must, for example, shelter the homeless and feed the hungry, whether they are in this country legally or not. But the crimes of which some priests and bishops stand credibly accused are grave sins against God, and against the faithful committed to their charge. Just criticism of the Church, and just action (including legal action) against those who have public responsibility in the Church, sometimes comes from the outside, and sometimes from without before it comes from within. So, to our great sorrow, it is now. We cannot, then, confuse just action of the state against the Church, even that of the aggressively secular state, with persecution. That an action is just, however, does not mean that its motives are unmixed. Rigorous civil proceedings against the perpetrators and enablers of clergy sexual abuse can be motivated by sympathy for the victims and indignation at the vile crimes committed against them. But they can also be motivated by animosity toward the Church’s faith and the witness of her life. They can, of course, be motivated by both at the same time. Among the most grievous aspects of the present crisis is that many of those called to witness in a special way to the Church’s faith and her way of life—to make public the call to holiness—have themselves provided choice weapons to the enemies of Christ and his Church. These can, and no doubt will, be used against the Church and her proclamation of the Gospel well into the future, not only by those who rightly seek justice for the innocent, but by those who detest the Catholic faith. And like Israel in exile, the innocent in the Church will have to suffer with the guilty. In 1965 many American Catholics thought the Church and American society were, after a long history of mutual distrust, finally entering into a Catholicism and Democracy in America 1007 relationship of overlapping values and mutual support. This was a reasonable supposition at the time. In retrospect, though, 1965 may prove to have been a high-water mark for the toleration of Catholicism in America. For about a century, roughly from the end of the First World War, Catholic life unfolded, and the Catholic Church went about her divine mission, relatively unhindered in this country. Rather than being the normal state of affairs, this may turn out—it is too early to tell for sure, of course—to have been more in the nature of an interlude. The Protestant grip on American public life was loosening enough to leave Catholics more or less alone, but enough of the Protestant vision of ultimate matters remained, for a while, to provide a public moral framework on which Catholics could largely agree. The Protestant moral consensus is now long gone. Of that Griswold v. Connecticut, to say nothing of Roe v. Wade, was fair warning, though it took a while for the truth to sink in. The legislative and judicial procedures of the American system were long used to bolster a Protestant vision of ultimate matters. They are now being used, often effectively, to promote and enforce a secular vision, in which man’s final end is dogmatically denied, and each person burdened with defining it as he sees fit. The aim of liberal democracy was to foreswear the task of producing agreement on ultimate matters without denying the freedom of citizens to form communities of faith which do just that. The American founding presupposed a Protestant moral consensus, and democracy in America lived off that capital for generations. By deliberate design the apparatus of liberal democracy is impotent to produce agreement on ultimate matters where it is not already present. When widespread agreement about ultimate matters is absent, as it now is in America, the agreement necessary for a functioning society is likely to come, as it usually has, by coercion and violence (recall the Civil War). We are experiencing a perverse theologizing of liberal democracy, which demands an enforced agnosticism about ultimate matters—the war of personal freedom against religious freedom. The condition for participation in public life is that one not have a faith with any public consequences, or indeed any public presence. The only admissible religion under this regime is one that is not practiced, just silently believed. Under these circumstances, Catholics—and, indeed, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims, to the extent that they depart from the culture’s secular theology—should not expect that liberal democracy will protect them individually from coercion, still less that it will protect the freedom of their communities. For Catholics, especially, the twentieth-century American experience may turn out to have been only a respite, welcome breathing space, between one coercion and another. 1008 Bruce D. Marshall V “The world hates me,” Jesus says, “because I bear witness concerning it that its works are evil” ( John 7:7). Modern liberal democracy might be the best system yet devised by the mind of man for coping peacefully with conflicts over the true and the good. But it cannot make them go away; still less can it make the opposition of the world and the Church go away. That opposition goes much too deep for any political system to remove, though politics can do its best to secure a degree of order, an always partial and temporary peace. As Augustine, above all, taught the Catholic Church, the world’s opposition to the Church is neither arbitrary nor transitory. It stems from a primordial conflict of loves. “Two loves, then, have formed two cities. Love of self, even to the point of contempt for God, formed the earthly city, and love of God, even to the point of contempt for self, the heavenly city. The one glories in itself, the other in the Lord.”4 Christ and his Church bear witness to this world that it is passing away, that its love is evil and issues in death. Liberal democracy is neutral, at least in principle, about ultimate matters, but human beings are not neutral—least of all those who claim to have no convictions about what is finally true and good. They will use whatever instruments present themselves, certainly including the procedural devices of liberal democracy, in the hope of securing the triumph of their love. In just this world the Catholic Church lives and serves God and all human beings, under whatever political arrangements happen to obtain. Catholic teaching, not least that of the Second Vatican Council, plainly recognizes this abiding state of affairs. So the Council reminds us, borrowing words of Augustine: “The Church, ‘like a stranger in a foreign land, presses forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God,’ announcing the cross and death of the Lord until He comes.”5 As we sojourn in this foreign land, tracing by faith the way to that city “whose builder and maker is God” (Heb 11:10), we must work tirelessly for the good of all people, as God has made it known to us. We should not expect, though, that our work will create for us, or for anyone, a home in this world. The world will offer us homes on its own terms, whether those of the left or of the right. But the blandishments of the world offer no peace, no home that lasts. Our peace lies, and will always lie, beyond this world. N&V Augustine, De civitate Dei 14.28. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, §8. 4 5 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1009–1051 1009 The Mystery of Christ’s Beatific Suffering: A Speyrian-Balthasarian Proposal Concerning Christ’s Beatific Vision in Life and Death Joshua R . Brotherton Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory Hollywood, FL In this essay , I would like to address the much-beleaguered question of whether Christ possessed the beatific vision throughout his earthly life, even throughout his passion and death, but with an eye on Hans Urs von Balthasar’s own understanding of the issue, derived from Adrienne von Speyr’s mystical experiences.1 I cannot here do justice either to the issue of Christ’s earthly beatific vision itself or to the conundrum that is Adrienne von Speyr. Instead, I will bracket the question of the legitimacy of the latter and attempt to shed light on what Balthasar must have ultimately concluded concerning Christ’s consciousness in life and death, if he were to follow his professedly unparalleled theological influence, the mystic whom he counseled. I will suggest that a Balthasarian resolution to the debate concerning whether it was fitting for Christ to possess the beatific vision connaturally rises to the forefront when a number of conceptual clarifications are made: (1) the visio beatifica is distinct from the fruitio For her influence, see, for instance: Johann Roten, “The Two Halves of the Moon: Marian Anthropological Dimensions in the Common Mission of Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar,” in Hans Urs von Balthasar: His Life and Works, ed. David Schindler (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011); Michele M. Schumacher, A Trinitarian Anthropology: Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014). See also Balthasar, First Glance at Adrienne von Speyr, trans. Antje Lawry and Sr. Sergia Englund, O.C.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1981). 1 1010 Joshua R. Brotherton beata, (2) divinely voluntary human nescience in the mind of Christ need not exclude possession of the beatific vision, and (3) it is both possible and fitting for the human mind of Christ hypostatically united to the Word to suspend access temporarily to particular “accoutrements” of the beatific vision that are naturally concomitant to its existence in the created intellect (i.e., secondary objects and delectatio or fruitio). Before addressing the Speyrian-Balthasarian approach to this complex issue, I will survey briefly the recent secondary literature in Thomistic circles on the precise topic of whether Christ possessed the beatific vision during his earthly life, hinting at a possible resolution to the debate along the way. Then, I will address Balthasar’s explicit (brief) comments on the matter and follow up with an analysis of an essay of his concerning faith in Christ, evaluating whether his statements on vision and faith in Christ may be reconciled. Finally, I will utilize the scholarship of Lois M. Miles and Matthew Lewis Sutton to shed some light on the Speyrian influence in Balthasar concerning how Christ’s soul remained fully united to the Father amidst his experience of godforsakenness. The Current Thomistic Debate concerning Christ’s Visio immediata Dei The traditional view of Christ’s fullness of knowledge in the flesh dates back to the patristic era.2 But in the wake of the development of modern historical-critical methods of exegesis applied to the sacred page, even Thomist scholars began to distance themselves from the notion that Christ’s human understanding of God, his natural (consubstantial) Father, is best described in terms of the visio immediata accorded the blessed upon glorification. Until relatively recently, all Thomists agreed on this doctrine See St. Fulgentius of Ruspe, Letter 14, cited by Bruce D. Marshall, “Jesus’ Human Knowledge: A Test for Theological Exegesis,” audio lecture, beginning at min. 14, https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/dr-bruce-d-marshall-jesus-human-knowledge-a-test-for-theological-exegesis-1022015. Still, Thomas G. Weinandy, an opponent of the view, states: “The first known author to state explicitly that Jesus possessed the beatific vision was the author, Candide, in the ninth century” (“Jesus’ Filial Vision of the Father,” Pro Ecclesia 13, no. 2 [2004]: 189–201, at 189n1). 2 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1011 of their master,3 endorsed by the magisterium numerous times.4 Two principal representatives of the turned tide are Jean Galot, S.J.,5 from whom Balthasar draws on a semi-regular basis, and one of the most eminent living Thomists, Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P.6 I cannot possibly enter into all the details of the debate that has since ensued, but I will indicate wherein I think lies the truth by engaging a few more interlocutors. Advocating for a doctrine of “mystical filial knowledge” in Christ’s soul in place of the beatific vision, Galot argues that Christ need only have such perfect understanding in resurrection to be fit to communicate glory to the mankind he redeems. In order to live a life like the men with whom he has chosen total solidarity (excluding commission of sin), his mission requires nothing more than infused knowledge. In other words, it does not accord with the meaning and purpose of the Incarnation for Christ’s earthly life to be suffused with the vision proper to consummate glory.7 Furthermore, he rejects as incommensurate the argument from analogy with mystical experiences that Christ could have uttered the cry of abandonment even while experiencing “the beatifying sentiment of the most complete union See, for instance, H.-M. Diepen, “La psychologie humaine du Christ,” Revue thomiste 50 (1950): 515–62, where the Scotist Christology of Paul Galtier is refuted. See also Bernard Lonergan’s textbook for the Gregorian University in the 1950s, De constitutione Christi ontologica et psychologica, particularly pt. 6, sect. 2, recently published as Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 7, The Ontological and Psychological Constitution of Christ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 204–230 (“The Ontological Constitution of Christ’s Human Consciousness”). 4 See Pius X, Lamentabili (1907), §§ 32–35 (Denzinger-Schönmetzer [DS], no. 3432–35); Decree of the Holy Office of June 5, 1918 (DS, no. 3645); Pius XII, Mystici Corporis (1943), §75 (DS, no. 3812); Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas (1956), §56 (DS, no. 3924), which cites Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] III, q. 9, aa. 1–3. Compare with the International Theological Commission, “The Consciousness of Christ Concerning Himself and His Mission,” Communio 14, no. 3 (1987): 316–25. See also Jean Galot’s analysis of the authority of the previous magisterial statements in his Who is Christ? A Theology of the Incarnation, trans. M. A. Bouchard (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1980), 357n33. The latest magisterial statements are found in Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], §473, and John Paul II, Novo Millenio Ineunte (2001), §§ 25–27. 5 See Jean Galot, “Le Christ Terrestre et La Vision,” Gregorianum 67, no. 3 (1986): 429–50. 6 See Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., “S. Thomas d’Aquin et la science du Christ,” in Le mystère du Christ chez saint Thomas d’Aquin : textes choisis et présentés par JeanPierre Torrell, O.P. (Paris: Cerf, 1999), 198–213 (also found in Saint Thomas au XXe siècle, ed. Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P. [Paris: Editions St. Paul, 1994], 394–409). Paul Gondreau also, in his study of Christ’s passions, indicates agreement with Torrell, who wrote the preface for his book. 7 See Galot, “Christ terrestre,” 434. 3 1012 Joshua R. Brotherton with the Father.”8 He dismisses out of hand the view he finds in Melchor Cano and others that Christ suspends the delectatio proper to the beatific vision during his passion, asserting that they must have forgotten that the joy of the vision necessarily accompanies the hypostatic union.9 He also passes over Bertrand de Margerie’s proposal that Christ’s earthly beatitude “was perfect but incomplete,”10 and critiques Maritain’s distinction between supra-conscious and infra-conscious to explain the co-existence of beatific vision and acquired knowledge in Christ’s human soul as introducing an unbridgeable division into the human psychology of Jesus.11 His solution, instead, is to appeal to kenosis, a profound reality indeed and very near to the heart of Balthasar (as will be seen). But the medieval solutions, particularly, are given short shrift. Galot rightly points out that the divine essence is not known by the incarnate Son as an object, but as subject. Since “vision” implies subject– object duality, it is an inadequate analogy for Christ’s own consciousness, which is entirely unique. Echoing Bernard Lonergan here (without citing him), Galot nonetheless draws the mistaken conclusion that while Christ cannot be said to possess faith, his knowledge of his own divine essence must be infused (not beatific).12 But how could faith be lacking for a Galot, “Christ terrestre,” 435 (my translation). See Galot, “Christ terrestre,” 435. This assertion seems both contradictory to Galot’s own position that the hypostatic union need only imply infused knowledge in the soul of Christ and unjustified according to Scholastic tradition. Even the classical Dominican Thomist Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange allows for the possibility of God withdrawing the joy that is concomitant with the beatific vision without causing a cessation of the vision itself (see Beatitude: A Commentary on Thomas’ Theologica Summa, IaIIae, qq. 1–54, trans. Patrick Cummins, O.S.B. [n.p.: Ex Fontibus, 2015], 89), going so far as to state that the vision would not cease even if God refused concurrence with the act of love that would naturally accompany it (see 94), while at the same time demonstrating the impossibility of the vision itself ceasing or being withdrawn once possessed (see 122). 10 Bertrand de Margerie, “De la science du Christ: Science, préscience et conscience, méme prépascales du Christ Rédempteur,” Doctor Communis 36 (1983): 123–58, at 141 (my translation). 11 See “Christ terrestre,” 436. William G. Most makes a similar criticism of Jacques Maritain’s proposal, concluding that Maritain’s treatment “makes him [Christ] almost schizoid” (see The Consciousness of Christ [Front Royal, VA: Christendom College Press, 1980], 160. A bit more will be said about Maritain’s theory later. In the end, I think something like Maritain’s articulation is necessary, although the language of psychoanalytic theory might not be the most helpful. In other words, Christ as viator must be distinguished adequately from Christ as comprehensor without dividing the person, a task indeed very difficult and complex. 12 See Galot, “Christ terrestre,” 439–440. 8 9 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1013 soul in the state of grace and possessing imperfect knowledge of God? Furthermore, he speaks of this infused knowledge, by which Christ has human consciousness of his divine identity, developing “according to the normal conditions of human growth.”13 But what could it mean for infused knowledge to develop in such a manner, given that humans do not naturally possess such? The attempt to render Christ an ordinary human, albeit concurrently divine, is misbegotten. Guy Mansini points out, contrary to what Galot seems to assume, that Aquinas does not insist on the necessity of the beatific vision for Christ’s human soul, but instead argues for its supreme fittingness (convenientia), due to the nature of the hypostatic union and, especially, the soteriological purpose of his Incarnation.14 Mansini argues that because Christ knows exactly who he is, he knows the mystery of the Trinity itself, and because he “taught them as one who has authority” (Mark 1:22), he does not have mere faith in the Trinity, as do we.15 Rather, possessing an immediate knowledge of the Trinity itself, which is precisely what constitutes the beatific vision as such, he must “share in the infinite act of understanding by which God himself in his divine nature understands and knows all things”16 or “[possess] an immediate knowledge of God as he is in himself, the finite mind’s sharing in the infinite act of understanding the infinite intelligibility that God is.”17 Of course, what we know of the beatific vision is very limited, as its mere existence is known only by faith, the nature of which we merely know by via remotionis to be a knowledge “[not] by way of a created similitude; rather, the divine being itself is what is immediately present to the created mind.”18 Christ as comprehensor must possess this vision; meanwhile, Christ as viator acquires knowledge. Indeed, Lonergan Galot, “Christ terrestre,” 440. See also Galot, “Problemes de la conscience du Christ,” Esprit et vie 92 (1982): 145–52, and La Conscience de Jesus (Paris: Duculot, 1971). 14 See: Guy Mansini, “Understanding St. Thomas on Christ’s Knowledge of God,” The Thomist 59, no. 1 (1995): 91–124, at 94–96; ST III, q. 7, a. 1; q. 9, a. 2. Lonergan, at least according to the notes of Frederick E. Crowe, S.J., instead argues on the basis of necessity: “But in the case of Christ, he who is a divine and infinite person; from him the beatific vision proceeds not as something unowed and gratuitous but, as indicated above, as consequent upon the infinite act of existence which he is” (“The Consciousness of Christ,” in Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 19, Early Latin Theology [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011], 559). 15 See Mansini, “Understanding St. Thomas,” 114–20. 16 Mansini, “Understanding St. Thomas,” 117. 17 Mansini, “Understanding St. Thomas,” 116. 18 ST I, q. 12, a. 2. 13 1014 Joshua R. Brotherton speaks of the two planes of knowledge as ineffable and effable,19 respectively, such that the latter attempts to express with ever more clarity the salvific content of the former. Building on Lonergan’s discourse on “beatific knowledge” in place of the more widely used “beatific vision,” Mansini speaks of “immediate knowledge” without denying its beatific quality. He explains why: “To avoid the imputation that, as perfectly happy, he could not suffer anything. Still, the problem is not to be got rid of by a terminological device. The immediate knowledge of God is, one supposes, something that, as a super-perfection of our humanity, and of our intellectual desire, makes us happy.”20 He rejects the notion that it is impossible to be both happy and sad simultaneously. Still, consider the following thought experiment: could a soul in heaven endure hellish suffering? If so, surely only by divine omnipotence. But, is it more intelligible for the latter to bring about such a situation by withdrawing from the soul the joy that naturally follows the vision or by piling on top of the fruitio beata a wholly contradictory experience of loss (i.e., dereliction)? Certainly, it is intrinsic to the beatific vision (perfect understanding and consequent union with God) to be eternal, and thus it would be supremely imperfect for an omnipotent power to withdraw such vision itself (perhaps, by annihilation). Apply this consideration to the soul of Christ, the incarnate Word, during his earthly life. Jean-Pierre Torrell thinks it is impossible for beatific joy and the experience of abandonment to co-exist together and, therefore, rejects the traditional notion that Christ possessed the beatific vision in life (without considering the possibility entertained here). Emphasizing that Aquinas only argues for the fittingness of such vision, 21 based on the divine economy according to which the salvation toward which human beings are directed is communicated only through the incarnate Word, Torrell points out that Aquinas never specifies at which point Christ received the See Bernard Lonergan, De Verbo Incarnato, 3rd ed. (Rome: Gregorian University, 1964), 332. 20 Mansini, “Understanding St. Thomas,” 119. In a fashion complementary to his “immediate knowledge,” I have utilized the language of “perfect understanding” to allow room for the suspension of access to the “secondary objects” of the vision or whatever might not be pertinent to His mission at hand, which seems to be allowed by Lonergan in De Verbo Incarnato, thesis 15, pt. 6, cited by Mansini on 111n49, along with ST III, q. 10, a. 1. “Knowledge” typically connotes data, whereas “understanding” connotes profundity, something more active than receptive. 21 Torrell, “La science du Christ,” 200. 19 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1015 vision, or “the moment at which Jesus became the Christ.”22 He also points out that when faced with “the Aristotelian doctrine of the impossibility of opposed intense passions [co-existing] in the same subject at the same time,”23 Aquinas invokes the fact that Christ is entirely unique, and thus exempt from such a principle, choosing John Damascene over Aristotle.24 Torrell recognizes that, at least according to Thomistic logic, Christ must have either the beatific vision or the virtue of faith, and Sacred Scripture never alludes to Christ possessing faith, but to him as the perfect revelation of the Father.25 Without disputing such logic, he concludes that Christ’s knowledge of the Father must be a “perfect and total” form of prophetic knowledge, a supreme form of infused knowledge.26 Paul Gondreau seconds Torrell’s principal objection to Christ’s earthly possession of the beatific vision, namely, that mutually opposed passions cannot co-exist with such intensity in the soul of Christ at one and the same time. Gondreau sums up Torrell’s position in a manner very reminiscent of Galot’s objections (without mentioning him): After pointing out that the causal exigency of Christ’s enjoyment of the visio Dei—whereby Christ must first enjoy the full vision of God before he can lead the human race to this vision—is satisfied by the resurrected state of Jesus rather than by his entire earthly state (there is no need, in other words, to attribute a glorified condition to Jesus’ humanity during his entire earthly existence if what characterizes his glorified resurrected state meets this same soteriological requirement), Torrell looks to the revealed knowledge offered to the prophets as analogous to the kind of human knowledge one can suppose was possessed by Christ. To explain, the prophets, as Thomas insists, partake in a special ‘light’ (lumen propheticum) which permits them to know the divinely revealed realities they are charged to impart in a way that is fully consonant with a human mode of knowing; by a similar yet vastly superior kind of prophetic “light,” Jesus, one could say, is permitted to know (in a human way rather than in the angelic mode that characterizes infused knowledge) all things that concern his redemptive mission.27 Torrell, “La science du Christ,” 205. There is here, perhaps, a Schillebeeckxian undertone here. Hence, the underlying issue may be how seriously one takes the conclusions of modern historical-critical biblical exegesis. 23 Torrell, “La science du Christ,” 204. 24 Torrell, “La science du Christ,” 205. 25 Torrell, “La science du Christ,” 207. 26 Torrell, “La science du Christ,” 211–12. 27 Paul Gondreau, The Passions of Christ’s Soul in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas 22 1016 Joshua R. Brotherton One might argue, in answer to Mansini’s article (which neither Torrell nor Gondreau engage), that such “Christic” vision is sufficient to have the certainty Jesus had about the mysteries he proclaimed. But if the knowledge infused is nonetheless finite (i.e., not the divine essence itself ), is there not room still for doubt? Could not the angels with their infused knowledge before their respective beatifications and condemnations still doubt what God had revealed to them, which was in all likelihood cognitively superior to any human prophet (quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur)? Finally, would it not be more fitting for Christ to possess perfect knowledge of the Godhead connaturally and not through some process akin to merit–reward, or better, is it not fitting that the Redeemer possess the beatitude he wishes to impart upon the redeemed while he redeems them (i.e., not simply in resurrection, but also in death and even life, given that each one of his acts was sufficient by itself to redeem mankind)? None of this is considered. But the main concern for both Torrell and Gondreau (who does a superb job of exploring Christ’s passions in Aquinas’s writings) is “Thomas’ suspension of the natural laws governing human psychology, whereby the bridge linking the higher and lower powers of the soul is effectively severed in order to allow for simultaneous suffering and joy in Christ’s soul.”28 While Mansini also expresses puzzlement at the co-existence of intense joy and suffering in Christ’s soul during the passion, he must have realized that the marvelous works of God in Christ often suspend natural laws—“oh ye of little faith!” (Matt 8:26). The “natural law” here referenced is the medieval notion of redundancia, whereby what the higher powers of the soul enjoy naturally redound to the lower powers; yet, it is universally accepted that Christ’s body did not enjoy the perfection of his soul by divine decree so that he might share more profoundly in the human condition (without sin—and it might be added, without intellective defect).29 Ultimately, Gondreau designates the doctrine of Christ as viator et comprehensor as “highly problematic,”30 which he recognizes as, at least in part, an attempt to specify “the way in (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2009), 451–52. Gondreau, Passions of Christ’s Soul, 449. 29 It would not be an intellectual defect of Christ’s human mind not to know calculus or Chinese, but it would be one not to understand perfectly the truths He uttered, not because humans ordinarily understand their own speech perfectly, but because He is more than simply human—He is the God-man, a divine Person. Yes, he acquired knowledge of much in life, but as long as He possessed human self-consciousness, He could not have lacked perfect understanding of His own identity, which must involve nothing short of immediate knowledge of God’s essence. 30 Gondreau, Passions of Christ’s Soul, 450. 28 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1017 which Christ could undergo both affective suffering as a result of his passible soul and supreme joy or beatitude as a consequence of the direct visio Dei his soul enjoyed.”31 Again, no consideration is given the possibility that such suffering co-existed with the visio but not the fruitio or delectatio. Underlying the entire issue, of course, is to what extent one accepts the purported findings of modern historical-critical (i.e., diachronic) methods of scriptural exegesis, which are perpetually in tension with dogmatic claims about Christ.32 Hence, the reason he states for rejecting such a Scholastic axiom: As J.-P. Torrell remarks, “[the Evangelists] describe Jesus’ agony in quite strong terms that hardly leave one suspecting of the joy that could have felt the effects of his sufferings.” This witness of the Gospels explains why modern Biblical exegesis favors an image of Jesus that is closer to the man who “learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb 5:8) than to the Christ who experienced a beatified soul since the very moment of his conception.33 I am happy to see Torrell (and Gondreau) take seriously Christ’s “cry of dereliction,” but I am disappointed in Gondreau for implying that Aquinas’s Christ cannot learn obedience—that is precisely the point of the acquired knowledge, which Gondreau so often points out distinguishes Aquinas’s Christology from the other medievals. Finally, I think it is inaccurate to speak of Christ experiencing beatitude from the moment of conception, both because there is no reason to suppose his human psychology did not develop self-awareness in accord with the natural laws of human development and because possessing beatitude (objective) need not mean experiencing it (subjective). Throughout this struggle to reconcile Christ as man (qua homo) with Christ as God (qua Deus) is, of course, the effort to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of Monophysitism and Nestorianism. Thomas G. Weinandy is most explicit in his attempt to steer clear of such heresies, meanwhile adding his voice to the modern choir questioning the Scholastic consensus on Christ’s beatific knowledge. Weinandy claims that the question itself of whether Christ possessed the beatific vision is inspired by a Nestorian Gondreau, The Passions of Christ’s Soul, 441. Literature on this topic super-abounds and certainly cannot be engaged here. 33 Gondreau, Passions of Christ’s Soul, 450–51. The internal quote is from Torrell’s Le Christ en ses mysteres, vol. 2, La Vie et L’Oeuvre de Jesus selon Saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1999), 338. 31 32 1018 Joshua R. Brotherton Christology rather than a Cyrlian-Chalcedonian one, since for the former “the Son of God and the man Jesus are not ontologically united within the Incarnation, and so stand over against one another.”34 For him, then, in the context of the latter Christology, the only proper and meaningful question is: “Did the Son of God as man, within his human consciousness and intellect, possess a vision of the Father such that he (the divine Son) was humanly aware of himself as Son and so knew himself to be the Son, and thus, as a consequence perceived all that the Father willed for him during his earthly life?”35 But this is simply a convenient (and perhaps disingenuous) way out of the debate. Why cannot one ask: Did the Son of God as man, in his human intellect, possess a vision of the Father (i.e., the Godhead by circumincessio) such that he (the divine Son) possessed in his human mind an immediate knowledge of his own identity and so of the divine essence itself, and thus, as a consequence, understood things that are proper only to the beatific vision granted mere humans upon glorification? Referring also to Lonergan’s work, Weinandy proposes in place of the beatific vision “a human ‘hypostatic vision,’” whereby “the person (hypostasis) of the Son possessed, as man, a personal human vision of the Father by which he came to know the Father as the Father truly exists.”36 He acknowledges that “Lonergan insists that Christ must also possess beatific knowledge [not just human self-awareness] in order for him to have a full and objective knowledge that exceeds that of subjective conscious experience.”37 But he disagrees with Lonergan that in being humanly aware of who he is, Christ’s human mind must be(come) “fully knowledgeable as to what he is—God.”38 Weinandy clarifies that, while he holds in agreement with Lonergan “that the Son’s human conscious experience is the subjective experience of the Son and not the perceptive experience of an object apart from himself,”39 he adds: “I have equally argued that he obtained Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision of the Father,” 190. Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision of the Father,” 190–91. 36 Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision of the Father,” 193. 37 Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision of the Father,” 193n7. 38 Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision of the Father,”193n7. He also notes there that Lonergan holds (and he himself expresses no disagreement with this) that “no created intellect can know God in his essence save through the beatific vision” (Ontological and Psychological Constitution, 217). When did he become aware of his divine identity? “Such an awareness would have come much earlier [than the age of twelve]—at the normal age when a human person becomes aware of who he or she is. The difference being that a human person becomes aware of his or her human identity and the Son incarnate becomes humanly aware of his divine identity as Son” (Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision,” 198n14). 39 For fuller understanding of Lonergan’s point here, see Ontological and Psychologi34 35 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1019 his human conscious awareness of who [he] is as the Son in relation to his human objective vision of the Father.”40 But how can he have an objective vision of the Father and not of the divine essence of which he is the originating hypostasis? Furthermore, if “it was in becoming humanly aware of the Father as Father that he became self-consciously aware that he was truly the Son of the Father,”41 was he not also humanly aware of the Holy Spirit? Moreover, is it fitting for the Son of God to have only imperfect human awareness not only of his own hypostasis, but also of those eternally consubstantial to him? His answer to the first and second questions is to distinguish between objective and subjective knowledge: Obviously, in having a filial vision of the Father, the Son as incarnate is aware of the whole Trinity for to know the Father necessarily entails knowing the Son and the Spirit. However, it must be stressed that the Son’s incarnate knowledge of the Trinity was not an objective knowledge, that is, a knowledge of a being ontologically distinct from himself, but rather a subjective knowledge, that is a knowledge of who he is—himself being a person of the Trinity. 42 This distinction, of course, bespeaks a peculiarly modern cognitional theory. Certainly, it is valid to distinguish between an informational type of knowledge and a personal familiarity kind of knowledge, as most modern languages do. But why does it make sense to put limitations on Christ’s “human objective vision of the Father”? (This is my third question put in his terms.) Even Lonergan’s peculiar cognitional theory does not prevent him from recognizing that in order to be totally self-aware, Christ must have possessed immediate knowledge of the divine essence:43 For Christ as man to understand clearly and to judge with certainty himself to be the natural Son of God and himself true God, the following conditions are required and sufficient: (1) consciousness of himself; (2) in which the subject (that which is aware of itself cal Constitution of Christ, 267. Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision,” 193n7. 41 Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision,” 193n7. 42 Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision,” 197n13. 43 See Bernard J. F. Lonergan, S.J., Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), which he composed concurrently with his major Christological texts, De Constitutione Christi and De Verbo Incarnato. 40 1020 Joshua R. Brotherton through consciousness) is the natural Son of God and himself true God; (3) a clear understanding of the quiddity of the natural Son of God and of the true God; and (4) a grasp of the identity between the conscious subject and the object thus quidditatively understood. But these necessary and sufficient conditions are fulfilled by Christ’s human consciousness and his beatific knowledge. . . . The third condition is required, since one who does not understand what the natural Son of God is cannot clearly understand himself to be the natural Son of God. 44 The modern instinct is to divest Christ’s humanity of perfection in order not to fall into Monophysitism, that is, to strip away (kenosis!) the divine implications for his humanity in order to make room for the latter to appear in greater solidarity with the rest of us. The alternative, in this perspective, is Nestorianism—that is, Christus viator et comprehensor must be two hypostases (“persons”), not one, which simply does not follow. Therefore, echoing Galot, 45 Weinandy concludes: “the Son did not fully grasp, as man, the awesome glory and incomprehensible splendor of who he is until he was raised gloriously from the dead.”46 Thus, it is only in resurrection that Christ graduates from viator to comprehensor. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., takes issue with both Galot’s and Weinandy’s treatments. Utilizing Herman Diepen, Jacques Maritain, and Jean Miguel Garrigues, 47 he argues that holding the traditional view is “essential for maintaining the unity of [Christ’s] person in and through the duality of his natures.”48 In short, in order for Christ’s human nature to be the sacred organon (“instrument”) of his divine hypostasis, all his thoughts, words, and deeds must express “his intra-Trinitarian, filial relationship with the Father.”49 This requires not only that all his actions reflect the Lonergan, Ontological and Psychological Constitution, 215, 217 (Latin original available on 214, 216). 45 Weinandy does not, however, cite Torrell. 46 Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision,” 198n14. 47 Diepen, “La psychologie,” and Diepen, “La critique du basilisme selon saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste 50 (1950): 290–329; Jacques Maritain, On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus (London: Burns and Oats, 1969); Jean Miguel Garrigues, “La conscience de soi telle qu’elle etait exercee par le Fils de Dieu fait homme,” Nova et Vetera (French) 79, no. 1 (2004): 39–51, and “L’instrumentalite redemptrice du libre arbiter du Christ chez saint Maxime le Confesseur,” Revue thomiste 104 (2004): 531–50. 48 Thomas Joseph White, O.P., “The Voluntary Action of the Earthly Christ and the Necessity of the Beatific Vision,” The Thomist 69, no. 4(2005): 497–534, at 498. 49 White, “Voluntary Action,” 499. Concerning the instrumentality of Christ’s 44 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1021 divine will, but that he have immediate knowledge of the divine will.50 Against Galot’s capricious reluctance to grant that the absence of vision mandates the presence of faith in a soul united to God, White pits his ally, Torrell, against him: The presence of a prophetic, infused knowledge cannot act as a substitute for faith, in the way Galot proposes. The Jesuit theologian claims that there is no faith in Christ, nor vision, but only a higher knowledge attained by prophecy. Yet as Jean-Pierre Torrell has shown, prophetic or infused knowledge alone is only a mediate, indirect knowledge of God attained through the effects of God. Necessarily, outside of the vision, all knowledge of God is through effects, and only faith permits a quasi-immediate contact with God, through love. Therefore even in-fused knowledge requires faith in order to orient it toward God. This latter contact, however, is obscure (nonevidential). . . . [The intellect of Christ] would believe in his divinity and divine will through faith.51 humanity (intellect and will), White refers the reader to Theophil Tschipke, Die Menschheit Christi als Heilsorgan der Gottheit (Freiburg im Breisgau: Verlag nicht ermittelbar, 1939), [French trans.: L’humanite du Christ comme instrument de salut de la divinite (Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2003)]. 50 I have restated the argument somewhat here, as White usually tends to say that, in order for all his actions to reflect the divine will, he must have immediate knowledge of the divine will (citing ST I-II, q. 4, a. 4). But this is not necessarily true, if the Blessed Virgin Mary is indeed sinless, as she certainly did not enjoy the beatific vision in life. God may predestine any created will to perform all good acts without granting perfect understanding of his will. Nonetheless, one might develop an argument on the basis of the distinction in spiritual theology between sin and imperfection (see, e.g., Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Christian Perfection and Contemplation according to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of the Cross [Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2010], 428–35), which might allow one to conclude that, while Mary did not commit any sins, the deeds of Christ alone were always perfect. 51 White, “Voluntary Action,” 517–18. In fact, Torrell states: “With faith we are in the order of the supernatural quoad essentiam, while with prophetic knowledge we remain in the order of the supernatural quoad modum (acquisitionis). The two orders do not exclude one another, certainly, but the second is ordered to the first, and because the two are different kinds of realities, they must not be confused or made to play the role of one another. . . . If we accord to [ Jesus] infused illuminations characteristic of the charismatic knowledge of revelation, he will be enabled for his role as a divine messenger, but he will still not have direct access to God, since these illuminations do not suffice as a replacement of faith” (“La Science du Christ,” 404, translated in White, ”Voluntary Action,” 41). Concerning prophecy, see Torrell’s Recherches sur la théorie de la prophétie au moyen âge, xiie–xive siécles: études et textes (Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 1992). 1022 Joshua R. Brotherton White adds the following argument: In the absence of the vision, the infused science of Christ would lack such immediate evidence, and would have to be accompanied by faith. In this case, the prophetic awareness Christ had of his own divinity and will would have to be continuously accompanied by an autonomous decision of faith in the human heart of Christ and a repeated choice to welcome in trust this revelation from his own divine self. This would create, in effect, a kind of psychological autonomy in the man Jesus distinct from the willing of his divine subject, resulting in a schism between the two operations of the Incarnate Word.52 Alternatively, the infinite distance between Christ’s created intellect and uncreated being can be bridged only by an immediate vision, which effectively “safeguards the unity of activity in the person of Jesus.”53 If the beatific vision does not corrupt but, rather, perfects the human being, then for Christ’s humanity to possess the same from conception would not make him any less human than the rest of us, no more than being conceived without sin rendered Mary less human, but rather more perfectly human in accord with God’s original designs. Thus, White concludes concerning the Scylla and Charybdis of opposite Christological heresies: At least in one very important aspect (i.e., with regard to the divine will), Christ’s human actions must not be characterized by ignorance, or defectibility. What is at stake is not a principle of ideal humanity, but the very unity of the operations of Christ in his practical actions. In order for Christ to be fully human, his psychological choices must be rational and natural (against Monophysitism), but for them to be the choices of his divine person, they must be unified with his divine will on the level of his personal action (against Nestorianism).54 White does not seem to find difficulty with the notion of Christ possessing the beatific vision in the “heights of the soul” even while suffering spiritual White, “Voluntary Action,” 519. White, “Voluntary Action,” 521. 54 White, “Voluntary Action,” 515. 52 53 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1023 and physical agony, even calling the former “pacifying.”55 Weinandy later responds to White’s criticisms of this position that he had recently espoused. He does not respond in detail to White’s arguments, but instead undermines the mentality he thinks pervades White’s article as crypto-Nestorian. The Nestorian accusation seems to imply that coming to human awareness of his divine identity and possessing a (supra-conscious) immediate vision of the Father are mutually exclusive notions. But they are not, given that what is known by visio may be learned experimentally due to the distinction between acquired, infused, and beatific planes of consciousness/knowledge in Christ’ soul. Weinandy advocates in place of the beatific vision the existence of a “human hypostatic vision of the Father,”56 which would necessarily be ontologically inferior the beatific vision Christ purportedly achieves in resurrection. He sums up his own argumentation in the previous article thus: I gave two reasons why Jesus did not possess the beatific vision. The first is that the beatific vision is traditionally understood as a heavenly vision and thus a vision that is resurrectional in nature. Such a vision would then be contrary to Jesus’ being able to live an authentic earthly life. Moreover, because the beatific vision has traditionally been understood as an objective vision of God obtained by someone who is other than God, to say that Jesus possessed the beatific vision implies Nestorianism, as if the man Jesus, who possessed the beatific vision, were a different subject/being from that of the Son.57 If Jesus having the beatific vision implies Nestorianism, then he must not possess it either in life or in resurrection. I think that White successfully argues that it is actually Weinandy’s position that requires Nestorianism, a thesis Weinandy never addresses. Even if Weinandy’s view is not Nestorian (let us not gratuitously accuse each other of heresy!), does not speaking of the beatific vision as “resurrectional in nature” imply divergence from Benedict XII’s solemn proclamation against the idea that the beatific vision is only granted at the general resurrection?58 White, “Voluntary Action,” note 68. Thomas Weinandy, “The Beatific Vision and the Incarnate Son: Furthering the Discussion,” The Thomist 70, no. 4 (2006): 605–15, at 613–14. 57 Weinandy, “Beatific Vision,” 613n4. 58 Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (1336) (DS, no. 1000) Of course, Weinandy might hold the Rahnerian notion of resurrection in death. For a critique of this theory, see my “The Possibility of Universal Conversion in Death,” Modern Theology 32, no. 3 (2016): 307–24. 55 56 1024 Joshua R. Brotherton Against White’s purportedly ambiguous use of language in reference to Christ’s subjectivity, Weinandy explains: Because the Son is the sole person or subject within the Incarnation, what he knows and wills as man is done by him and so, from the very ontology of Incarnation, the human intellect and will are never autonomous “things” in need of being “brought into line,” whether by the beatific vision or by any other means.59 Thus, Weinandy characterizes White’s view in the following manner: The Son’s humanity is the personal instrument through which he acts, in a similar way as I personally act through the use of my hand. However, my hand does not act ‘instrumentally’ and neither does Christ’s ‘human will.’ Moreover, a ‘will’ does not act apart from the one whose will it is, nor does a ‘will,’ as if it were an acting subject, subordinate itself to another will. Only persons subordinate their will to another person. To say that one will subordinates itself to another will implies two persons.60 But the last statement is patently false, as the Chalcedonian dogmas clarify: there are two wills in Christ, human and divine, but one divine person (the Son/Word). Is the human not subject to the divine? Granted, a will does not act on its own, and Christ’s will is not most properly designated an “autonomous thing.”61 But, surely, if there are distinct natures in Christ (personally united), one can speak of distinct operations and reflect on their inter-relatedness. Likewise, a hand is not an instrument of the human person in the same way that the human nature of Christ is the instrument of his divine personhood because nature and person are not related in the same manner as part of a body is to the person who possesses (or rather, lives!) it. Yet, Christ is an entirely unique reality—nature, what a thing is Weinandy, “Beatific Vision,” 609. Weinandy, “Beatific Vision,” 611. 61 Still, Diepen says: “[It is] not only the sanctity and impeccability of Christ which demands that constant dependence of the human will in its relationship to the divine will, but also His personal unity. Every person is not only a metaphysical and substantial unity, but also a psychological unity. And there is no psychological unity if each of Christ’s two psychological centers that comprise the intimate constitution of the God-man is autonomous in its activity” (“La psychologie,” 535). He then quotes St. John Damascene for support (see De fide orthodoxa 1.3.18). 59 60 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1025 with respect to its operations, is distinct from person, the subsistent subject of all (real) predications. Adopting language similar to Galot, Diepen, and Lonergan (about the Son becoming humanly self-conscious), 62 Weinandy points to a few places where White’s language is insufficiently precise with regard to the nature–person distinction. While the former language is indeed preferable (that is, until it denies the beatific vision), Weinandy seems to want to make it impossible to speak meaningfully of the distinct natures in Christ. Hence, Weinandy is mistaken when he speaks as if the beatific vision and hypostatic union are opposed rather than congruent: “For White, it is not the hypostatic union, the ontological union whereby the Son of God exists as man, that guarantees the unity, and so conformity, of the human intellect and will with the divine intellect and will, but the beatific vision.”63 Rather, the hypostatic union implies the beatific vision, even if it does not necessitate it, and thus it is through the beatific vision (instrumentality!) that the hypostatic union renders the human intellect and will of Christ completely conformed to his divine intellect and will. Thus, it was most fitting for Jesus the Christ, the incarnate Word, to be endowed with the immediate vision of God’s essence, toward which the prophets of old strived to direct his people’s gaze. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI points out, it is most proper for the “New Moses,” the prophet of all prophets, to possess an immediate and perfect vision of God: Although Moses’ immediate relation to God makes him the great mediator of Revelation, the mediator of the Covenant, it has its limits. He does not behold God’s face, even though he is permitted to enter into the cloud of God’s presence and to speak with God as a friend. The promise of a “prophet like me” thus implicitly contains an even greater expectation: that the last prophet, the new Moses, will be granted what was refused to the first one—a real, immediate vision of the face of God, and thus the ability to speak entirely from seeing, not just from looking at God’s back. This naturally entails the further expectation that the new Moses will be the mediator of a greater covenant than the one that Moses was able to bring down from Sinai (cf. Heb 9:11–24). This is the context in which we need The question about Christ’s human consciousness of his divine identity is not understood in terms of “how a man becomes conscious that he is the Son of God, but how the Son of God becomes humanly conscious of himself ” (Galot, Who is Christ? 336–37). See also Diepen, “La psychologie,” 531. 63 Weinandy, “Beatific Vision,” 612. 62 1026 Joshua R. Brotherton to read the conclusion of the prologue to John’s Gospel: “No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (Jn 1:18). It is in Jesus that the promise of the new prophet is fulfilled. What was true of Moses only in fragmentary form has now been fully realized in the person of Jesus: He lives before the face of God, not just as a friend, but as a Son; he lives in the most intimate unity with the Father. We have to start here if we are truly to understand the figure of Jesus as it is presented to us in the New Testament; all that we are told about his words, deeds, sufferings, and glory is anchored here. This is the central point, and if we leave it out of account, we fail to grasp what the figure of Jesus is really all about, so that it becomes self-contradictory and, in the end, unintelligible.64 Although Ratzinger is clearer here than is Balthasar, it should become evident by the end of this article that the Balthasarian-Speyrian perspective accounts for the problem that preoccupies Galot, Weinandy, and Torrell without replacing the visio immediata with an infused super-prophetic species. Furthermore, rather than designate Christ’s human knowledge as simply a “filial vision,” this approach sees the vision as properly Trinitarian in scope.65 This view manages to take the nescience passages of Scripture seriously without sacrificing what the hypostatic union implies by maintaining that Jesus possessed in exemplary fashion the dimension of trust that pertains to the virtue of faith, the certainty of his mission by virtue of his vision, the power to “deposit” or “lay up” in the Father both the fruitio beata in his passion and until the resurrection certain items of knowledge not pertinent to his mission at present (e.g., the time of the eschaton).66 Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 5–6. I owe this reference to Bruce D. Marshall (see his “Jesus’ Human Knowledge,” min. 4), which he thinks operates as the hermeneutical key that pervades Benedict’s entire “trilogy.” 65 Speyr appropriates knowing God to the Father as origin, loving God to the Son as beloved, and enjoying that knowledge and love to the Spirit as fruition, understanding the doctrine of appropriation; see, e.g., John, vol. 3, The Farewell Discourses: Meditations on John 13–17, trans. E. A. Nelson (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 214. 66 The nescience passages would, at least, suggest that despite Jesus’s vision of the Father, his earthly mind was not cognizant of all that would naturally be known of created things by the mind that is given understanding of the divine essence via the lumen gloriae (i.e., the blessed in heaven). Hence, Balthasar speaks a number of times of Christ “laying up” with the Father knowledge that is unnecessary to his mission (see Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, vol. 3, The Dramatis 64 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1027 Evaluating Balthasar on Christ’s Visio Beata (in the Passion) John Saward’s brief critical appraisal of Balthasar’s treatment of Christ’s experience of godforsakenness is the most persuasive argument in favor of the Thomistic view that Christ enjoyed his vision of the Father in the intellective appetite (i.e., human spiritual faculties) while suffering a kind of visio mortis in the concupiscent and irascible appetites (i.e., animal faculties). He utilizes John Paul the Great’s words concerning the co-existence of his “clear vision of God and the certainty of his union with the Father” and “the tragic experience of the most complete desolation”: “In the sphere of feelings and affection this sense of the absence and abandonment by God was the most acute pain for the soul of Jesus, who drew his strength and joy from union with the Father. This pain rendered more intense all the other sufferings. That lack of interior consolation was his greatest agony.”67 While John Paul’s adherence to the Scholastic tradition may be assumed, his words might also be interpreted in line with the theory he proposed as a possibility. But Saward concludes: “It is at least arguable that the greatest possible spiritual suffering is not so much the Godforsakenness of One who hitherto has enjoyed the vision of the Father but rather the feeling of God’s absence in a soul that still, at some level, rests in his presence. . . . A hint of what this coincidence of profound peace and acute anguish might mean is to be found in the great mystics.”68 Ordinarily in tune with Balthasar, Saward here interprets him to be at odds with the tradition without good reason.69 While I tend to agree with Saward’s assertion that Personae: The Person in Christ [hereafter, TD III], trans. Graham Harrison [San Francisco: Ignatius, 1993], 192 [German: Theodramatik, vol. II/2, Die Personen des Spiels: die Personen in Christus (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1978), 176]), even going so far as to say: “since all is obedience, he is moving toward the Father through this utter estrangement, but for the present he must not be allowed to know this” (Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, vol. 4, The Action [hereafter, TD IV], trans. Graham Harrison [San Francisco: Ignatius, 1994], 356 [German: Theodramatik, vol. III, Die Handlung (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1980), 332]). Concerning his mission-consciousness, see also TD III, 166 [German II/2:152]. 67 See John Paul’s General Audience of November 30, 1988, available in Jesus, Son and Savior [Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1996], 472), cited from the L’Osservatore Romano edition in John Saward, Mysteries of March: Hans Urs Von Balthasar on the Incarnation and Easter (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1990), 56. 68 Saward, Mysteries of March, 58 (emphasis original). 69 Saward quotes Balthasar’s Theo-Logic (see Mysteries of March, 166n49), where he asserts that the Thomistic position “seems quite incredible and cannot be salvaged by the arguments adduced” (Theo-Logic, vol. 2, Truth of God [hereafter, TL II], trans. Adrian J. Walker [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004], 287 [German: 1028 Joshua R. Brotherton “[Balthasar] seems to me to distinguish insufficiently between the feeling of abandonment and its reality,” again admirably citing a catechetical address from Pope John Paul II, I do not think it necessarily follows that Balthasar’s view of Christ’s passion “runs counter to the Scholastic view that from his conception, even during his Passion, Jesus as man was simul viator et comprehensor . . . enjoying the beatific vision of his Father, and yet feeling a sorrow surpassing all the suffering endured or endurable by men in this present life.” 70 In fact, Saward himself notes in passing that in place of the Scholastic depiction of Christ’s dereliction, “[Balthasar] would prefer to develop Adrienne’s intuitions about Christ having vision as ‘beholder’ and faith as ‘pilgrim,’” a thesis he notes is “apparently at odds with the traditional view” that Christ possessed the beatific vision during his earthly life. But he adds: “Balthasar and Adrienne try to get beyond the opposition of faith to sight. The Son as man does not like us ‘walk by faith,’ but he does have on earth ‘the form of vision most closely comparable to our faith’; (faith, in any case, as St. Thomas Aquinas perceived, is itself a kind of seeing, has its own light).”71 He does not elaborate on this latter point, which is precisely where the key to dissolving the tension lies, not in maintaining that faith and knowledge may co-exist per se, but in exploring one’s understanding of what constitutes the visio beata and its distinction from the concomitant fruitio beata. In other words, Saward and John Paul do not envision the possibility that Christ’s experience of abandonment is “all-consuming, enveloping and penetrating the whole of Our Lord’s soul,”72 excluding the perfect beatitude ordinarily consequent to perfect knowledge of God, but not the intellective solace of knowing by virtue of infused grace that God has not in fact abandoned him and enjoying the profound (intellective) peace that accompanies all mystical participation in the “dark night.”73 Not only does Balthasar not affirm outright that Christ’s soul suffered Theologik, vol. II, Wahrheit Gottes (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1985), 261]), but he is simply dismissing contemporary Thomistic articulations particularly, not necessarily the notion that Christ in some sense possessed full vision of the Father. 70 Saward, Mysteries of March, 55–56 (emphasis original). 71 Saward, Mysteries of March, 57 (emphasis added). 72 Saward, Mysteries of March, 55. Saward continues this sentence characterizing Balthasar’s understanding of such with the clause, “excluding, at any level, joy or beatitude,” which is precisely what I dispute here by way of distinction and qualification. 73 Hence, the charity that engulfs Christ’s soul exemplified in eminent fashion the knowledge and consolation that is intrinsic to the infused virtues of faith and hope, enjoyed by everyone who suffers in union with the love of God. The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1029 the pains of Sheol while his body lay in the tomb, but also nowhere does he state that the visio mortis involves utter loss of the visio immediata Dei.74 In fact, in a footnote to Christ’s descent as a “state of perdition” (not a place), Balthasar says: “Of course, this does not mean approval of Calvin’s doctrine, for the reason that the continuous visio immediata Dei in anima Christi makes his experience of hell wholly incommensurate with any other, gives it an ‘exemplary’, soteriological and trinitarian significance.” 75 In other words, the immediate vision of God in Christ (whether it be located in his human consciousness at all times or not) is precisely what permits him to suffer so incomparably with the sinners for whom he descends into the deepest regions of the earth. He experienced complete abandonment without actually losing the grace/charity connatural to his beatified soul, even if his psychological awareness of his own blessed state of grace was temporarily suspended in becoming the object of the infinity of his Father’s righteous anger.76 In this way, it was possible for Christ to suffer the worst hell possible, experiencing in his soul at the culminating point of his passion (i.e., death) what it means to “become accursed for us” (Gal 3:13), the solitary object of the Father’s wrath. Lois M. Miles recounts a double aspect of this “vision” in the symbolic language of Speyr’s competing metaphors: “Speyr does not attempt to unify the ideas of shapes or husks of sin within what she sees as an amorphous mass of melted and unrecognizable sin. These are two different aspects of sin in hell. There is the sin without the redeemed soul on which the Son gazes, the sin which he has discarded in hell. There is also the sin that the unredeemed sinner confronts and recognizes that this is who he is: this is his eternal state since he refused to repent. The Son contemplates sin in hell as an amorphous mass of objective sin, stripped away from any relationship to people as if it were sin without containers . . . These sins have a sensible reality to which the sinner has given something of his own form. One could recognize the sinner from the sin. Every person in hell must confront their own sin and recognize that this is now what they are. Because the Son has gathered together every sin of every sinner in the world, he confronts each sin as his own. This great amorphous mass of sin appears to von Speyr as if it were a river in hades that seems to include all ‘the sediment of the world, the sin, so heavy, that it wholly sinks until the bottom of everything’” (“Obedience of a Corpse: the Key to the Holy Saturday Writings of Adrienne von Speyr” [PhD diss., University of Aberdeen, 2013], 180–81). 75 Balthasar, Explorations, vol. 1, The Word Made Flesh, trans. A. V. Littledale and Alexandre Dru (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989), 264n20 [German: Verbum Caro: Skizzen zur theologie, vol. 1 (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1960), 285n6]. 76 “One cannot describe this Night of the Lord simply as an antithesis to Grace, because it is also Grace; it cannot be described as the negation of an abundance” (Speyr, Das Wort und die Mystik, vol. 1, Subjektive Mystik [Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1970], 109 [trans. Miles, “Obedience of a Corpse,” 109]). 74 1030 Joshua R. Brotherton However, one might argue that his position later evolved into one in which the hermeneutic of kenosis takes absolute priority. In the third volume of his Theo-Drama (volume II/2 in the German edition), for instance, Balthasar seems to feel compelled to deny the visio immediata in order to make sense of Christ’s mission of obedience in his earthly life, having assumed the fomes peccati: We can say that Jesus is aware of an element of the divine in his innermost, indivisible self-consciousness; it is intuitive insofar as it is inseparable from the intuition of his mission-consciousness, but it is defined and limited by this same mission-consciousness. It is of this, and of this alone, that he has a visio immediata, and we have no reason to suggest this visio of the divine is supplemented by another, as it were, purely theoretical content, over and above his mission. Of course, the particular shape of the mission (which draws its universality from its identity with the self-consciousness of this particular “I”) can contain a wealth of content, successively revealed, but its source and measure remain the mission itself. . . . Since Jesus does not see the Father in a ‘visio beatifica’ but is presented with the Father’s commission by the Holy Spirit, that is, his awareness of his mission is only indirect, it is possible for him to be tempted.77 Balthasar rightly asserts that it is not necessary to conclude from the hypostatic union to a perfect vision of God’s essence in Christ’s human mind, which is traditionally thought to involve knowledge of all things as caused by God. But he seems to assume this means Christ did not actually possess perfect knowledge of the divine essence, which had to be suspended for the sake of the mission of obedience in solidarity with sinful mankind. Thus, David Stuart Yeago challenges the idea that Balthasar assumes the traditional position on Christ’s possession of the beatific vision, arguing that for him Christ’s self-consciousness is simply his mission-consciousness, which is simply not enough. On the basis of some texts from the third volume of the Theo-Drama, Yeago states: Balthasar, TD III, 166, 200 [German II/2:152, 183] (emphasis added). He further explains his position on 172–73 [German II/2:158]. In the last sentence, there is a mistranslation of unmittelbar as “indirect,” when it should read “immediate” (or “direct”), as Randall Rosenberg notes (“Christ’s Human Knowledge: a Conversation with Lonergan and Balthasar,” Theological Studies 71 [2010]: 817–45, at 828n55). 77 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1031 Thus for von Balthasar Jesus’ knowledge that he is the Son of God is simply identical with his knowledge of his mission: to know oneself as primordially the bearer of such a mission—a mission of universal scope and unsurpassable significance—is to know oneself a divine, even if one does not and could not form for oneself the sentence, “I am divine.” And to know oneself to be related to the Father by this commission is to know oneself as the unique Son of the Father, even if one has no “theoretical” awareness of the metaphysical implications of this relationship. On this same basis, von Balthasar simply denies the traditional position (recently affirmed in a strong form by Karl Rahner) that this self-knowledge implies the possession by Jesus of the visio immediata of the divine nature in his earthly career. Jesus’ knowledge of himself as Son and of God as his Father is contained within his knowledge of his task, mediated to him by the Holy Spirit, and this mode of consciousness of his identity “excludes” the beatific vision. As von Balthasar points out, “mission essentially presses forward” towards its fulfillment, and therefore consciousness of mission is not compatible with the beatific vision. The “contemplative moments” within the mission “mean no interruption in the life of mission, but rather the ever-new enabling of perseverance in it.” 78 He adds the following note: Balthasar adds in parentheses “zumindest zeitweise” which, whether zeitweise is to be taken as “sometimes” or “for a time,” seems to leave open the possibility that Jesus could have experienced the beatific vision as one experience within his life, though not as an abiding constituent of his life. The analogy to Christian mystical experience invoked on p. 180 may be the background to this; von Balthasar may have in mind episodes in the Gospels such as the Transfiguration and Jesus’ ecstatic rejoicing in the Spirit (Lk 10:21-24).” 79 Thus, he thinks that, according to Balthasar’s reasoning, not only does Christ’s consciousness of his divine mission not entail perfect vision of the Godhead, but it is actually befitting of his kenosis that he not possess the beatific vision.80 David Stuart Yeago, “The Drama of Nature and Grace: A Study in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1992), 149–51. 79 Yeago, “Drama of Nature and Grace,” 151n59. 80 Yeago also notes that, while Balthasar “borrowed from Rahner several import78 1032 Joshua R. Brotherton Still, in volume IV, Balthasar is clearly struggling with how best to do justice to Christ’s experience of abandonment, suggesting that Thomas’s insistence upon Christ’s beatific vision hinders his ability to develop further conclusions regarding the immensity of Christ’s suffering: When Thomas comes to speak of Christ’s sufferings—which, in contrast to Anselm, he does regard as having a value as satisfactio (49, 1-5)—his portrayal is strangely flat, almost moralizing in tone, in spite of all the superlatives he employs. He goes through the Passion narratives (46, 5) and gives why Christ has endured “all human sufferings” (if not secundum species, then secundum genus); he suggests why his pains were greater than any that can be experienced in this life (explicitly excluding hell: 46, 6, cf. obj. 3); but all the time he is careful to insist that, during the Passion, Christ could not lose the blessed vision of God: “God was never a cause of grief to his soul”: 46, 7. . . . Finally, it is strange that Thomas, who had given a thorough account of the sufferings of Christ’s soul, should later prefer to describe the Passion as a bodily event in a way that almost recalls Athanasius. There is no emphasis whatsoever on Christ’s abandonment by God as the center of the Passion. 81 This, despite the fact that Thomas, he says, holds that Jesus “possessed similitudinem peccati in carne” and mentions Christ’s abandonment “once, in order to show that the Father did not hinder the Son from suffering.”82 While the third volume of his Theo-Drama gets the most attention on this score, there are a number of other places in the “great trilogy” (Glory of the Lord, Theo-Drama, and Theo-Logic) where Balthasar grapples with the problem of Christ’s “immediate vision of God.”83 Hence, as Matthew ant conceptual moves, especially the notion that not-knowing can under some circumstances be a perfection of human agency . . . and the notion of an implicit self-knowledge that gradually becomes explicit in and through a personal history,” Rahner presents Jesus’s visio immediata of God “as a direct consequence of the hypostatic union,” rather than arguing from fittingness (convenientia) (“Drama of Nature and Grace,” 150n58). 81 TD IV, 263–64 [German III:243–44]. 82 TD IV, 263 and 264n12. 83 In the seventh volume of the Glory of the Lord (original German published in 1969), Balthasar in passing merely allows for the possibility that Christ need not possess the visio beatifica, not asserting its absence (as Lyra Pitstick claims in her Light in Darkness: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ’s Descent into Hell [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007], 166) or actually treating the question: “The deepest experience of abandonment by God, which is to be The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1033 Levering points out: “It is worth noting that volume V was published five years after volume III. In the later volume, Balthasar is taking the opportunity to clarify some of the positions adopted in the earlier volume, and he goes over much of the same terrain again in volume II of the Theologik.”84 Nonetheless, it all occurs in the context of Christ’s “mission-consciousness,” which is fulfilled in absolute obedience to the Father’s will that he suffer the cursedness of sin itself and conquer it in resurrection. In the final volume of the Theo-Drama (Das Endspiel), he seems to have obtained greater clarity on the matter, without of course treating it with Scholastic precision. He wants to deny Christ’s human (conscious) mind full access to the beatific vision that is connatural to him by virtue of his union with the Father during the Passion. 85 Thus, relying on volume V of the Theo-Drama (pp. 123–25), Matthew Levering concludes: Balthasar’s insistence that Jesus must enjoy the immediate vision of the Father is likewise qualified. He emphasizes that “in the Lord’s Passion his sight is veiled, whereas his obedience remains intact.” This veiling holds for Jesus’ entire life, if not to the same degree as the ultimate not-knowing Jesus experiences on the Cross: his mission “presupposes (right from the Incarnation) a certain veiling of his sight of the Father: he must leave it in abeyance, refrain from using it; this is possible because of the distance between Father and Son in the Trinity.”86 vicariously real in the Passion, presupposes an equally deep experience of being united to God and of life derived from the Father—an experience that the Son must have had, not only in Heaven, but also as a man, even if this does not mean that his spirit must already enjoy a perpetual visio beatifica. Only one who has known the genuine intimacy of love, can be genuinely abandoned (not merely lonely)” (Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 7, Theology: The New Covenant, trans. Brian McNeil, ed. John Riches [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989], 216 [German: Herrlichkeit: Eine Theologische Ästhetik, vol. III/2: Theologie: Neuzeit (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1969), 200]). 84 Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 128n88. 85 See Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, vol. 5, The Final Act [hereafter, TD V], trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1998), 123–24 [German: Theodramtik, vol. IV, Das Endspiel (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1983), 107–8]. He also there attributes a sort of faith to Christ’s obedience, which will be discussed shortly. 86 Matther Levering, “Balthasar on Christ’s Consciousness on the Cross,” The Thomist 65, no. 4 (2001): 567–81, at 577; see also Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, 128. Hence, it is also true that, for Balthasar, “the Son’s obedience on the Cross, in 1034 Joshua R. Brotherton This kind of approach to Christ’s knowledge is similar to that of Jacques Maritain in his last book, De la grace et de l’humanite de Jesus.87 Distinguishing between the supra-conscious and infra-conscious dimensions of the human mind, discovered by modern psychology, Maritain holds that Christ’s supra-conscious enjoys perfect knowledge of God, while His infra-conscious mind grows in “wisdom and grace” (Luke 2: 52).88 Independently concurring with Balthasar on the profundity of Christ’s intellectual suffering, he goes so far as to say: At the moment of the Agony and of the Passion He can no longer enter there [his nest of refuge in the Father], He is barred from it by uncrossable barriers, this is why He feels himself abandoned. That has been the supreme exemplar of the night of the spirit of the mystics, the absolutely complete night. The whole world of the Vision and of the divinized supraconscious was there, but He no longer experienced it at all through His infused contemplation. And likewise the radiance and the influx of this world on the entire soul were more powerful than ever, but were no longer seized at all by the consciousness, nor experienced. Jesus was more than ever order to bear sin fully, must be characterized by two elements: absolute faithfulness, and absolute lack of grounding in knowledge. Jesus only moves to the pinnacle of obedience (the pinnacle of union with the Father’s will) by simultaneously entering the abyss of not-knowing. The highest obedience—the highest charity—is that which obeys without conscious knowledge or hope” (Scripture and Metaphysics, 131). I take “lack of grounding in knowledge” to indicate Balthasar’s notion of “laying up” or “depositing” with the Father the knowledge not necessary for his mission at present. This is a very Ignatian understanding of obedience, as Miles elucidates throughout “Obedience of a Corpse.” 87 For interesting reflections on the distinct planes of consciousness in Christ, see Maritain, On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus, 48–61 [originally De la grace et de l’humanité de Jesus (Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1967), 50–63]. 88 See Maritain, On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus, especially 49, 55–58. Andrew V. Rosato recently contested Maritain’s thesis that Christ’s humanity grows in grace, defending Aquinas’s position against Maritain’s attempts to revise it (see “Aquinas and Maritain on Whether Christ’s Habitual Grace Could Increase,” Nova et Vetera [English] 15, no. 2 [2017]: 527–46). Essentially, the debate is about whether Christ’s soul grew in habitual grace or simply auxiliae. Rosato does not get at the heart of the issue, which is the reality that habits are perfected through acts enabled by particular graces (auxiliae) and that there must not be anything sinful in Christ’s soul for the habitus of grace and charity to grow in this manner. Thus, it is not adequate to speak only of a growth in the manifestations of Christ’s habitual grace, as if habitual grace is not perfected through particular works, operative grace brought to fruition by cooperative graces. The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1035 united with the Father, but in the terror and the sweat of blood, and in the experience of dereliction. 89 Yet, Maritain’s treatment of Christ’s consciousness also differs from Balthasar’s, invoking a “partition” in Christ’s soul, something Balthasar will oppose.90 In an attempt to try to reconcile Christ’s enduring vision of the Father with his suffering the loss of experiencing it, Maritain says concerning the passion: In one sense—in the sense that He had the Vision of the divine essence—He was indeed blessed (III, 9, 2 ad 2), and even during His Passion (46, 8), in that which St. Thomas calls the higher part of the soul and which we call the divinized supraconscious of the latter. But, St. Thomas teaches, there was no derivation or redundantia, there was no repercussion of the higher part on the lower part, this is why the Beatific Vision has not at all prevented the suffering of Christ, in His Passion, from being greater than all the sufferings (46, 6)—Dum Christus erat viator, non fiebat redundantia gloriae a superiori parte (animae) in inferiorem, ne ab anima in corpus (46, 8). In this assertion of St. Thomas one finds an indication, quite inchoative no doubt and merely sketched, but valuable, of the notion of “partition,” in the soul of Christ, between the world of the Beatific Vision and that of the conscious faculties, which I introduce here, and to which I attach a particular importance.91 Meanwhile, in the second volume of the Theo-Logic, Balthasar very briefly criticizes similar Thomistic treatments of the issue: Maritain, On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus, 61 [F 64]. Hence, Maritain may have accepted a Balthasarian view of the descent. See also Maritain, “Beginning with a Reverie,” in The Collected Works of Jacques Maritain, vol. 20, Untrammeled Approaches, trans. Bernard Doering (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 3–26, at 11n13; Maritain, Approaches sans Entraves (Paris: Librairie Arthem Fayard, 1973), 15n12. But he, like Ratzinger, does not project Christ’s sufferings into the Trinitarian processions. 90 Although Maritain speaks of “partition” in Christ’s consciousness between “the supra-conscious of the spirit divinized by the beatific vision” (On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus, 55; cf. 50), which takes the place in Christ of man’s “pre-conscious of the spirit” (49n2; cf. 56, 58), and the “infra-conscious” plane of experimental/acquired knowledge (that is, his ordinary human consciousness), Maritain strives to maintain Christ’s psychological unity (see especially 68, 77), particularly by reflecting on the influence of the former upon the latter (see 101–8). 91 Maritatin, On the Grace and Humanity, 60n15. 89 1036 Joshua R. Brotherton One can only regret here that Johannes Stohr . . . rehashes the old Thomistic theses on this point, relying above all on the incorrigible school Thomist B. de Margerie, S.J. The claim that on the Cross Jesus experiences the beatific vision in the “apex of the soul,” whereas the “lower parts of his soul” experience Godforsakenness, is especially incredible today and cannot be rescued with the arguments these authors have advanced.92 Notice, however, that this criticism does not apply to what Thomas himself says: It is evident that Christ’s whole soul suffered. . . . Christ’s “higher reason” did not suffer thereby on the part of its object, which is God, who was the cause, not of grief, but rather of delight and joy, to the soul of Christ. Nevertheless, all the powers of Christ’s soul did suffer according as any faculty is said to be affected as regarded its subject, because all the faculties of Christ’s soul were rooted in its essence, to which suffering extended while the body, whose act it is, suffered.93 More significantly, this parenthetical criticism appears in a footnote to the following main text: Von Speyr maintains almost always that on earth the Son possessed Balthasar, TL II, 28n9 [German II:261n9]. The same applies to M.-J. Nicolas, whom Jacques Servais quotes in support of his very brief argument that Balthasar maintained the traditional position on Christ’s beatific knowledge and merely intended to reject Thomas’s doctrine of fruitio beata in the experience of Calvary: “It is one thing to say that the vision of the divine essence remained during the most profound throes of the Cross; it is something else to say that it was entirely beatific. It did not in fact affect the lower powers that Jesus fully abandoned to their natural objects and to all the causes of suffering. But . . . Saint Thomas clarifies that the soul itself, being by its essence the form of the body, was the subject of the Passion while it was also the subject of beatitude. It is the same being that at once suffers and enjoys” (Nicolas, Somme theologique, vol. 4 [Paris, 1986], 343; quoted in Servais, To the Heart of the Mystery of Redemption, trans. Anne Englund Nash [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010], 102–21 [“Postscript”], at 103n2). His main contention is that Balthasar does not go so far as to oppose the condemnation of the following proposition by the Holy Office in June 5, 1918: “It is not certain that there was in the soul of Christ, while he was living among men, the knowledge possessed by the blessed or those who have the beatific vision” (DS, no. 3645). 93 ST III, q. 46, a. 7 (emphasis added by Thomas Joseph White in “Jesus’ Cry on the Cross,” Nova et Vetera [English] 5, no. 3 [2007]: 555–82, at 575n54). 92 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1037 the vision of the Father. It is rare that she speaks of Christ’s faith. But we also find her saying that Jesus’ obedience existed despite this vision or that as comprehensor [comprehender] he had vision and as viator [wayfarer] faith or that vision could veil itself into obedience.94 After noting that Adrienne von Speyr attributes the vision of the Father to Christ as comprehensor and faith to Christ as viator exercising obedience to the Father, Balthasar argues that because “in his human nature he must experience how man comes to terms with God,” “we can speak of a depositing, a dimming, a non-use of his divine vision; his prayer must spring from his having become man.”95 Applying this kind of reasoning to the contentious topic of Christ’s hellish suffering, Balthasar speaks of an “absolute overtaxing of knowledge” involved in the descent, wherein, “because he is dead, he cannot know [his victory, the sin separated from man on the Cross] as what he has made it to be. He can only ‘take cognizance’ of it as the fearsome agglomeration of all sins that no longer has the slightest connection with the Father who is the good Creator.”96 Somewhat similar to Maritain’s distinction between supra-consciousness or pre-consciousness and infra-consciousness (or simply, consciousness) is Lonergan’s distinction between conscientia-experientia and conscientia-perceptio. The former is the “unstructured awareness of oneself and one’s acts” or a “certain presence of oneself to oneself,” whereas the latter is the reflexive knowledge of oneself as an object in a world of objects.97 This distinction between one’s original consciousness of oneself (and one’s acts) and one’s conceptualization of this experience, like Maritain’s distinction between the pre-conscious mind and the conscious mind, does not directly translate into the distinction between Christ’s visio immediata (or “divinized supra-conscious of the spirit”) and his acquired or experimental knowledge (i.e., ordinary human object-consciousness). Nonetheless, as Aaron Pidel, S.J., recounts: Applying conscientia-experientia to the case of Christ’s human knowledge turns out to have several advantages. First and foremost, it eliminates a tendency to posit an exaggerated psychological Balthasar, TL II, 286–287 [German II:261]. Speyr even says, “[Mary] knows somehow about his vision of the Father, about his beatific vision of the Father” (Subjektive Mystik, 86, trans. Sutton, Heaven Opens, Kindle loc. 1778). 95 TL II, 288 [German II:262–63]. 96 TL II, 348 [German II:317–18]. 97 See Lonergan, Ontological and Psychological Constitution, 165 and 187. 94 1038 Joshua R. Brotherton dichotomy in Christ. If the “I” belongs to person and consciousness belongs to nature, then there is in Christ one divine “I” experiencing himself ex parte subiecti through both divine and human consciousness. If the Word were present to Christ’s human consciousness only ex parte obiecti, on the other hand, this would introduce a sort of unbridgeable chasm between the humanity and divinity of Christ. The human nature of Christ, conceived in this case almost as an autonomous “I,” would gaze at Word from an infinite distance.98 In other words, Christ’s visio immediata, unlike in the case of every other blessed soul, exists in the form of self-consciousness. Hence, for Lonergan, Christ’s immediate knowledge of the divine essence is implied in Christ’s awareness (or understanding) of his own identity. Pidel also alludes to the fact that Balthasar’s difficulties with conceptualizing the doctrine concerning Christ’s beatific vision in life may derive from his understanding of what precisely constitutes the visio beata: “Mission-consciousness” is sufficient to ground Christ’s “suprahistorical radiance.” Here Balthasar parts company with Lonergan, who sees scientia beata as the condition for the possibility of revelation. . . . This ostensible disagreement owes much to Balthasar’s hyper-literal understanding of the “beatific vision.” What Balthasar actually affirms of Christ comes close to what Lonergan affirms in Christ’s “ineffable knowledge.” Despite his reservations about the beatific vision, Balthasar depicts Christ, in substance, as a qualitatively unique comprehensor. He acknowledges that the theological tradition that would ascribe to Christ “everything knowable to man” is “long,” “serious,” and “solidly based on a biblical theme.”99 While diverging from Pius XII’s characterization of Christ’s visio in Mystici Corporis,100 Balthasar’s main qualm seems to be the necessity of denying to Christ knowledge of certain contingent objects that would ordinarily pertain to the beatific vision, as perfect understanding of the causa prima entails perfect understanding of all the effects pre-existent therein. But there is nothing to prevent God from possibly withholding particular Aaron Pidel, S.J., “The Consciousness and Human Knowledge of Christ according to Lonergan and Balthasar,” Lumen et Vita 1, no. 1 ( June 2011): 1–25, at 6. 99 Pidel, “Consciousness and Human Knowledge,” 15–16. He relies here on TD III alone. 100 DS, no. 3812. 98 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1039 items of knowledge (in addition to the possibilia commonly thought to be inaccessible to creatures) from one who possesses the immediate vision of God, as Lonergan seems to admit.101 Thus, understanding Christ’s vision in terms of “mission-consciousness,” whereby Jesus knows whatever the Father chooses to reveal to him in the moment, is Balthasar’s way of avoiding both a naïve conception of it as well as an overly abstract understanding of it. The former would paint a “pious picture” of “the little Child playing with pieces of wood in the form of a cross,” that is, of Jesus as an infant knowing the details of his future.102 The latter creates a division between the “upper regions” and “lower regions” of Christ’s soul, which Balthasar thinks undermines Christ’s humanity.103 Thus, Pidel is right to characterize the notion of the visio rejected by Balthasar as “a sort of discursive omniscience.”104 Whereas Pidel thinks that Balthasar’s conception of beatific knowledge in Christ is limited by “the ocular metaphor,”105 Randall Rosenberg notes This is implied, for instance, in Lonergan’s definition of Christ’s beatific knowledge: “to know the triune God through the divine essence and, in proportion to the perfection of this knowledge, to know all other things in God as secondary objects” (see Ontological and Psychological Constitution, 206–7, referencing ST I, q. 12, and III, q. 10). Charles Hefling, likewise, notes that for Lonergan Christ’s scientia ineffabilis is stripped of anything “empirically residual” (“Lonergan on Christ’s [Self-]Knowledge,” Lonergan Workshop 20 [2008]: 127–64, at 152). Hence, Pidel asserts, based on Lonergan’s distinction between effable and ineffable knowledge in Christ, that “Christ does not, therefore, ‘see’ a detailed trajectory of his life,” as “both Christ’s immediate knowledge of the Trinity and his knowledge mediated ‘in the Word’ are beyond conceptualization and verbalization” (10–11). But this kind of approach would have to take into account the tradition of Christ’s infused knowledge as the means by which the ineffable is rendered effable in some sense. 102 TD III, 173 [German II/2:158]. Thus, in the same place, he criticizes Aquinas for teaching that Jesus could only learn from things, not persons, as the latter would be unbefitting to his dignity (see ST III, q. 12, a. 3). 103 TD III, 196 [German II/2:180]. 104 Pidel, “Consciousness and Human Knowledge,” 19. 105 Pidel, “Consciousness and Human Knowledge,” 18. I think, rather, that Balthasar’s misgivings revolve around the question of the contingency of “secondary objects,” perhaps unbeknownst to him. Miles (as will be seen later) discerns in Balthasar the Scotistic view that the “vision” (i.e., supernatural beatitude) is constituted by perfect love, rather than perfect understanding. Miles notes that, for Speyr: “[In] the surrender of the consolation of seeing with spiritual eyes such as in the beatific vision, . . . the ‘optical’ loss can be construed as epistemological if one equates seeing with knowing and understanding with enlightenment. This distinction makes no difference in von Speyr’s thought, however, since she also maintains that the Son surrenders his understanding to the Father in Suscipean Bereitschaft” (“Obedience of a Corpse,” 165). 101 1040 Joshua R. Brotherton that Balthasar’s reticence to use the terminology of visio is due precisely to his judgment that “describing God’s entrusting of himself to us as a visio Dei is always an inadequate and one-sided portrayal of this open encounter, since God can never be an object totally available to our sight.”106 He adds with Balthasar: “Only by conceiving this reality as a trinitarian event rather than as ‘the abstract contemplation of essence’ can we hold together the ‘interplay of vision and nonvision.’”107 Of course, all of this comes to a head in the question of Christ’s consciousness in his passion and death, where his experience of abandonment seems to exclude the possibility of an enduring beatific bliss. Thus, it is not enough to say that “the content of his visio immediata is his mission,” as does Rosenberg,108 because comprehension of his mission implies complete understanding of the divine essence, since his missio and processio are identical, as Balthasar frequently asserts,109 even if Christ kenotically suspends access to everything that would ordinarily be included in the visio immediata Dei. Moreover, asserting along with Lyra Pitstick a distinction in Balthasar between visio beatifica and visio immediata, Rosenberg states: “Balthasar often denies Jesus the beatific vision, but grants him an immediate vision.”110 I maintain that this is not so much a technical distinction in Balthasar as it is a preference for different terminology, given that, in his view, Christ’s suffering in the passion-descent must exclude beatific joy. Finally, Rosenberg notes that, in volume III of the Theo-Drama, Balthasar attributes faith as defined in Hebrews 11:1 to Christ in his economic assumption of ignorance concerning the details of his own future, contrary to what the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will later teach in opposition to the work of Jon Sobrino, S.J., namely, that faith even in an exemplary form cannot be attributed to Christ’s human soul.111 Therefore, to complete the present Balthasarian-Speyrian TD V, 395–96, cited in Rosenberg, “Christ’s Human Knowledge,” 829. Here there is convergence with Lonergan, but his remedy to the inadequacy is more Speyrian than Thomistic. The predominant influence of the Eastern Fathers on Balthasar’s conception of heaven is palpable in TD V, 395–407 [German IV:361–73]. 107 Rosenberg, “Christ’s Human Knowledge,” 829, quoting TD V, 407. 108 Rosenberg, “Christ’s Human Knowledge,” 828. 109 See, e.g.: TD V, 80–81, 124 [German IV:70–71, 108]; TD III, 154, 173, 201 [German II/2142, 158, 184]. 110 Rosenberg, “Christ’s Human Knowledge,” 828. 111 See: TD III, 171 [German II/2:157]; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Notification on the Works of Father Jon Sobrino SJ (1991–1992), §8, available at the Vatican Website, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20061126_notification-sobrino_en.html; Rosenberg, “Christ’s Human Knowledge,” 826. 106 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1041 consideration of the nature of Christ’s enduring visio, it is necessary to examine an earlier explicit treatment of faith in Christ. Balthasar and Speyr on Faith and Vision in Christ One might be tempted to think that Balthasar did not accept the doctrine of Christ’s visio immediata because he clearly held that Christ possessed the virtue of faith (albeit, in an exemplary manner), but this is to misunderstand in which sense he attributes faith to Jesus. In a relatively early essay entitled “‘Fides Christi’: An Essay on the Consciousness of Christ,” he tackles the issue.112 Scripture scholars will immediately think here of the unending debate about the meaning of πίστις Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ (see Gal 2:16, 20; 3:22; Eph 3:12; Phil 3:9; Rom 3:22, 26).113 Balthasar does not try to resolve the technical question concerning whether the genitive in question (“the faith of Christ Jesus”) is objective or subjective, but he is happy to conclude that “it is a third term towering over both.”114 This conclusion reflects his understanding of how faith may be ascribed to Christ (during both his earthly life and heavenly glory). His fundamental argument is that Jesus possessed (and possesses) faith as it is conceived in the Old Testament, not as it is conceived in the New. The former functions in a provisional manner, as Old Covenant gives way to New, but it essentially signifies God’s own fidelity to His people. Thus, he opens his essay with the following argument: If it is true that the Bible as a whole increasingly uses the term faith (in growing measure up to the prophets, and especially Isaiah) as the adequate expression for the way the chosen people related to God; and thus, if within this framework, this term also truly reflects how the individual members of the people of God related to their God of the Covenant; if indeed the Biblical idea of faith includes even more so God’s faithfulness toward his people and assumes that this fidelity is a presupposition and prototype to be imitated (recall that the Hebraic term encompasses more shades of meaning than the Greek); then, speaking a priori, it cannot be otherwise in the case of Jesus.115 See Balthasar, Explorations in Theology, vol. 2, Spouse of the Word, trans. A. V. Littledale and Alexander Dru. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 43–79. 113 These are the passages Balthasar cites in Explorations, 2:57n15. 114 Balthasar, Explorations, 2:57. 115 Balthasar, Explorations, 2:43. 112 1042 Joshua R. Brotherton He later adds, in response to Aquinas’s objections to the notion that Christ could possess faith on the basis of Christ’s possession of the beatific vision:116 Now if we proceed only from the concept of faith based on the specific differences between the meaning of faith in the New Testament in its relation to the Old, then this conclusion is unavoidable. But if we keep in mind that the New Testament concept completes and perfects the Old Testament concept, fully displaying its crucial priority, then we will not automatically emphasize the moment of negativity (the nonseeing) and thus the provisionality of the attitude of faith. To do so would obscure the perfection already lurking in the very core of faith itself: faith’s definitive nature, which expresses the complete correspondence between God’s fidelity and man’s fidelity, would be overshadowed.117 He does not, therefore, reject the position of Aquinas, or, for that matter, the position of Augustine and Bonaventure,118 that faith and vision are mutually exclusive, that is, when faith is conceived as provisional (in the New Testament manner). Hence, he also states: If one simply juxtaposes the Platonic-Aristotelian concept of intuitive or conceptual vision with the New Testament concept of faith, then of course Thomas is absolutely right: one cannot at the same time see and believe something. Faith by definition is an assent to something as true, based on what authority says rather than what the evidence of one’s own senses attests. However, this answer to the limitations of Greek thought does not mean that the fullness of the act and attitude of faith of the Old Testament have thereby been exhaustively described, particularly in its central dynamism.119 See ST III, q. 7, a. 3 (cited on Balthasar, Explorations, 2:64–65). He also notes without citation concerning the impossibility of faith in Christ: “Not only do the scholastic theologians speak this way, but we find even Augustine already saying this” (65). 117 Balthasar, Explorations, 2:65 (emphasis original). 118 Balthasar, See Explorations, 2:69. 119 Balthasar, Explorations, 2:65–66. He also explains: “The man who is perfect before God, Jesus Christ, cannot possibly relate with indifference to this integration of the true attitude of man to God as it took shape in the course of the Old Testament. It is only if we look at the distinctive New Testament meaning in the Greek term pistis (which means holding the announced kerygma to be true as well as the 116 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1043 In other words, if faith is conceived simply as a virtue of the intellect, then Christ has no need of it; but if it is conceived in a broader manner, similarly to the sense in which hope can be attributed to Christ’s soul,120 then it may be ascribed to him. Hence, while “the darkness and enigmatic obscurity in the knowledge that faith provides, which seems to be an essential feature of it,” because “the sight of the countenance of God makes the act of faith interiorly impossible,”121 insofar as it is synonymous with trust or self-surrender, “he [Jesus] is the only one who possesses this attitude in all its fullness and who can impart it to those who have entrusted themselves to him.”122 Again, “precisely in this dimension of faith as struggle [see Rom 1:17] one is linked with what faith must have been for Jesus himself.”123 Thus, he thinks that there is some sense in which the blessed in heaven also possess faith. He cites Matthew of Aquasparta, who, despite agreeing with the scholastic consensus “on the logical ground of a wholly intellectual definition of faith,”124 nonetheless introduces a caveat, arguing that because the beatific vision does not “grasp God exhaustively” (as Aquinas teaches as well),125 “they therefore come to appreciate God ever more as the One who is ever greater than what they see . . . in this sense it would not be inappropriate to say that the blessed believe something because they do not know everything.”126 Balthasar does not fail to note that he is not in total agreement with Aquinas on the matter when he alludes to his preference for Durandus and Gerson, noting that while the latter “sought to have the habitus individual statements either contained in it or implied by it) that we will of course have to admit that Christ, who is the essential content of this kerygma, has nothing to do with this kind of faith. In this sense he stands over faith” (51). 120 “Christ’s foreknowledge has not hindered his hope. Hope does not need to be uncertain. On the contrary: uncertainty is the worm in the fruit of hope and stands in contrast to its formal object. Thus infallible hope is the most perfect hope. The saints in heaven, however, hope in the sense of their earthly mission: Peter hopes for the visible Church; Christ, however, hopes for the salvation of the whole world” (Balthasar, Explorations, 2:67). Aquinas also says hope in some sense can exist in Christ, as Balthasar notes (see 67); see ST III, q. 7, a. 4. 121 Balthasar, Explorations, 2:69. 122 Balthasar, Explorations, 2:54. 123 Balthasar, Explorations, 2:62. 124 Balthasar, Explorations, 2:69. 125 See Aquinas’s distinction between immediate vision of the divine essence and comprehension of it, which God alone possesses in Summa contra gentiles III, chs. 51 and 55. 126 Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de fide, q. 6, ad 3, cited in Balthasar, Explorations, 2:69. 1044 Joshua R. Brotherton fidei continue on in the visio even without the act of faith,” Aquinas “in contrast, felt that this held true only for certain features of faith: its certainty and steadfastness.”127 He does not seek to refute the latter, but he adds concerning the former that they returned to the “oldest interpretations” of 1 Corinthians 13:13 in Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Origen, according to Paul Henry’s analysis. Therefore, he concludes: “The love that believes all and hopes all (1 Cor 13:7) will never die out, ‘and so there remain (nuni de menei) these three: faith, hope and love.’”128 Henry Donneaud challenges this account of faith by pointing out that the material and formal objects of both faith and (beatific) vision are the same. Perhaps he is right to question the assertion that the dynamism of abandonment and surrender in the midst of obscurity continues into the blessed afterlife.129 Nonetheless, there is a rich tradition of epektasis (roughly translated as “upward striving”) in the East, particularly, St. Gregory of Nyssa,130 whose influence on Balthasar, alongside St. Gregory of Nazianzus and Origen, is easily discernible throughout his work.131 Leaving aside the details of this ancient debate, it is also noteworthy that what Balthasar calls Old Testament faith is precisely the notion of faith that Martin Luther advances over the Scholastic theology of the three infused virtues.132 In any case, it is evident from what has been said that Balthasar’s qualified attribution of faith to Christ does not stand against the doctrine of Christ’s possession of the beatific vision during his earthly life.133 Hence, in the first Balthassar, Explorations II, 70. Note that even Durandus and Gerson (and, thus, also Balthasar) here remain in line with Benedictus Deus, where Benedict XII declares that “such a vision and enjoyment of the divine essence [in the blessed] do away with the acts of faith and hope in these souls, inasmuch as faith and hope are properly theological virtues” (DS, no. 1001 [emphasis added]). 128 Balthasar, Explorations, 2:70. 129 See Henry Donneaud, O.P., “Hans Urs von Balthasar contre saint Thomas d’Aquin sur la foi du Christ,” Revue thomiste 97, no. 2 (1997): 335–54, at 353. 130 See his The Life of Moses, trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Paulist, 1978). 131 The same kind of conception of divine life as “eternal increase” is present also in Adrienne von Speyr (see, e.g., John, 3:251). 132 For faith as trust or confidence [Zuversicht], see Martin Luther, “Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans,” trans. E. Theodore Bachman, in Luther’s Works, vol. 35, ed. E. Theodore Bachmann (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960), 370–71. Pope Benedict XVI favors Aquinas to Luther in Spe Salvi; see Adam G. Cooper, “Hope, A Mode of Faith: Aquinas, Luther and Benedict XVI on Hebrews 11:1,” Heythrop Journal 53 (2012): 182–90. I thank Michael Root for the Luther reference. 133 For Speyrian reference to the co-existence of knowledge and faith (super-excellently) in God, see, e.g., Balthasar, TD V, 97, 124 [German IV:85, 108]. 127 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1045 volume of the trilogy, he affirms the co-existence of the two in Christ: In christological terms this universal Biblical structure at the very least means that the visio immediata which Christ has of the Father (that is, of God) may fluctuate between the mode of manifestness (which befits the Son as his “glory”) and the mode of “concealment” (which befits the Servant of Yahweh in the hiddenness of his Passion). . . . A living faith is content to stand before the face of the God who sees, whether or not one sees him oneself. . . . He, proclaiming the Word of the Father, is always coming from the vision of the Father, that he always has this vision “at his back,” as it were, while he is in the process of accomplishing his mission; and it also means . . . that he is always on this way back to the Father.134 Based on this and other texts, in a dissertation on Adrienne von Speyr, Miles opines that Speyr and Balthasar share a view of the beatific vision that is more Scotistic than Thomistic, that is, as primarily a union of love rather than of knowledge, even if Balthasar sometimes also seems to incorporate the Thomistic understanding.135 This enables Miles to explain the apparent discrepancy between Balthasar’s Speyrian admission that Christ possesses perfect vision of the Father (in the manner willed by the Father, according to the present moment of Christ’s missionary purpose) and his reluctance at times to grant that Christ was endowed with the beatific vision during his earthly life. Thus, Miles implies that while Balthasar may deny presence of the beatific vision in Christ’s earthly consciousness when Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 1, Seeing the Form, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, ed. Joseph Fessio, S.J., and John Riches (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982), 329 (cited in Miles, “Obedience of a Corpse,” 121). Speyr also says about Christ’s consciousness, particularly during his passion: “The Lord comes out of the eternity of the Father, bringing his entire vision with him. Not until death does he attain the full poverty of being nothing but human, which a human person already has at birth. His death, fundamentally, is his birth. Here too he first lives through the experience of total forsakenness” (John, 3:283). Speyr is not here denying the hypostatic union (see Miles, “Obedience of a Corpse,” 165), as a literalist interpretation (a la Pitstick) would insist, but rather reflecting on the profundity of humility exercised in the Incarnation. What Speyr conveys here is that each of the two apparently opposite truths—namely, Christ’s immediate scientia Dei and his kenotic surrender in absolute trust (i.e., his total solidarity with sinful humanity in righteousness)—are more perfectly fulfilled at different times in his mission, the former during His public ministry (before and after death), the latter during His nativity and passion. 135 See Miles, “Obedience of a Corpse,” 117–21, 134 1046 Joshua R. Brotherton he is confronted with the Thomist conceptualization of it,136 he nonetheless preserves the doctrine in a Scotistic manner (i.e., emphasizing beatitude as a perfect union of love). If this is the case, then, Balthasar would be arguing that while Christ’s love never waivers, the beatific knowledge that would ordinarily precede such may be “laid up” or suspended from his human consciousness by the divine will in its paternal mode (that is, via the subsistent hypostasis of paternity).137 But this says nothing of the joy that ordinarily follows perfect love, and perhaps there is a way to view Speyr’s mystical insights, appropriated by Balthasar, in a way that is consonant with Thomistic thought. Miles makes clear that Speyr’s Ignatian vision of Christ’s passion involved the God-man’s willing suspension of everything that belonged to him, except for his love, including all his understanding, memory, and knowledge.138 She recounts: “the Son surrenders his understanding to the Father in Suscipean Bereitschaft. Once again, von Speyr understands the love of God to be the source of the Son’s vision.”139 If Christ is said not to lose his visio immediata and yet to surrender his entire intellect to the Father in solidarity with sinful humanity, then perhaps the former is constituted more by perfect love than perfect knowledge or understanding—so reasons (or assumes) Speyr. In any case, whether supernatural beatitude is properly constituted by perfect knowledge or by perfect love or somehow by both simultaneously (as if neither intellect nor will possessed causal priority), the joy to which each gives rise in heaven could be “laid up” by Christ with the Father (more precisely, with the three divine persons in their hypostatically distinct manners), and this is precisely what would constitute the most profound suffering of Christ’s passion in full solidarity with the death of sinful humanity. Concerning the question of Christ’s surrender of the beatific vision, Matthew Lewis Sutton sums up Speyr’s perspective, based on the latter’s posthumously published Subjektive Mystik: See Miles, “Obedience of a Corpse,” 118–23, 165. Speyr recounts: “He [the Son] has asked him [the Father] to remove this knowledge [of ‘the hour’] in order to be better and more fully human. He has ‘pruned’ himself, so to speak, in order to be a real human being” (Die Nachlasswerke, vol. 11, Ignatiana, ed. Hans Urs von Balthasar [Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1974], 21). 138 See Speyr: Das Buch vom Gehorsam (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1970), 46; John, vol. 4, The Birth of the Church, trans. David Kipp (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 76, 100, 142; World of Prayer, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985), 51; Das Wort und die Mystik, vol. 2, Objektive Mystik (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1970), 230. 139 Miles, “Obedience of a Corpse,” 165. 136 137 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1047 In descending to the dead, the Son gives up his vision of the Father, which is von Speyr’s understanding of the Son’s becoming sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). There is nothing more for him than the stark blindness of his obedience. The blindness is complete. It is a cave with no light. The Son’s renunciation of the vision of God substitutes for Adam and Eve’s lost vision of heaven. The Son descends into the night of hell. In the formless, timeless night of hell, the Son loses all dialogue with and vision of the Father. He is blinded by the sin of the world and understands himself as completely abandoned: “the way is wayless as the time is timeless.”140 Again: “The Son took on Adam and Eve’s nonvision. Through the resurrection of the Son by the Father, this night of nonvision has been changed into the light of the full vision of the Father.”141 Even prior to his passion, Christ chooses to live in solidarity with human ignorance, at least concerning the hour of his death. Speyr articulates Christ’s nescience thus: “The triune, divine love is so great that if the Son as man would decide for himself the hour, the divine Father would certainly agree with him. But since the Son as man wants to be only the reflection of this divine love, he chooses uncompromisingly not to know. He wants what the Father wants.”142 In another place, Speyr makes clear that this entails neither that he surrendered His own divinity nor that he lacked the beatific vision during his earthly life: “As God, Christ has the same knowledge as the Father and the Holy Spirit. As man, he possesses from the first instance of his existence the beatific vision of God.”143 But Sutton adds: “However, she under Sutton, Heaven Opens, locs. 1737–42. The internal quote is from Subjektive Mystik, 13. Miles sums up Speyr’s perspective on time: “No relationship exists between time in hell and either earthly or eternal time. Since hell expends ‘non-time’ in a ‘non-place,’ there is no method of measuring space or time. It is a ‘way-less’ and ‘time-less’ ‘non-place.’ Von Speyr explains that if one outside of hell were to observe one going through hell—such as a mystic experiencing the descent into hell—that outside observer could measure the time such a one had been gone, just as the disciples could measure the days that the Son spent in the tomb. But ‘whoever goes through it, feels the non-passage of time; everything stops and remains the same or develops itself more and more into non-time. . . . Going through hell takes either all time or no time. The way is way-less as the time is time-less.’ For von Speyr, the expression ‘time stands still’ aptly describes the experience of hell” (“Obedience of a Corpse,” 78). 141 Sutton, Heaven Opens, locs. 1759–1760. 142 Speyr, Das Buch vom Gehorsam (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1966), 40, trans. Sutton in Heaven Opens, loc. 3684. 143 Speyr, Die Magd des Herrn: Ein Marienbuch (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1969), 140 1048 Joshua R. Brotherton stands the coming darkness of the passion as the Son letting his humanity take on human sin and all its grave effects, which include being robbed of the vision of God.”144 At the same time, referencing another work of hers, he asserts: “Von Speyr’s account, I must emphasize, maintains that the Son even in the absolute night of forsakenness always has the essential beatific vision of the Father.”145 I assert that the best interpretation of such apparently conflicting statements is precisely the theses defended here: that God suspended the access of his human mind to at least some of the “secondary objects” pertinent to the beatific vision and, ultimately, suspended his experience of the fruitio beata during his passion, or at least, in the existential moment of his death-descent. Conclusion By engaging Balthasar and forcing him into dialogue with several contemporary Thomists, I have argued that it is fitting for Christ to possess the very (beatific) vision he wills to impart to those for whom he suffers while he endures the very passion by means of which he desires to do so, but it seems unfitting that he enjoy the fruitio beata naturally concomitant to such vision (even in “the higher passions” of his rational soul) while he endures such pain. In fact, it seems most fitting that he suffer precisely the loss of that consequence of his hypostatic vision which constitutes the misery of the sinners for whom he so deigns to suffer (i.e., the fruitio), “becoming sin without knowing sin” (2 Cor 5:21), not by partaking in it but by co-assuming even its most profound (subjective) consequence (i.e., the ultimate consequence of sin for the sinner). What greater work of solidarity is there than solitarily undergoing the fate proper to sinful mankind in such a manner unnatural to a being most perfectly (i.e., hypostatically) united to the Word of Love Itself ? Such a work of omnipotence is no less impossible than the economic prevention of the joy of the “higher parts” of Christ’s soul from redounding to its “lower parts” and hylemorphically bound sacred body. Without denying the possibility of the latter proposal for how Christ could have possessed the beatific vision and yet experienced dereliction on the Cross, 97n1 [English trans. in Handmaid of the Lord, trans. E. A. Nelson (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984)]. 144 Sutton, Heaven Opens, loc. 3811, citing Speyr, Die Passion von Innen (loc. 3812) [English trans.: The Passion from Within, trans. Lucia Wiedenhover (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998)]. 145 Sutton, Heaven Opens, locs. 4225–26, citing Speyr, Der Grenzenlose Gott, 2nd ed. (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1981), 54 [English trans.: The Boundless God, trans. Helena M. Tomko (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004)]. The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1049 it is not necessary to divide Christ’s human psychology in such a fashion if he, instead, forfeited the fruitio beata itself even while maintaining the intellective visio immediata fittingly integral to his incarnate status. There is no such incongruent partitioning of his human identity (or “personality,” in contemporary psychological terms), if the vision alone is maintained during his passion. An analogous scenario occurs among the mystic saints: the person suffers great spiritual attacks on all levels (e.g., via imagination, memory, perception, emotion/passion, even sensation), but none of the doubts or temptations that accost the saint penetrate the intellect itself as the harbinger of faith or the will itself steadfast in hope (which, of course, accompany the invisible infusion of divine charity constitutive of habitual grace). These may report possessing still a deep peace in knowing that they have not separated themselves from God, but the deepest and darkest of agonies are mere participations in Christ’s own total loss of consolation, intellective and appetitive, which nonetheless left his immediate knowledge and love of God untouched. Finally, there is no added theological benefit to the possible view that Christ maintained the fruitio beata and, at the same time, paradoxically suffered a most hellish passion, as if the fruitio itself would permit greater suffering or the concomitance of opposites would befit the redemptive work. Speyr is clearer than Balthasar in affirming that Christ did indeed possess an unmediated vision of the Father during his earthly life, that is, until his passion. Balthasar is apparently unsure of the matter, wavering between assuming something like Maritain’s view of Christ’s beatific vision, namely, that it exists in some supra-conscious realm but not the infra-conscious (until the resurrection), and conceding to the view popular among modern exegetes, namely, that God in Christ assumed the ignorance of fallen humanity. What is consistent in his peripheral references to the problem is his confusing usage of the phrase “laying up” or “depositing,” or more often “laid up” or “deposited” (in German, hinterlegung or hinterlegt), which he derives from Speyr’s speculations regarding Christ’s kenotic surrender during his earthly life of divinely infused knowledge (not his perfect union with the Father that she thinks constitutes the visio beata). If Balthasar truly was of one mind and mission with Speyr, he must have held that Christ’s chief suffering in his passion, culminating in that mysterious event of death itself, is precisely the loss not of his perfect knowledge of God or of his perfect love of God, but the loss of the perfect joy that ordinarily follows perfect knowledge and love of God. I have argued that such a loss willed by God (the Father) is possible, but also that according to Speyr-Balthasar, Christ’s possession of the beatific vision in 1050 Joshua R. Brotherton life is not ruptured by the suspension of his access to certain secondary objects of the vision (e.g., future contingents that need not be known for the fulfillment of his mission). Thus, the language of “depositing” concerns items that would ordinarily be known by a soul hypostatically united to the Word, but which the Father (in communion with the Son as well as the Spirit) wills to withdraw from his human consciousness without affecting his supernatural beatitude.146 The descent of Christ into hell is, then, that paradigmatic, enigmatic, and exemplary instance of the Father’s withdrawal of something ordinarily concomitant to the beatific vision, namely, the joy itself naturally (but perhaps not necessarily) consequent to the perfect vision that most fittingly belongs to the incarnate Word. What could be more hellish a loss than this? Perhaps, here is the key to the analogy between Christ’s own suffering and the pain of loss suffered by those who are deprived of supernatural life: He does not lose grace or glory, but he experiences the loss of the fruitio beata even while remaining in perfect union of intellect and will with God. Given that Christ’s human awareness of his divine identity is infused as a result of the grace of hypostatic union, that it is possible and fitting for God to withhold knowledge of certain contingencies from his human consciousness so that he may better fulfill his mission in solidarity with sinful humanity, and that Christ’s own union of intellect and will with God is unlike any other, perhaps it is more fitting to call his own vision of God a hypostatic vision (as Weinandy does), instead of imposing on Christ’s intellect a category that properly applies to creatures elevated to the order of glory (i.e., beatific vision). In other words, Christ’s hypostatic vision of God may not be most aptly understood in terms of the human intellect being gratuitously enlightened by the impression of the intelligible species of God’s own essence by means of a perfect lumen gloriae,147 but better understood in terms of Christ’s own peculiar communion with the Father, whereby he was in some sense capable of growing in “age, wisdom, and grace” (Luke 2:52), yet without ever being humanly unaware of his own divinity or of what the Father willed (not to withdraw from his human intellect) in fulfillment of the Son’s redemptive mission on earth. In this manner, in his passion and death, Christ was able to know with complete certainty the Father’s infinite love for him and all human Hence, Balthasar states that “the greater good of [ Jesus’s] obedience required that the Son’s intrinsically ‘fitting’ and ‘direct’ knowledge should be ‘laid up’ with the Father for reasons of the ‘economy’” (TD III, 192 [German II/2:176]). 147 St. Thomas speaks of qualitative difference in regard to the lumen gloriae granted the blessed and Christ in ST III Suppl., q. 92, a. 3, ad 12 (cf. ST I, q. 12, aa. 7–8). 146 The Mystery of Christ's Beatific Suffering 1051 beings in him (since faith is never properly attributable even to his human intellect as such), and at the same time, to endure the greatest pain of being stripped of the infinite joy that naturally accompanied his hypostatic union with God for the sake of making friends out of his enemies (Col 1:21–22; Rom 5:10), that is, every human being as in need of redemption from sin. While Balthasar is at times unsure of whether any knowledge is necessary to Christ besides awareness of his own divine identity and filial mission, and while he speculates that out of kenotic love the Son humbly suspends access to his divine intellect in his human consciousness, if he indeed follows Speyr, he must believe that the fruitio beata was taken from Christ during the passion, expressed most fully in the cry of dereliction, which is the triumphant means by which he glorifies every person dead in sin, whom he meets in timeless solidarity. It is most fitting that the joy of the beatific vision ( fruitio beata) be taken away from Christ’s human soul during his passion and death, that is, for him to suffer the loss of the infinite joy that is naturally consequent to the immediate knowledge (visio immediata) and the perfect love of God that are essential to supernatural beatitude, regardless of which logically follows the other. To suffer such a fate, at the hands of his own Father no less, is a greater hell (that is, pain of loss) than any hell/loss possibly suffered by a creature that never possessed such an immense grace. Surely, the timelessness proper to Christ’s hell (i.e., his temporary loss of eternal bliss) would be incommensurable with that of the damned and that of the blessed, as even the time of earth is incommensurable with the time of purgatory (and yet the mystics are sometimes granted a participation in each).148 Of course, this view of Christ’s passion and death, wherein the element of subjective timelessness would enter most profoundly, requires the admission of the existence of a perfect union of intellect and will between Christ’s human nature and divine nature. N&V Perhaps, Einstein’s theory of general relativity provides an analogical (and thus imperfect) glimpse into the incommensurability that exists between all kinds of (super-)temporalities. Ratzinger alludes to this in Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, trans. Michael Waldstein (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1988), 230 [originally Eschatologie: Tod und ewiges Leben, in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 10, Auferstehung Und Ewiges Leben, repr. (Freiburg: Herder, 2012): 31–276, at 230]. For Ratzinger’s development of the related Augustinian notion of memoria time, see Eschatology, 187–88 [originally, Eschatologie:Tod und ewiges Leben (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1977), 151-152]. 148 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1053–1075 1053 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job: Intentio et Materia Gilbert Dahan Translated by David L. Augustine1 The book of Job is certainly one of the most remarkable in the Bible: set in a surprising narrative framework (must it be taken at face value?), a series of dialogues or rather monologues ask a number of fundamental questions. If the replies of Job’s friends seem correct by religious standards, they are swept aside by God during his final discourse, whereas Job’s speeches, though theologically unpalatable, receive divine approbation. Without going into the problems related to the book’s composition2 or structure—especially with the speech of the “intruder” Elihu3—Job has elicited a number of diverse readings throughout history.4 For our contemporaries, Job seems like a man in revolt and certain thinkers are left wondering even more intensely about the silence of God in the wake of the catastrophes of the twentieth century: the themes of the suffering of the The original French text of this study has been published as “Le commentaire de Thomas d’Aquin dans l’histoire medievale de l’exegese de Job,” Revue thomiste 119, no. 1 (2019) : 31–54. 2 Jean Leveque, Job: Le livre et le message (Paris: Cerf, 1985), 5–6, speaks of four “strata” of composition: 1) narrative framework (from the ninth or tenth century BC); 2) the monologues, the dialogues, and the final theophany (first half of the fifth century); 3) Elihu’s discourse (middle of the fifth century); 4) the poem on Wisdom in ch. 28 (fourth or third century). This is debatable. See also Leveque’s important study Job et son Dieu, 2 vols. (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1970). Unless otherwise noted, all English translation in this article is my own. 3 See Robert Gordis, “Elihu the Intruder: A Study of the Authenticity of Job (chapters 32–33),” in Biblical and Other Studies, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 60–78. 4 See especially the introduction of David J. A. Clines, Job 1–20 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1989), xlvii–lvi. 1 1054 Gilbert Dahan just, of God’s mysterious ways, of the presence of evil in the world (has the world been delivered over into the power of a criminal, as Job suggests in 9:24?), stand at the heart of present-day reflections.5 It has not always been thus: ancient exegesis saw Job as a saint (a figure of Christ, even) who was accordingly extolled as a model of patience.6 Significantly, certain ancient re-writings even clung to the book’s narrative framework while simultaneously omitting its very heart. Now, it might seem that it is Thomas Aquinas’s commentary that has modified in profound ways the perception that one can have of the Book of Job. Ancient exegesis, strongly influenced by Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob, endeavored to erase all the text’s harsh aspects and to bring back into a reassuring perspective all the assertions that are difficult from a theological point of view. It is our aim here to situate St. Thomas’s Expositio super Iob ad litteram within the history of the medieval exegesis of the book by asking why and how the change it provokes could have taken place. We will undertake this task, in the first place, by having recourse to some of the prologues of the commentators (on Job), and we will examine thereafter certain characteristics of the exegesis of St. Thomas, not from the point of view of exegetical methods,7 but from that of certain hermeneutical choices. The Prologues From the twelfth and thirteenth centuries on, the prologues of biblical commentaries acquire a relatively well-defined form, whether they be accessus or prologues answering to the four “Aristotelian causes.”8 In both cases (and equally in prologues that have a free form), two rubrics facilitate our present approach: those that are concerned with its materia, that is, the book’s subject matter, and those that are concerned with its intentio, that is, its purpose, its intention. We will discuss certain other rubrics as well, From the abundant literature, the following should be mentioned: Carl G. Jung, Antwort auf Hiob (Zurich: Rascher, 1953); Roland de Pury, Job ou l’homme révolté (Geneva: Labor et fides, 1955); André Neher, L’existence juive: Solitude et affrontements (Paris: Seuil, 1962), 60–72; Paul Ricœur, Finitude et culpabilité, II. La symbolique du mal (Paris: Aubier, 1960), 295–99. 6 See Jean Danielou, Les saints païens de l’Ancien Testament (Paris: Seuil, 1956). 7 See Piotr Roszak, “Principes et pratiques exégétiques dans l’Expositio super Iob de Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue thomiste 119 (2019): 5–30. 8 See Gilbert Dahan, “Les prologues des commentaires bibliques (xiie–xive s.),” in Les Prologues médiévaux, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 427–70 (also included in Dahan, Lire la Bible au moyen âge: Essais d’herméneutique médiévale [Geneva: Droz, 2009], 57–101). 5 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1055 but these two will chiefly answer our interrogations, since our aim will be to determine what constitutes the foundation of the Book of Job. We will examine successively the commentaries prior to the thirteenth century, the commentaries of the thirteenth century prior to Thomas Aquinas, and then a few later commentators—placing of course Aquinas’s commentary at the center of our study.9 We will not dwell on the patristic commentaries:10 Ambrose,11 Augustine,12 Julian of Eclanum,13 and Philip the Priest14 devoted annotations or commentaries to Job. Isidore of Seville sums up the principal ideas concerning Job in his prologue: he is a figure of Christ; his wife represents carnal humanity; his friends are heretics; Elihu is a figure of the proud. Despite all this, Isidore does not provide us with an overall perspective on the book.15 Isidore has read Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob,16 whose perspective prevails throughout the whole first part of the Middle Ages. Apart from the reading of the Moralia itself, either directly or by means of anthologies, Gregory’s influence makes itself felt by means of the Glossa, later called ordinaria, developed at Laon and Auxerre in the first part of the twelfth century. The Glossa ordinaria becomes the basic biblical tool for several centuries to come. Most of the marginal glosses come from the Moralia, often with re-writing or restructuring. The Gloss on Job is preceded by a kind of prologue (prothemata in the Strasbourg printing, 1480–1481) made up of extracts taken from the prologue to the Moralia.17 A list of commentaries can be found in David J. A. Clines, Job 38–42 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2011), 1270–74. Obviously, we will only be making use of certain of these. See also the summary of my lectures in Annuaire de l’École pratique des hautes études 109 (2000–2001): 381–82. 10 See: Le Livre de Job chez les Pères, Cahiers de Biblia Patristica 5, ed. R. Gounelle (Strasbourg: Centre d’Analyse et de Documentation Patristiques, 1996); Pierre Cazier, “Lectures du livre de Job chez Ambroise, Augustin et Grégoire le Grand,” Graphe 6 (1997): 81–111. 11 Ambrose, De interpellatione Iob et de hominis infirmitate (sect. 1 of De interpellatione Iob et David), ed. Carl Schenkl, in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum [CSEL], 32/2:211–47). 12 Augustine, Adnotationes in Iob, ed. Joseph Zycha (CSEL, 28/2:509–628). 13 Julian of Eclanum, Expositio libri Iob, ed. Lucas de Coninck, in Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina [CCSL] 88). 14 Philip the Priest, Commentarii in librum Iob (PL, 26:619–802). 15 Isidore of Seville, In libros Veteris ac Novi Testamenti proemia (PL, 83:163). See also De ortu et obitu patrum 24 (PL, 83:136; concerning only the narrative). 16 The Moralia are dedicated to Isidore’s brother, Leander, who was bishop of Seville before him. 17 This prologue is not a later addition; it appears in manuscripts of the twelfth century (for example, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 188). 9 1056 Gilbert Dahan Of course, the choice is significant. The first extract broaches the difficulties of the book: certain passages cannot be taken according to the literal sense; they would then appear as erroneous, impossible, or even contradictory. But Gregory also insists on the fact that it is necessary not to neglect the literal sense: “Sometimes, neglecting the literal sense hides the light of truth.” In this passage also appears the famous phrase according to which the divine word exercises the wise and comforts the simple, “for it [the divine word] is like a river that is both shallow and deep, in which a lamb may walk about and an elephant swim.”18 Even if Thomas Aquinas seems to confine the Moralia to spiritual exegesis, Gregory’s work contains precious notations that helped advance the exegesis of Job. But let us now proceed to the authors of the twelfth century. As we have said, the schema of accessus is introduced in the prologues of the commentaries: this schema invites its reader to reflect on the book’s subject matter and intention, which is what uniquely interests us here, even if what is said about Job’s authorship is often interesting (although most of the time this is taken directly from the Moralia). This procedure, like many other products of the cathedral schools, is rapidly integrated into monastic exegesis. If Bruno of Segni’s commentary does not have a prologue, Rupert of Deutz’s describes the intentio of Job in his prologue. Rupert’s prologue sets forth the problem addressed by the book: the fact of the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked must eliminate the rash opinion of those who evaluate merits by the measure of happiness or misfortune. The book is thus useful to all the citizens of heaven who suffer in this world, and who must not measure the gravity of sin by the intensity of suffering.19 With Peter the Chanter († 1197), we have a representative of the exegesis of the schools of the last third of the twelfth century; his commentary on Job is inspired by Gregory the Great, while registering the exegetical progress of his time. Peter’s prologue20 follows the accessus schema (auctor, intentio, modus agendi, materia). The intention of the book is “to instruct the Jews, who have the Law but are not living according to the Law, whereas a Gentile, who does not have the Law lives according to it.” Job provides a lesson in patience and the book shows that Christ is Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, the dedicatory letter to Leander, no. 4. Rupert of Deutz, commentary on Job (PL, 168:963–64). 20 It has a scriptural theme, Isaiah 23:4, “erubesce, Sydon, ait mare,” used by Gregory the Great (Mor. Iob, praef. 5), with the interpretation in which Sidon represents those who are under the Law, while the sea represents the pagans. The same prologue is at the head of the commentary on Job in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France , MS lat. 384, fol. 139ra, among the works of Stephen Langton. 18 19 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1057 going to come.21 The subject matter concerns Job’s struggle, from which he emerged victorious; Peter then gives a kind of summary. In accord with his custom, he notes that the book is written intus et foris, “interiorly and exteriorly”; but it is necessary to observe that its exterior sense contains some tropica elements, employing figurative language and some similitudes.22 Hugh of Saint-Cher’s commentaries provide the transition between the exegesis of the cathedral schools and that of the university: they are the work of a series of teams laboring at Saint-Jacques (Paris) under Hugh’s direction.23 The prologue of the commentary on Job begins with a scriptural theme (Hos 11:4: “In funiculis Adam traham eos, in vinculis charitatis”); the first part is a kind of “sermon” that takes this theme as its point of departure: the cords to which Hosea refers are taken to be the tribulations by which God draws (trahit) sinners to himself. Job, a pagan who has not received the Law, gives us a lesson so that our wickedness might be confounded. The Book of Job is therefore written “so that we might imitate his patience and consider the outcome of his patience.” The prologue’s second part develops a complex schema of accessus, with a long treatment about the book’s author. Let us simply keep to a few points. The subject matter (materia) of the book is twofold: general (the misery of the human condition) and specific (the misery of Job). The book’s intention is to invite us to patience: just as Job’s property was restored to him twofold, thanks to his patience, so too, if we have patience, we will be doubly clothed—like many authors, Hugh cites Romans 15:4. Let us also note that the book is considered to pertain to theology, but it is useful to the practical intellect.24 The commentary of Roland of Cremona († 1259), one of the first Dominican masters (in Paris, then in Toulouse circa 1230), is interesting on account of the use it makes of philosophers;25 but its exegesis is chiefly Peter the Chanter, prologue to commentary on Job (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 15565, fol. 4ra). 22 Peter the Chanter, prologue to commentary on Job (BnF lat. 15565, fol. 4ra). 23 See Hugues de Saint-Cher († 1263): bibliste et théologien, ed. Louis-Jacques Bataillon, Gilbert Dahan, and Pierre-Marie Gy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004). 24 Hugh of Saint-Cher, commentary on Job, Lyon edition (1645), vol. 1, fols. 395vb–396rb. 25 See the excellent study of Antoine Dondaine, “Un commentaire scripturaire de Roland de Crémone, ‘Le livre de Job,’” Archivum fratrum praedicatorum 11 (1941): 109–37 (on the use of philosophers, see 127–31). See also the study of Marie-Humbert Vicaire, “Roland de Crémone ou la position de la théologie à l’université de Toulouse,” in Les Universités en Languedoc au xiiie siècle (Toulouse: 1970), 145–78. The commentary on Job is provided by Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 405. 21 1058 Gilbert Dahan spiritual, often Christic. The commentary is preceded by an important passage, which is not really a prologue, but instead is more of a general reflection on the immortality of the soul, on the problem of the eternity of the world, and on a few dogmas;26 we are far from the main theme of the Book of Job, but the latter can only be understood by beginning from these more general presuppositions. Another passage seems to be playing the role of prologue;27 it has a scriptural theme, Judges 5:20—“Stelle manentes in ordine et cursu suo aduersus Sisaram pugnauerunt”—which immediately receives a spiritual interpretation: these stars are the fathers of the Old Testament, who shine during the night, before the dawn of the era of grace, and Sisera is a figure of the devil. Job is one of these stars that shines in the East, as is indicated in the text (Job 1:3).28 There is no schema of accessus, but it seems that we can draw from this passage the idea that the Book of Job is going to establish a number of truths of the Christian faith. With William of Melitona, a disciple of Alexander of Hales and a master in theology first in Paris (1248–1253) and then in Cambridge, we have at last entered into the sphere of university exegesis, as is clear from the methods employed in the commentary. Nonetheless, the prologue of William’s commentary on Job is not free from the earlier perspectives: the subject matter of the book is Job’s torments and tribulations or else his remarkable patience;29 the development proceeds wholly along these lines. The final cause is diverse, since it concerns Job himself, neighbor, and God. William’s interpretation remains too dependent on the tradition: thus, with regard to Job, it is a matter on the one hand of the eradication of that which is fleshly, and on the other of the prosperity deriving from his merits. With regard to neighbor, William sets forth the positive effects of patience. Finally, with regard to God, he is glorified in his champion. There is also the commentary of Albert the Great, which is probably later than Thomas’s, but in any event still registers the traditional perspec It begins: “Quoniam multi sunt qui credunt animam humanam esse corruptibilem et simul mori cum morte sui organi…” (BnF lat. 405, fols. 1ra–7rb). See Dondaine, “Un commentaire,” 125–27 (who speaks of a “general preamble”). According to Dondaine, another prologue was added later on a supplementary sheet (Iv): it begins, “Prius ut arbitror filii Israel uasa aurea et argentea ab Egiptiis acceperunt quam in Syna legem Moysi accepissent…”; it seems to constitute a justification for the use made of profane authors in the commentary (“Un commentaire,” 112–13). 27 As Dondaine identifies it (“Un commentaire,” 111). BnF lat. 405, fol. 7rb–va. 28 The idea of stars probably comes from the praefatio (6.13) of Gregory the Great’s Moralia. 29 William of Melitona, commentary on Job (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 14250, fols. 1ra–2rb). 26 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1059 tive. The prologue has a schema of accessus and a scriptural theme: the famous verse James 5:10–11, in which Job’s suffering provides an example of patience; the whole prologue develops this idea, around the terms labor et patientia; the subject matter (materia) is Job’s suffering, and its objective is to show the certainty of consolation after tribulations.30 Despite some interesting notations, Albert’s commentary is not very innovative. It is the Expositio super Iob ad litteram of Thomas Aquinas that will revolutionize the exegesis of the book of Job: in what follows, we will try to explain the reasons for this and to show what makes his commentary extremely innovative. For the moment, let us keep to the prologue.31 Thomas’s prologue is not constructed on an accessus schema and, in lieu of a scriptural theme, it begins with the affirmation of progress in the history of human thought.32 The subject matter of the book is the role of providence in this world, and Thomas begins by examining the gradual discovery of this principle by philosophers: not only the first thinkers posit that the world was made by chance, but their successors, such as Democritus or Empedocles, attribute most things to chance. Afterward, however, thinkers arrived at the idea of providence. But does providence also direct the acts of human beings? Many philosophers express doubts on this subject and, based on the observation of the prosperity of the wicked and of the misfortunes endured by the just, they come to reject the entire role of providence in human affairs. If we start from the presupposition that the things of nature are governed by divine providence, Job’s afflictions seem to show that providence does not concern itself with human beings. Now, whatever difficulties there may be, and Thomas highlights these, he is going to demonstrate that Providence extends to human beings, by placing the whole book in the framework of disputatio, a pedagogical form utilized by the thirteenth-century masters.33 For the time being, we are not Albert the Great, commentary on Job, ed. M. Weiss (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1904), cols. 1–4. 31 Aquinas, Super Iob, prol. (Leonine ed., 26:3–4). See Carmelo Pandolfi, “Il prologo al commento a Giobbe di San Tommaso d’Aquino,” Aquinas 37 (1994): 597–620. 32 See Gilbert Dahan, “Ex imperfecto ad perfectum: le progrès de la pensée humaine chez les théologiens du xiiie siècle,” in Progrès, réaction, décadence dans l’Occident médiéval, ed. Emmanuèle Baumgartner and Laurence Harf-Lancner (Geneva: Droz, 2003), 171–84 (reprinted in Lire la Bible au moyen âge, 409–425). 33 The references to the disputatio in the commentary are numerous. The initial narrative is considered as the starting point of the disputatio (Leonine ed., 26:5); Elihu intervenes as determinans once the discussion is over; but this determinatio is not satisfactory and God himself is going to play the role of the master who draws the definitive conclusions (Leonine ed., 26:199, on Job 38:1). 30 1060 Gilbert Dahan going to go further into the analysis of the commentary. But we will keep in mind these guiding lines of the prologue, since they will themselves give rise to a number of questions. The Franciscan from the South of France, Peter John Olieu (Olivi [†1298]), even if he could be described as an adversary of St. Thomas,34 stands under his influence in his commentary on Job. From Peter’s prologue, we can see that it is St. Thomas’s perspective that is going to dominate from now on. Indeed, this prologue has a scriptural theme— but it is taken from the Book of Job itself, from God’s discourse “out of the whirlwind” (Job 38:1, RSV). Significantly, the theme is the question posed to Job: “Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?” (Job 38:33, RSV). The prologue keeps to an accessus schema in the form of six quite detailed questions.35 But the most important thing to note is that, from the outset, the accent is placed on divine providence. Olivi tells us that the book treats of the following aspects of providence: the institution and natural course of things, the prosperity and woes of human beings on a material level, merit and demerit on a spiritual level, and final retribution and reward. This is an extension of the exegesis of Thomas Aquinas. Observe what Olivi says about the book’s purpose (its ultimate utility, finalis utilitas): As is clear from what has been said, it is useful in the first place as a reflection on the order of divine providence, specifically as it pertains to human affairs and, more precisely yet, to his elect; in the second place, it lends itself to reflection upon and imitation of the model of perfection presented by Job, a perfection which he preserved both in prosperity and adversity; in the third place, we can include in this book’s purpose all instruction and teaching, and all any ardor and contemplation, that can be drawn from the truth of this book, on a literal as well as on a spiritual level.36 See Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, “Un adversaire de saint Thomas: Petrus Iohannis Olivi,” in St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274–1974: Commemorative Studies (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974), 2:179–218. On the author, see Pierre de Jean Olivi (1248–1298): Pensée scolastique, dissidence spirituelle et société, ed. Alain Boureau and Sylvain Piron (Paris: J. Vrin, 1999). 35 These six questions are: the book’s author, whether it is a question of a literal history or of a parable, the nation of Job, its place in the Old Testament, its form (modus agendi), and its ultimate utility. 36 Peter John Olivi, Postilla super Iob, ed. Alain Boureau, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis [CCCM], 275:6. 34 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1061 In fact, Olivi will place providence squarely at the center of his concerns in his commentary; but we should note that he does not renounce the older idea that sees Job as a model of perfection. Thomas’s influence is again quite present in the Postilla of Nicholas of Lyra on Job, even if the prologue’s theme makes one think of the older approach, since it is concerned with the statement of Matthew 18:29: “Have patience with me, and I will pay you” (RSV). In a first part, Nicholas does indeed develop this idea. But the second part, which treats of the author’s intention, interests us in particular, since it is a discussion of Aquinas’s thesis. Like Thomas, Nicholas recalls the positions of the ancient philosophers who denied divine providence; he mentions Democritus and Epicurus (which is quite significant), and then, without giving names, he refers to those who affirmed that only incorruptible and superior realities are ruled by divine providence; lastly, he mentions others, Cicero among them, who recognize that natural realities are governed by brovidence but who exclude human acts, since they proceed from free will—these thinkers support their thesis by adverting to the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the good. Nicholas then cites Thomas Aquinas: This is why Thomas Aquinas, who explained this book in an elegant manner, says that the effort of the holy doctors, who had received this science either by infusion or acquisition, was to remove this error from the hearts of men; among the first to do so was St. Job, and in this Thomas is right. Thomas says further that Job’s intention in this book, given the supposition that natural things are governed by divine providence, is above all to show that even human acts are governed by divine providence. However, subject to a better judgment, it does not seem that this was Job’s intention.37 The book, so Nicholas tells us, “proceeds in the manner of a dispute between Job and his friends.” Now a dispute implies an initial disagreement. What is its object? The friends agree with Job that human acts 37 Biblia sacra cum Glossa ordinaria . . . et Postilla Nicolai Lyrani: “Propter quod dicit hic sanctus Thomas de Aquino, qui hunc librum exposuit eleganter, quod studium sanctorum doctorum, qui scientiam habuerant per infusionem vel acquisitionem, fuit hunc errorem a cordibus hominum removere, inter quos de primis fuit sanctus Iob, et in hoc bene dicit. Sed ulterius dicit quod intentio sancti Iob in hoc libro fuit, supposito quod res naturales regantur divina providentia, declarare ulterius etiam actus humanos divina providentia regi; sed, salvo meliori iudicio, non videtur haec fuisse eius intentio” (Venice, 1603, col. 5). 1062 Gilbert Dahan are governed by providence: since Job’s friends think that he has been punished for his sins, it follows that they are in agreement on this point. The point of disagreement is the following: [The friends think] that adversities in this world are only inflicted on someone on account of his past sins and that prosperity does not come to anyone save through preceding merits; which is erroneous. St. Job intends in this book to show the opposite, namely, that in this world sinners enjoy good things and the righteous suffer misfortunes, according to the order of divine providence, to which it belongs to punish wicked actions and to reward good ones, not in the present life only, but also in the future life.38 Obviously, the whole difficulty of the book lies precisely in the fate of the wicked and the righteous; must we simply refer to the final reward in the future world? Nicholas of Lyra’s response seems somewhat hasty, but his prologue testifies to a maturation in the study of the Book of Job, and the debate with Thomas Aquinas shows the rapid impact of his commentary as well as the divergences on the part of certain exegetes. The same debate is ongoing a century later, in the prologue of Denis the Carthusian.39 His commentary successively considers the literal interpretation of each chapter (declaratio capituli) and its spiritual exegesis (de moralitate et mysteriis capituli). It is preceded by important introductory material: a general prologue—the theme of which is Proverbs 3:11–12—is in the order of moral reflection, beginning from the idea that the “adversities, tribulations and pains of the present life have a medicinal function,” the benefits of which relate to the future life; it equally praises patience. We are therefore in the older perspective. The prologue then examines Job’s person, epoch, and nation; the book’s authorship; its subject matter (materia) and intention; and whether it is a true story or a parable. A chapter is dedicated to considerations drawn from Gregory the Great’s Moralia 38 39 Biblia sacra cum Glossa ordinaria . . . et Postilla Nicolai Lyrani: “Licet amici Iob tenerent actus humanos regi divinina providentia, tamen tenebant quod adversitates huius mundi non inferuntur alicui nisi propter mala praeterita et prosperitates non eveniunt alicui nisi propter praecedentia merita; quod erroneum est, propter quod sanctus Iob intendit in hoc libro declarare contrarium, scilicet quod aliquando in praesenti malis eveniunt bona et iustis adversa, secundum ordinem divinae providentiae; ad quam pertinet punire mala et praemiare bona, et non solum in vita praesenti sed etiam in futura” (Venice, 1603, col. 6). See Denis, Enarratio in librum Iob, in Opera omnia, vol. 4 (Montreuil-sur-Mer: Typis Cartusiae Sanctae Mariae de Pratis, 1897). The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1063 in Iob. We will focus on what is said about the materia. After a treatment of Job’s identity, in which he cites Albert the Great (as he will do quite often in the commentary) and Thomas, Denis comes to the subject matter of the book and refers first to Albert, for whom it is about Job’s suffering and patience—we are accordingly in the older perspective. The book’s intention, however, is to show “how human acts are subject to divine providence and how human affairs are governed by God.” It is at this point that he takes up the debate with Thomas: On this subject, Thomas has the following to say: the whole intention of this book is to show by probable reasons that human affairs are governed by providence. However, these assertions of St. Thomas do not please a certain person, 40 because the book proceeds wholly in the manner of a disputation between Job and his friends. The intention of a person who is in a dispute with someone is not to prove or affirm that about which they are in agreement, but, that being presupposed, that about which there is disagreement between them. All those who were in a dispute with Job admitted that human acts are governed by divine Providence. Job’s intention is not to affirm this, but rather to affirm that about which they are not in agreement, that human affairs are not governed by God as they conceive the matter. 41 In fact, Denis will try to show that this objection concerns Thomas’s words and not his thought: in his prologue, Thomas affirms that he does not want to prove that human affairs are governed by God, but rather how they are governed by him. It must therefore be understood that “the intention of the book is to show that human affairs are governed by divine providence, insofar as the truth itself would have it, and not in the manner that some, in error, have imagined.” Thus, the friends say that adversities only befall a man on account of his demerits or past wicked deeds and good things only In whom we recognize Nicholas of Lyra, whose Postilla was then very widespread. Denis, Enarratio in librum Iob: “Dicit autem circa hoc Thomas: Tota intentio libri istius circa hoc versatur, ut per rationes probabiles ostendatur res humanas a divina providentia regi. Sed istud dictum B. Thomae cuidam non placet, eo quod totus hic liber procedat per modum disputationis inter Iob et eius amicos: intentio autem contra alium disputantis non est probare aut declarare id in quo cum eo concordat, sed, illo pro vero posito, id in quo ab eo dissentit. Quum ergo omnes isti contra Iob disputantes concesserint actus hominum divina providentia regi, intentio Iob non est id declarare sed aliquid in quo ab eis dissensit, videlicet quod non sic reguntur a Deo ut illi putabant” (Opera omnia, 4:297). 40 41 1064 Gilbert Dahan on account of preceding good works, which is erroneous. At the end of this chapter, Denis takes up the idea of a progress of human thought in relation to providence and free will, which coexist with each other. The discussion of Nicholas of Lyra and Denis the Carthusian shows the richness of Thomas Aquinas’s approach in his commentary on Job. Nicholas does well to emphasize the error that would see in the Book of Job a simple proof that human acts are themselves also governed by God; the book in fact goes further by placing the suffering of the righteous at the center of the problem. However, it does seem that Thomas, as Denis says of him, has gone further, intending to show that the sufferings of the righteous and the happiness of the wicked are not linked to the conduct of the one or the other but result from considerations whose meaning must be recovered. Thomas therefore introduces a rupture in the history of the exegesis of the Book of Job, by seeing in its intentio less a moral meaning than an invitation to a profound theological meditation, going beyond appearances and posing the major problem of the coexistence of human free will and divine providence. The Renewal Brought by Thomas Aquinas The Analysis of Language We will obviously not be able to study all the theological thought of the Expositio super Iob.42 We would like, however, to show how this renewal is carried out on two fronts: the analysis of language and what we shall call a scientific approach. The analysis of language is always important in Thomas Aquinas. His work is inscribed in a long tradition grounded upon the identification of rhetorical figures in the biblical text, a procedure constantly applied in medieval exegesis, according to the model given by Cassiodorus in his commentary on the Psalms and formalized by diverse treaties, such as Bede the Venerable’s De schematibus et tropis or several texts of the twelfth century.43 With the Expositio super Iob of Thomas, we find ourselves situated in a slightly different perspective: here it is less a question of rhetorical analysis than of a study of the procedures of biblical language. This manner of proceeding makes it possible to overcome some of the difficulties See Denis Chardonnens, L’homme sous le regard de la Providence: Providence de Dieu et condition humaine selon l’Exposition littérale sur le Livre de Job de Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: J. Vrin, 1997). 43 See Gilbert Dahan, L’exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident médiéval, xiie-xive siècle (Paris: Cerf, 1999), 253–62. 42 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1065 presented by the Book of Job and provides, I believe, an interpretive key of permanent value. Classical rhetorical analysis does not seem to be absent, but the first example will show the enrichment that Thomas brings to this approach. At the beginning of chapter 3, Thomas takes up what Jerome says in his prologue Cogor per singulos, namely that, from Pereat dies . . . (Job 3:3) to Idcirco ipse me reprehendo (Job 42:6), use has been made of Latin versification to render the poetry of the original; consequently, for Thomas: “[The] book is written in the manner of a poem. Hence, through this whole book the author uses the figures and styles which poets customarily use.”44 Thus, in order to render an idea more vehemently, poets repeat it; this is what Job does. Immediately thereafter, however, Thomas comes up against the expression “let that day be darkness” (Job 3:4, RSV), which, if taken as such, may seem hollow and useless: for the day of Job’s birth is long past and cannot be changed. Job’s wish, however, expresses his present sentiment: “The day of my birth should have been dark to match the darkness of misfortune that I have endured.” Thomas points out that sadness in Scripture is signified by darkness, as can be seen in Ecclesiastes 5:16 [5:17 in the RSV]. Thomas, therefore, does not content himself with merely picking up on a rhetorical figure (the accumulation of misfortunes); rather, he emphasizes what can appear to be an incongruity, in order to discover there a particularity of biblical language. Is the study of metaphors a part of classical rhetorical analysis? We know how important this figure is in Thomas. 45 He uses it a number of times in Job. Two such occurrences in close proximity to one another will show us two different types of analysis. In Job 38:2 [38:3 in the RSV], God tells Job to “Gird up your loins like a man” (RSV). Thomas sees a metaphor in this. God calls upon Job to prepare himself to hear what God is about to say to him, just as one girds one’s loins before going on a journey or undertaking an important action. With this, we are well within The English has been taken from Thomas Aquinas, The Literal Exposition of Job, trans. Anthony Damico (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989), 102. For the Latin, see Leonine ed., 26:21: “ Et sic patet quod liber iste exhinc per modum poematis conscriptus est, unde per totum hunc librum figuris et coloribus utitur quibus poetae uti consueverunt.” 45 See: Gilbert Dahan, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et la métaphore: Rhétorique et herméneutique,” Medioevo 18 (1992): 85–117 [reprinted in Lire la Bible au moyen âge, 249–82]; Olivier-Thomas Venard, “Metaphor in Aquinas : Between necessitas and delectatio,” in Reading Sacred Scripture with Thomas Aquinas. Hermeneutical Tools, Theological Questions and New Perspectives, ed. Piotr Roszak and Jörgen Vijgen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 199–228. 44 1066 Gilbert Dahan the bounds of a rhetorical analysis of the classical type. However, in the preceding verse, Thomas uses metaphor in a very different way. There, it is a question of God speaking from “out of the whirlwind” (Job 38:1, RSV). We can understand this literally, the word of the Lord being accompanied by violent phenomena, as happened on Mount Sinai (Exod 20:18) or when the Father revealed the glory of his name (John 12:29). But we can also take the expression as metaphorical, in which case it would designate the interior inspiration Job receives, the whirlwind referring to the distress he undergoes as a result or even to the darkness that accompanies a divine revelation, which we cannot perceive clearly. 46 Significantly, Thomas here cites Pseudo-Denys, who constitutes a major source of his inspiration, especially in his thought on language. 47 What is interesting is the sheer scope that Thomas gives to the metaphor: beyond a rhetorical figure, we pass on to a particular conception of the language of Scripture. 48 We are not far from the symbolic language of Pseudo-Denys; Thomas even employs the very term “symbol” in his commentary on Job’s strongly anthropomorphic narrative introduction. Scripture is going to show us by means of this account that God is involved in human affairs; this is done, however, by means of symbols and enigmas (symbolice et sub aenigmate), as often happens in the sacred text; Thomas here cites the vision of the celestial throne in Isaiah (6:1) or the beginning of Ezekiel. He makes the following remark, which is of capital importance for his hermeneutic: Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 38:1–12 (lec. 2; Leonine ed., 26:199). Cf. Denis on Job 38:1. At the end of his commentary on chapter 39, Job’s response to the Lord [ Job 40:2–4 in the RSV], Thomas draws out the following teaching from Job’s observation: “Now one should consider that if the previously cited speech of the Lord was not uttered to Job through an external sound but internally inspired, Job is found to have spoken three ways in this book: first, of course, as representing the affection of the capacity for sensation in the first complaint when he said ‘Perish the day’ [3:3]; second, expressing the deliberation of human reason when he was debating against his friends; third, according to divine inspiration when he adduced words in the person of the Lord. And since human reason ought to be directed according to divine inspiration, after the Lord’s words he reproves the words which he had said according to human reason” (Aquinas, Literal Exposition of Job, 442). 47 See Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht, Théologie négative et noms divins chez saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: J. Vrin, 2005). 48 Another usage to be addressed is the description of Behemoth, applied metaphorically to Satan (in Job 40:10–14 [40:15–18 in the RSV]; Leonine ed., 26:217). Certainly, we are here more in the classical figure but we can observe that the identification of Behemoth with Satan is not done by means of an allegory proper to Christian exegesis, but rather through the kind of metaphor that does not imply a change in the level of the sense, but only a particular utilization of language. 46 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1067 Now although spiritual things are proposed under the figures of corporeal things, nevertheless the truths intended about spiritual things through sensible figures belong not to the mystical but to the literal sense, because the literal sense is that which is primarily intended by the words, whether they are used properly or figuratively. 49 We are well within the functioning of the metaphor and not that of allegory: the letter of the text demands a deepening, which operates on a different level than that of spiritual exegesis; the literal sense presents a richness that it is the exegete’s task to bring to light, without going through the “hermeneutical leap” that leads to the spiritual sense.50 Thomas stresses the singularity of the scriptural discourse a number of times; thus, Job’s initial narrative is introduced by the expression quadam die, “there was a day” (Job 1:6, RSV). Now, it is a question in this passage of a meeting of God and the angels, an event which stands beyond our temporal criteria; Thomas observes that it is the practice of Scripture to apply designations drawn from the temporal world to facts that are extra-temporal (supra tempus); this is likewise the case at the beginning of Genesis.51 It is the same in Job 26:7. In this latter passage’s description of the grandiose works of God, Thomas observes that the language is cast according to the perception of the common people, as is often the case in Scripture.52 Here, we are well within the hermeneutical perspective according to which the transcendent message given by God is conveyed in a language comprehensible to man.53 It seems that this analysis of the language of Job brings a considerable renewal to the exegesis of this book and is one of the strengths of St. Thomas’s commentary. While excluding spiritual exegesis, he does not allow Aquinas, Literal Exposition of Job, 76. For the Latin, see Leonine ed., 26:7: “Et quamvis spiritualia sub figuris rerum corporalium proponantur, non tamen ea quae circa spiritualia intenduntur per figuras sensibiles ad mysticum sensum [pertinent] sed litteralem, quia sensus litteralis est qui primo per verba intenditur, sive proprie dicta sive figurate.” 50 See Gilbert Dahan, “Thomas Aquinas: Exegesis and Hermeneutics,” in Roszak and Vijgen, Reading Sacred Scripture with Thomas Aquinas, 45–70. 51 See Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 1:6 (Leonine ed., 26:8). 52 Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 26:7: “Loquitur secondum estimationem vulgarium hominum, prout est moris in sacra Scriptura” (Leonine ed., 26:145). 53 See also Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 2:3: “Loquitur hic Scriptura de Deo figuraliter more humano” (Leonine ed., 26:16). See Gilbert Dahan, L’exégèse chrétienne, 38–45. 49 1068 Gilbert Dahan himself to produce merely an explanatory paraphrase, but rather resolves with profundity a number of the problems posed by this difficult book. The Scientific Approach Another characteristic of Thomas’s commentary proceeds along the same lines: this is what I shall designate perhaps somewhat too hastily as a scientific approach. I will not discuss the explanations that Thomas gives to the numerous natural phenomena that come up in the book of Job (and in connection to which he often makes appeal to Aristotle). Rather, I shall discuss the striking manner in which he considers the verses that make mention of these phenomena. The treatment of Job 9:5–10 seems to me to be very revealing in this regard. This passage of Job is sometimes called the hymn to the divine power. Job takes up a theme first raised by Eliphaz (5:9–10), although Job insists more on the divine power’s destructive aspects. The fascinating thing when reading Thomas’s commentary is that things that could be understood as the arbitrary action of a capricious sovereign are instead traced back to laws of nature. Certainly, there can be no question of denying God’s power, his strength (fortitudo); and it can be no doubt said that these phenomena are due to a miraculous action of the divine power (etsi miraculose virtute divina fieri possit). But Thomas endeavors to bring these phenomena back within the framework of the functioning of the laws of nature. In his discourse, Job begins with inferior realities, and among these, he speaks of God moving mountains (Qui transtulit montes, Job 9:5). This can be explained by means of physical laws; Thomas proceeds from the Aristotelian principle of generation and corruption: everything that is naturally generated is corrupted in a given time. The generation of the mountains is natural; it is equally natural that they should be corrupted, and this is what Job is describing when he speaks of the moving of the mountains, even if, from our perspective, this corruption takes millions of years. But, do not forget, we are within a system of thought in which everything depends on God. “Now not unreasonably does he attribute to divine power the things which happen naturally”; for, in fact, “nature acts because of an end,” even if it is not conscious of it, and this end is ordained by a superior intelligence, God.54 Thomas illustrates this point with the help of the image of an arrow shot by an archer: the operation of nature stands in the same relationship to the divine power as the arrow to the archer. Job next alludes to the shaking of the earth: it would seem that the earth is the most solid and stable element, and yet God shakes the earth; this is, of course, a reference to earthquakes. But note that Aquinas, Literal Exposition of Job, 167. 54 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1069 Thomas supplements his explanation with a rather more linguistic consideration: if it is a matter of earthquakes, it is not as though the whole earth were shaken, but solely the region in which the observer is found, who as a result has the impression that it is the whole earth that is trembling. Next, Job affirms that God “commands the sun, and it does not rise” and hides the stars as though under a seal ( Job 9:7, RSV).55 The medieval commentators sometimes set this phenomenon in relation to the miracles recounted in Sacred Scripture, especially when the sun stood still for a whole day at the time of Joshua ( Josh 10:13–14).56 Thomas does not mention the latter event; instead, his explanation is that one can have the impression that the sun does not rise when the sky is completely overcast, something which is also true for the stars.57 A similar analysis can be made in connection with several other passages. We note only very quickly the comparison made in Job 26:5–14, See Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 9:5–10 (Leonine ed., 26:59–61). Thus, Albert the Great, commentary on Job: “Qui praecipit soli et non oritur, hoc est per circulum suum non movetur, sicut Ios. x: Sol contra Gabaon ne movearis et luna contra vallem Aialon [Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not, that is to say: it does not move according to its circle, as in Josh 10:12, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon]” (Weiss ed., col. 132). Note that Hugh of Saint-Cher admits only a spiritual explanation (in particular for transtulit montes, applied to the powerful of this world; the sun is taken to designate preachers (commentary on Job, Lyon ed., vol. 1, fol. 408va). 57 Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 9:7: “Secundum apparentiam aliquando [sol] non oriri videtur, puta cum aer fuerit nubilosus intantum quod solis ortus habitantibus super terram in solita claritate apparere non possit. . . . Stellae quasi claudi videntur cum nubibus caelum obtegitur, ne stellae inspici possint [According to the appearances, it seems sometimes that the sun is not born, for example when the air is so full of clouds that the birth of the sun cannot appear in its usual brightness to the inhabitants of the earth. . . . The stars seem to be hidden when the sky is covered by clouds so that the stars cannot be seen]” (Leonine ed., 26:60). Roland of Cremona gives precedence to a mystical explanation (the sun is the bishop who, like a sun, must illuminate the Church, the stars beings the clerics) of physical considerations (“Obscurato enim sole, necesse fuit ut omnes stelle obscurarentur, cum secundum astrologos lumen stellarum dependerat a lumine solis [When the sun is darkened, it is necessary that all the stars should be darkened, as, according to the astrologers, the ligth of the stars depends on the light of the sun]” [BnF lat. 405, fol. 40ba]). William of Melitona’s explanation resembles Thomas’s: “Lumen enim aliquando occultatur divino imperio, et hoc vel modo naturali, ut interpositione nubis vel noctis aut interpositione alterius luminaris, Eze. xxxii [7] Solem nube tegam, aut modo extrario ordini naturali [The light is sometimes hidden by divine order, and that either by a natural mode, as the interposition of clouds or night or another star, Ezek 32:7, I will cover the sun with a cloud, or by a mode which is outside natural law]”; (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 15566, fol. 59vb). 55 56 1070 Gilbert Dahan which likens the sky to a tent and the earth to the floor thereof: this is how matters appear to us, since Job says that God “stretches out the north”— understood as the northern hemisphere—“over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7, RSV). But here it is a matter, as we saw above, of the mode of perception of the common people; everything is governed by natural laws that proceed from the divine power.58 It is the same with Job 38:6–10 and 38:3 1–38. We observe along the same lines the identification of Behemoth (Vehemot in Thomas) with the elephant, and Leviathan with the whale (Job 40:10, 20).59 The universe is subjected to laws—the laws of physics, which are not the product of chance and do not function in a lawless manner. At the same time, this universe and these laws are ordained by God in view of an end. In this way, science is integrated into theology. This approach is remarkable, since Thomas rationally explains natural phenomena, by submitting them to an order. He differs from the materialist philosophers of antiquity by having this order arise from the divine will or providence (since this is the subject matter of Job). Believing thought is in this way able to integrate all the progress of scientific knowledge into a vision that places God at the summit of the hierarchy and that sees in the banal daily renewal of natural laws (the “rise” of the sun, the appearances of the stars, etc.) a constantly reiterated miracle. The Role of Maimonides What is the reason for this change? Certainly, we can speak of the evolution of Western thought in the thirteenth century, of its maturing, of its enrichment stimulated by the knowledge of Hellenic and Arabic philosophy. However, starting with William of Melitona, for example, or even with Roland of Cremona (who is aware of the newly translated texts), this evolution could have been brought about, but was in fact not accomplished.60 Without doubt, the genius of St. Thomas counts for much, but one can equally ask to what extent the translation for Latin readers of Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 26:7 (Leonine ed., 26:145). Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 40:10, 20 (Leonine ed., 26:216, 219). Albert the Great says: “Sicut per Vehemoth sensualitas intelligitur in homine, quae est animalis vita… ita per Leviathan infectio primi serpentis intelligitur [As by Vehemoth the sensuality in the man is understood, which is the animal life, . . . so by Leviathan the infection of the first snake is understood]” (Weiss ed., col. 484). 60 The few examples given above point to how this evolution begins to emerge: Roland of Cremona often makes reference to philosophers, but his purpose is principally spiritual. William of Melitona also provides scientific explanations, but he does not follow this process through to its logical conclusion. 58 59 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1071 Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed does not in fact play a decisive role in this process.61 Allow me to offer some reflections on this point. First of all, I note that the translation was probably done in Paris around 1240.62 It is a peculiar translation,63 which often sticks to a literalism that borders on mistranslation, and seems to lack mastery of the technical terms of Christian thought. The translator, who is not a good Hebraist, does not seem to be familiar with Christian exegesis;64 it is therefore particularly difficult to identify his origin ( Jewish? Christian?). In any event, he has rendered a great service, since from the second half of the thirteenth century onward the references to Rabbi Moses are numerous.65 Meister Eckhart in his biblical commentaries later presents a particular case of such utilization of the Guide. Thomas Aquinas likewise knows Rabbi Moses and mentions him rather frequently: he manifests a certain respect Maimonides’s influence on Thomas’s commentary, specifically the influence of the Guide for the Perplexed, is laid out well by Chardonnens, L’homme sous le regarde de la Providence; see esp. 38–45, 82–85, as well as 293–94: “If Thomas knows the Guide for the Perplexed and is inspired by what pertains to the literary genre and the intentio auctoris of the Book of Job, he nonetheless freely distances himself from the Guide”). 62 This is the thesis of Görge K. Hasselhoff, Dicit Rabbi Moyses: Studien zum Bild von Moses Maimonides im lateinischen Westen vom 13 bis zum 15 Jahrhundert (Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann, 2004), who is opposed to current datings that situate this translation either in Sicily at the court of Frederick II, or in the South of France. It seems to me that the specific characteristics of this translation prohibit attributing it to these two centers, since they require a mastery of the Hebrew language as well as of the matters concerned in the work thus translated. 63 It was translated from the Hebrew translation of Juda al-Harizi. 64 See Gilbert Dahan, “Un transfert intellectuel: la traduction latine du Guide des égarés de Maïmonide,” in Passages. Déplacements des hommes, circulation des textes et identités dans l’Occident médiéval, ed. Joëlle Ducos and Patrick Henriet (Toulouse: CNRS-Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, 2013), 23–37 (pending a more fundamental study of this translation). We note, for example, that cura translates the notion of providence (shemirah) in al-Harizi’s Hebrew translation from the original Arabic. The Latin translation of Maimonides’s Guide is also known through the florilegia, of which the most important is the Extractiones, found in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16096 (see Gilbert Dahan, “Un florilège latin de Maïmonide au xiiie siècle: les Extractiones de Raby Moyse,” in Écriture et réécriture des textes philosophiques médiévaux: Volume d’hommage offert à Colette Sirat, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse and Olga Weijers [Turnhout: Brepols, 2006], 23–44). 65 According to Alain de Libera, Penser au Moyen Âge (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1991), 125–29, Maimonides’s role is much bigger than might otherwise be suggested by the explicit mentions of his name in medieval texts. 61 1072 Gilbert Dahan for him, even when he does not agree with his theses.66 Maimonides dedicates two chapters of the third part of the Guide to the Book of Job (chapters 22 and 2367). He mainly studies the prologue; chapter 23 examines the opinions of Job and his friends on providence. But we must also take into account chapters 16 and 17 of part III, both of which are on providence; chapter 16 binds the problem of providence to that of the divine omniscience; chapter 17 sets forth five opinions on providence (the Atomists and Epicureans, Aristotle, the Asharites, the Mutazilites, the Jewish prophets and doctors). However, Rabbi Moses is never named in the Expositio super Iob and the editors of the Leonine edition have found only four utilizations of the Guide: in the prologue and on Job 32:1, the idea that the story of Job does not recount actual facts but is a parable;68 in the prologue, the observation of the lack of a determined order in human affairs;69 and on Job 22:14, the opinion that, due to the multiple imperfections and disorders in this See, in particular, Avital Wohlman, Thomas d’Aquin et Maïmonide: Un dialogue exemplaire (Paris: Cerf, 1988), and Wohlman, Maïmonide et Thomas d’Aquin: Un dialogue impossible (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1995); see also Studies in Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. Jacob I. Dienstag (New York: KTAV, 1975). 67 The medieval translation was printed in Paris in 1520 by Agostino Giustiniani: Rabi Mossei Aegyptii Deux seu Director dubitantium aut perplexorum, in tres libros diuisus et summa accuratione Reuerendi patris Augustini Iustiniani ordinis praedicatorii . . . (Paris, Josse Bade, 1520). For part III, there is a shift of one unit in the numbering of the chapters. 68 Aquinas, Super Iob, prol.: “Fuerunt aliqui quibus visum est quod iste Iob non fuerit aliquid in rerum natura [There were some thinkers for whom it seemed that this Job was not something in the nature]” (Leonine ed., 26:4); Super Iob on Job 32:1: “Si non fuisset res gesta sed parabola conficta [If it was not an actual fact but an invented parable]” (Leonine ed., 26:171). See Guide for the Perplexed 3.22, Latin translation in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 15973, fol. 166vb: “Ratio mirabilis de Iob attinet rationi in qua sumus, scilicet quod est parabola ad ostendendum oppiniones hominum in cura. Tu vero scis quod dixerunt quidam de sapientibus quod Iob non fuit ens, sed fuit exemplum [The astonishing explanation about Job is about our present subject: it is a parable which shows the opinions of men about providence (cura). You know that some of the sages said that Job was not a real creature but an example]” (fol. 84v in Giustiani’s edition). See likewise the French translation (of the Arabic) of Salomon Munk, Le Guide des égarés (Paris: A. Franck, 1866 [new edition: Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, 1970]). 3:159. 69 Aquinas, Super Iob, prol.: “In eventibus humanis nullus certus ordo apparet [In human affairs, no determined order appears]” (Leonine ed., 26:3). See Guide 3.16 (at the beginning) (Munk ed., 3:109; Giustiniani ed., fol. 79v). 66 The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1073 world, it is not governed by divine providence.70 In reality, the influence of the Guide is more important than these few mentions would lead us to believe. We do not have space to make an exhaustive case here and hope that the following few examples will suffice to convince. In the first place, it seems that the general inspiration of St. Thomas’s prologue can be traced back to the Guide: in both cases, we have a kind of history of thought in relation to the problem of providence. The statement of the various opinions is reminiscent of chapter 17 in Maimonides, even if Thomas does not mention any Muslim thinkers. Thomas recalls the opinion of Democritus and Empedocles where Maimonides spoke of Epicurus. But the sequence of presentation is parallel and leads in both cases to the thought furnished by the books written under the dictation of the Holy Spirit.71 There does, however, seem to be a major difference insofar as Maimonides inquires whether providence extends to individuals or is only concerned with species, whereas Thomas posits the case of human affairs from the outset. In fact, man plays a major role in Maimonides’s own thought (concerning which he himself notes deviations from the traditional perspective of the doctors of the Law): for Maimonides, providence uniquely concerns species, with the exception of man, since it extends to individual human beings.72 The objection might also be raised that, for Maimonides, the story of Job aims to set forth the opinions of human beings on providence, whereas, for Thomas, the book’s whole intentio “turns on showing through plausible arguments that human affairs are ruled by divine providence.” 73 But in fact, the subject matter as Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 22:14: “Ponebant quod, quia ea quae in terris sunt multis defectibus et inordinationibus subiacent, divina providentia non reguntur [Some thinkers stated that, as the beings which are in the world are subject to many imperfections and disorders, they are not governed by divine providence]” (Leonine ed., 26:130). See Guide 3.17 (at the beginning) (Munk ed., 3:115–16 ; Giustiniani ed., fol. 80). 71 In Maimonides, Guide: “Quinta opinio ipsa est sententia credentium legem nostram aut faciam te scire illud quod dixerunt in hoc libro prophetarum nostrorum et quod credunt universaliter sapientes nostril [The fifth opinion is that of those who believe in our law, and I am showing to you what they said in the books of our Prophets and what all our sages believe]” (Giustiniani ed., , fol. 81r); in Thomas, Super Iob: “Et ideo post Legem datam et Prophetas, in numero hagiographorum . . . primus ponitur liber Iob [And after the Law which has been given and the Prophets, among the Hagiographs, . . . the book of Job is the first]” (Leonine ed., 26:3). 72 See the end of Guide 3.17 (Munk ed., 3:129–33). 73 In the summary by which he introduces his commentary. Cited from Thomas Aquinas, Literal Exposition of Job, 68 (see Leonine ed., 26:5: “Intentio huius libri 70 1074 Gilbert Dahan stated by Thomas is also the one Maimonides treats, even if the latter gives more space to the description of different opinions. It seems to me that Maimonides’s influence is also detectable in the treatment of the two first chapters of Job, which are the object of chapter 22 of part III of the Guide. I will briefly highlight a few points. In the first place, the role assigned to good angels and evil angels recalls what Maimonides says when he assimilates the one and the other to the good and evil inclination in man: “Each class of spirits, therefore, moves men to certain actions, the good spirits indeed to good actions but the evil spirits to evil.” 74 Similarly, the status of Satan, who cannot move about among the heavenly creatures, is comparable in the two texts.75 The gradation of the torments inflicted on Job is the subject of similar remarks in Maimonides and in Thomas76 —but this is perhaps less significant. On the other hand, we can compare the comments on certain words: thus, concerning “ut assisterent [angeli] coram Domino,” the same expression is not used for Satan, who does not have the same role as the good angels.77 I will last of all take up what Thomas says of the verb dicere, in connection with Job 1:7, “Cui dixit Dominus”: aside from the generation of the Son, this recalls Maimonides’s treatment of the tota ordinatur ad ostendendum qualiter res humanae providentia divina regantur”). 74 Aquinas, Literal Exposition of Job, 76 (Leonine ed., 26:8; cf. Guide 3.22[23]: “Scitum est etiam ex verbis sapientum qui dixerunt quod cuilibet homini coniunguntur duo angeli, unus a dextris et alter a sinistris, et isti sunt creatura bona et creatura mala [It is known also from the words of sages who said that two angels are committed to every man, one at his right and one at his left, and they are the good and the evil creature]” (BnF lat. 15973, fol. 168vb; cf. Giustiniani ed., fol. 85r, and Munk ed., 3170). Note that this passage was selected from the Extractiones of BnF lat. 16096, fol. 133va]). 75 Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 1:6–12 (ch. 1, lec. 2; Leonine ed., 26:9). Cf. Guide 3.22[23] (BnF lat. 15973, fol. 167rb–va; cf. Giustiniani ed., fol. 84v, and Munk ed., 3.162), 76 Leonine ed., 26:12. Cf. Guide 3.22[23], (BnF. lat. 15793, fol. 167va–b; Giustiniani ed, fol. 85r; Munk ed., 3:163–64). 77 Leonine ed., 26:8: “et ideo non dicitur de Satan quod venit ut assisteret coram Domino sed solum quod affuit inter eos.” Cf. Guide 3.22[23]: “Venerunt filii angelorum ut starent coram Domino et venit etiam Sathan inter eos [the text is slightly different from the Vulgate]. Hoc autem non est ita dictum nisi quia venit ex intentione sue substantie nec requisitus propter substantiam suam, sed quia fuit ens propter intentionem essendi tantummodo” (BnF lat. 15793, fol. 167rb; Giustiniani ed., fol. 84v; Munk ed., 3:162); we have here an example of the blunders of the Latin translation. The Commentary of Thomas Aquinas in the History of Medieval Exegesis on Job 1075 different senses of the verb ʾamar, “to say,” in the first part of the Guide.78 St. Thomas’s approach to Job is very remarkable and it seems to me that contemporary exegetes should draw profit from it, beyond even the specific qualities that we now recognize as “pre-critical” exegesis. We truly have an in-depth study that does not neglect any detail of the text. Above all, it is one that has taken into account all of the issues of a troubling and often disturbing book. Without denying the contribution of his predecessors, Thomas breaks with a certain interpretive tradition and poses the fundamental problems in their raw nakedness. What leads him to do this is, first of all, the extraordinary attention he gives to the language of Scripture— which certainly constitutes one of the major traits of his hermeneutic.79 Likewise, he wants to provide solutions that are acceptable to readers who are familiar with the work of Aristotle and who are no longer content with ready-made answers. The way in which Thomas explains the phenomena described in Job by means of natural laws is extremely convincing. It also seems that the mediation of Maimonides, itself stimulated by the apparent contradictions between Scripture and philosophy and equally quite attentive to the language of Scripture (which constitutes the real subject of the Guide), has helped Thomas, who therefore occupies a major place in the N&V history of the exegesis of the Book of Job. Aquinas, Super Iob on Job 1:7: “Sciendum est quod dicere dupliciter accipitur, nam quandoque refertur ad conceptum cordis, quandoque ad significationem qua huiusmodi conceptus alteri exprimitur. Secundum igitur primum modum dicere Dei est aeternum et et nihil est aliud quam generare Filium, qui est verbum ipsius. Secundo autem modo temporaliter Deus aliqua dicit, diversimode tamen secundum quod congruit eis quibus dicit [It must be known that the verb dicere (to say) has two significations ; sometimes it refers to the conception of the heart, sometimes to the signification by which a conception of this sort is expressed to other. According to the first mode the saying of God is eternal and it is nothing else but to beget the Son, who is his Word. According to the second, God said something in the time, in diverse modalities according to those to whom he spoke]” (Leonine ed., 26:9). Cf. Guide 1.65[64] (Giustiniani ed., fol. 26r–v; Munk ed., 1:291–93). 79 See Dahan, “Thomas Aquinas: Exegesis and Hermeneutics.” 78 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1077–1099 1077 Jesus’s Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels Anthony Giambrone, O.P. École Biblique Jerusalem, Israel In 1965 , at that adventitious moment when a classical dogmatic formation of the Church’s critically trained exegetes could still simply be assumed, a young Raymond Brown addressed the twentieth annual convention of the Catholic Theological Society on the broad topic of Jesus’s knowledge in a way and in a context that is today difficult to imagine. The survey he offered is honestly rather boring. Its interest is above all that it was in many ways the first and last study of its kind. Importantly, though he could not at the time guess that his contribution would find no echo, Brown did note that: “Dogmatic theologians, not exegetes, have led the way in the modern discussion of Jesus’ human knowledge. If exegetes had begun the discussion, the orientation might have been different.”1 The lassitude of Catholic exegetical investigations into this theme certainly owes something to magisterial interventions. Pius X’s condemnations in Lamentabili are only one of several factors that might be mentioned.2 The neo-Modernist panic of the early 1960s also made Brown’s effort a manifestly delicate exercise.3 More than half a century later, the air has cleared, but the knowledge of Christ, for all its importance in the Scholastic tradition, is still not a concern that shapes contemporary exegesis. One may lament the fact, but before promptly construing this as yet another index of the theological insensitivity of modern Scripture See Raymond Brown, “How Much Did Jesus Know?—A Survey of the Biblical Evidence,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 29, no. 3 (1967): 315–45. 2 See especially Pope Pius X, Lamentabili (1907), §§32–34. 3 On this crisis, see Anthony Giambrone, “The Quest for the Vera et Sincera de Jesus: Dei Verbum §l9 and the Historicity of the Gospels,” Nova et Vertera (English) 13, no. 1 (2015): 88–93. 1 1078 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. scholars (such indices are not wanting), it is only fair also to reverse the charge. Systematic theologians investigating this theme have shown themselves remarkably disinterested in probing its scriptural foundations. A thin film of parenthetical proof texts still marks the general depth of the engagement.4 At its worst—and I wish I were only thinking of manuals from the 1920s—biblical revelation is flagrantly overruled.5 Traditionally, of course, in addition to his divine knowledge, Christ was reckoned to posses three types of human knowledge: acquired,6 infused Earlier stages of the discussion were much more preoccupied with the scriptural witness, however different many hermeneutical presuppositions may have been. See Kevin Madigan, “Chistus Nesciens? Was Christ Ignorant of the Day of Judgment? Arian and Orthodox Interpretations of Mark 13:32 in he Ancient Latin West,” Harvard Theological Review 93 (2003): 255–56. 5 The precise danger is that abstract principles simply steamroll revelation. A very recent and baffling example is the non sequitur at the end the following argument: “La nescience est intrinsèquement liée à la condition humaine, condition finie et limitée. A ce titre l’ignorance, comme la tristesse ou la crainte, sont le signe de la présence de l’âme dans le Christ, car elles sont le signe caractéristique de l’homme de la possession d’une âme humaine. Il est vrai que l’homme ne peut pas tout savoir, c’est pourquoi il ignore bien des choses; c’est une imperfection, mais non un mal. En revanche, l’ignorance est un mal moral quand on ignore ce que l’on devrait savoir. Or, dans le domaine moral et religieux, il ne peut y avoir dans le Christ aucune imperfection, aucune ignorance en ce concerne la fin dont il est, comme Fils et Juge, l’instrument et le principe. L’ignorance du jour du jugement (connaissance religieuse et eschatologique du dessein de Dieu) est donc incompatible avec l’impeccabilité du Christ [Nescience is intrinsically bound to the human condition, which is finite and limited. In this sense, ignorance, like sadness or fear, is the sign of the presence of the soul in Christ, for these things are the characteristic sign of man and of the possession of a human soul. It is true that man cannot know everything. This is why he is ignorant of many things. It is an imperfection, but not an evil. By contrast, ignorance is a moral evil when one is ignorant of what one ought to know. For in the moral and religious domain, there can be no imperfection in Christ, no ignorance in what concerns the end, of which, as Son and Judge, he is the instrument and the principle. Ignorance of the day of judgment (religious and eschatological knowledge of the plan of God) is thus incompatible with the impeccability of Christ (my translation)]” (Philippe-Marie Margelidon, “La science infuse du Christ selon saint Thomas,” Revue thomiste 114 [2014]: 379–416, at 411; my translation with emphasis added). This ostentatious disregard of Mark 13:32 is ultimately bound up with a version of the “apparent ignorance” argument. On the difficulty with this position, see below. 6 Remarkably, it seems that Thomas Aquinas was the first thirteenth-century theologian to posit experiential human knowledge in Christ. See Jean-Pierre Torrell, “Le savoir acquis du Christ selon les théologiens médiévaux,” Revue thomiste 101 (2001): 355–408. 4 Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1079 or prophetic (which are overlapping but not coextensive categories),7 and beatific.8 As a rule, the arguments formulated in favor of Christ’s possession of infused science follow formal logical lines such as appeal to the necessary perfection of his knowledge,9 its regulative role in his meritorious deeds,10 or the necessary fullness of his charismatic endowments,11 ignoring the fundamental testimony of the Gospels. It is appropriate, however, and indeed imperative to ask: Do the Scriptures reveal Jesus as possessed of infused, prophetic species, and if so, in what way and in what specific connections? It is to be held de fide, as the First Vatican Council teaches, that Christ both performed miracles and uttered prophecies (Denzinger-Schönmetzer [DS], no. 3009). Is there anything more, or more interesting, left for the Gospels to say? The question is plainly rhetorical. If sacra doctrina is indeed a single science, the contributions of positive and speculative theology must here (as elsewhere) be better synthesized. So, if exegetes had begun the discussion—or if even now we have the liberty to intervene—in which direction might the investigation go? In what follows I would like to suggest that upon inspection the evangelists attribute prophetic knowledge to Jesus less often and less fantastically, but in far more provocative and diverse ways, than is often assumed or understood in dogmatic discussion. Let me say that, although I will attempt to thread the needle and avoid some extremes as I see them, I do not discount the possibility of a maximalist construction of the Lord’s hidden knowledge. His words in John 16:12 certainly leave open a tempting crack in the speculative door: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” Nevertheless, I stick to the positive evidence revealed in the Scriptures—which seems to me little preoccupied with demonstrating a plenary endowment. Let me start with a curious irony. Leaving aside Augustine’s scientia vespertina, the infused angelic knowledge that he detected lurking behind A significant modern discussion of Jesus’s infused knowledge appears in Jacques Maritain, On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus (New York: Herder, 1969). 8 See most recently Simon Gaine, Did the Savior See the Father: Christ, Salvation, and the Vision of God (London, Bloomsbury, 2015). 9 See, e.g., Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] III, q. 11. 10 John of St. Thomas crafted this argument; see Cursus theologicus, vol. 8, q. 9, d. 11, a. 2, nos. 3–5. 11 Other arguments, or variations of these arguments, also appear. For instance, the necessary expressability of Jesus’s knowledge has also been emphasized by, e.g., Alexandre Durand, “La science du Christ,” La nouvelle revue théologique 71 (1949): 497–503. 7 1080 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. Genesis 1,12 the category of so-called “infused science,” while it appears at first blush to be improbably medieval and abstract—hardly the way a hard-nosed exegete would chose to get the conversation rolling—it is not, in fact, an unbiblical idea. From the earliest strands of biblical prophecy right down to its final transition into apocalyptic, in the biblical tradition prophets routinely behold visionary portents, infused species, if you will. The book of Zechariah provides one of multiple examples: Zechariah, What do you see? A lampstand all of gold with a bowl on top. . . . What do you see? A flying scroll (Zech 4:2; 5:2). This form of imaginary apparition, mysterious as it is, while hardly exhausting the range of possible prophetic experience in Israel or the ancient Near East, nevertheless occupies an important place in both the literary construction and wider representation of prophecy for the biblical mind. A quick glance at Jewish apocalyptic writings of the Second Temple period confirms the endurance and even expansion of this construction. The characters of this literature are consistently seers, men who penetrate hidden mysteries and peer far into the future. To take just one example, 1 Enoch is, from start to finish, “a holy vision from the heavens” (1:2), punctuated by phrases like “he showed me” and “I saw” (see 14:8; 18:1; 21:1; 22:1; 23:2; 24:1; 26:1; 28:1; 29:2; 30:2; 31:1; 32:1; 33:1; 34:2; 36:2; 37:1; 40:1; 41:1, 3; 43:1, 2; 44:1; 46:1; 48:1; 52:1; 53:1; 54:1; 56:1; 57:1; 59:1; 60:1; 61:1; 64:1; 66:1; 72:1; 73:1; 74:1; 76:1; 80:1; 81:1; 83:1; 85:1; 86:1; 87:1; 88:1; 89:2, 28, 51; 90:1, 13, 20, 30, 37, 40; 93:2; 103:2; 107:1; 108:4). Other examples could easily be cited. As a rule, prophets see visions. Nevertheless (and here is the irony toward which I have been driving), despite being a legitimate biblical possibility, the reception of infused species does not provide the best lens for understanding the scriptural account of Jesus’s prophetic behavior.13 Jesus does, of course, report a vision of Satan’s fall (Luke 10:18), and one could perhaps imagine Jesus’s repeated language of “seeing” and “hearing” the Father in John (e.g.: 3:11, 32; 5:19) concretely on the order of ecstasy and locutions. That is hardly certain, however; and beatific knowledge is Augustine, De civitate Dei 11.29. Aquinas addresses the question of whether Christ’s prophetic knowledge came though the (transient, therefore imperfect) gift of prophecy or directly through his infused science, ultimately arguing that Jesus indeed had the charismatic gift, though in a stable manner; see: De veritate q. 20, a. 6; ST II-II, q. 174, a. 5; ad 3; III, q. 7, a. 8. 12 13 Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1081 the better way to understand this broad motif, in my view. In any case, John breaks the mold and Jesus is not presented as a seer according to the classic recipe. As much as texts like 1 Enoch and Daniel do marvelously illuminate Jesus’s historical context, a great gap separates the Lord from the protagonists of these books. This does not simply throw us back upon sociological categories, however, though historical-Jesus scholars have favored such an approach. Distinguishing oracular and leadership prophets is certainly a helpful move, and there is no doubt that Jesus corresponded to real social patterns and expectations set by previous prophets. The Lord was certainly judged in this light by his contemporaries in different ways. None of this is quite the analysis we are seeking, however. The Hellenistic figure of the so-called theios aner is perhaps more immediately helpful (if also perhaps a complete scholarly fiction). Apollonius of Tyana, whose bios is so often (and so tenuously) compared to the Gospels, profiles the persona. In Philostratus’s report, Apollonius’s boundless, superhuman knowledge is a constant theme. “I know every one of the barbarian languages [said Apollonius]. . . . I know them all, and have learned none.” The man from Ninos was amazed, but Apollonius said, “Do not be surprised if I know all human languages: I also know [οἶδα] all that humans keep unspoken.” (1.19)14 If texts like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (not unlike the tertia pars of Aquinas’s Summa theologiae [ST]) transmit a Christ figure endowed with hypertrophic gifts of infused knowledge on this same order—the child Jesus knows the Greek letters (and their mystic meaning) without being taught, to the befuddlement of his would-be tutor (6:1–4)—we are very distant here from the presentation of the canonical Jesus.15 This para-bib Translation from the Jones Loeb edition. “Pour nombreux interprètes modernes, saint Thomas surdéterminé la plénitude de la science du Christ. Certes, la perfection de sa connaissance surnaturelle des mystères révélés répond a la fin de l’Incarnation rédemptrice, mais l’entendue et le mode infus du savoir du Christ apparaissent toujours comme le résultat audacieux d’une construction complexe éloignée des évangiles [For many modern interpreters, St. Thomas overdetermined the knowledge of Christ. Admittedly, the perfection of his supernatural knowledge of the revealed mysteries of salvation corresponds to the redemptive end of the Incarnation; still, the extent and mode of Christ’s knowledge always seem like the audacious result of a complex construction far distant from the Gospels]” (Margelidon, “La science infuse,” 404; translation mine). 14 15 1082 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. lical Christ has nevertheless enjoyed quite a career in dogmatic theology. On the other hand, there are—and theologians hasten to highlight them— repeated cases where the canonical Lord displays some penetrating insight into the thoughts of others: “Jesus knew what they were thinking” (εἰδὼς δὲ τὰς ἐνθυμήσεις αὐτῶν; Matt 12:25). This does, admittedly, look a bit more like what so amazed the man from Ninos and the verb to know lands us precisely where we wish to be. We must, all the same, be careful in evaluating such knowledge. First of all, although the gift of reading hearts is a form of prophecy of present realities, as both St. Paul and St. Thomas aver (1 Cor 14:24–25; ST II-II, q. 171 a. 3), and while it is a very real charism attested in ecclesial life, it is not always obvious that the Gospel scenes in question unambiguously reveal more than Jesus’s keen attunement to the psychology of those around him, as commentators have often observed.16 This is not simply a rationalistic lack of piety, but often sound critical judgment.17 Indeed, in some cases, taken within the narrative context (or read in synoptic parallel), Jesus’s knows what his opponents are thinking after they speak their thoughts aloud (as in Matt 12:24).18 An itemized inventory is not my objective here, but generally, if a careful exegesis of the relevant texts is undertaken, we must chasten too widespread and transparent an See, e.g.: Joseph Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke, Anchor Bible 28A (Garden City: Doubleday, 1981), 584; Vincent Taylor, The Gospel according to St. Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes (London: Macmillan, 1959), 196. See also Brown, “How Much Did Jesus Know?” 319–42. 17 One may ask, for instance, whether Jesus’s perfectly apt response to the “amazement” (ἐθαύμασεν) of his Pharisee host at the fact that the Lord did not wash his hands before eating inevitably implies some sort of supernatural mindreading, or whether the host’s amazement was simply not well hidden (Luke 11:38–39; cf. Matt 15:2). 18 Luke 5:21 seems to advance this explanation in interpreting Mark 2:6 (cf. Matt 9:3), for example, since Luke drops Mark’s ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις αὐτῶν (“in their hearts”) from the description of scribes questioning and omits the Markan phrase τῷ πνεύματι (“in his spirit”; 2:8) to qualify Jesus’s knowledge. At the same time, curiously, Luke 6:8 adds ᾖδει τοὺς διαλογισμοὺς αὐτῶν (“he knew their thoughts”) to Mark 3:3. Yet, even when the text says explicitly that Jesus “knew their inner thoughts” (εἰδὼς τὸν διαλογισμὸν τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν) in Luke 9:47, the triggering event can hardly be imagined as Jesus eavesdropping on a telepathic argument among the disciples about who was the greatest (Luke 9:46), and the force here may indeed simply be that Jesus saw through their words the deeper dispositions of the disciples. On the other hand, Luke does not have Jesus openly ask his disciples what they were discussing, as Matthew and Mark both do (Matt 18:1–2; Mark 9:33–34)—a data point that could be taken in two different directions. 16 Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1083 accounting of this phenomenon.19 That being said and despite some curious counter-indications, the motif of reading thoughts is indeed there in the Tradition and particularly present and amplified in Luke. The characteristic Lukan syntagm of οἶδα + διαλογισμός is quite suggestive (e.g. Luke, 5:22; 6:8; 9:47; cf. Luke 11:17 [εἰδὼς αὐτῶν διανοήματα]), and it may well play upon Simeon’s oracle in 2:34–35 about Jesus revealing the thoughts (διαλογισμοί) of many hearts.20 If some extraordinary form of knowledge beyond mere keen awareness is indeed at play, as it seems to be, major questions nevertheless still remain. In a very recent dissertation Collin Blake Bullard has, in fact, argued that, when we read it against its closest parallels, we should see not prophetic but divine knowledge in this Lukan motif. Jesus is depicted as “the knower of hearts” in a way that is proper to God alone (ὁ καρδιογνώστης θεὸς [Acts 15:8]), as the Lord often appears for instance in the Psalms, Isaiah, and indeed in much Second Temple literature (e.g., Ps 138[139]; 4Q185 1–3 III, 10–14; Josephus, Jewish War 5.413; Philo, De cherubim 16–18; 2 Bar 83:1–3; Sir 42:18–21).21 To this I would just add as a point of form-critical interest that in the Gospels’ mind-reading narratives, which are nearly always controversy stories, the reactions of others never manifest any special astonishment at Jesus revealing the secrets of their hearts. Astonishment is reserved, rather, for the unexpected ways the Lord speaks and acts despite what he knows (in whatever way) that others are thinking, such as provocatively healing a man on the Sabbath or audaciously absolving a woman’s sins (e.g.: Mark 2:1–12; Luke 7:50). “My thoughts are not your thoughts” (Isa 55:8) seems to be the general provocation of these chriae. The Fourth Gospel’s story of Jesus’s dialogue with the Samaritan It is a healthy warning in gauging the significance of the “mind-reading” language that Codex Bezae (D5) records at Luke 3:15 that John the Baptist “knowing their thoughts” (επιγνους τα διανοηματα αυτων)—i.e., that the people were wondering “in their hearts” if he were the Christ—responded in answer to their misapprehension. Is John here depicted as a being moved by some special mystic knowledge, or is this simply a compact Lukan variant of the rather straightforward dialogue paralleled in John 1:19–28? 20 Cf. Matt 12:25 (εἰδὼς δὲ τὰς ἐνθυμήσεις αὐτῶν; “knowing their thoughts”); 9:4 (ἰδὼν τὰς ἐνθυμήσεις αὐτῶν; “knowing their thoughts”); Mark 12:15 (εἰδὼς αὐτῶν τὴν ὑπόκρισιν; “knowing their hypocrisy”); and GEger [Gospel of Egerton / Papyrus Egerton] 2r, II.9–10, ὁ δὲ Ἰη εἰδώς [τὴν δι]άνοιαν [αὐτ]ῶν). 21 Collin Blake Bullard, Jesus and the Thoughts of Many Hearts: Implicit Christology and Jesus’ Knowledge in the Gospel of Luke Library of New Testament Studies / Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplemental series 530 (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 19 1084 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. woman at the well is one obvious case where controversy is not in play and a different perspective may be gained. Here the Lord inexplicably reveals the secrets of his interlocutor’s past life and she responds directly to him, “Sir I see that you are a prophet” (John 4:19), and to the people of her village: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have done. He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (John 4:29). As the Fourth Gospel reveals it, Jesus’s gift of present prophecy thus functions like a miraculous sign and is ordered toward his own messianic self-revelation. Read through a Johannine lens, ambiguity accordingly clings to prophetic portents like other semeia, just as for all the evangelists the title “prophet” is finally inadequate as a full confession of faith in Christ. Openly readings hearts is a risky game that Jesus rarely played. Were the Lord to have acted too frequently as a mere mind reader, the profound depth of his true identity would have inevitably been obscured. Jesus’s knowledge of past and present realities to which he had no normal or natural access obviously operated with convicting power upon those to whom it was revealed. The Samaritan woman does not hesitate to recognize Jesus as a figure of God-ordained authority, however inadequate her lofty estimate of his person remains. It is a different matter with the revelation of future realities, however. These cannot be immediately confirmed (or invalidated). Who is to judge whether the prophecy will come to pass while it still remains in the future? In point of fact, Jesus’s revelation of future knowledge has an entirely different effect from his other acts of prophetic insight. It reconfigures the invited act of faith in his person around entirely different epistemological dynamics. Rather than prompting confessions or confounding opponents by a manifest show of power, future prophecy works as an opaque revelation that leaves Jesus’s hearers in a state of bewildered miscomprehension. “‘Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.’ But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying” (Luke 9:44–45; cf. 18:31–34). In the Gospels, Jesus’s prophetic knowledge of future contingents is strikingly concentrated around two great events: the destruction of the temple and the Paschal mystery. The Lord does not dabble in incidental prognostications. Even Jesus’s odd and seemingly superfluous foreknowledge of the coin in the fish’s mouth in Matthew 17—an almost isolated case of such minute clairvoyance in the Gospels—is closely bound to Jesus’s anticipation of the temple’s end and his own coming passion. The former prophecy belongs, of course, within a familiar line of Second Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1085 Temple prophetic discourse, including the famous case of Jesus ben Ananias recorded by Josephus (Jewish War 6.5.3). Craig Evans has exhaustively catalogued the parallels.22 A few examples, more or less contemporaneous with Jesus, will give the flavor: one from the Dead Sea Scrolls, one from a first century text called The Lives of the Prophets, and one attributed by a later rabbinic source (however uncertainly) to an important Tannaitic leader, Johannan ben Zakkai (c. 30–90 AD). All three prophecies, interestingly, are forms of scriptural interpretation—a point to bear in mind in thinking about Jesus as a first-century Jew. [Qumran] For a lion went to enter in, a lion cub (Nah 2:12). The explanation concerns Demetrius king of Yawan who sought to enter Jerusalem on the counsel of those who seek smooth things. But he did not enter, for from Antiochus until the rising of the commanders of the Kittim God did not deliver it into the hands of the kings of Yawan. But afterward it will be trampled under foot by the Kittim. (4Q169 [pescher to Nahum] 1.1–3; translation mine). [Lives of the Prophets] And concerning the end of the temple he [Habbakuk] predicted, By a western national it will happen. At that time, he said, the curtain of the Dabeir will be torn into small peices, and the capitals of the two pillars will be taken away and no one will know where they are ; and they will be carried away by angels into the wilderness, where the Tent of Witness was set up in the beginning (Lives of the Prophets 12 :11; translation mine). [Johannan ben Zakkai] [When Vespasian objected to Yohannan ben Zakkai’s greeting, Vive domine Imperator, Yohannan explained ] If you are not the king, you will be eventually, because the temple will only be destroyed by a king’s hand, as it says, And Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one (Isa 10:34) (Rabbah Lamentations 1:5, no. 31 ; translation mine). Craig Evans, “Predictions of the Destruction of the Herodian Temple in the Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Scrolls, and Related Texts,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 10 (1992): 89–147. 22 1086 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. In light of such material, the basic historical plausibility of Jesus’s prophecy, at least in some form, is thus very difficult to impugn, as most scholars agree. Exaggerated insistence that the Gospels record a vaticinium ex eventu is accordingly misplaced, however much later redactional touches may be freely recognized in the evangelists’ reports, whether to clarify or develop some motif. At the same time, this same wide presence during the Second Temple period of an aggressive anti-temple-establishment sentiment (which is different from being anti-temple) and the ample premonitions of coming judgment considerably reduce the singular impression of Jesus’s warning. Far from revealing his unparalleled powers of augury, Jesus’s bold certainty that “not one stone will be left here upon another” (Mark 13:2) inserts him within a recognizable tradition. What the Jewish parallels conceal, however—and this is the all-important difference—is the profound inner relation of Jesus’s temple prophecy to the foreseen drama of his own fate. In John, the merging of these two events is made quite explicit. The Synoptics are less clear about the identification, but the confused presence of the saying as a charge in Jesus’s trial before the Sanhedrin indicates that his condemnation and death was bound up with reports of this prediction. In my estimation, John, in fact, is responding to Mark, who confusingly tells of discordant “false” witnesses who testify: “We heard him saying, ‘I will destroy this Temple made by hands and in three days I will build another not made by hands’” (Mark 14:58; cf. 14:56–59 and Matt 26:55–61). With his very different version, John evidently means to clarify and reinterpret this “false witness,” which attributes to Jesus a statement that comes entirely out of the blue for readers of Mark, who have never previously heard any such saying. (The prediction of the temple’s destruction in Mark 13 was not spoken publicly and made no mention of three days or a new building.) Jesus, John assures, did indeed previously say something of this sort, as he was cleansing the temple. “He was speaking about the Temple of his body” (John 2:21). Luke, by contrast, famously drops the confusing Markan charge altogether. It must not be imagined that Luke is unaware of Jesus’s prophecy about the temple, however (see Acts 6:14). Nonetheless—and the point is important—Luke’s emphasis has shifted from the destruction of the sanctuary to wasting of the whole city. The Third Evangelist thus preserves two unique lament oracles referring to Jerusalem’s fall, plotted as mile-markers along Jesus’s journey to the holy place. In both cases, the prophecies about Jerusalem are intertwined with prophecies about Jesus himself. Thus, in Luke 13:35, the evangelist reproduces the minatory saying “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, city that murders the prophets . . . behold, your house is abandoned” (cf. Matt 23:38 and Jer 22:5), appending this logion after another Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1087 fateful saying about the city referring to Jesus’s coming death: “It is impossible that a prophet perish outside of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). In so doing, Luke at once ties the destiny of the temple to Jesus’s own coming passion and situates this future within the long and tragic history of the rebellious nation. Jesus must suffer the fate of all the prophets; and Jerusalem must suffer the consequence of its murderous deeds. In the oracle of Luke 19:41–44, Jesus again weeps over the city, saying that Jerusalem’s enemies “will not leave a stone upon a stone [λίθον ἐπὶ λίθον] within you, since you did not know the time of your visitation [ἐπισκοπῆς]” (Luke 19:44). The moment of visitation is, of course, a reference to Jesus himself and the Lord’s visitation of Israel in and through his person (see: Luke 1:78; 7:16). Jesus has thus once more oriented his prophecy about the nation’s doom directly around the rejection of his own mission. Jesus’s prophetic woe oracles against Chorazin and the fishing villages of Bethsaida and Capharnum should also be mentioned here. They represent a fragment of Galilean provenance, formulaic but likely preserved in something very close to the original form, and they offer a convincing sign that Jesus comported himself in the guise of an oracular prophet at least to some degree. While almost embarrassingly provincial, these stereotyped forecasts of doom extend the scope of Israel’s devastation to the northern reaches of the Land and fit the same self-oriented pattern already seen (Matt 11:20–24; Luke 10:13–15; cf. Isa 14:13–15). Failure to recognize and respond to Jesus’s ministry invites judgment and apocalyptic cataclysm. At the canonical level, the confusing Markan memory thus radiates out in two different directions, taking on a clarified shape along distinct Lukan and Johannine axes. These two axes, furthermore, represent the two sides of Jesus’s self-identification, revealed in this remarkable fusion of the temple and passion prophecies. In a vertical direction, Jesus identifies himself as the temple, namely, the living presence of YHWH in the midst of his people: a provocation and high theological claim in the Johannine mode. Simultaneously, on the horizontal Lukan plane, Jesus melds his personal history with the history of the people and the city, a sort of deep solidarity making Israel’s national story both a prequel and a sequel to his own. A Chalcedonian, two-natured harmony thus contours the Christology of Jesus’s temple prophecy in its canonical form. Of course, Jesus’s prophecy of his own passion also has a self-standing expression. Two contrary tendencies are observable, moreover, in the interpretation the thrice-repeated prediction. On the one hand, these texts are conventionally dismissed as post-Paschal fictions manufactured by some pre-Markan tradition. On the other hand, the miraculous element in 1088 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. Jesus’s supposed foreknowledge of his passion is frequently minimized, with the argument that any sensible person might have seen a violent death coming. Certainly the murder of John would already suggest, at the very start of Jesus’s ministry, the danger of taking up the Baptist’s ministerial torch. Growing conflict with the religious leaders, whatever historical form this took, could have then only added to the impression. There is no doubt something reasonable in this minimalistic line. Aquinas speaks of a kind of natural prophecy, based on experience and a person’s powers of imagination and understanding (ST II-II, q. 172, a. 1). If something more is still required to secure and elevate the character of this premonition, the old dogmatic manuals speak of a science infused per accidens, namely an extraordinary comprehension of things that might be learned in an ordinary way, similar to the knowledge granted to Adam and Eve (see ST III, q. 1, a. 2; qq. 8–12; q. 15, a. 2). Abraham Lincoln reportedly knew that he was in danger and had dream warnings of his death (which he did not believe). It is certainly possible to think of Jesus’s prophetic knowledge of his suffering along such lines. At its outer limit, however, knowledge of future contingents is not merely a miracle praeter naturam, a supernatural path to natural effects, like knowing things a good detective could know, but without employing the detective’s methods. It is super naturam, a supernatural effect, not obtainable by any natural means. One may thus go a step further. A huge number of Gospel traditions remember Jesus as anticipating and freely accepting his own execution (Matt 10:38 || Luke 14:27; Mark 8:34; Matt 10:39 || Luke 17:33; Mark 8:35; John 12:25; Mark 8:31–33; 9:31; 10:33–34; Mark 10:45; Mark 14:17–65; Mark 15:1–15; Matt 26:51–54; Luke 13:31–33; Luke 23:6–12; John 10:11–18; John 12:23–27; John 15:12–13; John 16:5–10; John 18:10–12)—too many to simply be ignored.23 What stands behind this massive impression made on the tradition of Jesus’s extraordinary confidence in the face of death? If account is taken of Jesus’s own experience of divine power in his working of miracles, notably in raising the dead (Mark 5:22–43; Luke 7:11–17; John 11:1–44), one must inevitably extend the scope of his natural prophetic insight to include not only the certainty of his death, but also the anticipation of his own resurrection. “I lay down my life, that I may take it up again. . . . I have power to lay it down of my Brown rightly remarks: “Modern criticism would cast doubt on a foreknowledge of the details, but we should not undervalue the general agreement of the Gospel tradition that Jesus was convinced beforehand that, while his life would be taken from him, God would ultimately vindicate him” (“How Much did Jesus Know?” 323). 23 Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1089 own accord, and I have power to take it up again” (John 10:17–18). The intervention here of God’s supernatural activity obviously reconfigures the entire calculation in a substantial way. It must not be ignored, in this regard, however, that Jesus had access not only to his own circumscribed human experience of divine intervention—and the inferences that might be drawn from that. He also had human access to the deposit of religious experience of all Israel, including all the prior prophecies about the messiah that were revealed and handed down in the Scriptures. I would gesture here to the deep grammar of the death-and-resurrection of the beloved son that the Jewish scholar Jon Levenson has detected as underwriting the length and breadth of the Old Testament tradition.24 A more theologically satisfying path than mere “natural prophecy” thus opens up for analyzing Jesus’s certain foreknowledge of his Paschal mystery, precisely at the moment when we acknowledge miraculous activity and the revelatory role of Israel’s Scriptures. Indeed, it bears saying that to foresee one’s death is one thing; to foresee one’s resurrection after three days is quite another. The apologetic appeal of a low-bar modesty must thus yield before more telling factors. Foretelling a miracle super naturam is itself super naturam and the minimalistic approach simply breaks down at this point.25 How then shall we proceed? Following Aquinas, who allows that prophecy might be split between the representation and the judgment of things (ST II-II, q. 173, a. 2), we might, I suggest, conjecture that the modality of Jesus’s prophetic knowledge—at least as it is presented in the Gospels—excelled principally on the (more excellent) judgmental, interpretative order (see ST II-II, q. 174, aa. 2–3). This need not exclude the divine presentation of interior sensible forms, of course, or experiences of mystical rapture (abstractio a sensibus). One should note, moreover, that both nubes and vox exterius formata are forms of prophecy according to Thomas (ST II-II, q. 174, a. 1, ad 3), so that the baptism and Transfiguration must be collocated among the varieties of Jesus’s prophetic experience (Mark 1:9–11; 9:2–8). Still, we might prefer to think generally of a more mundane external apperception through the senses (mediante sensu exterius), as when Daniel saw the writing on the wall (Dan 5:25). Daniel, it Jon Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993). 25 This is stronger than the position of Brown, who says: “Such a prediction should have come from his interpretation of the OT (e.g. of Is, and perhaps of Dn) and would not presuppose a superhuman knowledge. It could represent the unshakable conviction of a man who was sure that he knew God’s plan” (“How Much Did Jesus Know?” 323). 24 1090 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. should be recalled, perceived not the miraculous act of inscription itself (Dan 5:5–9), but simply the words already publically revealed by God. In the same way, the revelation of which Christ was the prophetic interpreter and judge was that word communicated already by God through the prophets and contained in Israel’s sacred text (see Exod 31:18). In other words, Jesus possessed an extraordinary comprehension of what might theoretically be learned in an “ordinary” way on the order of revelation/ redemption. Like that of Joseph, who could penetrate the meaning of prophetic dreams obscure to all the wise men of Egypt, Jesus’s prophetic knowledge was eminently at work precisely in his penetrating comprehension of the Law and Prophets. Through his own singular human experience of Israel’s election as God’s Son (e.g., Mark 1:9–11; 9:2–8) Christ enjoyed an interpretative light that could lay open the otherwise sealed book of revelation. This special light of prophetic understanding in Jesus’s human soul thus represents a seal, comprehending and completing God’s prior acts of revelation through Israel’s prophets (see Heb 1:1). It is the absolute apex of religious insight possible among the Jews. This perspective is no speculative fantasy. Following the hint offered by Luke, who records Jesus aligning his fate with the fate of all the prophets— “It is impossible that a prophet perish outside of Jerusalem”—it is quite possible to view the passion predictions as exegetical acts.26 The Gospels, in other words, give us ample hints that Jesus foresaw his inevitable fate with calm clarity, not as a shrewd conclusion gathered from political analysis, but as a divinely ordained inevitability discernable from scriptural prophecy. The plain starting point for this interpretation of Jesus’s scriptural foreknowledge of his passion is his own post-Paschal explanation in Luke 24:25–27. “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary [δεῖ] that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. This portentous, famous δεῖ is not simply a construct of Luke’s private theological lexicon and fancy. It has its roots in Jesus’s first passion prediction in Mark 8:31. See Anthony Giambrone, “Scripture as Scientia Christi: Three Theses on Jesus’ Self-Knowledge and the Future Course of New Testament Christology,” Pro Ecclesia 25, no. 3 (2016): 274–90. 26 Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1091 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must [δεῖ] undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. The precise force of this necessity, moreover, is its anchoring in the divine mystery or raz, made accessible in the last days through the writings of the prophets to those able to unlock their deepest secrets. “This plan is revealed in scripture,” Adela Yabro Collins says, “for those with the proper principles of interpretation, and is now being revealed by the Markan Jesus to his disciples.” Following Jesus’s word in Mark 14:49 (“let the scriptures be fulfilled”), Matthew, still more clearly, attests Jesus’s specifically scriptural apprehension of the necessity of his death, when he resigns himself to arrest in the garden (Matt 26:53–54). Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen in this way [ὅτι οὕτως δεῖ γενέσθαι]? John, too, employs the same δεῖ language as a scriptural foreordination, when Jesus predicts his passion in John 3:14 on the typological logic of Numbers 21:8–9. If the memory of him presented in the Gospels is any reliable guide, the pre-Paschal Jesus thus read his personal history explicitly through a scriptural lens.27 Indeed, on at least four unique occasions just before his death Jesus himself speaks of the very specific need for the Scriptures to be fulfilled in the events of his passion: in his betrayal by Judas (John 13:18; cf. Ps 41:9; also John 6:70–71), in his being “counted among the lawless” like the suffering servant (“this scripture must [δεῖ] be fulfilled in me,” Luke 22:37; cf. Isa 53:12), in his arrest (Matt 26:54, 56; Mark 14:49), and in the scattering of the disciples, including Peter (Mark 14:27; Matt 26:31–35; cf. Zech 13:7). Of the central fact of the crucifixion, John’s Gospel depicts Jesus very clearly embracing in advance the scriptural antitypes of his fate: his exaltation upon the Cross will be like the raising up of Jacob’s ladder and like Moses’s lifting up of the serpent in the desert (John 1:51; 3:14–15; see also John 19:28; cf. Ps 69:3, 21 [?]). Such prophetic insight into the details and significance of his passion See Giambrone, “Scientia Christi,” 278–85. I sympathize with Dale Allison’s basic perspective on the “Christology of Jesus” in his Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 201) 221–304. 27 1092 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. contributes to the unmistakable impression that the entire coming drama lies within Jesus’s perfectly free control. Additional hints of prophetic knowledge move in the same direction. Thus, in advance of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, for instance, Jesus mysteriously directs his disciples to find a certain colt, upon which no one has ever ridden (Mark 11:1–3), a sign that Matt 21:1–11 understands as fulfilling Isa 62:11 and Zech 9:9. The impressive role of scriptural imagination in contouring and concretizing Jesus’s predictions of his passion must be fitted within a larger framework. On the one hand, I think it absolutely correct to arrange the “Christology of Jesus” around his pronounced conviction that the Scriptures spoke about him (John 5:39) and his expansive identification with a full panoply of biblical agents, such as the anointed one of Isaiah 61, the star of the Psalms, and Daniel’s son of man, to name a few. This self-identification—which some will reckon as form of psychosis or religious delusion28—must, at the same time, be plotted within a much larger world-historical scenario within which Jesus understood himself to be moving. It is here that apocalyptic Judaism is of service. In the apt phrase of Joel Marcus the scenario runs thus: “The Temple will be destroyed and the cosmos will be drawn into its downfall.”29 Two major scriptural points of reference, moreover, structure this apocalyptic storm, which the synoptic Gospels record Jesus as painting (Mark 13:1– 37): (1) the abomination of desolation, described in Daniel (9:27; 11:31; 12:11); and (2) the coming on the clouds of the one like a son of man, prophesied in the same book (7:13–14). That the desecration of the temple and the fate of the “Son of Man” should be linked in Jesus’s view causes no surprise by this point. This is fully consistent with the pattern that has been seen. What is new is the reversal of the ordering, so that the temple’s destruction now triggers an end-time drama surrounding Jesus as escha See, e.g. Evan D. Murray, Miles G. Cunningham, and Bruce H. Price, “The Role of Psychotic Disorders in Religious History Considered,” The Journal of Neuropsychiatry Clinical Neurosceinces 24 (2012): 410–26, at 414–15: “The New Testament (NT) recalls Jesus as having experienced and shown behavior closely resembling the DSM-IV-TR–defined phenomena of AHs, VHs, delusions, referential thinking (see Figure 3), paranoid-type (PS subtype) thought content, and hyperreligiosity. . . . Jesus’ experiences can be potentially conceptualized within the framework of PS or psychosis NOS. Other reasonable possibilities might include bipolar and schizoaffective disorders. . . . There is a potential parallel of Jesus’ beliefs and behavior leading up to his death to that of one who premeditates a form of suicide-by-proxy.” 29 Joel Marcus, Mark 8–16, Anchor Bible 27A (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 874. 28 Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1093 tological judge. The millenarian mood that enters into the picture at this point charges Jesus’s views of prophetic/scriptural actualization with an uncomfortably, at times seemingly incoherent, fanatical character. Efforts to sort through the evidence have not proven universally convincing, to say the least. Here we confront the true scandal of Jesus’s so-called prophetic “knowledge” and an all-important point of decision. Dale Allison, that brilliant and eclectic Pyrrhonian heir of Albert Schweitzer, is crushingly clear: He does not come to us as one unknown. We know him well enough. Jesus is the millenarian prophet. . . . Jesus’ generation, however, passed away. They all tasted death. And it is not the kingdom of God that has come but the scoffers who ask, Where is the promise of his coming? For all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. Jesus the millenarian prophet, like all millenarian prophets, was wrong: reality has taken no notice of his imagination.30 The best model for Jesus in Allison’s comparative religions perspective is the long line of failed messiahs, from Bar Kochba to David Alroy to Rabbi Schneerson and David Koresh. Aside from Gamaliel’s counsel in Acts 5:39, it is not obvious how best to engage this perspective, whether on historical-critical or theological grounds. Is Jesus’s prediction of the end, in fact, the true scandalon of foolishness, the invitation to a purified faith? “Once, long ago, Christ crucified was foolishness, the great rock of offense,” Allison preaches: “Today it is Jesus’ status as a millenarian prophet that causes those who believe to stumble.” Aquinas remarks that “since the prophet’s mind is a defective instrument, . . even true prophets know not all that the Holy Ghost means by the things they see, speak or even do” (ST II-II, q. 173, a. 4). Is it possible to imagine within the bounds of orthodox belief that the Holy Spirit also withheld secrets from the Word in his human condition? Could Christ’s nescience extend so far as to allow some positive misapprehension? Or have we not yet rightly understood what the Lord was saying? “In a little while you will see me no more, then after a little while you will see me” (John 16:16). What is this “little while”? Jesus did, after all, promptly return in glory, in his resurrection. Did he understand a sequence of successive fulfillments? Did time simply collapse in the vision he had of his entry out Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1998), 218. 30 1094 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. of time and into eternal life? Did Jesus distinguish a near catastrophe from a more distant expectation, as conservative commentators like to contend in the case of Mark 13 and Matthew 24?31 Was his cataclysmic imagery of universal judgment only a way of speaking about the historical destruction of Jerusalem, not a literal end of time at all? Or was all the talk of the imminent end perhaps only prophetic “denunciation,” contingent doom rhetoric ordered to a repentant change in behavior: prophetia comminationis rather than prophetia praedestinationis, to take a distinction from Aquinas (ST II-II, q. 174, a. 1)? Without adverting to this classical language, the recent argument of Christopher Hays and his fellows in the Oxford Post-Doctoral Colloquium in their interesting collaborative volume When the Son of Man Did not Come play with Aquinas’s precise distinction.32 Specifically, they mount an argument that Jesus’s prophecies of the eschaton should be read in the light of a conditional, so-called “Jeremianic,” hortatory tradition of prophecy, which must be contrasted with so-called “Mosaic” tradition of predestinary prediction. While the truth of the latter is judged by whether a prophecy comes to pass, the former is subject to revision and postponement. There is indeed a broad ancient Near Eastern conception that a god had the right to change his mind, without undermining the essential truth of prophecies; and the Scriptures, too, are replete with the record of such seeming divine indecision. Accordingly, the delay of the Parousia fits within a long history of the Lord’s mysterious reversals and redirections of his prophesied plans, which Hays and company contend is ultimately a repentance motif. Clever and welcome as the work of these openly confessing scholars is, applying this paradigm to Jesus’s end-time oracles faces certain difficulties. I see at least two significant issues that incline me in a slightly different direction. (1) First, this approach plays directly into the hands of the comparative-religion critique. I will not belabor the point but simply observe that appealing to a “deferred” prophecy was already mocked in the Greco-Ro See, e.g.: W. L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974) 474; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 541–43. 32 See Christopher M. Hayes, in collaboration with Brandon Gallagher, Julia S. Konstantinovsky, Richard J. Ounsworth, O.P., and C. A. Strine, When the Son of Man Didn’t Come: A Constructive Proposal on the Delay of the Parousia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2016). See also Simon Gaine, “The Veracity of Prophecy and Christ’s Knowledge,” New Blackfriars 98 (2017): 44–62. 31 Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1095 man period and is hardly an unproblematic way to defend a prophecy as true. Reinterpretation and recalculation, in fact, are precisely the documented characteristics of failed millenarian sects. How, then, shall the New Testament data be distinguished from this embarrassing corpus of parallel material? (2) The second difficulty with the view is on the rhetorical order, for there is a gap separating the prophetic discourse of the Gospels from the “Jeremianic” tradition to which it is compared. The conditional character of the parallel prophetic material and its ordering toward repentance is quite explicit. Jeremiah 18 is an excellent example: At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. (Jer 18:7–10) Nothing so obvious as this condition and prophetic escape hatch appears in the future (or alternatively “apocalyptic”) Son of Man sayings.33 Conventional repentance tropes are likewise ostentatiously missing. If there is thus little to suggest contingent oracles of denunciation, there is, nevertheless, a certain hortatory character to Jesus’s apocalyptic discourse in the appeal to be watchful. One suggestive remark also exists, which hints that a ray of mercy (if only a ray) might intervene to adjust the timescale: “Pray that it might not happen in winter” (Mark 13:18; cf. μηδὲ σαββάτῳ [“nor on the Sabbath”] in Matt 24:20). This distressingly concrete counsel—which can hardly be the creation of the early Church— sounds like the word of a man who is thinking not in centuries or millennia, but in months. Even so, and small as it is, it represents an all-important wedge in the door. The hour is not foreordained. It is subject to adjustment through prayer. The implication is far-reaching. If it is indeed the case that not even the Son knows the day or hour, as he explicitly insists (Mark 13:32), he may well entertain his own suspicions, yet still leave the moment to be See, e.g., Adela Yabro Collins, “The Apocalyptic Son of Man Sayings,” in The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester, ed. B. A. Pearson (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1991) 220–28. 33 1096 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. decided by the Father in his just mercy—and in response to the prayers of his elect. Perhaps I am simplistic, but Jesus’s openly professed nescience on this point, which is again no imaginable ecclesial fabrication, coupled with the cluster of sayings insisting that the disciples too cannot know the time, which will come like a thief (see: Matt 24:42–44 || Luke 12:39–40; Matt 24:50 || Luke 12:46; Matt 25:13), appears to me to be a solid revealed datum of monumental import that has somehow failed to register as it should. Naherwartung (an imminent expectation) is only Erwartung (simply an expectation). What Jesus prophetically knew did not extend to the time of his return. We may be uncomfortable or scandalized with the thought of this sudden blank in Jesus’s knowledge, and calling his thoughts on the matter private opinion may put too fine a point upon it. Yet according to the Gospels, it is undeniably here that we must draw a line. Jesus never predicted when he would return, however much he implied his own expectant readiness. And you cannot be wrong about what you admit you do not know.34 If I must risk drawing an analogy from the Church’s long experience of prophetic charismata, St. Vincent Ferrer’s remarkable letter to Benedict XIII concerning the end of the world I find to be enormously instructive in thinking about Jesus’s situation.35 Here is a man with charismatic gifts of extraordinary magnitude, including prophecy, who found his preaching confirmed by miracles and the receptive response of a culture apocalyptically predisposed, a man who somehow identified himself with a mysterious figure foretold in the Scriptures and who is commonly presumed to have falsely predicted the end of the world—but who did not in fact commit himself to such a claim and who in the most sober way exposed his text-based, exegetical reasoning for preaching what? “The coming of Antichrist and the end of the world are near.” That is all. Vincent clearly further personally believed, on the basis of supposed revelations made to acquaintances, that he trusted, that the Antichrist had in fact already been born in his day—yet he carefully added that this was “not sufficiently proven” that he felt free to preach it. Publically, he made bold to say no more than that “in an exceedingly short time” the end of the world will come. Then he subjected even this message to the Holy Father’s correction. The saint’s One thus evades Lamentabili §33, condemning the following proposition: “Everyone who is not led by preconceived opinions can readily see that either Jesus professed an error concerning the immediate Messianic coming or the greater part of His doctrine as contained in the Gospels is destitute of authenticity.” 35 For the text of the letter, see the appendix to Père Fages, Histoire de Saint Vincent Ferrier (Paris, 1894). 34 Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1097 threshold of hesitation, in the midst of near certain conviction and manifest kerygmatic boldness, I find to be tremendously suggestive. At an important level, the “Angel of the Judgment” fits Jesus’s circumstance rather well, I submit: fervent persuasion and deep personal investment with a self-chastening admission of final ignorance on a critical point. Obviously, only a great deal of close exegesis can ultimately secure this model as the right one, and I recognize the divergence of any number of my assumptions from the norm. Still, in part precisely on account of such divergence, I believe that as a paradigm this lens correctly reorients our research and shows the right theological and exegetical direction to pursue. At the very least, it parries the thrust of Allison, boldly owning Christ’s nescience and in return supplanting the figure of the failed millenarian with a more appropriate and nuanced analogue. The upstanding Oxford Post-Doctoral Colloquium confesses that “good exegesis and responsible history” must recognize that Jesus possessed “a prophetic and immediate eschatological expectation.” Perhaps I am simply too impressed by Plato’s divided line, but I wonder whether I would express the matter in just this way. Jesus did not stand in double ignorance about the eschaton; he knew a great deal about the end, but he also knew quite distinctly where his prophetic knowledge stopped. This is not the privative, error-ridden, and groping ignorance that results from sin. I thus ask myself whether, in discussing the knowledge of Christ, we must not “concoct some intellective equivalent of Maximus’s gnomic will” to speak with more confidence about the precise mode of his nescience and about Christ’s two intellects (human and divine).36 Here the “apparent” or “pedagogic” ignorance, which gained momentum in anti-Arian writings and for centuries dominated commentary on Mark 13:32, though not derisible and obviously built upon a sound theological foundation, has hardly covered orthodox interpreters in glory.37 It is an evasive maneuver and simply not a solution that privileges “good exegesis and responsible history”—far from the balance of speculative and historical reason we seek. Gregory’s in ipsa, non ex ipsa in his letter against the Agnoetes is indeed subtilius, “more subtle,” and the risk of Nestorianism that he detects is real (Epistle to Eulogius [Sicut aqua frigida]; DS, nos. 474–76). One may, nevertheless, dwell historically on this non ex natura humanitatis without automatically confessing two sons. See Giambrone, “Scientia Christi,” 288. Extending the logic of Maximus’s dyothelite thought in this direction is an unfinished job. See Opuscules theoloqiues et polemiques (Paris: Cerf, 1998), 234, 245. 37 On this theme, see Margelidon, “La science infuse,” 412–13; and Madigan, “Christus Nesciens,” 255–78. 36 1098 Anthony Giambrone, O.P. However, at our own peril, we might make bold to imagine or explain the interplay of the divine scientia of the Eternal Word with the human nescience of the incarnate Son—perhaps like a language one knows but chooses for whatever reason not to speak (scientia vs. operatio)—we should be very cautious of a lurking Docetism. Some genuine human ignorance of that day ultimately left Jesus ample room to negotiate an orientation to the situation, as he both knew and did not know it. This implies no imperfection whatsoever in his integral humanity, and I personally would above all stress two things. First, the Lord’s attitude of almost fanatic vigilance, his obsessive alacrity in the face of the pending judgment, responds to and fills in the space opened up by a divinely willed—and humanly co-willed—amoral void of knowledge and is a correlative watchfulness to what Jesus also urged upon his disciples. Second, this vital posture of readiness bears no essential noetic likeness to the Lord’s burning prophetic certainty concerning one supreme, future fact: his Paschal fate as bearing the corporate fate of all God’s elect. Jesus knew in advance what was required that he might steadfastly accomplish his mission and engender supernatural faith in his disciples.38 “I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe” (John 14:29; cf. 13:19 and 16:4). That through his exaltation the risen Son of Man would also send the Spirit and one day sit enthroned to judge the world did not remain hidden from him—or through him, from us. This all belonged to his messianic mission and was salutary for others to learn. But knowledge of the times and seasons established by the Father was evidently no more needful or beneficial for the pilgrimage of the earthly Jesus than it was or is for any of the sons of men.39 On the Thomas allows the super-angelic and super-Adamic perfection of Christ’s knowledge to trump its subordination to his redemptive mission, while simultaneously offering a soteriological argument for such perfection. See De veritate, q. 20, a. 4, obj. 11–12; cf. a. 4, ads 11–12. Nuanced as it is, the ability to accommodate comfortably the nescience of non-moral ignorance is a direct and significant causality of this view; see De veritate, a. 5, ad 6. 39 Ambrose, De fide 5.16.209–11. Here I would plead for reversing Ambrose’s “for you—not for me” argument: “Vnde alibi quoque ipse dominus interrogatus, ab apostolis inquam, qui utique non sicut Arrius intellegebant, sed filium dei futura scire credebant—nam nisi hoc credidissent, numquam interrogassent—interrogatus ergo, quando restitueret regnum Israel, non se nescire dixit, sed ait: Non est uestrum scire tempora et annos, quae pater posuit in sua potestate. Adtende, quid dixerit: Non est uestrum scire! Lege iterum: Non est uestrum dixit, non ‘meum’ [When the Lord himself was asked by the apostles, who (not as Arius thought) believed that the son of God would know the future—for if they did not believe this, they would never have asked—asking therefore, when the kingdom of Israel 38 Jesus's Prophetic Knowledge and the Gospels 1099 contrary, with absolutely nothing to dread for himself from the coming “day of wrath,” Jesus’s impeccable ignorance of the hour was his economic entrance, his accommodation to and vicarious taste of that saving fear he was sent to communicate to others. Jesus could and did acutely fear for sinners. Even in his nescience the Lord reveals the way (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §474).40 At the end of his discussion of Jesus’s knowledge, which predictably does not finally move in my direction, Brown nevertheless laid down a trump card that I will happily pick up to close: When all is said and done, the great objection that will be hurled again and again against any exegete (or theologian) who finds evidence that Jesus’ knowledge was limited is the objection that in Jesus Christ there is only one person, a divine person. . . . Perhaps the best answer to this objection is to call upon Cyril of Alexandria, that Doctor of the Church to whom, more than to any other, we are indebted for the great truth of the oneness of the person of Christ. It was that ultra-orthodox archfoe of Nestorianism (two persons or powers in Christ) who said of Christ, ‘We have admired his goodness in that for love of us he has not refused to descend to such a low position as to bear all that belongs to our nature, included in which N&V is ignorance” [PG, 75:369].41 would be restored, he did not say he did not know, but said: It is not for you to know the times and years that the father placed in his own power. Listen to what he says: It is not for you to know! Read it again: he says it is not yours, not ‘mine’]” (De Fide 5.17.212). I would add that the text of Acts 1:7 reveals the knowledge of the risen and ascending Christ, which cannot simply be equated with the knowledge he held in his freely chosen mortal state. This sort of pre- vs. post-Paschal distinction is quite different from the evacuation of supernatural phenomenon characteristic of certain “Jesus of history vs. Christ of faith” models. 40 CCC §474 is a well-balanced statement that allows for two possible interpretations: either Jesus humanly knew and withheld what he was not sent to reveal, or Jesus humanly did not know and thus did not reveal what he was not sent to reveal. I prefer the less obtuse, latter position, adding that, in not revealing the day of judgment, Jesus did reveal the constant need to be on guard. Even in “concealing,” Jesus is always the redemptive revealer. 41 Brown, “How Much Did Jesus Know?” 338–39. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1101–1118 1101 The Doctrine of God and the Analogy of Being Steven A. Long Ave Maria University Ave Maria, FL As a philosophic matter , the doctrine of God is founded upon understanding of the analogia entis. After all, no other foundation is possible, as outside being there is nothing. The analogicity of being and its foundational character are conspicuous. First, in his Metaphysics, Aristotle affirms that being is not a genus, as it must contain all its differences, whereas a genus cannot contain the difference that is the foundation of species because then all beings of that genus would necessarily be of that species. Nor yet could being be a species as though it modified a substratum defined in terms of nonbeing. Thomas very clearly concurs with this teaching and develops it with great precision. As Thomas puts it, “nothing is able to be outside that which is understood by being, if being is included in the understanding/concept of the things of which it is predicated.”1 Summa contra gentiles [SCG] I, ch. 25, no. 6: “Quod autem ens non possit esse genus, probatur per Philosophum in hunc modum: Si ens esset genus, oporteret differentiam aliquam inveniri, per quam traheretur ad speciem; nulla autem differentia participat genus, ita scilicet quod genus sit in ratione differentiae; quia sic genus poneretur bis in definitione speciei. Sed oportet differentiam esse praeter id quod intellegitur in ratione generis. Nihil autem potest esse quod sit praeter id quod intelligitur per ens, si ens sit de intellectu eorum de quibus praedicatur; et sic per nullam differentiam contrahi potest. Relinquitur ergo quod ens non sit genus” (“But that being cannot be a genus, is proved by the Philosopher in this way: If being were a genus, we would need to find a difference through which to contract it to a species. But no difference shares in the genus in such a way that the genus may be included in the nature of the difference [ratione differentiae]; because thus the genus would be placed twice in the definition of the species. But the difference needs to be outside/beyond that which is understood in the nature of the genus. But nothing is able to be outside that which is understood by being, if being is 1 1102 Steven A. Long Another way to understand the foundational relation of the analogical formality of being for the doctrine of God is the realization that there can be nothing in the conclusion of our reasoning that is not implicitly and actually present in the premises. Thus if “being” means only “being material” in the premises that found our reasoning to the existence of God, then “being” can only mean “being material” in our conclusion. Hence the analogical character of being is prior to, and the foundation for, the philosophic judgment that God exists, although some recognize the nature of this premise only after realizing the conclusion they have drawn. But the judgment that being is intrinsically analogous is not something solely available following the proof that God exists. This is to say, the second sense of separatio famously adverted to by St. Thomas in his Commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate2 refers not to intrinsically spiritual being, but to the immateriality of proportionate being as passing through, and irreducible to, any given genus or species of being: which notionally but not really could admit the thesis that there is only material being. The judgment that being is only material being is possible in a notional or merely conceptual sense because this is imaginable; this judgment is not valid, because the causal inference to God is warranted. But this causal inference to God is itself possible because “to be” or “being” does not originally mean merely and exclusively “to be material” or “material being” and—if it did—no conclusion from the given premises would be possible: axiomatic atheism would necessarily be implied. It suffices to observe that the difference is not contained in the genus, so that if being were held formally to mean merely “material being” then the differentiae of material being would be held not to be real:3 which is contrary to fact, showing that being is irreducible to any genus or species. The present essay first addresses the foundation of the Aristotelian and Thomistic doctrine of God in the analogia entis, the analogy of being, understood in terms of the division of being by act and potency. Second, included in the understanding/concept of the things of which it is predicated; and thus it can be contracted by no difference. It follows therefore that being is not a genus).” 2 See the conclusion of his respondeo in q. 5, a. 4, of his Commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate. 3 But yet it is imaginable that while “being” does not mean merely material being, that still we might not be able to discover anything but material being. The contingent imaginability of this, however, does not suffice to limit the meaning of “being” from the outset in a way that prevents the inference to God. Further, the evidence requires such an inference, although manifestly some do not see the truth of this. The Doctrine of God and the Analog y of Being 1103 it considers the foundations of metaphysics and the real distinction of essence and existence. Third, it concludes by considering how this understanding provides the rational foundation for an account of God as infinite in every transcendental and pure perfection and as transcendent cause of finite being. Analogia Entis The formality of being is an analogical formality. Aristotle articulates the roots of the analogy of being in the division of being by act and potency in chapter 6 of book 9 of the Metaphysics:4 Our meaning can be seen in the particular cases by induction, and we must not seek a definition of everything but be content to grasp the analogy—that as that which is building is to that which is capable of building, so is the waking to the sleeping, and that which is seeing to that which has its eyes shut but has sight, and that which is shaped out of the matter to the matter, and that which has been wrought to the unwrought. Let actuality be defined by one member of this antithesis, and the potential by the other. But all things are not said in the same sense to exist actually, but only by analogy—as A is in B or to B, C is in D or to D; for some are as movement to potency, and the others as substance to some sort of matter. At the beginning of chapter 9 of book 11, Aristotle further explains the metaphysical universality of the act–potency distinction, and the metaphysical extension of the term “motion”: “Each kind of thing being divided into the potential and the fulfilled, I call the actuality of the potential as such, movement.”5 St. Thomas of course alike holds that being is divided by act and potency,6 and that movement refers to the reduction of anything whatsoever from potency to act.7 This foundational division of being by act Metaphysics 9.6.1048a35–b9 (English translation from the Metaphysics is my own). 5 Metaphysics 9.9.1065b15–16: “There are as many kinds of motion and change as there are of being. Each kind of thing being divided into the potential and the fulfilled, I call the actuality of the potential as such, movement.” 6 The teaching is found throughout Thomas’s work. Thus, to cite one place merely, Summa theologiae [ST] I, q. 77, a. 1, resp.: “Cum potentia et actus dividant ens et quodlibet genus entis, oportet quod ad idem genus referatur potentia et actus” (“Since power and act divide being and every kind of being, we must refer a power and its act to the same genus”). 7 ST I, q. 2, a. 3: “Movere enim nihil aliud est quam educere aliquid de potentia in 4 1104 Steven A. Long and potency is intelligible according to the analogy of proper proportionality: as potentially walking is to actually walking, so is potentially understanding to actually understanding, although walking and understanding are simply different: a likeness of diverse proportions. Normally we reduce likeness to one univocal aspect: for example, “circularity” is said of different circular things, where “circular” has but one ratio. But being is, and can be, and “is” can be thought and said, in many ways, something that is discernible through simple rational induction. In Aristotle’s account of physical beings, he achieves an analysis whose principles are actually and implicitly of metaphysical scope but which are initially worked out in the explanation of physical being and change. What is not commonly realized is the metaphysical valence of Aristotle’s analysis, the foundational character of the analogical division of being by potency and act, and indeed the understanding of motion as any reduction of a thing from potency to act—all of which as noted above are expressly shared by St. Thomas Aquinas. The metaphysics of God derives from the objective evidence of proportionate being, and the analogicity of being comes to light in the division of being by act and potency, dividing being as such. In this light, two principles are paramount: the application of the principle of noncontradiction to being, and the analogical division of being by act and potency. As for the principle of noncontradiction, Thomas himself is very clear in affirming that “as sound is the first audible, being is the first intelligible.”8 Thus any denial that being is universally intelligible leaves precisely nothing intelligible, since outside of being there is nothing. The very principle of noncontradiction in its chief and metaphysical formulation—that being is not nonbeing—is according to St. Thomas in Summa theologiae [ST] I-II, q. 94, a. 2, the basis for the logical principle of noncontradiction that one does not speak meaningfully in simultaneously affirming and denying one thing of another. Thomas, in referring to the logical principle of noncontradiction, adds: “quod fundatur supra rationem entis et non entis”—“which is based on the nature of being and nonbeing.” This is a universal principle pertaining to being as such, and if it were not, then fundamentally there could be no such thing as objectivity because the mind would have no root capacity to conform to what is the case. The principle of noncontradiction articulates a real distinction, although not a real relation, between being and nonbeing. It is not a real actum” (“For to move is nothing other than to reduce something from potency to act”). 8 ST I, q. 5, a. 2, resp. The Doctrine of God and the Analog y of Being 1105 relation, because what does not exist cannot have a real relation. But it is a real distinction, because by virtue of the character of being as such it is contrary to nonbeing. Similarly, for example, even were there no creatures it would be true that God is not a finite being, because by the very nature of God he cannot be finite. Being is real, and so is really distinguished from its negation which is not real. Precisely because of the ontological nature of the principle of noncontradiction, this principle raises the specter of monism, as visible in the teaching of Parmenides and other forms of monism. Parmenides taught that being is one, immobile, and unlimited: one because there is nothing other than being and being is identical with itself; unchanging because being could not change into anything other than nonbeing, and nonbeing is not; and unlimited because nothing exists outside being that could actually limit it. Of course, one might look up into the air and see a flock of birds flying by—which are real beings; note that there are many of them; observe the change with respect to their local position and bodily action; and, likewise, observe that they are all limited by other things (the ground, the air, trees, and so on). It would be easy to stop here, with the simple rejection of monism. But Aristotle realized that an account must yet be given explaining how the principle of noncontradiction as pertaining to being could be reconciled with manyness, limit, and change: otherwise it would seem that sensible being is simply and radically unintelligible. It is one thing to realize that the Parmenidean account is incongruent with real evidence; it is another to understand how the real evidence is compatible with the principle of noncontradiction as an ontological principle, without which objective knowledge of the real would be impossible. Aristotle affirms a real principle in things accounting for the susceptibility of being to manyness, limit, and change, a principle that is not identical with act, and yet is not merely nonbeing: namely, potentia, potency. We know that monism is incorrect if we trust our senses; we understand why monism is incorrect when we understand that potency is a real capacity founded upon act while not being itself actual. The marble is only potentially sculptable, but it is of its actual nature to be so. The principle of noncontradiction would necessitate denying manyness, limitation, and change only if potentiality did not pertain to real being. Hence the principle of noncontradiction applies to real being, even when limited by potency. Each being, whose actuality is limited by its potential principle, is limited in relation to that potency. Thus all the diverse analogical participations of being—all the various rationes or proportions of act as limited by potency—are what they are and not another thing. While Aristotle does not bring out the implications of this analysis 1106 Steven A. Long in every respect, among other things what is at stake is the metaphysical axiom manifest in St. Thomas’s teaching that act is not self-limiting. This axiom is in a way implied by the principle of noncontradiction—that being is not nonbeing. Likewise, St. Thomas’s account of the participation of being by finite creatures is intelligible only in relation to the limitation of act by potency. As George Klubertanz notes in his work on analogy,9 after the Scriptum on the Sentences Thomas always explains that the totality of any participated perfection is not possessed in its entirety by the participating subject because the participated perfection can be received only according to the limitation of potency in the participating being. St. Thomas situates a doctrine with Platonic and neo-Platonic origins—the doctrine of participation—firmly within an Aristotelian analysis. The perception that being is and can be, and is and can be said, in many ways, according to the likeness of differing rationes or proportions of act as limited by potency, involves as John of St. Thomas will say a confusio or “fusing together” of differing modes of being, each of which is what it is and not another thing, but each of which is by induction able to be grasped precisely as a certain measure of act in relation to potentia. So understood, being is not univocal, but transcends generic and specific unity. As Thomas notes in ST I, q. 88, a. 2, ad 4, only the logical genus of substance, but no natural genus, unites the separate substance with material things, the angel with the butterfly: there is no natural genus of “angel-butterfly.”10 “Substance” is not univocal, for it is, and can be; and is, and can be said, in many essentially varied ways, from the butterfly even to God.11 Yet there is an analogical likeness of diverse perfections of act: George Klubertanz, Saint Thomas Aquinas on Analogy: a Textual Analysis and Systematic Synthesis (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1960). 10 ST I, q. 88, a. 2, ad 4: “Ad quartum dicendum quod substantiae immateriales creatae in genere quidem naturali non conveniunt cum substantiis materialibus, quia non est in eis eadem ratio potentiae et materiae, conveniunt tamen cum eis in genere logico, quia etiam substantiae immateriales sunt in praedicamento substantiae, cum earum quidditas non sit earum esse. Sed Deus non convenit cum rebus materialibus neque secundum genus naturale, neque secundum genus logicum, quia Deus nullo modo est in genere, ut supra dictum est” (“Created immaterial substances are not in the same natural genus as material substances, for they do not agree in power or in matter; but they belong to the same logical genus, because even immaterial substances are in the predicament of substance, as their essence is distinct from their existence. But God has no connection with material things, as regards either natural genus or logical genus; because God is in no genus, as stated above [I, q. 3, a. 5]”). 11 I have sympathy for the view that being is analogical even within species wherein there is a generic and specific univocity: for one blade of grass is not another; 9 The Doctrine of God and the Analog y of Being 1107 the angel and the butterfly, and the existences of the angel and butterfly, are simply different. Yet as existence is to the angel, so is existence to the butterfly. Being is not univocal like “circularity,” which signifies one thing however disparate its instances, but is intrinsically analogical with the analogicity of proper proportionality. This does not reduce to the merely mathematical, such as 2 is to 4 as 3 is to 6, which reduces to one mathematical object, namely 1 to 2. For example, light is to the eye, as is truth to the mind, but light is not truth, the eye is not the mind, and the illumination in question is not univocal. This is a likeness of things that are different, and that need not be generically or specifically identical. It must also be noted that in De veritate (q. 2, a. 9 ) St. Thomas expressly identifies the analogy of being, true, and good, with that of proper proportionality—a proposition12 which he nowhere retracts—while later on he uses the term “proportion” of creature to God exclusively in the sense of what in De veritate he called an analogy of transferred proportion.13 Such transferred proportion is not a commensuration in a reciprocal determined relation, but does allow for a “one way” proportioning of creature to God14 and is not, despite the generic and specific identity each has its own existence which is different from that of the other. 12 De veritate, q. 2, a. 9: “Quandoque vero nomen quod de Deo et creatura dicitur, nihil importat ex principali significato secundum quod non possit attendi praedictus convenientiae modus inter creaturam et Deum; sicut sunt omnia in quorum definitione non clauditur defectus, nec dependent a materia secundum esse, ut ens, bonum, et alia huiusmodi” (“At other times, however, a term predicated of God and creature implies nothing in its principal meaning which would prevent our finding between a creature and God an agreement of the type described above. To this kind belong all attributes which include no defect nor depend on matter for their act of existence, for example, being, the good, and similar things”; all translations from De veritate are my own). 13 Cf. De veritate, q. 23, a. 7, ad 9. 14 De veritate, q. 2, a. 11, ad 1: "Ad primum igitur dicendum, quod sicut Dionysius dicit in IX cap. de divinis nominibus, Deus nullo modo creaturis similis dicendus est, sed creaturae possunt similes Deo dici aliquo modo.”—“To the first it should be said, that as Dionysius says in chapter IX of the Divine Names, God can in no way be said to be similar to creatures, but creatures can in some sense be said to be similar to Him.” Also, and tellingly, De veritate, q. 23, art. 7, ad 9: “Ad nonum dicendum, quod homo conformatur Deo, cum sit ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei factus. Quamvis autem propter hoc quod a Deo in infinitum distat, non possit esse ipsius ad Deum proportio, secundum quod proportio proprie in quantitatibus invenitur, comprehendens duarum quantitatum ad invicem comparatarum certam mensuram; secundum tamen quod nomen proportionis translatum est ad quamlibet habitudinem significandam unius rei ad rem aliam, utpote cum dicimus hic esse proportionum similitudinem, sicut se habet princeps ad civitatem ita gubernator ad navim, nihil prohibet dicere aliquam proportionem hominis 1108 Steven A. Long strictly speaking, a “proportion” that could determine God in relation to the creature. The analogy of proper proportionality—as distinct from any analogy of proportion—does not require proper reciprocal proportion to exist between the things analogically likened to one another. It allows such an analogical proportion where it may be found—as it is found among finite created analogates—but it does not of itself require it, and it transcends generic and specific unity. Thus the analogy of being as an analogy of proper proportionality can extend to God, who is infinitely transcendent of the creature. The creature is really ordered to God, but not the converse: and the analogy of proper proportionality alone permits intrinsic attribution of God without implying any determinate real relation of God to creature. In Thomas’s later works, when he speaks of “proportion” between creature and God, he is very clear that this term means merely any relation of one thing to another, but that it must expressly negate real order of God to the creature.15 ad Deum, cum in aliqua habitudine ipsum ad se habeat, utpote ab eo effectus, et ei subiectus.”—“Man is conformed to God since he is made to God’s image and likeness. It is true that, because man is infinitely distant from God, there cannot be proportion between him and God in the proper sense of proportion as found among quantities, consisting of a certain measure of two quantities compared to each other. Nevertheless, in the sense in which the term proportion is transferred to signify any relationship of one thing to another (as we say that there is a likeness of proportions in this instance: the pilot is to his ship as the ruler to the commonwealth), nothing prevents us saying that there is a proportion of man to God, since man stands in a certain relationship to Him inasmuch as he is made by God and subject to Him.” Nota bene: his illustration here as likewise when he considers the semantic alternative of not using the term “proportion” at all (both in De veritate, q. 23, art. 7, ad 9), is the same: proper proportionality. In the first case, the illustration is that the pilot is to the ship as the ruler to the commonwealth; in the second (the semantic option of not referring to this as proportion at all, but only a likeness of two proportions, or proportionality) his example is: “. . . as the infinite is equal to the infinite, so is the finite to the finite. And in this way there is a likeness between the creature and God, because the creature stands to the things which are its own as God does to those which belong to Him”—“. . . sicut infinitum est aequale infinito, ita finitum finito. Et per hunc modum est similitudo inter creaturam et Deum, quia sicut se habet ad ea quae ei competunt, ita creatura ad sua propria.” 15 See De potentia, q. 7, a. 10, ad 9: “Ad nonum dicendum, quod si proportio intelligatur aliquis determinatus excessus, nulla est Dei ad creaturam proportio. Si autem per proportionem intelligatur habitudo sola, sic patet quod est inter creatorem et creaturam; in creatura quidem realiter, non autem in creatore” (“If by proportion is meant a definite excess, then there is no proportion in God to the creature. But if proportion stands for relation alone, then there is relation between the Creator and the creature: in the latter really, but not in the former”; translation mine). See also SCG III, ch. 54: “Proportio autem intellectus creati est quidem ad Deum intelligendum, non secundum commensurationem aliquam proportione existente, sed The Doctrine of God and the Analog y of Being 1109 Creation itself is not even an accident with respect to God as Actus Purus, who is so perfect that creating or not creating designates no change in God but only in the creature. In any case, it is upon the analogical formality of being as a likeness of diverse proportions of act—a nonunivocal object less subject to precision than the objects of the positive sciences—that the analyses of physical motion and change, of substance and accident, of the four causes, of human nature and the human person, and of the derivation of all finite being from God, reposes. The distinction of potency and act is found in many ways: for example, substance is to accident as potency is to act; matter is to form as potency to act; essence is to existence as potency to act; and so on. It is precisely as a further development of the division of being by act and potency that Thomas’s doctrine of the real distinction of essence and existence is properly understood. The analogical divisibility of being into potency and act is thus also the foundation of the causal resolution of limited, finite being into the unlimited, infinite First Cause of all creatures. Before turning to the doctrine of God straightforwardly, a few words must be spoken about the foundations of metaphysics, and the real distinction of essence and existence. Metaphysics The Subject Matter of Metaphysics and Causal Reasoning Much has been written about the foundation of metaphysics. Jan Aertsen in his famous Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals16 considers that Aquinas abandoned his teaching in De veritate regarding analogy of proper proportionality. Nonetheless, I am strongly sympathetic with aspects of his analysis. Aertsen writes: secundum quod proportio significat quamcumque habitudinem unius ad alterum, ut materiae ad formam, vel causae ad effectum. Sic autem nihil prohibet esse proportionem creaturae ad Deum secundum habitudinem intelligentis ad intellectum, sicut et secundum habitudinem effectus ad causam” (“Now, the proportion of the created intellect to the understanding of God is not, in fact, based on a commensuration in an existing proportion, but on the fact that proportion means any relation of one thing to another, as of matter to form, or of cause to effect. In this sense, then, nothing prevents there being a proportion of creature to God on the basis of a relation of one who understands to the thing understood, just as on the basis of the relation of effect to cause”). 16 Jan Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 295–96. 1110 Steven A. Long The distinctive feature of [St. Thomas’s] transcendental way of thought is that it moves in two directions, toward the transcendentality of being and toward that which is common by causality. The first movement is a resolution by which things are reduced to what is most common in them. In this reduction the specific determinations of things are left outside of consideration. They are considered not as this or that being, but as beings. Being as such does not signify dependence, nor does it imply any restriction. It is indeterminate with respect to every mode of being. Being is common to all genera and is therefore called “transcendental.” The first resolution moves on a horizontal plane; it is an intrinsic analysis of that which is. The formal principle whereby a thing is being (ens) is its act of being (esse). The inner resolution is the condition for another resolution, the ascent to the most universal cause. Given the first resolution, it is clear that the most universal cause can only be the cause of being, for its causality is transcendental. The origin of being in general is understood as creation and explained in terms of participation. Being is the proper effect of God. He himself transcends being in general; God does not belong to the domain of the maxime communia. Thomas’s transcendental way of thought seeks both the inner principle and the extrinsic cause by which a thing is being.17 Yet while God does not fall within ens commune or the being affirmed of substance and the categories, nonetheless being is affirmed of God in its full perfection, without potency: proper proportionality permits genuine affirmation that God is Pure Act, Infinite Being, True, Good, and so forth. Without proper proportionality, the affirmation of God would either reduce God to finitude, or involve no genuine cognitive content whatsoever: the resolution to God would be unintelligible. God does indeed transcend “being in general” or ens commune, but nonetheless we do affirm that God is the full perfection of being, and this affirmation must be intelligible. Hence the analogical formality of being is necessarily that of proper proportionality. Analogy of proper proportionality does not imply reciprocal real proportion or determined relation to the creature—permitting the affirmation of infinite perfection in God—while nonetheless it is consistent with real proportion or determined relation where these actually obtain, amongst diverse analogical perfections in created being. Thus as the angel is to its being, so is the butterfly to its—simple Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy, 433. 17 The Doctrine of God and the Analog y of Being 1111 diversity—while yet we can affirm that the angel is of a superior grade of actuality to the butterfly. We can see real analogical diversity and relations of determined finite perfections, but it is not the real analogical character of their relation that requires this determinacy of reciprocal proportion, but rather the finite determinacy of their perfection of act. By contrast, God is not merely first in a series, separated from the others by a limited gradation of perfection: God is “first” as infinitely transcending the creature. Within finite being there are gradations of being. Yet the analogical formality of being as such does not require determined real proportion or relation, but only the likeness of differing proportions of act. Thus wisdom in Solomon, and wisdom in God, are analogically diverse; and the wisdom of Solomon is a deficient but real likeness of the wisdom of God, but the wisdom of God has no real determinate relation to the wisdom of Solomon but infinitely transcends it and is in no way limited by it. Thus perfections—being, true, good—may be intrinsically predicated of God, because no reciprocal proportion with the creature is required. Even the relation of creation in the creature is founded on habens esse—on the creature having existence—because creation is not even an accident in God who undergoes no change or relation of dependency. As Thomas argues in his Scriptum on the Sentences, if creation signifies God it can signify only the immutable divine substance; if it signifies the creature, it signifies having being from another, 18 which as a real relation is founded upon the creature having being since nonexistent creatures do not have real relations. Thus, the real foundation of the relation of createdness—the difference between God creating, and God not creating—is the analogical formality of being in the creature. God is infinitely transcendent of finite being. Aertsen distinguishes the “horizontal” discovery of the being common See In II sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, ad 4 (I enclose the full passage, indicating that all that is prior to the creature is the active nature of God Himself—which as Thomas holds everywhere is only conceptually and not really related to the creature): “Si autem sumatur passive, sic est quoddam accidens in creatura, et sic significat quamdam rem, non quae sit in praedicamento passionis, proprie loquendo, sed quae est in genere relationis, et est quaedam habitudo habentis esse ab alio consequens operationem divinam: et sic non est inconveniens quod sit in ipso creato quod educitur per creationem, sicut in subjecto; sicut filiatio in Petro, inquantum recipit naturam humanam a patre suo, non est prior ipso Petro; sed sequitur actionem et motum, quae sunt priora. Habitudo autem creationis non sequitur motum, sed actionem divinam tantum, quae est prior quam creatura” (“If, however, [creation] is taken passively, then it is a certain accident in the creature and it signifies a certain reality which is not in the category of being passive properly speaking, but is in the category of relation. Creation is a certain relation of having being from another following upon the divine operation”; translation mine). 18 1112 Steven A. Long to substance and the categories—the resolutio secundum rationem as it is called—and the “vertical” resolution of finite, created being into the causality of God, the resolutio secundum rem, noting that the first is the “condition” for the second. But the rationem in Aertsen’s formulation must be taken not merely as “reason,” but as pertaining to real ontological measure. The reason for this is that one cannot achieve a real positive conclusion without real premises: the analogical division of being by potency and act is the condition for the ascent to the affirmation of God. River Forest versus Existential Thomism, and Separatio It is often proposed that only after the demonstration of the existence of God is metaphysics possible as a science distinct from the physics. Thus, it is thought, the subject matter of the metaphysics presupposes prior demonstrations in the physics. Yet Thomas does not say this. Nor does he identify the subject matter of metaphysics with God, but with ens commune, the being common to substance and the predicables, of which God is the principle and first cause.19 Thus God is rationally inferred as the principle of the subject matter of ens commune, in a causal resolution from limited being which cannot account for itself, to Actus Purus. Thomas does state in the Summa contra gentiles I, ch. 12, that “if there is no knowable substance higher than sensible substance, there will be no science higher than physics.” Arguably if the existence of God were unknowable, metaphysics would not be possible. This is something quite intelligible since Thomas holds there to be metaphysical demonstrations of the existence of God (and of the immateriality and subsistence of the rational soul, and sound metaphysical reasons from fittingness for the existence of the separate substances). If P implies Q then not-Q means not-P. As we have seen above, we may discover that the subject matter of metaphysics is distinct from the subject matter of the physics—which is the quasi genus of material, changing, and moving being—in discovering that material being as a genus is incapable of co-extensivity with being. This is because a genus does not include its differentiae, its differences, whereas being necessarily includes all its inferiors since otherwise they will be held not to exist. A more complete discovery of the reason why this is true, however, requires the later metaphysical realization that existence overpasses the entire order of material quiddity, that a thing is a real being not because of its mode of being, but because it actually exists. The judgment of separatio is the negative judgment that the intelligibility of being as such is irreducible to the quasi-genus of “material being,” St. Thomas Aquinas, In Boethium de Trinitate, q. 5, a. 4, reply. 19 The Doctrine of God and the Analog y of Being 1113 the realm of matter and motion: which is clear from the fact that being transcends all genera. It is also clear from the truth that being overpasses material essence by reason of esse, and that potency and matter exist owing to esse, and not the converse, just as potency always exists for the sake of act and not the converse. In fact, before reaching the judgment of the real distinction between essence and existence, the reality that being is actual, and that potency has less the nature of being, makes it clear that actual being is distinct from potential being. The irreducibility of being to material being is in truth implicit in the principle of noncontradiction itself: being is not its own negation; act qua act is not self-limiting, but limited only by potentia. This of course does not suffice to prove that God exists, but only to indicate that our initial knowledge of being cannot rule out the possibility of immaterial things, which would be the case if being from the start meant merely “material being.” Yet one is in no position to derive metaphysical judgments except from proportionate being, and this for human creatures largely but not exclusively designates the world of changing, moving things. It is no accident that the metaphysical principles necessary to respond to Parmenides are also the principles necessary for the analysis of mobile being. The principles discovered in the physics are implicitly and actually of metaphysical import from the start: form, matter, agent cause, final cause, substance, and—of course!—act and potency. The difference is whether these principles are derived solely for the sake of analyzing physical motion and change, or whether they are derived to analyze being and motion as such—remembering that motion is an analogical term that Thomas with Aristotle holds to pertain to the actualization of potency as such, universally. While metaphysics is not merely Aristotelian physics on steroids, nonetheless the philosophy of nature is, in the order of learning, and of analytic resolution,20 prior to the metaphysics. Yet it does not give metaphysics its subject, which is presupposed to the physics (because the object of physics is real, exists). The discovery of the subject matter of metaphysics occurs when one becomes aware of the intrinsic analogicity of being: but much more is needed to pursue this subject matter than its mere recognition. Working through the proportionate applicability of metaphysical principles is heuristically necessary. Nonetheless, physical beings are beings, not because they are physical, but because they are, and being is not a genus—not even the quasi-genus of physical motion and change. Act is not act because it is See In Boethium de Trinitate, q. 6, a. 1, reply to third question: “Propter quod dicitur metaphysica quasi trans physicam, quia post physicam resolvendo occurrit.” 20 1114 Steven A. Long joined to potency. Being is intrinsically analogical, consisting in a likeness of diverse proportions of actuality: this is the created corollary of the truth that the divine essence is imitable in many ways. It ought also be observed that Thomas expressly affirms that metaphysics gives the principles to all the other sciences—they all presuppose being—and receives reciprocally from them only the particular limitations and causal implications derivative from their particular objects, all of which presuppose being.21 It is very clear that Thomas does not think that metaphysics is formally dependent on physics but the other way around, because being is presupposed to physical being. If the material limitation of physical being were taken as most formal (a contradiction in terms), then either the being of physical things would resolve into nothing but potency (but act is most formal in being, and without it potency can neither be nor be known), or else it would be Actus Purus, both of which are absurd. The Real Distinction of Essence and Existence and Causal Resolution to God As for the real distinction of essence and existence, it is a further development of Aristotle’s distinction of act and potency. St. Thomas’s account of esse as the form of forms is not explicitly found in Aristotle, although I cannot concur with the argument made by the late Fr. Norris Clarke that the metaphysical doctrine of the limitation of act by potency is not actually implicit in Aristotle’s teaching.22 In my view Aristotle clearly understands that manyness pertains to being only owing to potentia, and that there can be but one Actus Purus; whereas manyness involves act as limited by potency. Despite the influence of Avicenna, I do not consider the arguments of De ente et essentia given by Thomas to be merely Avicennian, nor does he anywhere renounce them. Finite quiddity or essence is intelligible to us. As Thomas teaches in ST I, q. 85, aa. 6 and 7, regarding its proper object a power is not subject to error, but only with respect to the relations of this object with other things,23 and the proper object of the human intellect is quiddity in corporeal matter.24 Thus the mind, in knowing essence without See In Boethium de Trinitate, q. 5, a. 1, ad 9. See W. Norris Clarke, S.J., “The Limitation of Act by Potency,” in Explorations in Metaphysics: Being-God-Person (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). 23 See ST I, q. 85, a. 6. 24 ST I, q. 85, a. 7, resp.: “Intellectus autem humani, qui est coniunctus corpori, proprium obiectum est quidditas sive natura in materia corporali existens; et per huiusmodi naturas visibilium rerum etiam in invisibilium rerum aliqualem cognitionem ascendit” (“But the human intellect, which is joined with the body, has for 21 22 The Doctrine of God and the Analog y of Being 1115 in that same act of knowing formally cognizing existence, realizes that the essences of real things are distinct from their existence, and that the mode of their unity derives from the mode of their existence. Thomas must then universalize this real distinction of essence and existence discovered in physical things to include separate substances or angels. He argues that if there were, even hypothetically, a being whose essence were identical with its actual existence, there could only be one: because all the ways in which manyness accrues to being presuppose potentia, and by hypothesis such a being would lack all potency whatsoever. Thus, if there were a being comprising the full perfection of act, whose essence were its existence, there could be only one. A fortiori then, even angels—of which we have no direct natural knowledge—must be such that they are composed of form and being, of essence and existence. 25 Thus, since all its proper natural object quiddity existing in corporeal matter, and through such knowledge of the natures of visible things it rises to a certain knowledge of invisible things”). 25 For this whole analysis, see De ente et essentia, ch. 3: “Huiusmodi ergo substantiae quamvis sint formae tantum sine materia, non tamen in eis est omnimoda simplicitas nec sunt actus purus, sed habent permixtionem potentiae. Et hoc sic patet. Quicquid enim non est de intellectu essentiae vel quiditatis, hoc est adveniens extra et faciens compositionem cum essentia, quia nulla essentia sine his, quae sunt partes essentiae, intelligi potest. Omnis autem essentia vel quiditas potest intelligi sine hoc quod aliquid intelligatur de esse suo; possum enim intelligere quid est homo vel Phoenix et tamen ignorare an esse habeat in rerum natura. Ergo patet quod esse est aliud ab essentia vel quiditate, nisi forte sit aliqua res, cuius quiditas sit ipsum suum esse; et haec res non potest esse nisi una et prima, quia impossibile est, ut fiat plurificatio alicuius nisi per additionem alicuius differentiae, sicut multiplicatur natura generis in species, vel per hoc quod forma recipitur in diversis materiis, sicut multiplicatur natura speciei in diversis individuis, vel per hoc quod unum est absolutum et aliud in aliquo receptum, sicut si esset quidam calor separatus, esset alius a calore non separato ex ipsa sua separatione. Si autem ponatur aliqua res, quae sit esse tantum, ita ut ipsum esse sit subsistens, hoc esse non recipiet additionem differentiae, quia iam non esset esse tantum, sed esse et praeter hoc forma aliqua; et multo minus reciperet additionem materiae, quia iam esset esse non subsistens sed materiale. Unde relinquitur quod talis res, quae sit suum esse, non potest esse nisi una. Unde oportet quod in qualibet alia re praeter eam aliud sit esse suum et aliud quiditas vel natura seu forma sua” (“Although substances of this kind are form alone and are without matter, they are nevertheless not in every way simple, nor are they pure act, but have an admixture of potency. And this can be seen in this way. Whatever is not in the concept of the essence or the quiddity comes from beyond the essence and makes a composition with the essence, because no essence can be understood without the things that are its parts. But every essence or quiddity can be understood without understanding anything about its existence: I can understand what a man is or what a phoenix is and nevertheless 1116 Steven A. Long finite beings are composite of potency and act, of essence and existence, all such beings must receive their existence ad extra, from outside. And because an infinite regress in essentially subordinated causes is impossible, and because even a potential infinitude of beings which of themselves do not exist must receive their being from without, they can receive it only from the One Who is His own being, from God. We move from the analogical formality of being in the creature, to the causal analysis attributing the limited perfection of act as an effect to God Who is His own being. As Thomas explains the matter: Everything that pertains to a thing is either caused by the principles of its nature, as risibility in man, or comes to it from an extrinsic principle, as light in the air from the influence of the sun. Now it cannot be that being itself is caused by the form or quiddity of a thing—I mean as by an efficient cause— because that thing would then be its own cause and it would bring itself into being, which is impossible. Therefore it follows that everything whose being is other than its nature has its being from another. And because everything that exists through another is reduced to that which exists through itself as to its first cause, there must be something that is the cause of being for all other things, inasmuch as it is pure being. Otherwise we would go on to infinity in causes, for everything that is not pure being has a cause of its being, as has been said. It is evident, then, that an intelligence is form and being, and that it holds its being from the first being, which not know whether either has existence in reality. Therefore, it is clear that existence is something other than the essence or quiddity, unless perhaps there is something whose quiddity is its very own existence, and this thing must be one and primary. Because, there can be no plurification of something except by the addition of some difference, as the nature of a genus is multiplied in its species; or through this that form is received in diverse matters, as the nature of the species is multiplied in diverse individuals; or through this that one is absolute and another is received in something, as if there were a certain separate heat that was other than unseparated heat by reason of its own separation. But if we posit a thing that is existence only, such that it is subsisting existence itself, this existence will not receive the addition of difference, for, if a difference were added, there would be not only existence but existence with the addition of form; and much less could such a thing receive the addition of matter, because then it would be not subsisting existence but material. Therefore it follows that a thing that is its own existence cannot be other than one, and so in every other thing, the thing’s existence must be one thing, and its essence or quiddity or nature or form another”; Latin at www.corpusthomisticum.org/oee. html; English translation from De ente et essentia is my own). The Doctrine of God and the Analog y of Being 1117 is pure being; and this is the first cause, or God.26 The Doctrine of God Regarding God as Pure Act, Ipsum Esse, as Thomas puts it in ST I, q. 28, a. 2, ad 1, we find: Nothing that exists in God can have any relation to that wherein it exists or of whom it is spoken, except the relation of identity; and this by reason of [propter] God’s supreme simplicity.27 The very conditions under which we attain to the judgment that God is, indicate that God is Actus Purus. This means, as Thomas puts it, 28 that all perfections are affirmed of God as incomprehending God—because God is infinite—and as exceeded by God. We know that all transcendental perfections—being, one, true, good—and all pure perfections, that have a floor (a lower limit, as “wisdom” does not apply to mud) but no ceiling— pertain to God without any limitation of potentia. Thus there is no change, no potency, no real dependence or reciprocal relation to creatures, in God. The divine essence is so perfect that creation signifies no change in God but only his immutably perfect reality. In the creature however, “creation” signifies “having being from another”—which of course absolutely presupposes having being. Thus the relation of causal participation, and of createdness, is founded on the analogical formality of being in the creature, on the likeness of diverse actualities in creatures, existentially, substantially, in form, in operation, in accidents, in relations. Cf. De ente et essentia, ch. 3: “Omne autem quod convenit alicui vel est causatum ex principiis naturae suae, sicut risibile in homine, vel advenit ab aliquo principio extrinseco, sicut lumen in aere ex influentia solis. Non autem potest esse quod ipsum esse sit causatum ab ipsa forma vel quiditate rei (dico sicut a causa efficiente) quia sic aliqua res esset sui ipsius causa et aliqua res seipsam in esse produceret, quod est impossibile. Ergo oportet quod omnis talis res, cuius esse est aliud quam natura sua habeat esse ab alio. Et quia omne, quod est per aliud, reducitur ad illud quod est per se sicut ad causam primam, oportet quod sit aliqua res, quae sit causa essendi omnibus rebus, eo quod ipsa est esse tantum. Alias iretur in infinitum in causis, cum omnis res, quae non est esse tantum, habeat causam sui esse, ut dictum est. Patet ergo quod intelligentia est forma et esse et quod esse habet a primo ente, quod est esse tantum. Et hoc est causa prima, quae Deus est.”27 ST I, q. 28, a. 2, ad 1: “Nihil autem quod est in Deo, potest habere habitudinem ad id in quo est, vel de quo dicitur, nisi habitudinem identitatis, propter summam Dei simplicitatem.” 28 ST I, q. 13, a. 7, resp. 26 1118 Steven A. Long The analogy of being, as an analogy of proper proportionality of diverse likenesses of act and potency—which permits determinate analogical proportion among creatures, but does not require such determinate reciprocal proportion—permits intrinsic predication of God without implying real determined relation or reciprocal proportion of the Creator to the creature, or any dependence in God. St. Thomas Aquinas did very well in taking up, and perfecting, Aristotelian science for the sake of sacra doctrina, to augment our acquired contemplation of our provident Creator N&V and Lord, the One Who Is. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1119–1143 1119 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism Guy Mansini, O.S.B. Ave Maria University Ave Maria, FL Introduction In the first two sections , I will sketch the positions of Alfred Loisy and George Tyrrell. Then, I work back to what is in back of them—Henri Bergson, Auguste Sabatier, Immanuel Kant. Then I look forward to their continuing relevance if not influence. I conclude with a sobering thought. Alfred Loisy (1857–1940) After the storm of L’évangile et l’église (1902), Loisy composed an explanatory, exculpatory collection of essays on this, that, and the other issue raised therein called Autour d’un petit livre (1904). I confine myself mostly to this second book. In reading L’évangile et l’église, one has to correct for the aim he takes at Adolf von Harnack in order to find his real target—contemporary Catholic theological method and dogma. Loisy is therefore a little more open in Autour as to what he is up to—supposing that characterization could ever be wholly appropriate for Alfred Firmin Loisy. Loisy’s Historical Criticism and Its Results The first essay in Autour is called “On the Origin and Object of L’évangile et l’église.” Together with the second, “On the Biblical Question,” it deals with the bedrock of Loisy’s theological position, his understanding of historical criticism as independent of faith and the creed in both its method and its results. Criticism demands this independence even if undertaken in service to the Church and to the true and accurate apprehension of the life of Jesus 1120 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. and the relation of his life and teaching to the New Testament. Loisy writes that the historical point of view is imposed on him by the nature of the task of responding to Harnack: Harnack pretends to give a purely historical account of the relation of the Church to the Gospel; Loisy undertakes to criticize this account historically.1 But in fact, Loisy has no other point of view to offer. Catholic dogma was not invoked in L’évangile et l’église, not only because it was addressed to Harnack, “but because it cannot be received in the order of historical investigation.”2 Loisy’s sobriquet at the Institut Catholique (1890–1893) was “le petit Renan.”3 This tells us of Loisy the historian: he undertakes a positivist reading of texts, in Loisy’s case a reading entirely blind, without any criticism of the rationalist and naturalist presuppositions such a reading brings with it. But the sobriquet tells us also of Loisy the man. “The little Renan” shared also with Ernest Renan (1823–1892) an indefatigable conviction of the moral worth of religious sensibility and sentiment. Attending Renan’s lectures for three years, Loisy conceived the project of rescuing Christianity from Renan’s strictures by a more thorough, more scientific, more exigent historical criticism.4 Loisy produces a historical reconstruction of Christian origins within his positivist parameters. As little will the historian find anything divine in the text of the New Testament, Loisy holds, as will a geologist in the strata of the earth: “History grasps only phenomena, with their succession and their connection; it perceives the manifestation of ideas and their revolution; it does not reach the bottom of things.”5 Loisy’s critical reconstruction of events reveals a discontinuity between his own historical Jesus and the faith of the New Testament and subsequent Church, as he makes plain in the fourth essay, “On the Divinity of Jesus Christ.”6 “One can clarify the faith by history, but one cannot found history on faith”; and again, “it would be a contradiction to suppose that an ecclesiastical definition would render historically certain a fact of Alfred Loisy, Autour d’un petit livre (Paris: Picard et Fils, 1903), 14. Unless otherwise stated, all English translations in the present article are my own. 2 Loisy, Autour, 14. 3 See Albert Houtin and Félix Sartiaux, Alfred Loisy: sa vie—son oeuvre, ed. Emile Poulat with annotation (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1960), 56. 4 Marvin O’Connell, Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 63. 5 Loisy, Autour, 9–10. 6 Loisy, Autour, 111–12, 115–16. 1 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1121 the human order that would be otherwise indemonstrable.” 7 So, as Père Lagrange pointed out in his review of L’ évangile et l’ église in the Revue biblique: “Entre Jésus et le Nouveau Testament il y a un hiatus infranchissable” (“Between Jesus and the New Testament there is an insuperable gap”).8 The rest of Loisy’s position can be understood as a matter of working out the consequences of this alleged gap between Jesus and the New Testament, figuring out what must be true if this is true, but given also that dogma has been religiously required for the maintenance of the Gospel in history, even as Harnack taught, and that the Church has been an agent of man’s moral progress. Upshot for the Truth of Dogma Loisy says that, as history is independent of dogma, so dogma is independent of history.9 In “On the Biblical Question,” he writes: All these historical enquiries intend only to state and to represent the facts, which cannot be in contradiction with any dogma, 7 Loisy, Autour, 14; and see 55. We might put the point by saying that, for Loisy, the meaning of any text is independent of the meaning of any temporally subsequent text; as he says in Autour, 16–17: “The sense of the evangelical texts is independent of the interpretation that has been given them later, by way of a religious philosophy that is not in the preaching of Jesus. It is the same for the idea of the kingdom of God, for the institution of the Church, for the origin of the sacraments. To translate the idea of the kingdom of heaven under the pretext of conforming this hope to reality, would be, for the historian, to betray it. To suppose that Christ exactly defined the future of his work, and to interpret the texts according to what one knows now about the past of the Church would be, in criticism, an arbitrary act, and even an act of falsification. For the critic, the definitions of the last councils on the institution by Christ himself of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, of the papal primacy, of the sacraments—these definitions are ideas; for the believer, they are general truths the dogmatic expression of which does not determine the nature of the connection that historically attaches the ministry of Jesus to the origin of the Church. The realities and notions of hierarchy, of primacy, of infallibility, of dogma, even of sacrament, correspond to a growth of the Christian community that has a seed, but only a seed, in the Gospel.” Marie-Joseph Lagrange, Review of L’évangile et l’église by A. Loisy, Revue biblique 12 (1903): 297. See Loisy, Autour, 213–16, and later, My Duel With the Vatican: The Autobiography of a Catholic Modernist, trans. Richard W. Boynton (New York: Greenwood , 1968 [French original, 1913]), 68–70. 9 For the independence of history from dogma, see at length Loisy, Autour, 14–22. 8 1122 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. precisely because they are facts, and because dogmas are ideas representative of faith, which has for its object, not the knowable human, but the incomprehensible divine.10 Accordingly, “historical, scientific exegesis is not pastoral, theological exegesis.”11 The independence of dogma from history legitimates Loisy’s contention that the Church’s authority, concerned with dogma and theology, cannot touch the historian.12 Still, despite the mutual independence Loisy alleges, history wields a sort of veto over what can be at the bottom of things. The “independence” of dogma from history depends very much on what we think dogma is, what its subject is. History “clarifies” faith, Loisy says.13 Even more, the extra-theological value of Scripture, that is, its historical value, is the foundation of the theological value, which is simply a development of the historical value.14 But what can be built on this foundation? Everything, seemingly, if dogma is nothing but an expression of the religious consciousness of man’s relatedness to God. Here we have the “transcendent explanation” of historical fact.15 This requires, alas, that in its literal sense, dogma be false. When dogma is taken to be a declaration of God through Christ as to how things are with him, and between him and us, then history has something say. What it says is that this very notion of dogma is false. One must abandon the idea that dogmas make truth claims. Dogmas declare the religious meaning of historical facts, but the meanings need not be true to the facts; they need be true only to the religious consciousness and moral experience of man. So, dogma is free from history in two senses. First, it is free from whatever it was that Jesus of Nazareth factually communicated. There is a hiatus from the self-consciousness of Jesus as Messiah to the Church’s declaration of him as incarnate Word. Second, it is free from what he factually is: Jesus of Nazareth need not be Loisy, Autour, 51. Loisy, Autour, 51. 10 11 12 Loisy, Autour, 52. This line, indeed, seems reminiscent of D. F. Strauss’s declaration in the preface to his Leben Jesu that: “The dogmatic significance of the life of Jesus remains inviolate,” whatever doubts there may be as to “the supernatural birth of Christ, his miracles, his resurrection and ascension . . . as historical facts” (James C. Livingston, Modern Christian Thought [New York: Macmillan, 1971], 175). Loisy, Autour, 14. Loisy, Autour, 14–17. 15 Loisy, Autour, 147–48. 13 14 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1123 the incarnate Son of God in order for the Church with religious meaning to declare him so. The meaning that the interpretation states the fact to have need not itself be inscribed in the fact in either sense, in either the teaching or the being of Jesus of Nazareth. The doctrine of the Incarnation need have nothing but a sort of occasional connection with the self-consciousness and existence of Jesus. The freedom of dogma in declaring the meaning of historical facts is taken up in part 4, “On the Divinity of Jesus Christ,” when he treats the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The revelation of the messianic secret is really accomplished by the Spirit who acts in the community of the first believers. For faith, the witnesses of this Spirit are the apostle Paul, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, and the author of the Fourth Gospel. With this last the revelation is accomplished. And indeed, the fourth Gospel contains the essential elements of ecclesiastical Christology.16 In other words, the doctrines of Jesus’s divine filiation and Incarnation have nothing to do with the teaching and self-understanding of Jesus. In Jesus’s own self-consciousness, “messiah” is the expression of his relation to God. This, Loisy says, is the “germ” of the dogma of his divinity. But all that that means is that the doctrine of the Incarnation is another expression of his relation to God.17 In the second place, Christological and Trinitarian doctrines are free from the reality which on the surface they purport to inform us about. If one maintains, and I think it necessary to maintain, the personality of God as a symbol of his absolute perfection and of the essential distinction that exists between the real God and the real world, is it not evident that this divine personality is of another order than the personality of man? . . . Is it that God is personal in the manner of man, and that the historical Christ testified that he was personal in the manner of God?18 Loisy, Autour, 118–19. This is not to say that ecclesiastical dogmas declare “the original sense of the [New Testament] writings,” of course, as Loisy makes plain in his sixth letter, “On the Origin and Authority of Dogmas” (Autour, 216). 18 Loisy, Autour, 151–52. 16 17 1124 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. The answer to these rhetorical questions is no, and this excludes a literal if analogous predication of “personal.” Further: At bottom, the dogma defined only a metaphysical relation between Jesus and God, and it did so especially according to the idea of the transcendent God. The Word was conceived at first as a kind of indispensable intermediary between God, absolute and immutable, and the world, finite and changing. . . . It is true that the development of trinitarian dogma gathered inside the movement of divine life something that at first went from God to the world, and the Christian Trinity ended up by becoming immanent in itself. One ended up, as well, by conceiving it as interior, in some fashion, to Christ, by the personal union of the Word to the humanity of Jesus. But the dogmas of the Trinity and of the Incarnation are nonetheless founded primitively, insofar as they are a doctrine of religious philosophy, on the idea of the divine transcendence alone.19 Religious philosophy, however, has changed. It “tends more and more to the idea of an immanent God, who does not need an intermediary in order to work in the world and in man.”20 As to a religious meaning that they do have, it is nothing except Christ’s vocation, his relation to God, or his consciousness of relation to God. Revelation and Agnosticism Furthermore, it is not as if Christological and Trinitarian dogmas just happen to be false because arising from an outmoded metaphysics. It is not as if they could be replaced with other, true doctrines about God. Any doctrine that purports to state what God is in himself is false. For we cannot really have knowledge of God: What is called revelation can be nothing except the consciousness acquired by man of his relation with God. What is Christian revelation in its principle and its point of departure if not the perception in the soul of Christ of the relation that unites Christ himself to God, and that which joins all men to their heavenly Father? The perception of these relations took the form of human knowledge, and it is only in this form that they were able to be communicated to men.21 Loisy, Autour, 152–53. Loisy, Autour, 153–54. 21 Loisy, Autour, 195. 19 20 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1125 Revelation itself is exhausted in “consciousness of relation.” All the rest is the “form” of knowledge, and is man’s work: Revelation, in its intellectual definition and in its verbal expression, consists in ideas that have taken birth in humanity, in ideas such as a human intelligence has been able to perceive, only such, moreover, as can exist in human intelligence, such as human language is capable of expressing them.22 Indeed, and so it is a question of the capacity of human thought and language. However, he continues: In relation to their object, they are imperfect symbols, which would be insufficient for intellects higher than ours, and which, even for us, are susceptible of explication, that is to say of relative modification and improvement. Revelation is not immutable in the sense that its symbols, once given, would escape all transformation, but because it remains always, for faith, substantially identical to itself.23 Yes, as consciousness of relation, it remains identical. “Immutability” is glossed as follows: The changes that are produced in its exterior determination and in its formulas are something secondary in respect to the unity of its spirit and the continuity of its development. In this order, too, one can speak of permanent directions the truth of which is no less incontestable than is their moral efficaciousness, and the form of which is not more immutable than is the condition of humanity. 24 The “direction” but not the “formula” remains the same. Loisy identifies Loisy, Autour, 198. What Loisy calls revelation is truly of God, who gives to man an interior inclination to the good, a moral impulse—but that, and that alone, is God’s work, his “revealing” gift to man; see Autour, 197. 23 Loisy, Autour, 198–99. 24 Loisy, Autour, 199. Except for the last sentience of this citation, Loisy is repeating material from the third Firmin essay; see Prelude to the Modernist Crisis: The “Firmin” Articles of Alfred Loisy, trans. Christine Thirlway, ed. C. J. T. Talar with introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 59–60. This witnesses to the consistency of Loisy’s mind from the Firmin articles (1899–1900) to Autour (1903). 22 1126 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. this kind of agnosticism with the traditional apprehension of the incomprehensibility of God.25 Agnosticism and Historical Relativity Finally, granted the speculative impotence of dogma, and granted the fact that the symbols are fashioned from whatever the philosophy at hand in the culture offers, the metaphysical relativity of dogma, its agnosticism, grounds the historical variability of dogma: It is inevitable that the scientific commentary of faith be more or less conditioned by the development of science. . . . The theoretical conception of dogma as immutable cannot erase the history of dogmas. The sense that does not change is not that which results precisely from the letter, that is to say the particular form that the truth took in the mind of those who drew up the formula; it is not even in the particular form of the interpretations which followed it according to need; it is in their common basis, impossible to express in human language by a definition adequate to its object and sufficing for the centuries.26 The “sense that does not change” is not in the letter—it is not grasped as such in the proposition. “The sense that does not change” cannot be expressed in human language. Does the qualification save things—inexpressible “by a definition adequate to its object and sufficing for the centuries”? No; this is smoke and mirrors. Dogmas are inadequate for Loisy not just in that they do not express the whole intelligibility of the object. They are inadequate in that they do not express any intelligibility, even partial, of the object in itself.27 Loisy, “On the Origin and Authority of Dogmas” (Autour, 203–4). Loisy, Autour, 201–2. 25 26 27 This is how we must read the following: “The ecclesiastical formula is not absolutely true, since it does not define the full reality of the object that it represents; it is nonetheless the symbol of an absolute true; until the Church judges it suitable to modify it in explaining it, it is the best and surest expression of the truth of which it treats. The faithful Christian adheres intentionally to the full and absolute truth that the imperfect and relative formula figures. To adhere to the formula as such, with the assent of divine faith, would be to adhere to its inevitable imperfections, to proclaim it imperfectible and adequate, although it be inadequate and imperfect. The Catholic can thus believe the authority of the Church and what the Church teaches. He does not for that reason think that the ecclesiastical formula signifies its object with such perfection that nothing will ever change in it by Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1127 But just because they are not controlled by the object they purportedly refer to, they are, and rightly, entirely at the scientific and cultural disposition of the age they seek to address. Revisions are dependent on the changing science and philosophy of man. The Practical Import of Dogma What then is the import of dogma? If it is not speculatively true, then of course it must be practically true: The development of revealed religion is effected by the perception of new relations, or rather by a more precise and more distinct determination of the essential relation, glimpsed from the beginning, teaching man in this way better and better to know the grandeur of God and the nature of his own duty. In distinction from perceptions of the scientific and rational order, the perception of religious truths is not a fruit of reason alone; it is the work of the intelligence yielding, so to speak, under the impulse of the heart, the work of religious and moral sentiment, of the real will of the good.28 And again: Religious faith intervenes as a light only in what could be called the moral philosophy of things and the moral condition of human activity.29 God is demonstrated, “not by facts alone or by reasoning alone but by the effort of moral consciousness, with aid from knowledge and reason.”30 Conclusion. In this reading, we proceed from historical-critical observation of the diachronic incoherence of dogma to agnosticism, the idea that we have no cognitive access to God. Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) proceeds the other way round, but Loisy and Pius X agree, I think, on the logical connection of the extremes.31 way of interpretation. . . . The formulas, old or new, are only the vehicle of the truth” (Autour, 206–7). Loisy, Autour, 196–97. Loisy, Autour, 214. 30 Loisy, Autour, 215. 31 See Loisy, My Duel, 307: “Pius X and his co-workers assuredly were within their 28 29 1128 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. George Tyrrell (1861–1909) Scholars such as David Wells and F. O’Connor distinguish several periods in Tyrrell’s thought. I appeal to essays mostly from his last period, essays contained in Through Scylla and Charybdis (1907). Loisy and Tyrrell are very different men, and I think, very differently motivated. But I do not think their positions are much different, and I will proceed with greater dispatch here. For George Tyrrell, it is once again the historical variability of dogma that leads him with Loisy to what George Lindbeck would call an experiential-expressivist view of revelation. According to Jan Walgrave, the germ of Tyrrell’s position is captured in the following argument.32 Either revelation is propositional, and therefore the development of doctrine is logical, and logically consistent, or revelation is non-propositional, but rather a matter of some pre-linguistic experience, a sort of experiential contact with the divine. But development is not dialectical, not logical. For Tyrrell, this is a matter of historical fact, a fact that really goes without saying, a fact that every educated and dispassionate person recognizes.33 Therefore, revelation is not propositional. Therefore, it is experiential; it is the ineffable experience of God. Not only does the non-dialectical, non-logical course of the development of doctrine demand that revelation be thought of as an experience rather than as a speech, but unacceptable consequences would follow if it were conceived of as propositional. For one thing, it would seem that later rights in indicating the logical connections that might exist between the different phases of the pretended Modernism. They could likewise, if they thought it worth while, exhibit the ultimate consequences of the ideas which they were opposing. But what they had no right to do was to present as an actual form of teaching . . . the artificial construction which they themselves elaborated.” Pius’s Modernism is an artificial construction; Loisy’s criticism was innocent of “agnosticism” (ibid.); Blondel was “caricatured” (ibid.); but still, Loisy seems to grant some “logical connections.” The principles were “actual,” but the consequences were not yet unfolded. This seems to me a large concession, although it is delivered with little grace. 32 Jan H. Walgrave, Unfolding Revelation: The Nature of Doctrinal Development (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 178, 251. See, for instance, George Tyrrell, “‘Theologism’—A Reply,” in Through Scylla and Charybdis: Or, the Old Theology and the New (London: Longmans and Green, 1907), 346–49 (an article that first appeared earlier that year in the Revue pratique d’apologétique). George Tyrrell, “Semper Eadem II,” in Through Scylla and Charybdis, 153 (an article that was first published in 1905). See also Tyrrell, “‘Theologism,’” 346, 349. 33 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1129 Christians would have a better purchase on revelation than earlier ones.34 For another, it would seem that the Church would be wedded to antiquated and indeed falsified teachings of ancient science and philosophy.35 The experiential character of revelation means that strictly speaking it is non-cognitive, and does not inform us about the divine.36 The non-cognitive character of revelation does not mean that prophetic and apostolic symbols and images are not normative. They are, as Tyrrell affirmed very clearly toward the end of his life: Although apostolic revelation is in no sense the beginning or first chapter of Christian theology, yet it is in some sense the criterion both of theology and all those institutional means which the Church has taken for the preservation of the spirit and truth of the Gospel. 37 This does not mean that revelation is not general, given to all men everywhere; revelation is universal, but only with certain men do their expressions of it become the rule for others.38 Prophetic image and apostolic figure are normative. Normative, however, is not informative; that is, they do not tell us anything about God. The revealer rather produces an “impression” on us, and only in this sense does revelation “represent” God, the way an effect does its cause.39 For Tyrrell’s experiential expressivism, the expressive pieces come from us, not from God.40 Revelation is in no way a word, a divine word. As he says in “Theologism,” “revelation must be ultimately of things, not of words or symbols of things.”41 There is no sense that we cannot have things except through the words. And from the same year: Tyrrell, “‘Theologism,’“ 322–23. Tyrrell, “Semper Eadem II,” 153. 36 Tyrrell, “Rights and Limits of Theology,” in Through Scylla and Charybdis, 205–12; Tyrrell, “Revelation,” in Through Scylla and Charybdis, 282–83, 287–90. 37 Tyrrell, “Revelation,” 297. See also the new introduction to Tyrell, “Rights and Limits,” in Through Scylla and Charybdis, 200. 38 For the general character of revelation, see Tyrell, “Rights and Limits,” 207–9; see also Tyrell, “Theologism,” 324. 39 Tyrrell, “Revelation,” 283–84. 40 Tyrrell, “Rights and Limits,” 207–8. 41 Tyrell, “Theologism,” 314. 34 35 1130 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. Revelation is not statement but experience. “Truth” is used differently of experience and judgment about experience. 42 This is so central to grasping his view that I repeat an earlier, but just as insistent statement of the fact that revelation is not statement. Tyrrell says that the task of theology is to “take account of the phenomenon of religion in general and of Christianity in itself,” which is to say, he continues, that it must take account of “revelation”: . . . a revelation embodying certain individual and collective religious experiences, which is given in and with those religious experiences, and belongs itself to the category of experience and not that of statement.43 In this way does theology become something like the “religious studies” of contemporary American universities. It is the study of a human practice, not a divine teaching. Rather than ever inform us about the divine, what revelation chiefly does is install in us a way of life and religion, a moral and religious form of life.44 Revelation imparts to us “a new sort of life,” “a certain mode or way of life, action, and conduct.”45 God guarantees a way of life, not news about himself.46 What it really is, is grace, God’s sharing of his life with us.47 As for dogma, it is merely protective of the revelatory experience. It excludes false speculative attempts to shape up the content of revelation.48 Nicea, for instance, excludes Arius’s theory of the relation of Father and Son. A theologian may take the Nicene settlement as directing us to or calling for a speculative statement of the relation of Father and Son. But that is theology only, and theology does not bind.49 In itself, and for faith, Nicea does not itself give us a statement about that relation. Dogma is either informative but not binding or binding but not informative. Only what it protects binds—the original expressions of metaphor and symbol and figure. Thus, cognitively, dogma as binding has at most a symbolic or directional value. It is to point us ever more back to the experience, the Tyrrell, “Revelation,” 285. Tyrrell, “Rights and Limits,” 229. 44 Tyrrell, “Revelation,” 273, 275–76. 45 Tyrrell, “Rights and Limits,” 205–6. 46 Tyrrell, “Rights and Limits,” 209. 47 Tyrrell, “Rights and Limits,” 209, 212. 48 Tyrrell, “Revelation,” 293, and “Theologism,” 330. 49 Tyrrell, “Theologism,” 341–42. 42 43 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1131 canonical images, symbols, and metaphors, and to the form of life the experience engenders.50 Its value is religious, but not theological, moral but not speculative. With other Catholic Modernists, Tyrrell has a much greater sense than the Liberal Protestants of the role of the Church and recognizes the revelatory experiences of prophets and apostles as in some way normative.51 But there is no difference as to the expressive character of dogma, and no difference as to what it gives non-cognitive, non-informative expression of, namely, the experience of the divine. Working Backwards “Representations” and Pragmatism Apart from the highly mediated influence of Kant on both Tyrrell and Loisy, and the direct influence of Bergson on Tyrrell, both of which lines of inquiry we will shortly take up, there is the general modern philosophical invitation to speak of knowing things as having representations of them. Loisy and Tyrrell share in the general estimation that our “representations” are not “adequate” to the realities they are of, and this is supposed to be more especially and obviously true when it is a question of knowing God. For Loisy, our ideas “are the neutralized images of subjective impressions which imply, certainly, the reality of subject and object, but which do not adequately represent to the subject either the object or the subject himself.”52 For Tyrrell, our knowledge of the world is a “schematic reconstruction,” an “interpretation” of experience, which possesses a “practical truth,” and serves as a useful map, but is no “replica” of the territory.53 This is true also in our relations with God, where “the truth of the mental construction is its practical efficacy.”54 For both Loisy and Tyrrell, as we have seen, religious language is eminently practical, and its truth is exhausted in guiding us to the moral action which puts us in communion with God, a happy relation with God in the “will-world,” in Tyrrell’s phrase. At the time, American pragmatism provided a vigorous expression of the Tyrrell, “Rights and Limits,” 205–7. See also Tyrrell, “Semper Eadem II,” 145: “The criterion of present expressions of the ever-revealed truth is not their identity with, or subjection to, those of the past, but their conformity to supernatural experience of the present.” 51 Tyrrell, “Revelation,” 292. 52 Loisy, Autour, 191. 53 Tyrrell, “Mysteries,” in Through Scylla and Charybdis, 173. 54 Tyrrell, “Mysteries,” 175. 50 1132 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. untruth of our ideas, of our ordinary language, and Tyrrell is helped to his own view of things by his quite explicit and welcoming consideration of this movement.55 Loisy’s pragmatism does not, I think, extend beyond thinking of religion and Christianity, while Tyrrell’s is more thoroughly adopted as a general way to think about the relation of language and reality. Henri Bergson It is not surprising that Loisy and Tyrrell had no confidence in a resurgent but by no means mature recovery of the philosophy of the pre-Enlightenment and pre-Revolutionary Church to help them theologically, to which their exposure was, anyway, very limited.56 What is surprising, perhaps, is their confidence in the modern movements that surrounded them—Loisy as to the rationalism of the higher criticism, Tyrrell as to pragmatism and Bergsonism. Tyrrell’s revolt against “scholastic rationalism” was already complete by the time he took up Bergson, but he is grateful to him for offering an already scouted philosophical course.57 For Bergson, language exhausts itself in its practical import, the help it gives us to navigate in the world. It speaks of the relations between things, but does not get at things in themselves.58 For that, there is intuition. For which, see Clara Ginther, “‘Notre attitude en face du Pragmatisme’: George Tyrrell’s Relation to Pragmatism,” in The Reception of Pragmatism in France and the Rise of Roman Catholic Modernism, 1890–1914, ed. David G. Schultenover, S.J. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 185–215. According to Ginther, his principal difference from James in thinking of matters religious is that he takes experience in a wider sense, “as the experience of the whole body of Christ throughout time and space” (214). 56 O’Connell, Critics on Trial, 123, contrasts the exposure of Tyrrell and Loisy to St. Thomas with that of Marie-Joseph Lagrange. The attempts of Loisy and Tyrrell to enter into Thomas on their own were predictably without success. 57 David G. Schultenover, George Tyrrell: In Search of Catholicism (Shepherdstown, WV: Patmos, 1981), 203. There does not seem to be a similar impact on Loisy. Sartiaux reports Loisy reading Henri Bergson’s L’évolution créatrice (1907), citing Loisy’s Mémoires (Alfred Loisy: sa vie—son oeuvre, 193), but that is too late for L’évangile et l’église and Autour. Tyrrell read Bergson’s Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (1889) and Matière et mémoire (1896). According to Schultenover, Religion as a Factor of Life (1902; under the pseudonym of Ernest Engels) “demonstrates how thoroughly he entered into the Bergsonian horizon” (203). 58 I cite Bergson’s excellently concise and vibrant “Introduction to Metaphysics,” in The Creative Mind, trans. Mabelle Andison (Totowa, NJ: Littlefield and Adams, 1975). First published in 1903, it gives the tenor of Bergsonism just at the time of Modernism. The contrast of our knowledge of things in themselves and relations between them introduces the “Introduction.” 55 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1133 Intuition gives us ourselves—our own durée—that is, the inmost reality of the person.59 But intuition gives us also whatever we possess of the reality of anything.60 But once durational reality is cashed out in language—the morcelage of the conceptual pieces of thought and language that freeze what is flowing, and stop the motion that is the real—then language abstracts, falsifies, misleads. The concepts, ideas, and representations much spoken of by Descartes and the empiricists and Kant turn out to be useful for practical purposes, but not for grasping the real.61 Access to the true and the real occurs not by language, therefore, but by experience. And if this is true of our knowledge of the self, a religious thinker will infer that it will be true as well of the one in whose image we are made. Access to the true and real God will be beyond language, in religious experience.62 Auguste Sabatier (1839–1901) Immediately in the background of both Tyrrell and Loisy there was Auguste Sabatier, the ornament of French liberal theology in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Sabatier broadcast en claire what Tyrrell and Loisy had to encode in their earlier works like Tyrell’s Lex Orandi and the Firmin articles of Loisy. For Sabatier, revelation is strictly and manifestly the experience of God, an experience that is both the answer to prayer and that elicits prayer,63 and whose principle function for Sabatier is to strengthen the sense of our freedom and moral agency in a world that the sciences tell us is deterministic.64 The criterion of the authenticity of a revelation, in fact, is precisely that it enrich and enhance and strengthen our spiritual and moral life.65 Dogmas for their part express the experience of God; they express the Bergson, “Introduction,” 162–164, 169. Bergson, “Introduction,” 190–91, on the invention of calculus. 61 See especially the criticism of Kant in Bergson, “Introduction,” 195–97. 62 Some note a general interest in mysticism and mystical experience for various modernists, which could, doubtless, orient them anew from another angle to thinking of revelation as experience; see Modernists and Mystics, ed. C. J. Talar (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009). The connection is more evident with Baron von Hügel and Henri Bremond, it seems. Loisy takes up Bergson’s interest in mysticism (Two Sources of Morality and Religion [1932]) much after the Modernist period. 63 Auguste Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion Based on Psychology and History, trans. T. A. Seed (New York: Harper Torch, 1957 [French original, 1897]), 25–29, 30. 64 Sabatier, Outlines, 12–13, 18–19. 65 Sabatier, Outlines, 60–61. 59 60 1134 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. feeling of dependence on God (Friedrich Schleiermacher).66 However, they do not really tell us anything about God; that would be the mistake of “intellectualism.”67 In this Sabatier expressly recognizes the strictures of the Kantian critique.68 The presence of God just is revelation in itself; it in us the feeling of our dependence on him; and this emotion—that is, “religion”—produces in turn the idea of our relation to God—that is, dogma—and indeed brings forth every religious form and rite and formulary.69 Dogma considered as an idea, in its theoretical aspect, is the envelope and expression of our relation to God, which is the implication of our religious feeling, which is the product of the presence of God.70 It seems to be speaking about God; all it really expresses is the emotion, the relation.71 Dogma has, as it were, two faces: interiorly, its soul is piety, or consciousness of relation; exteriorly, its body is some intellectual or even philosophically formulated statement. For Kantian reasons, however, the intellectual form of dogma cannot really inform us about God. Still, such form is necessary in order to express the emotion, the consciousness of the relation, both so as to communicate it to others and to rekindle it in ourselves.72 Such forms are wholly the work of man, not God; they are not revealed; revelation is consciousness of the presence of God.73 Further, since the intellectual form is always constructed out of whatever intellectual or philosophical materials lie to hand in the culture of the time, they are also historically variable.74 Loisy and Sabatier: the Firmin articles Loisy insisted he never read Kant and was no philosopher.75 Still, his engagement with Sabatier—the French Albrecht Ritschl—was close indeed, as the Firmin articles demonstrate (1898–1900),76 and Ritschl connects us to Kant. Sabatier’s was a lasting influence on Loisy, as the last Sabatier, Outlines, 45. Sabatier, Outlines, 137–38. 68 Sabatier, Outlines, 276–77, 326. 69 Sabatier, Outlines, 229. 70 Sabatier, Outlines, 240. 71 Sabatier, Outlines, 240–41, 298–99. 72 Sabatier, Outlines, 256–58, 318, 321. 73 Sabatier, Outlines, 242–43. 74 Sabatier, Outlines, 246–47. 66 67 75 Sartiaux, “L’Oeuvre d’Alfred Loisy,” preface to Alfred Loisy, citing Loisy’s Mémoires. See above, note 24. 76 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1135 pages of L’évangile et l’église make clear, where he evokes man’s position between the necessities of scientifically described nature and the freedom to which God calls him in his moral action. Loisy ends his volume where Sabatier began his own Esquisse d’une philosophie de la religion. In My Duel with the Vatican, Loisy observes that his difference from Sabatier bears on the social character of religion.77 This leaves his indebtedness to Sabatier on religion and revelation largely intact. He seems indeed to reproach Sabatier for his subjectivism, stripping revelation of its intellectual and doctrinal content and reducing it to man’s experience or consciousness of God’s motion in man’s psychology.78 Thus the following: Each of the essential assertions which constitute objective revelation started off by being a subjective revelation, an assertion by God himself speaking to the conscience of a human being, and this assertion was a manifestation of God, which in this way carried its own absolute certainty for the person favored with it.79 Revelation is here an “assertion,” and God “speaks.” But then on the next page: The fundamental truths of religion have not been communicated in the form of speculative teaching, but as divine facts in some fashion experienced by those who perceived them, at the actual time when their minds conceived of their intellectual representation. 80 Revelation is not then a proper teaching at all (speculative or practical), but an experience of divine fact, a perception of the divine, the representation of which is a human and not a divine work. And again, the criticism of Sabatier’s subjectivism notwithstanding: If it is admitted that upon contact with the divine, there springs forth from the depths of the religious soul a lively light for the intelligence, communicable to other souls, then it is admitted that revelation is the production of a substantially divine truth, divinely Loisy, My Duel, 175. Loisy, Prelude, 50–51. His criticism comes adorned with citations to St. Thomas on prophecy (56–57). 79 Loisy, Prelude, 60. 80 Loisy, Prelude, 61. 77 78 1136 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. initiated although always humanly perceived and formulated. Nothing more is needed to safeguard the truly traditional idea of revelation.81 First is the divine “contact,” whence “springs forth” whatever is communicable to others. The divine “initiative” is completed by human “formulation.” Moreover, revelation as Loisy conceives it here is something general, and the “divine action upon the mass of humanity must be considered of the same order as the action of revelation in men inspired.”82 Tyrrell and Sabatier For Tyrrell, it will be enough to refer to his great intellectual biographer, David George Schultenover. Tyrrell reviews Sabatier’s earlier The Vitality of Christian Dogmas and Their Power of Evolution in the Month in 1898.83 Here, Tyrrell rejects Sabatier’s view that dogma is the “husk,” as Schultenover has it, “in which the religious emotion of Christ . . . clothed itself.” 84 Later he is more receptive to Sabatier, but Schultenover thinks Tyrrell distinguishes his own position “from that radical subjectivity that would make dogma a wholly arbitrary symbol of divine mystery and truth.” 85 Again, reporting Tyrrell’s mind in 1901: “Tyrrell always felt that there was a very fine line between the objective, representative value of dogma and its purely symbolic character, and he always argued for divine guidance in the framing of dogma.”86 This, I think, is special pleading, since the line is fine only for someone lost in experiential expressivism. Nor does such a scruple gainsay the mature position outlined above, according to which revelation is not a statement. Behind Sabatier: Ritschl and Kant If we ask why the Modernists have no confidence in human language to speak informatively and truly of God, the answer is that Loisy and Tyrrell, through Sabatier, and through him through Ritschl, share in the strictures of Kant’s First Critique. Ritschl shares with Kant the idea that the principal value of religion Loisy, Prelude, 51. Loisy, Prelude, 53. 83 Vitality appeared in English in 1898; De la vie intime des dogmes, et de leur puissance d’evolution was published in 1889. 84 Schultenover, George Tyrrell, 59; see also 371n32. 85 Schultenover, George Tyrrell, 194. 86 Schultenover, George Tyrrell, 194. 81 82 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1137 is to enable us freely to obey the moral law over against the determinisms nature and society.87 He rejoices that Kant frees us from a Scholastic and metaphysical idea of God, and restores the knowledge of him to the practical order. Harnack shares this interest in making the Gospel practical news, news guiding our moral choices. And the same view surfaces in Loisy and Tyrrell. Loisy confesses in his journal that he is loathe to leave the Church, not because he maintains any confidence in her doctrine—he does not—but because it has been so great and indispensable an engine of the moral improvement of mankind.88 That Loisy never read Kant we may well believe. That he was not swimming in the great nineteenth-century stream of agnosticism relative to God, the soul, and freedom introduced by Kant, and the reduction of religion to morality, is more difficult to credit. But like Raymond Brown objecting to Cardinal Ratzinger, he shows no awareness that the practice of modern exegesis is philosophically informed.89 Ignorant of the letter of Kant, Loisy therefore reads the letter of Scripture within an unacknowledged philosophical framework, one recognizably within the limits within which Kantian reason insists religion be kept. They dictate the positivist spirit with which Loisy reads the New Testament. The question of revelation and of Scripture as a witness to revelation is bracketed. Loisy, like Kant’s purely moral interpreter of Scripture, approaches the bible as a wholly human artifact, as Loisy does also the subsequent doctrinal production of the Church.90 No Church dogma, according to Kant, can burden the interpreter or historical critic Helmut Thielicke, Modern Faith and Thought, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 331, 333. 88 Loisy, My Duel, 101, 194-5, 168. 89 Joseph Ratzinger, “Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: On the Question of the Foundations and Approaches of Biblical Exegesis Today,” in Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: The Ratzinger Conference on Bible and Church, ed. Richard Neuhaus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 16. Nor did Loisy discuss the philosophical background to his practice even later, as far as I can see. See the largely taken-for-granted rationalism of the first chapter of his The Origin as of the New Testament, trans. L. P. Jacks (New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1962). The French edition (1936) was about the last thing Loisy published. 87 90 For the authoritative moral interpretation of Scripture, see Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore Greene and Hoyt Hudson (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), 101–3. Such an interpreter is distinct from the mere biblical “scholar,” interested only in the historical origins of Christianity, who “settles no more than that there is nothing in the origin of Scripture to render impossible its acceptance as direct divine revelation” for those who need faith in such an event (103). 1138 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. of Scripture.91 And just as no dogma binds Loisy in his reading of the New Testament, neither is his historical reconstruction of doctrinal history really a reconstruction of doctrine. Approaching the New Testament and the history of doctrine as purely human artifacts, the very agnosticism of the First Critique will turn out— miraculously!—to be generated from below. New Testament criticism will find no single thread of articulation, cumulative and homogeneous, bearing on Christ, but rather a series of separately tied and isolated knots of human experience and aspiration, connected at the literary level, perhaps, but by no necessary or intelligible links bearing on a common referent. In Loisy’s reading, the various data of Gospel and creed and dogma are appreciated as saying various things at various points in time to various peoples about God, Christ, the Church, the sacraments. Since the many things said of any one of these subjects are not coherent, there is no intelligible core they are all in fact getting at and expressing and are governed by. So, Gospel and creed and doctrine do not make statements about any reality truly named by the words “God,” “Christ,” “sacrament.” These words are and can be no more than symbols of an experience of God, symbols whose utility therefore must be practical, since it cannot be speculative.92 They help us live well. The lasting import of Scripture is, as Kant (and Spinoza) taught, practical. Religion within the limits of reason is a wholly moral affair, where the criterion of morality are no words of God but, ineluctably, postulates and products of practical reason. “Religion” is then judged in its practical import according to an already established criterion of philosophical reason. The Second Critique is logically prior to Religion Within the Limits of Reason. Looking Forward Étienne Fouilloux wrote in 1998 that “the modernist crisis constitutes the intellectual matrix of contemporary Catholicism in the exact measure that this crisis is defined by the will to re-read the founding message [of Christianity] by the gleam of the scientific knowledge of the last century.”93 The Kant, Religion, 96, 104. Pierre Colin, “Le Kantisme dan la crise moderniste,” in Le Modernisme, ed. D. Dubarle (Paris: Editions Beauchesbe, 1980), 31, asks very acutely whether Pius X’s Pascendi does not confuse metaphysical agnosticism (Sabatier) with the methodological atheism of Loisy’s critical method (and see further discussion on 59–63). What is important to see, I think, is that in the end, the second leads to the first. 93 Étienne Fouilloux, Une Église en quête de liberté: La pensée catholique française entre modernisme et Vatican II (1914–1962) (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1998), 91 92 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1139 Second Vatican Council did not “rehabilitate” modernism, or “open the window to a new modernism,” but neither did it impose the view of their fiercest opponents.94 What is the relation of Modernism to the nouvelle théologie? Fouilloux considers three groups in the aftermath of the condemnations of 1907 and 1910.95 First, there were the priests and religious who were excommunicated and whose works were proscribed (Loisy, Joseph Turmel, Prosper Alfaric). Second, those who submitted to Rome, like E. Le Roy, or who were silenced (L. Laberthonnière). Third, those who chose to occupy a position particulèrement délicat, the “particularly delicate position” of rejecting the radicalism of the Modernists (Loisy, Tyrrell), and who, on the other flank, rejected the intransigence of those who could not admit any exegetical or philosophical progress: Lagrange, Rousselot, Blondel.96 The “new theology,” Fouilloux says, was la fille légitime of this third group, its legitimate daughter.97 Others are less careful in delimiting the relation. For Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, the “new theology” returned to Modernism without any qualification.98 He did not distinguish Henri Bouillard from Maurice Blondel, nor Blondel from Tyrrell. Gerard Loughlin and Jürgen Mettepenningen agree with Garrigou-Lagrange. According to Loughlin, the “new theology” is a return to and vindication of Modernism. He says this in virtue of what to my mind is an excessively mild evaluation of Modernism: no doctrinal relativism to be discerned there at the beginning of the last century; the Modernists simply wanted to distinguish the abiding proposition of doctrinal truth from differing statements thereof, and recognized the working of history on different formulae of the same truth.99 Loughlin focuses especially on Tyrrell, and defends him against the charge of agnosticism by arguing that he belongs rather in the camp of those who read St. 10: “La crise moderniste constitue la matrice intellectuelle du catholicisme contemporain, dans la measure précisément où elle se définit par la volonté de relire le message fondateur à la lueur des connaissances scientifiques du siècle dernier..” 94 Fouilloux, Une Église, 11. 95 Fouilloux, Une Église, 29–30. 96 Fouilloux, Une Église, 29. 97 Fouilloux, Une Église, 33; see also 303–4 for the distinction between the new theology and Modernism. 98 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “La nouvelle théologie—ou va-t-elle?” Angelicum 23 (1946): 126–45. 99 Gerard Loughlin, “Nouvelle Théologie: A Return to Modernism?” in Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology, ed. Gabriel Flynn and Paul D. Murray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 36–50, at 48–49. 1140 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. Thomas the way Herbert McCabe and Victor White do.100 This is very unconvincing.101 For Tyrrell, God moves, touches, stirs, impels the soul. But he does not speak. One would never know this from Loughlin. There is also Jürgen Mettepenningen’s very similar construction of twentieth-century history. The title of his Nouvelle Théologie–New Theology: Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II states his thesis very succinctly.102 The Modernists were no heretics but merely held against the neo-Scholasticism of the time that revelation is on-going, that dogmas change in form and content, and that the critical reading of Scripture must be accorded its rights.103 The continuity of two factors, “the introduction of history into theology,” for understanding both Scripture and dogma, and the partial abandonment of neo-Scholasticism, prove the first part of Mettepenningen’s thesis to his own satisfaction.104 For the second part, the Council appropriates “the central features of the ambitions of the nouvelle théologie” under the guidance of several “new theologians,” subsequently conciliar periti, especially in Dei Verbum; thus, we are given to understand that the Council embraces the defining features of Modernism as well.105 This, too, is little convincing, given the broadness with which things like the wonted attention to history is characterized, and given Mettepenningen’s inability to distinguish key figures on the issues—for instance, he sees no reason to distinguish Pierre Battifol and Loisy on the independence of history from faith.106 On the other hand, Fergus Kerr would recognize in Henri de Lubac an effective agent of the anti-Scholastic aim of Modernism.107 With Fouilloux, there is a more finely grained assessment by Hans Boersma. Boersma is aware of the temptations to draw a line from Loughlin, “Nouvelle Théologie,” 43. Loughlin refers us here in the main to Tyrrell’s Lex Orandi, but he does not inform us that it is a less radically and less clearly expressed version of Religion as a Factor or Life, nor does he make any mention whatsoever of the more mature but more inflammatory essays on revelation and doctrine in Between Scylla and Charybdis. It can be hard to obtain Religion as a Factor of Life (no library in the United States registers having a copy); see the detailed exposition in Schultenover, George Tyrrell, 216–36. 102 Jürgen Mettepenningen, Nouvelle Théologie—New Theology: Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II (London: T & T Clark, 2010). 103 Mettepenningen, Nouvelle Théologie, 21. 104 Mettepenningen, Nouvelle Théologie, 21. 105 Mettepenningen, Nouvelle Théologie, 36. 106 Mettepenningen, Nouvelle Théologie, 20; see rather O’Connell, Critics on Trial, 215–17. 107 Fergus Kerr, Twentieth-century Catholic Theologians: From Neoscholasticism to Nuptial Mysticism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 86. 100 101 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1141 Modernism through the nouvelle théologie to the Council.108 But he resists it for two very telling reasons. First, there was no move to ressourcement in Modernism; Loughlin’s claim to find this in Modernism’s “retrieval of medieval sources” is surprising, to say the least.109 Second, Boersma defines the new theology especially by its reviviscence of “the patristic sacramental hermeneutic” for approaching Scripture, and there is nothing of this in Modernism.110 The common enemy of neo-Scholasticism and the common attention to history (in some form, in some way, for some purposes) do not make the new theologians the inheritors of Modernism. Conclusion: An Abiding Modernist Issue Old heresies never die and they never fade away, either. The nature of revelation remains as urgent an issue as ever it was for Modernism. Dei Verbum insisted that revelation occurs in words and deeds (§2) and that the Holy Spirit asserts what the human authors of Scripture assert (§11). But this did not prevent Raymond Brown from famously denying in 1980 that God speaks in or through Scripture.111 In the first place, the idea that he does is mythological. Second, if he did, the study of Scripture could not be wholly independent of dogma, and could not be critical according to Enlightenment standards. But if divine speech is mythological, an impossible conjunction of the divine and human, can divine action be otherwise? So much for the “words and deeds” of Dei Verbum. What then is revelation? Whatever it is, it must be something other than the words of Scripture. Whether it is prior to discourse in the consciousness of prophet or messiah, or whether it is something to be discerned in the over-all experience of a large community extended in space and time who produced the book and continue to produce it anew in ever repeated interpretive enactments, the formulation of revelation will be ours. This second view seems to be the view of Terrence Tilley, a contemporary philosopher of religion, for whom the content of Christian tradition is a collection of life-enhancing practices, and the propositions necessary to describe and guide them are true according as the consequences of the practices are good. Truth is something constructed by Hans Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 290. 109 Loughlin, “Nouvelle Théologie,” 48. 110 Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie, 291. 111 For discussion of Brown’s 1980 article, and for its opposition to his actual exegetical practice, see Michael Maria Waldstein, “Analogia Verbi: The Truth of Scripture in Rudolf Bultmann and Raymond Brown,” Letter & Spirit 6 (2010): 93–140. 108 1142 Guy Mansini, O.S.B. a living community, and realist according as it is successfully practical. Tilley eschews experiential expressivism, but on his view, doctrine will be as mutable as any Modernist ever supposed it to be, and besides saying that revelation is “Christ,” it will, more conformably with Tilley’s project, be said to be something not antecedent to (for how could it be apprehended?) but strictly correlative with the practices that make up the content of tradition.112 For Karl Rahner, to take a more influential figure, all the words of Scripture and dogma mean only to express the transcendentally experienced state of affairs in which Absolute Mystery comes close to us. Whatever else they mean, they normatively mean only this. This large and very undetermined view of the content of revelation, if such a word as “content” has any application here at all, leaves us to envisage calmly and cold-bloodedly the changes of doctrine and adjustments that must be made in its expression after the Enlightenment. Rahner, who began his theological career with a very anti-Modernist vindication of the propositional form of revelation, ended his long theological day much closer to Modernism. We must acknowledge the “possibility,” he writes, that: In the transmission and expression of dogmas properly speaking there may be inseparably mingled ideas, interpretations, etc., which are not part of the binding content of the article of faith concerned but which have not been explicitly separated from this article at a particular epoch in history by traditional theology or even by the Church’s magisterium.113 This seems to imply that we cannot really know what it is we are assenting to when we say the creed. Moreover, it is the Enlightenment and its attention to history that makes us aware of this very Modernist “possibility,” the possibility that what we assert in confessing the teaching of the Church is—not to put too fine a point on it—false.114 See Terrence Tilley, Inventing Catholic Tradition (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000), 156–70, on the constructivist consequentialist view of truth, and 170–77, where Avery Dulles’s view of revelation is said to be compatible with Tilley’s account of truth, and “revelation is not a foundation for Christian faith and practice but the correlate of faith within a tradition of the practice of faith” (175). 113 Karl Rahner, “Yesterday’s History of Dogma and Theology for Tomorrow,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 18, God and Revelation, trans. Edward Quinn (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 3–34, at 11. 114 For a very trenchant rejoinder to this kind of relativism, see John Lamont, “The Historical Conditioning of Church Doctrine,” The Thomist 60 (1996): 511–35. 112 Experience and Discourse, Revelation and Dogma in Catholic Modernism 1143 What is revelation? Is it experience or discourse? It is experience for those for whom modern philosophy has detached human discourse from the real, or for whom it has made it mythological. The prior problem is with discourse itself: there is no divine discourse about the real if there is no discourse about the real. The manifestation of discourse as what it is, therefore, comes to light as a praeambulum of faith: human discourse must be capable of making the intelligibility of realities present to us, and we must be able to appreciate ourselves as creatures whose work it is to be receptive to being, before ever we can hear the word of revelation. On the other hand, it may be that healing this very modern wound to the understanding of man as the image of God, the rational animal, the shepherd of being, the agent of truth115 —perhaps this healing can occur only in the hearing of the word of God. In other words, can such a praeambulum fidei be established now, in our present circumstances, outside of the Catholic philosophical tradition? Can we be appreciated even as Plato and Aristotle appreciated us, can our intelligibility as the animal whose job it is to make the intelligibility of things present to him—can this be seen as what we are, only under the sacred canopy? As with all else human, as N&V we discover today, so here, with what defines us as human. In the terms of Genesis, Porphyry, Martin Heidegger, and Robert Sokolowski, respectively. 115 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1145–1162 1145 What Came First? The Sequence of God’s Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother1 John-Mark L. Miravalle Mount St. Mary’s Seminary Emmitsburg, MD In the ordinary course of Christian life, there are two different sequences one can follow in the order of grace. In the first case, that of infant baptism, sanctifying grace precedes any act of the will on the part of the individual himself, and later as the faculties of the soul develop the grace received in infancy extends its influence to intellect and volition. By contrast, in the case of adult conversion, antecedent grace working on the adult soul elicits assent of mind and heart which subsequently prompts the receipt of the saving graces of baptism. The question I am interested in pursuing here regards which scenario is exemplified in the personal history of the Mother of God. Which comes first for Mary, sanctifying grace at conception, or actual grace to move the will in adulthood? Of course in a chronological sense the Church has already answered this question, and answered it definitively, in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. From her first moments in existence, before any exercise of her rational powers, Mary enjoys that unique degree of participation in divine life which will remain uninterrupted for the remainder of her life. So temporally speaking, the sanctifying grace received at conception precedes the actual graces of adulthood. So much is simply established doctrine. But what I want to argue is that for Mary the chronological and causal I am indebted to the anonymous reviewer whose helpful comments and criticisms prompted a significant number of clarifications and developments which greatly contributed to the precision of this article’s final version. 1 1146 John-Mark L. Miravalle sequences of grace do not run parallel. In other words, the burden of this article is to show that causally the actual graces present at the Annunciation are prior to the sanctifying grace bestowed at the Immaculate Conception. Put more concisely, the graces of Immaculate Conception2 depend on what happens at the Annunciation, and not vice versa. To make this case I will first present a reductio ad absurdum against the notion that Mary’s fiat in the first chapter of Luke depends upon the extraordinary graces given at the Immaculate Conception. The reductio goes like this: 1. Mary’s fiat at the Annunciation depends on the Immaculate Conception. 2. Mary’s Immaculate Conception depends on Calvary. 3. Calvary depends on Mary’s fiat at the Annunciation. The vicious circularity is textbook, such that if the second and third propositions are true the first simply cannot be true.3 In what follows we will examine the principles in question, conclude to the causal priority of the actual grace at the Annunciation, and close with a discussion of what implications this conclusion entails for Mariology as a whole. Presentations of Mary’s Fiat as Dependent on the Immaculate Conception In the first volume of his massive Theological Investigations, Karl Rahner includes a chapter which attempts to deduce the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception from the fiat of Mary’s divine motherhood. In other words, instead of seeing the formulation of Gabriel’s greeting as the primary revealed axiom from which to derive the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, he says that this latter teaching could be known simply Henceforth when I use “Immaculate Conception” it will refer to the distinctive grace that kept Mary immaculate at the moment of her conception. 3 This is not the first time questions of causal circularity have surfaced in Mariology; such questions were not uncommon between Pius IX’s Ineffabilis deus (1854) and the Second Vatican Council. However, the primary point at issue in those debates concerned how Mary could participate in Christ’s saving work at Calvary if (1) the Immaculate Conception depended on Calvary and (2) Mary’s coredemptive activity at Calvary depended on her status as immaculately conceived. See Juniper B. Carol, “Our Lady’s Coredemption,” in Mariology, vol. 2, ed. J. B. Carol (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce, 1957), 377–425, esp. 417–22. This essay, while it is concerned with issues involving vicious circularity in Marian doctrine, does not specifically address Our Lady’s role at Calvary, but instead presses the issue back further to her role at the Annunciation. 2 The Sequence of God's Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother 1147 from reflection on Mary’s free cooperation in the Incarnation. Rahner rightly sees the Incarnation (and therefore, we may presume, the events of Calvary) as resulting from Mary’s free acceptance of her mission as the Mother of God. She therefore has the most perfect role of any mere creature, namely, the role of immediately assisting in bringing God to earth. But since Mary’s creaturely role is of supreme importance, she must consequently be a creature of supreme holiness: “As Mother of God, Mary is most perfectly redeemed, and vice versa. . . . If this is so, then it includes a perfect correspondence between Mary’s unique task in saving history and her personal holiness.”4 And a little later on Rahner reemphasizes: “For here ‘office’ and personal holiness must coincide.”5 Why? Why does Mary’s role as Mother of God (and her free acceptance of that role) require maximal personal holiness? Rahner’s answer is elusive. The closest he comes to an argument is in the following passage: Redemption takes place as the reception of Christ in the act of faith, which is itself grace and—for faith—establishes itself as something historically tangible in the world. Then the most perfect redemption is the conception of Christ in faith and in the body for the salvation of all in the holiest act of freedom, which is grace. Because Mary stands at that point of saving history at which through her freedom the world’s salvation takes place definitively and irrevocably as God’s act, she is most perfectly redeemed.6 The definition of “redemption” is a bit idiosyncratic, but the reasoning is straightforward enough: redemption means freely receiving Christ, Mary freely receives Christ most perfectly in her divine motherhood, and therefore Mary is most perfectly redeemed. Fair enough. But then at the end of the article Rahner commits a blatant equivocation by saying that since Mary is the most perfectly redeemed one, she must be redeemed from any stain of sin or original exclusion from the life of grace.7 This is a pretty clear conflation of two logically distinct ideas. It is one thing to receive Christ after an act of faith, and another to enjoy flawless human nature and sanctifying grace from conception, and it is Karl Rahner, “The Immaculate Conception,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 1, God, Christ, Mary and Grace, trans. Cornelius Ernst (Baltimore, MD: Helicon, 1961), 207. 5 Rahner, “Immaculate Conception,” 209. 6 Rahner, “Immaculate Conception,” 206. 7 Rahner, “Immaculate Conception,” 211. 4 1148 John-Mark L. Miravalle no good trying to infer one from the other just by deciding to call both “redemption.” From what I can tell, this simple equivocation appears to be the sole basis for Rahner’s position that the divine maternity implies the Immaculate Conception. Sarah Jane Boss, however, perhaps motivated by a charitable desire to find some more substantial argumentation underlying Rahner’s position, offers a different interpretation: It is because of her exceptional state of grace that Mary is able to consent fully and freely to a vocation which demands the participation of her whole person, and it is in this respect that Rahner understands Mary’s immaculate conception to have a direct bearing on her motherhood. The possibility of full and free consent, rather than the requirement for purity or fittingness, is what makes Mary’s radical sinlessness a necessary precondition for her divine motherhood.8 The idea here is that the graces of the Immaculate Conception provide the required causal support needed for Mary to respond properly to the divine invitation relayed by Gabriel. On this reading Rahner would not be postulating a mere matter of logical connection between the Immaculate Conception and Mary’s fiat at the Annunciation, but rather a relation of causal dependence, with the latter relying on the former. Again, although I have not been able to find even implicit evidence that Rahner was motivated by the rationale which Boss attributes to him, the idea that the Immaculate Conception served as a necessary causal condition for the divine motherhood is an interesting position which will work as a helpful foil in trying to present a better account of the causal history of Mary’s life of grace. However, if the position which Boss attributes to Rahner is that the Immaculate Conception is a necessary condition for Mary’s “yes” at the Annunciation, there is a still stronger position which holds that the Immaculate Conception is a determining condition of Mary’s “yes” at the Annunciation. In other words, some think the Immaculate Conception not only allows for Mary to make the right decision, but determines her to make it inevitably. To take a very clear instance, Fr. Peter Fehlner maintains the position Sarah Jane Boss, “The Doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception,” in Mary: the Complete Sourcebook, ed. Sarah Jane Boss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 207–35, at 230. 8 The Sequence of God's Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother 1149 that the Immaculate Conception entails the impossibility of Mary ever sinning: This brings us to the so-called theological objection, claimed by some to be even more important. This objection arises from the truism that the Immaculate Conception would render Mary sinless, to the point of being impeccable. Therefore, it deprives her of her personal freedom, and renders her nature unlike ours. We may cheerfully agree the Immaculate Conception does render Mary impeccable from the first moment of her conception. But this does not mean her human nature is different from ours. . . . The so-called possibility of sinning is not a characteristic of freedom as such, viz., as a simple perfection. The possibility of offending God is but an index of limited freedom, not of freedom itself. The greater the impossibility of sinning, the greater the freedom.9 Prescinding from any thematic discussion of the torturously complicated issues involved in analyzing problems of grace and human freedom, suffice it to note that in this passage the author clearly maintains that the grace of the Immaculate Conception has as one of its consequences the perpetual sinlessness of Mary. Because of the Immaculate Conception, says Fr. Fehlner, Mary is incapable of “offending God.” Now since sinning, or offending God, always consists at its root in some kind of privation, it would seem quite legitimate to formulate the same idea in positive terms: the Immaculate Conception causes Mary to always do whatever God wills that she do. But then the natural conclusion to be drawn is that the Immaculate Conception is what causes Mary’s fiat at the Annunciation. If the grace of the Immaculate Conception causes Mary not to fail in following God’s will in every situation, then we can dispense with the double negative and state that it is the grace of the Immaculate Conception which causes Mary to follow God’s will in every situation. Looking at the Annunciation situation then, in which Mary follows God’s will by giving her fiat, adherence to Fehlner’s principles compels the further assertion that it is the Immaculate Conception which causes Mary to give her assent to the angel’s message. What characterizes the views considered in this section is not simply Peter M. Fehlner, “The Virgin Mother’s Predestination and Immaculate Conception,” in Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Consecrated Persons, ed. Mark I. Miravalle (Goleta, CA: Seat of Wisdom, 2007), 213–76, at 243–44. 9 1150 John-Mark L. Miravalle their agreement that the Immaculate Conception is a dignity befitting the Mother of God, nor their agreement that the Immaculate Conception is a doctrine revealed through the Scriptures and taught by the Church, but rather their conviction that Mary’s free, divine motherhood somehow presupposes her status as immaculately conceived. Looking at the other, less debatable principles of our reductio will hopefully show the implausibility of this construction. The Immaculate Conception Depends on Calvary One of the chief historical difficulties with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception finds its chief expression in Aquinas’s concern that were Mary from the beginning free from all effects of original sin, she would not be among the fallen, and so would have no need of a redeemer. This would in turn undermine the universality of Christ’s redemptive work, since it would brook of human exceptions: “If the soul of the Blessed Virgin had never incurred the stain of original sin, this would be derogatory to the dignity of Christ, by reason of His being the universal Savior of all.”10 Famously, the doctrinal tradition adopted the solution of John Duns Scotus to the effect that Mary is redeemed by Christ preservatively, not liberatively, such that she was saved from inheriting a fallen human nature by a miraculous intervention of God’s graciousness. Notice that Mary’s vulnerability to original sin is unaffected by the “Franciscan Thesis” which maintains that Mary’s destiny as the Immaculate Mother of God would have been included in the providential program regardless of any concrete need to redeem a sinful humanity. Scotus himself, an iconic representative of the Franciscan Thesis, developed the notion of preservative redemption precisely because he believed that, in the contingent state of affairs in which Mary found herself as descended from a fallen race, she needed to be saved.11 Indeed, so urgent is her need for salvation that Scotus distinguishes her from those who are raised up after they have fallen by describing her as being caught “in the very act of falling” (not as being prevented from ever reaching a precarious position!).12 Nor do the various speculations about the mechanisms of the trans Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] III, q. 27, a. 2, ad 2. John Duns Scotus, Opus oxoniense, d. 3, q. 1, no. 14. 12 Scotus, Opus oxoniense, d. 3, q. 1, no. 2. See also Joseph Pohle, Mariology: A Dogmatic Treatise on the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, trans. Arthur Preuss (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1930), 59–61, and Matthias J. Scheeben, Mariology, vol. 2, trans. T. L. M. J. Geukers (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1947), 2:105–7, who both see Scotus as characterizing Mary’s situation with regard to original sin as so desperate that she is only just saved from it in the very moment when it descends upon her. 10 11 The Sequence of God's Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother 1151 mission of original sin make a difference to Mary’s need for redemption by the merits of Christ’s Cross. Whether she needed to be saved because she was physically from Adam’s seed, or because she stood to be accused of complicity by association in her first ancestor’s sin, or because the original couple had squandered the gifts of grace and now could only transmit an impoverished human nature to their descendants,13 what is crucial for our purposes here is that “the opinion . . . that Mary was immaculate in the sense of not needing to be redeemed, and that her first grace was independent of the future merits of her Son—may no longer be admitted.”14 However, Pius IX’s phrasing of the dogma in Ineffabilis deus initially appears to contain a certain degree of ambiguity about how to frame the causal relationship between Calvary and the Immaculate Conception. The formulation states that Mary was preserved immune from all stain of sin from the first moment of her conception, “in view of the merits of Jesus Christ,” or more literally, “by an intuitive cognition of the merits of Jesus Christ” (“intuitu meritorum Christi Jesu Salvatoris humani generis”). What are we to make of this term, intuitu? Why this intellective language when speaking about the relationship between the Immaculate Conception and Calvary? Several interpretations are plausible at the outset. On the one hand, the relationship between the two events might be modeled in terms of final causality. That is to say, we could interpret Ineffabilis deus as declaring that the Immaculate Conception was granted to Mary for the sake of Calvary. Here intuitu would be understood along the lines of “having in mind.” In this case we could say that Calvary “causes” the Immaculate Conception in the sense that it consists in the final cause of the “Immaculate Conception,” that it serves as God’s motivation, so to speak, for keeping Mary replete with grace from the beginning. “Primus in intentione, ultimus in executione” (“the first thing in intention is the final thing in execution”), so the scholastic maxim goes, and it seems a very natural solution to propose that although Calvary is later in the order of time, in the order of the divine intention it comes before Mary’s creation in an immaculate state. The problem with this solution is that if Christ’s passion on the Cross is reduced to the final cause of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, then Our Lord’s sufferings are stripped of their efficiency with respect to Mary’s On the various distinctions connected to Mary’s debitum peccatae, see Aidan Carr and Germain Williams, “Mary’s Immaculate Conception,” in Mariology, vol. 1, ed. Juniper B. Carol (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce, 1954), 328–94, esp. 379–86. 14 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Mother of the Savior and Our Interior Life, trans. Bernard J. Kelly (St. Louis. MO: B. Herder, 1949), 53.. 13 1152 John-Mark L. Miravalle redemption. In plain words, on such an account Mary would be graced at conception for Christ, but not by Christ. The graces she receives would come from God, and more specifically from God’s plan to redeem the world through the shedding of Christ’s blood, but it would not be the actual shedding of Christ’s blood that supplies Mary with the sanctifying graces which keep her stainless. Aquinas’ objection would not be met: God’s salvific designs, not Christ’s passion, would be responsible for redeeming Mary, and there would remain a glaring exception to Christ’s title as redeemer of all humanity. A similar but subtly different interpretation might be made by appealing to divine foreknowledge. Since God knows from all eternity that Calvary will occur (it does not matter for our discussion whether God knows this after the Molinist or Bañezian pattern), it would involve him in no difficulty to grant Mary a plenitude of redeeming grace “ahead of time,” since he knows with unerring certainty that this generous advance will be abundantly repaid as the providential enterprise unfolds. In this case inuitu would more accurately be rendered as “with foreknowledge of,” since in creating Mary immaculate God would be acting on his infallible cognizance of the events of the passion. Again, the problem is that this suggestion does not appear to leave any room for Christ to fulfill his role as Mary’s redeemer. The proposal considered earlier made God’s design the cause of the Immaculate Conception, and the present proposal makes God’s knowledge the cause of the Immaculate Conception. But on either proposal there seems to be no room for Christ’s death on the Cross as meritorious cause of the Immaculate Conception. And although it might be tempting, we cannot attempt to bridge the gap by maintaining that Christ’s passion causes Mary’s preservative redemption indirectly by causing God’s design or God’s knowledge. Why is this proposal not viable? For the simple reason that Calvary cannot be the cause of God’s design or God’s knowledge: any theory of divine providence which wishes to maintain even the semblance of orthodoxy is bound to acknowledge that God’s design and God’s knowledge are the cause of Calvary (and all contingent realities), not the other way around. So if we reduce the relationship between Calvary and the Immaculate Conception to a matter of God’s foreknowledge or God’s salvific design, then the Immaculate Conception becomes not “a grace of the Redeemer,” but “a grace of the Creator,” an untenable position.15 We come to the felicitous conclusion, then, that the proper English rendering of intuitu is the standard one, namely, “in view of.” Every See Scheeben, Mariology, 2:48. 15 The Sequence of God's Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother 1153 member of the Church is granted sanctifying grace in view of Christ’s death on the Cross, which is to say that God gives each of the elect a share in salvation because Christ pays the price. If we have sanctifying grace, it is because of Christ’s death; if the heroes of the Old Testament enjoyed sanctifying grace, it is because of Christ’s death; and if Mary was given a superabundant share of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her conception, it is because of Christ’s death. Moreover, “because” is used in the same efficient-causal sense in all three cases. The temporal moments are all different, some before the crucifixion, some after, but the causal mechanism of redemption is the same for all the descendants of Adam. In concrete terms, this means that Christ died with the intention of saving his mother from sin before she was even born: If we consider Christ’s redemptive suffering on the Cross in its aspect of sacrificial love, we can, and indeed are bound to, conclude that he suffered first and foremost and most of all for Mary. While he was enduring the agony of the Cross and when he died, Mary, so to speak, occupied the centre of his feelings. As the most beautiful creation of his redemptive death, Mary is the person for whom Christ shed his redeeming blood most liberally and with the most fervent sacrificial love.16 Although the time and degree of Mary’s redemption is vastly different from ours, the relation of her sanctification to Calvary exhibits the same fundamental structure. Her sanctifying grace depends, as ours does, on Christ’s passion as efficient cause. Jesus is Mary’s redeemer, not just abstractly in the mind or plan of God, but in the concrete world of created things. Her Immaculate Conception therefore incontrovertibly depends on Calvary in the strongest possible sense. Calvary Depends on Mary’s Fiat Before developing the next point, which will hopefully require less formal argumentation, it is important to elaborate on some of the finer nuances of what is and what is not meant by causal dependence. Causality entails a E. Schillebeeckx, Mary: Mother of the Redemption, trans. N. D. Smith (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964), 50. See the discussion of the distinction proposed by Gabriel Roschini on the two logical moments of redemption—one for Christ’s Mother, and the other for the rest of the redeemed—by Arthur B. Chalkin in “Mary Co-redemptrix: The Beloved Associate of Christ,” in Miravalle, Mariology: A Guide, 349–409, at 383–84. 16 1154 John-Mark L. Miravalle relationship wherein one thing, the cause, contributes to the existence of another thing, the effect. If B has a causal dependency on A, it means that A contributes to the production of B. Notice, however, that causal dependency does not necessarily mean that without A, B would fail to exist. After all, it might be that should A fail to make its causal contribution to B, something else would step in to help produce B. To take a trivial example, if I use a match in lighting a candle, the match is a partial cause of the flame, such that we would say the flame is causally dependent on the match. Of course, the flame might have been produced in a different way: I might have used a cigarette lighter, or (improbably) a magnifying glass that focused the rays of the sun. But supposing that I do in fact use the match, the candle flame owes its existence to the match, and so causally depends upon it.17 Now in the case of Our Lady, her obedience to the angel’s instructions becomes a partial cause of the Incarnation. Therefore, the Incarnation, and by implication everything the eternal Word does following his hypostatic union with human nature (including his death on the Cross), is causally dependent upon Mary’s fiat. Again, Mary’s status as a legitimate cause of the Incarnation (and therefore redemption) does not imply that God could not have come to earth as man through some other means—or even through no means at all (i.e., Our Lord could have simply appeared on earth as a grown man in an instant). If Mary had refused her consent to Gabriel, God was still free to accomplish his saving plan in a different way. But as it is, Mary is a contributing cause to the Incarnation, and so by implication the whole redemptive program is partially indebted for its actual accomplishment to her. All this is expressed in the New Eve Mariology that traces its roots to the Patristic era. Just as the first woman contributes to our downfall by saying “yes” to the devil, the new Woman contributes to our salvation by saying “yes” to the angel. In both cases, although the man (Adam and Christ, respectively) is the chief protagonist in our downfall or redemption, the woman’s role in launching the process is crucial, and so she bears a significant degree of responsibility for what follows. Adam’s sin is partially The relationship between causality and counterfactuality (i.e., what would have happened if the cause had not been present) is a complicated and hotly contested issue; see Causation and Counterfactuals, ed. John Collins, Ned Hall, and L. A. Paul (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004). The least that can and should be acknowledged for the sake of this theme is the principle that if one receives being from another, then one is casually dependent on that other for existence, regardless of whether one might have received being from a different source in differing circumstances. 17 The Sequence of God's Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother 1155 explained by Eve’s involvement (“the woman whom you put with me gave it to me, and so I ate of it”) and likewise Christ’s atonement is based on the humanity with which Mary freely provided him. Mary’s fiat is therefore causally related to Calvary; Christ’s passion depends on a young girl saying, years before, in Nazareth, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” At this point we have the material necessary for constructing our vicious circle by reductio. Again, we have firmly established that the Immaculate Conception depends on Calvary, and that Calvary depends on Mary’s fiat at the Annunciation. If we go the next step and assert that Mary’s fiat depends on the Immaculate Conception, then we have a clear-cut case of circular causation in which Mary’s fiat ultimately depends on itself. Well, what is so bad about circular causality? Maybe we creatures cannot normally pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, or make something be its own effect (and cause), but perhaps it is within the scope of divine competence to accomplish such a miracle if so desired. After all, if God can omnipotently ordain an exception from the standard temporal sequence of causality (as he apparently does when having the later event, Calvary, influence the earlier event, the Immaculate Conception), why is it impossible for God to bring about a causal sequence in which A causes B and B causes A, the way Escher was able to draw two hands that appeared to draw each other? Indeed, Hans Urs von Balthasar appears willing to embrace just such a circular arrangement: Here, as we have already said, there is an unbreakable circle: each is “prior” to the other. It is true that the priority of Mary’s “immaculate” consent owes its existence to grace, to the fullness of grace that is “merited” on the Cross; but it is equally clear that, by grace, the possibility of this fullness on the Cross is dependent, in part, on the Mother’s consent.18 To those sympathetic to von Balthasar’s complacent attitude regarding causal circularity, a reminder is in order concerning the relation of divine omnipotence and logical absurdities. Inherent contradictions do not express things God can do because they do not express anything at all— they are simply meaningless word-pairings. Now, there is no contradiction entailed in saying that what is causally prior is temporally later (as in the Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 3, The Dramatis Personae: The Person in Christ, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press 1992), 352. 18 1156 John-Mark L. Miravalle case of Calvary and the Immaculate Conception), since in this case “prior” and “later” are used in different senses. But a thing cannot be described with the contraries “prior” and “later” in the same causal sense without contradiction, anymore than a thing can be described with the contraries “square” and “round” in the same sense without contradiction. Nor can the difficulty be evaded by distinguishing between different kinds of causes— insofar as a cause is worthy of a name, its effect depends upon it, and not vice versa. Consequently, God cannot make an effect to be its own cause, anymore than He can make a round square. The upshot is that Mary’s Immaculate Conception cannot be the cause of her fiat, otherwise Mary’s Immaculate Conception would cause her own Immaculate Conception (via the fiat and the Cross). So, returning to our initial discussion of Rahner, Boss, and Fehlner, we see now that it cannot be the case that the fiat necessarily requires the Immaculate Conception, nor that the fiat is contingently dependent on the Immaculate Conception, nor that the fiat is causally determined by the Immaculate Conception. The consent given by Mary at the Annunciation does not require, in any of these senses,19 that she be immaculately conceived. She does not say “yes” because she is immaculately conceived; she is immaculately conceived because she says “yes.” Graces Not from Calvary If we are to avoid circular causality, and if Mary’s fiat causally contributes to the Incarnation, which in turn enables the redemption at Calvary, then to avoid vicious circularity we must go further and add that the grace which makes Mary’s fiat possible cannot itself depend on Christ’s passion; otherwise Christ’s passion would depend on the actual graces given at the Annunciation and the actual graces given at the Annunciation would depend on Christ’s passion. Now somewhere along the line it became commonplace to talk as though all of God’s graces—any spiritual divine gifts whatsoever—are somehow causally traceable to Christ’s passion. For instance, Fr. Nicolas, a French theologian who authored a small introduction to the theology of grace in One can say, of course, that it is fitting that when giving her consent to Gabriel’s message, Mary should be in a sinless state. But of course fittingness is a much weaker relationship than logical necessity or causal dependence. More to the point, fittingness is generally only discernible after God’s plan has been revealed— when we say God has done something fitting, we celebrate a doctrine of salvation history; we do not presume to dictate to God what the best course of action would have been after making certain deductions from other axioms. 19 The Sequence of God's Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother 1157 the 1950s, after distinguishing between various species of grace (sufficient, operative, habitual, etc.) blithely declares that “all the graces distributed to humanity since Adam’s fall” are “due to Christ’s merits.”20 If this were so, then ex hypothesi the particular spiritual empowerment of Mary’s will at the Annunciation would also be causally traceable to Christ’s passion. Yet Fr. Nicolas provides no dogmatic or even doctrinal support for this assertion that every grace comes from Calvary. And in fact the assertion is not warranted by the revealed data—the magisterial tradition simply does not state that every grace simpliciter is derived from the Cross. The Church does teach unequivocally that “no one can be just unless the merits of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ are imparted to him.”21 The graces of salvation are conferred because of the Cross of Christ, and, as we have seen earlier, the case of Our Lady is no exception. The Church also teaches that for every good act the creature relies on divine assistance of some kind: “Man can do nothing good without God.”22 Were this teaching not upheld, the human person would be presented as originating goodness in himself, and would therefore usurp the place of God as the sole absolute creator. But from these two truths, (1) every good act requires divine assistance and (2) all the sanctifying graces of justification, by which we are made children of God and heirs to the kingdom of heaven, come from Christ’s passion—from these two truths it most certainly does not follow that the divine assistance needed for every good or salutary act originates from Christ’s suffering and death on the Cross. And in fact nothing in the Tradition necessitates that every actual grace to do what is right derives from God as redeemer.23 Jean-Hervé Nicolas, O.P., The Mystery of God’s Grace (Dubuque, IA: Priory, 1960 [original French version, 1951]), 94. E. Towers also affirms that every grace, whether actual or habitual, comes not only from God, but specifically from Jesus Christ and his merits; see Actual Grace (New York: MacMillan, 1928), 68–69. The following pages give the impression, however, that Towers has in mind only those graces given after the Incarnation. 21 Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, ch. 7: nemo possit esse iustus, nisi cui merita passionis Domini nostri Iesu Christi communicantur (Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum, ed. Peter Hünermann, 43rd ed. [DH], English ed. Anne Englund Nash and Robert Fastiggi (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), no. 1530). 22 Second Synod of Orange, can. 19: Nihil boni hominem posse sine Deo (DH, no. 390). 23 Interestingly, it sometimes happens that the prevenient actual graces given before baptism are attributed to the Holy Spirit, while the sanctifying graces of justification are attributed to Christ qua redeemer. See Trent’s Decree on Justification, 20 1158 John-Mark L. Miravalle We need not attribute the causality for every true thought or every virtuous act of the will to Calvary.24 True, without the salvific graces from the Cross true thoughts and virtuous acts will be impotent to bring us to intimate and saving friendship God, but not every good decision that predisposes toward salvation is necessarily caused by Christ’s death. Of course all grace, and every gift whatsoever, comes from Christ qua the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. But which graces are not caused by the Incarnation and death on the Cross? How can we distinguish between the graces of redemption and the graces which do not come through and from the humanity and passion of Our Lord?25 I can offer no comprehensive principle that would systematically assign each and every grace to one category or the other. I have, for instance, no settled opinion as to whether the graces given to the angels are dependent on Calvary.26 However, the conclusions drawn so far do in fact indicate a more modest principle, namely, that no grace can depend on Calvary if postulating its dependence on Calvary results in a vicious circle. For instance, creation itself, though not technically a grace insofar as it is not a supernatural aid to or participation in divine life,27 is nonetheless a divine gift that cannot be dependent on Christ’s sacrifice for the simple reason that Christ’s sacrifice itself presupposes creation. By the same token, if there were any human decisions (besides Mary’s fiat) that required actual grace for their accomplishment, and if the Incarnation somehow depended on those decisions being made, then the actual graces corresponding to those decisions could not depend on Calvary—since obviously the Incarnation is a prerequisite to Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. As a final example, it seems to me that whatever graces were supplied to our first parents in order for them to resist the original temptation could not be dependent on Calvary, for the simple reason that if our first parents had cooperated with such graces, Christ would not have died to redeem us from our sinful state. Here, the grace, had it been efficacious (i.e., had Adam and Eve actucans. 3 and 10 (DH, nos. 1553 and 1560). Clearly, one should not posit a division or dichotomy between the graces merited by Christ and communicated by the Holy Spirit, but the difference of emphasis is suggestive. 24 Quite the contrary, such a position appears to be explicitly condemned by Clement XI in Unigenitus Dei Filius (1713), condemned proposition (DH, no. 2438). 25 For an introduction to this distinction between “the grace of God” and “the grace of Christ,” see Joseph Pohle, Grace, Actual and Habitual, trans. Arthur Preuss (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1915), 10–11. 26 Thanks to the anonymous review for suggesting this example. 27 On distinguishing “grace” in a general sense from its more precise supernatural signification, see Pohle, Grace, 7–9. The Sequence of God's Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother 1159 ally responded to the grace by resisting temptation), might have precluded Christ’s sacrifice—and it is absurd to assert that something depends on what it might have prevented. The Actual Grace at the Annunciation Therefore, my proposal is that the actual graces given to Mary to say “yes” to God’s plan are graces which come from the creator, but not from Calvary. Why? Because if the actual graces of Mary’s fiat depend on Calvary, and Calvary depends on the fiat, then we are right back at the vicious circle whose avoidance is the main motivation of this essay. Whereas if we say that God as creator equipped Mary with the actual grace necessary to assume the role of Theotokos, leading to the salvation of the world by the immolation of Our Lord, whose death also brought about the salvation of Mary at her conception, then all logical and theological problems are avoided. Of course the principle that the first grace is an unmerited grace would need to be upheld for Mary as well as for everyone else; we would say then that the actual graces given by God to enable Mary to hear and accept the call to be mother of the savior are simply gratuitous, and not based on Mary’s previous merits. As Aquinas points out, while Mary is the one most suited to assume the role of Mother of God (which is what the Regina Coeli signifies with the words quem meruisti portare) she does not strictly speaking merit the extravagant honor of the role.28 Nor, I would add, does she merit the grace required to accept that role—for if that actual grace is metaphysically the first grace of her supernatural journey, then it must come from God without any more fundamental claims on Mary’s part. Note too that everything argued up to this point is fully compatible with the doctrine of Mary’s predestination as articulated by Pius IX in Ineffabilis deus. The Holy Father writes: God Ineffable—whose ways are mercy and truth, whose will is omnipotence itself, and whose wisdom “reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly”—having foreseen from all eternity the lamentable wretchedness of the entire human race which would result from the sin of Adam, decreed, by a plan hidden from the centuries, to complete the first work of his goodness by a mystery yet more wondrously sublime through the Incarnation of the Word. This he decreed in order that man who, contrary to the plan of Divine Mercy had been led into sin by the cunning malice Aquinas, ST III, q. 2, a. 11, ad 3. 28 1160 John-Mark L. Miravalle of Satan, should not perish; and in order that what had been lost in the first Adam would be gloriously restored in the Second Adam. From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so love her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.29 This passage plainly teaches that God—from all eternity—willed not only the Incarnation, and not only that this Incarnation come about through a human mother of the Word made flesh, but moreover that this human mother of the Word made flesh be endowed with the fullness of grace and innocence. Thus God—again, from all eternity—willed Mary’s divine motherhood with the Incarnation in mind, and willed Mary’s Immaculate Conception with her divine motherhood in mind. And of course, what God ordains is not susceptible of frustration; what he wills happens. In other words, Pius IX unmistakably declares firstly that God wills all three of these events—the Incarnation, the divine maternity of Mary, and Mary’s Immaculate Conception—from all eternity, and secondly that these three events are importantly interrelated in God’s providential program. What is decidedly not specified in the above passage is the causal structures which obtain between these three events. More precisely, granted that God has decided to bring all of these events about, which of the events in question will causally depend on the others? The Holy Father does not give any explicit answer. If the problem occurred to him at all, he was content to leave its solutions to later efforts at clarification—and it is exactly such a clarification that is attempted here. Pius IX, Ineffabilis deus, English translation from papalencyclicals.net/pius09/ p9ineff.htm. 29 The Sequence of God's Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother 1161 Conclusion: Implications for Mariology Besides obviating some small potential for rational incoherence, what concrete advance is made in the study of the Blessed Mother by establishing that while the Immaculate Conception chronologically precedes the fiat, it is the latter which comes first in the order of causality? I can think of at least two promising areas which might benefit from this distinction. First, as already hinted at in the introduction, the dissymmetry between the chronological and causal sequences of Mary’s life of grace has the potential to highlight the way she models the Christian life both for cradle Catholics and for adult converts. Mary, in my view, receives sanctifying grace at conception, and her reception of sanctifying grace depends on her rightly responding in truth and freedom to God’s call.30 There is some analogy here with the way Mary ideally lives both celibacy and parenthood; even though no one else can realize both roles, she can and does exemplify them perfectly such that any member of the Church can look to her as a model. So in the case of ordinary believers, they cannot both be sanctified before their free decisions (i.e., by infant baptism) and receive sanctifying grace as the result of God’s grace informing and guiding their free decisions—but Mary can. Our presentation, then, provides a new avenue for appreciating the universal exemplarity of the Mother of God. Secondly, this reflection may prove helpful in broadening the co-redemptive implications of the Annunciation. It has become standard in the Tradition to note that Mary’s “yes” to Gabriel fulfills a similar function to Eve’s “yes” to the serpent, but it initially seems that there is a disappointing disparity between the two cases, for while Eve’s act causes her to lose her blessed state, Mary, since she is already “full of grace,” simply remains in the state in which she was before giving her assent. Yet if Eve’s act causes her to lose sanctifying grace, should Mary’s act not cause her to receive sanctifying grace? Among the early Patristic supports for the New Eve role which Mary fulfills in the redemptive scheme, perhaps the strongest and most enigmatic is St. Irenaeus’s assertion that Mary “became the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race.”31 How can Mary be the cause of her redemption if she’s already redeemed? The preceding discus Of course, as was emphasized earlier, Mary’s sanctifying grace is ultimately traceable to God’s beneficent causality and to Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary, such that she is “redeemed in a more exalted manner by reason of the merits of her Son” (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, §53). 31 Irenaeus, Contra haereses 3.22, in The Scandal of the Incarnation: Iranaeus Against the Heresies, selected with an introduction by Hans Urs von Balthasar, trans. John Saward (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1990), 61. 30 1162 John-Mark L. Miravalle sion supplies the answer, and so vindicates Irenaeus’s insight and strengthens the parallels between Eve and Mary: Mary did, in virtue of her fiat, serve as a participant in her own salvation just as Eve in virtue of following Satan’s promptings, participated not only in humanity’s downfall but also in her own. Distinguishing between causal and chronological priority in the life of Mary may or may not open up other interesting lines of speculation, but regardless of consequent Mariological development, it is always worthwhile to smooth out any potential tangles of thought that might threaten to obscure the clarity and consistency of the Church’s doctrine. It is moreover always edifying to reflect, even through the prism of logical analysis, on the details of our Blessed Mother’s life. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1163–1201 1163 The Metaphysician at Prayer: Thomas Aquinas on Metaphysics and Prayer as “Interpreters of Desire” Scott J. Roniger Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Tertullian famously asks , “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”1 Of course, Tertullian’s question can be understood as follows: “What has philosophy (Athens) to do with revealed theology ( Jerusalem)?” Let us further specify this question. It is uncontroversial that these ancient cities are intimately, though not exclusively, associated with two important developments in Western civilization: Athens with metaphysics and Jerusalem with Judeo-Christian revelation. As Aristotle says, all men desire to know, and upon knowing a thing they desire to know its cause; metaphysics is the philosophical completion of this natural human response to the realities that confront human agents in everyday life. On the other side of the Mediterranean, Judeo-Christian prayer is the divinely inspired human reaction to the revelation of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. With this in mind, I would like to reframe our question as follows: What has metaphysics to do with Christian prayer? What has the Academy to do with the Temple? We can enumerate at least three responses to this question. First, one might dismiss the question as a misguided, overly academic (or overly Scholastic) endeavor with no significant connection to the lived reality of Christian experience. One could argue that the image of St. Therese of Lisieux kneeling piously in prayer does not seem intimately connected to An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2014 Dominican Colloquium “What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem? Dialogue between Philosophy and Theology in the 21st Century,” organized by the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley. 1 1164 Scott J. Roniger the triumphant depictions of Aristotle disputing metaphysical questions in the Lyceum. On this view, the answer to the question “what has metaphysics to do with Christian prayer?” would be: “Not much, or nothing at all.” In fact, one might even see the two as opposed to each other, with metaphysics seen as a temptation to intellectual pride and prayer as the embodiment of Christian humility. A second and more sophisticated response would be to show that both metaphysics and prayer are involved with truth. Metaphysics is concerned with the truth about being; Aristotle identifies being-as-the-true as one of the per se senses of being,2 and ultimately metaphysics reaches toward the truth concerning the being of the First Cause. For its part, Christian prayer is grounded on the truth of a personal God who teaches us how to pray and initiates and sustains our own prayers, all while perfecting our freedom, not destroying it. The issue of truth as a connection between metaphysics and prayer is interesting and worth pursuing; it would be instructive to compare Aristotle’s claim that a prayer is not an instance of a truth-bearing statement with the Christian doctrine of prayer as a graced response to the God who reveals himself as First Truth Speaking.3 In this essay, we will pursue a third avenue in response to the question of the relationship between metaphysics and prayer. We will argue that Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of human desire, both natural and supernatural, provides a window through which one can see the connection between the activities of metaphysics and prayer. We will also show that themes in phenomenology and Robert Sokolowski’s “theology of disclosure” shed further light on the relationship between metaphysics and prayer and complement Aquinas’s teaching. Therefore, this essay will unfold in two main sections. In the first section, we will discuss Aquinas’s metaphysics and his use of metaphysical principles in speculative theology. This section will unfold in three subsections. The first subsection will discuss the metaphysical principles that underlie Aquinas’s notion of desire. According to Aquinas, form gives being ( forma dat esse), and, immediately connected with this principle, form gives inclinations to the operations proper to the mode of being of each entity. The second subsection will show how these principles apply in the supernatural order, and the third subsection will discuss some Aristotle enumerates the four senses of being at Metaphysics 5.7 and 6.2. For a discussion of Aristotle’s sense of being as the true, see my article “Speech and Being in Aristotle,” International Philosophical Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2017): 31–41. 3 For Aristotle’s claim that a prayer is a logos that is neither true nor false, see Peri hermeneias 17a3–5. 2 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1165 similarities and differences between metaphysics and prayer understood as “interpreters” of desire. The second part of the essay complements Aquinas’s thought and will unfold in two subsections. In the first subsection, we will discuss two points from phenomenology, namely the importance of making distinctions and the way that objects are given to us in perception and thinking as unities within manifolds of appearances. In the second subsection, we will develop these phenomenological points and, drawing upon Sokolowski’s theology of disclosure, apply them to the issues of metaphysics and prayer. Aquinas’s Metaphysics of Form, Inclination, and Operation Forma Dat Esse et Forma Dat Inclinationem Aquinas frequently relies on the principle that form gives being. Basing himself on Aristotle, Aquinas argues that form is essentially act, and therefore it makes the thing that possesses some form to be in some way.4 Aquinas says: “A thing is one, according as it is a being. Now the form, through itself, makes a thing to be actual since it is itself essentially an act.”5 Lawrence Dewan maintains that there is a real distinction between form and esse in all created realities, but he says that, according to St. Thomas, there is an “almost-identity” of form and esse. Concerning substances composed of matter and form, Dewan says: “Form is the factor through which the matter comes to participate in being. Form is thus very close in nature (or ontological character) to what we call ‘esse.’ Indeed, form and being are indissociable; being follows upon or necessarily accompanies form, just because of the kind of thing form is.”6 We can therefore say that the form, or eidos, of an entity is altogether “at work” and that the eidos of a thing can be described as energeia (“at work”), unifying the entity and making it to be.7 For the Platonic background of this idea, see Plato, Phaedo 100c–107b. In this subsection, we are speaking of substantial forms and therefore substantial being, but on Aquinas’s account even accidental forms give being; they modify the substance in which they inhere. 5 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae [ST] I, q. 76, a. 7, resp.: “quia sic dicitur aliquid unum, quomodo et ens. Forma autem per seipsam facit rem esse in actu, cum per essentiam suam sit actus.” See also ST I, q. 14, a. 2, ad 1. 6 Lawrence Dewan, Form and Being: Studies in Thomistic Metaphysics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 198. 7 See Aristotle, Metaphysics 9.8.1050a21–23. For the language of the eidos of an entity being “at work,” see Jacob Klein, “Aristotle, an Introduction,” in Lectures and Essays, ed. Robert B. Williamson and Elliot Zuckerman (Annapolis, MD: St. John’s College Press, 1985), 175–78. 4 1166 Scott J. Roniger Form, precisely as the metaphysical principle that activates or gives being to an entity, is described by Aquinas as “something divine, best and desirable”: [Form] is divine because every form is a certain participation in the likeness of the divine being, which is pure act [omnis forma est quaedam participatio similitudinis divini esse, quod est actus purus]. For each thing, insofar as it is in act, has form. Form is best because act is the perfection of potency and is its good; and it follows as a consequence of this that form is desirable, because every thing desires its own perfection. 8 Form is by its very nature active and thus gives being to entities, and precisely because of this “ontological character” it is understood as something divine, as a participation of the Divine being, which is pure act and highest in the realm of form. Further, Aquinas presents form as giving being, unity, and species. The form does not only give being in a merely “formal” sense, but rather makes the thing to be a unified instance of this kind of thing. Aquinas says succinctly, “Form gives being and species,”9 and he also quotes Aristotle that the form is the source of the “difference” of each entity.10 The form activates the entity and makes it to be at work being the kind of thing that it is. Aquinas also distinguishes two kinds of act that are associated with the form of an entity, first and second: “Act [actus], however, is twofold; first, and second. The first act is the form and integrity of a thing; the second act is its operation.”11 Thus, the form of an entity (its substantial form) “gives it its ‘to be’ [esse],” activating it as a unified whole of a given kind. The form is the “first act” of an entity, giving it its unity and integrity, and also inclining it to its proper operations, or “second acts.” A substantial form not only energizes its correlative matter and unifies the entity as one reality of a specific kind, but also expresses itself or flows forth into the inclinations toward the proper operations and end(s) of that entity.12 Aquinas says, “Every entity is naturally inclined toward operation that is fitting for it according to its form [operationem sibi convenientem secundum Aquinas, In I phys., lec. 15, no. 135 (translation mine). For Aristotle’s claim that form is something divine in things, see Physics 1.9.192a17–19. 9 Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de anima, q. unic., a. 10, resp. 10 ST I, q. 76, a. 1, resp. 11 ST q. 48, a. 5, resp. See also ST, I, q. 105, a. 5. 12 See ST I, q. 80, a. 1, resp. Aquinas says, “Some inclination follows every form.” 8 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1167 suam formam].”13 According to St. Thomas, it is precisely in seeking their own natural ends as the perfection of their substantial forms that created entities seek God as the final cause of creation. Aquinas says: “It does not belong to the First Agent, who is agent only, to act for the acquisition of some end; he intends only to communicate his perfection, which is his goodness; while every creature intends to acquire its own perfection, which is the likeness of the divine perfection and goodness. Therefore the divine goodness is the end of all things.”14 Aquinas displays God as the end ( finis) or the final cause (causa finalis) of all created entities, but God, who is ipsum esse subsistens, does not act so as to achieve an end he does not possess. It is therefore the form of an entity that shapes its matter toward the perfection (end or finis) of the entity as a unified whole. By showing the form as the energizing source of the inclinations characteristic of an entity, Aquinas intimately links the substantial form with the nature of an entity. Commenting on Aristotle, Aquinas says that no natural substance has a nature except insofar as it has a substantial form, for “Primarily and properly what is called nature is the substance, that is the form ( forma) of those things which have within themselves as such the source of their motion. For matter is called nature because it is receptive of form; and generations [generationes] get the name of nature because they are motions proceeding from a form and also toward forms [et iterum ad formas].”15 We should not construe this point in a Cartesian manner; Aquinas says that in natural substances composed of both matter and form, the matter enters into the essence of the thing. The entity is one unified being, and the matter and form are the potency and activity of one unified entity. The matter is the actualized potency, the material cause,16 and the unity between the matter and form is immediate.17 However, Aquinas follows Aristotle in saying the form is “more a being” than the matter,18 and Aquinas concludes that the form is also “more the nature” than the matter.19 ST I-II, q. 94, a. 3, resp. ST I, q. 44, a. 4, resp. (emphasis added). 15 In V metaph., lec. 5, no. 826 (translation mine). 16 See ST I, q. 75, a. 4; In VII metaph., lec. 9, nos. 1467–1469. See also: Aristotle, Physics 2.2193b31–94a15; Metaphysics 6.1.1025b28–26a7. 17 See Aristotle, Metaphysics 8.6.1045a7–b23. 18 Aristotle, Metaphysics 7.2.1029a5–6. 19 See Aquinas, In VII metaph., lec. 11, nos. 1525–27; In V metaph., lec. 5, no. 826; In II phys., lec. 1525–57. Here we might recall Aristotle’s insistence that form is something divine in things and that matter “desires” the form; see Physics 1.9.192a17–19. 13 14 1168 Scott J. Roniger Aquinas therefore shows that the form energizes an entity and in so doing acts as a springboard to the operations and perfections characteristic of each entity. Aquinas also understands the nature of a thing in a similar way. He follows Aristotle’s definition of nature as “a principle or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not accidentally.”20 In the De ente et essentia, Aquinas says: “The philosopher too says in Metaphysics V that every substance is a nature. But the word nature taken in this way appears to signify the essence of an entity according as it has an ordering to the entity’s proper operation, since no entity is deprived of its proper operation.”21 John O’Callaghan highlights this Thomistic understanding of nature by pointing out that “a root meaning of ‘nature’ (in St. Thomas’s Latin ‘natura’) is to be destined by birth toward a goal.”22 With O’Callaghan’s insight, we now have an important nexus of ideas clustering around the role of form in Aquinas’s metaphysics. Aquinas places creaturely formal causality within the setting of God’s efficient causality of esse, and he stresses the fact that formal causality, itself caused by God, gives rise to the characteristic operations and movements of an entity. A substantial form energizes, unifies, and specifies an entity; further, it imparts inclinations to the proper operations that achieve the ends of the entity. Because the form gives the entity its inclinations to its proper end, the form is closely connected to the nature of the entity; the entity is tilted toward certain activities by its form. The key is to understand the form of an entity as closely linked with its nature, and then to see the form-nature as inclining the entity to its fitting end, or its proper perfection. For Aquinas, the formal cause and the final cause of an entity are inseparable, and although metaphysics studies every kind of cause, formal and final causality are given special attention in first philosophy.23 In connection with these points, Aquinas presents God as the creator of a hierarchy of natures, and in virtue of the Divine Wisdom and the Divine Will, each nature is inclined to the good in the mode proper to that created nature.24 Aquinas therefore describes reality as infused with Aristotle, Physics, 2.1.192b21–23. De ente et essentia, ch. 1, no. 10 (translation mine). 22 John O’Callaghan, “Creation, Human Dignity, and the Virtues of Acknowledged Dependence,” Nova et Vetera (English) 1 (2003): 109–40, at 124. O’Callaghan is citing a definition of natura given in Roy J. Deferrari, A Latin English Dictionary of St. Thomas Aquinas (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1986), 678. See also, C. S. Lewis, Studies in Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 25. 23 See In XI metaph., lec. 1, no. 2157. 24 See ST I, q. 44, a. 4; I, q. 65, a. 2; I, q. 103, a. 1; I-II, q. 26, a. 1. 20 21 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1169 inclination toward the good, and every entity, through its form, has its proper inclination toward operations that achieve its perfection. In the realm of human nature, the form of the human person is the intellectual, immaterial soul, as Aquinas argues: For the nature of each thing is shown by its operation. Now the proper operation of man as man is to understand; because he thereby surpasses all other animals. Whence Aristotle concludes (Ethic. 10.7) that the ultimate happiness of man must consist in this operation as properly belonging to him. Man must therefore derive his species from that which is the principle of this operation. But the species of anything is derived from its form. It follows therefore that the intellectual principle is the proper form of man.25 We should notice that in the order of being, the form has primacy because it activates the entity and is the source of the inclinations and operations characteristic of that entity. However, in the order of discovery, the characteristic operations or activities of the entity have priority, since they are first for us and manifest the nature, or form, of the entity.26 In the case of man, the operation most proper to the human person, or we could say the most characteristic “second act” stemming from the human form, is to understand (intelligere). This intellectual cognition in human beings is also the source of the inclination proper to man, which is an intellectual inclination following upon the operation of the human intellect, especially as comprehending the very idea or ratio of being and the good.27 This mode of inclination in the human person is that of will, the intellectual appetite following upon intellectual apprehension. Aquinas argues that, although the will is an agent cause with respect to the intellect and moves it to its proper act of thinking and understanding, there is no movement of the human will unless the intellect first perceives some good and “presents” it to the will as the will’s proper object.28 Aquinas says that “cognition naturally precedes desire,”29 and he claims that “every movement of the will must be preceded by apprehension, whereas every apprehension is not preceded by an act of ST I, q. 76, a. 1, resp. On the order of being as distinct from the order of discovery, see Aristotle, Physics 1.1.184a15–21. 27 See ST I, q. 59, a. 1. 28 See ST I, q. 82, a. 4. 29 ST I, q. 16, a. 4, resp. 25 26 1170 Scott J. Roniger the will.”30 The human soul, through its proper operation of understanding, is the source of the natural human inclinations to truth and virtue. Aquinas says, “Since the ration soul is the proper form of man, every man has a natural inclination toward acting in accord with reason, which is just to act in accord with virtue.”31 We have highlighted the role of form in general and of human form in particular, and we can now specify our reflections to show that metaphysics is a perfection of the human desire for truth. To this end, we must discuss the correlation between the human operation of understanding and the forms of objects understood. According to Aristotle and St. Thomas, an entity is intelligible only insofar as it is actualized by its form.32 Aquinas says: As Metaphysics 9 says, each thing is such that there can be cognition of it insofar as it is actual and not insofar as it is potential. For something is a being and is true, i.e., falls under cognition, insofar as it is actual. This is manifestly clear as regards sensible things; for instance, the power of seeing perceives only what is actually colored and not what is potentially colored. Similarly, it is clear that insofar as the intellect has cognition of material things, it has cognition only of what is actual; and so, as Physics 1 says, the intellect does not have cognition of primary matter except in relation to form.33 Aquinas concludes that the form of an entity is the source of its intelligibility precisely because it is the source of its being, such that human agents gather knowledge from “the forms of sensible and material things.”34 On this point, Stephen Brock claims that “Aristotle and Thomas regard being cognizable as a genuine feature of things, despite its being actualized only in a few special kinds of things (partially in beasts, and fully in man).”35 Aquinas argues that truth can be said to be “in things” insofar as they are the cause of truth expressed in human thinking and speech.36 Thus, for St. Thomas, the actualization of the human intellect when it knows entities, its operation of understanding something, “is itself attributed to things ST I, q. 82, a. 4, ad 3. ST I-II, q. 94, a. 3, resp. 32 See ST I, q. 87, a. 3. 33 ST I, q. 87, a. 1. 34 ST I, q. 84, a. 4, ad 1. 35 Stephen L. Brock, The Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas: A Sketch (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015), 68. 36 See In I peri herm., lec. 7, no. 3. 30 31 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1171 [known], even though it does not inhere in them. It is their act of being cognized.”37 Clearly, the existence of things does not depend upon their being cognized by human agents; rather, the act of human cognition is in some way the effect of things. They are said to be the cause of truth for us. As Brock says, in the act of human cognition, things “manifest themselves or present themselves” to the human knower.38 Brock concludes that Aquinas conceives of human cognition as “a kind of union with the things, a joint activity of subject and object.”39 Human knowing, as the “joint activity of subject and object,” is achieved when the form of man, the rational soul, through its characteristic operation of understanding makes intellectual contact with the source of being and intelligibility of things, namely their forms. Given this understanding of the correlation between the human knower and the being of things, Dewan argues that there is a nascent insight into formal causality inherent in our intellectual grasp of the natures of things that we encounter, and therefore there is an incipient understanding of causal dependence. To see this point, we can consider the proposition often employed by Aquinas that “an effect depends upon its cause.”40 Commenting on this principle of causality, Aquinas says: “It is necessary that an effect depend on its cause. For this belongs to the notion of effect and cause, which manifestly appears in formal and material causes. For, any material or formal principle being subtracted, the thing immediately ceases to be, because such principles enter into the essence of the thing.”41 Because human cognition puts us in touch with the being of entities, it provides the “raw materials” for the more complete and more perfect knowledge of being achieved through the philosophical reflection that takes place in metaphysics. The crucial point is that in grasping the form of an object, or in knowing what the thing is, the human mind acquires some vague notion of the thing as actualized by its form. Such knowledge appears, in the order of discovery, by way of the thing’s proper operations, which manifest its nature.42 For example, upon seeing an animal move, we know that it is alive; upon hearing it speak coherently, we see that it is human, that it is alive as the kind of thing that can engage in intelligent Brock, Philosophy of Saint Thomas, 68. Brock, Philosophy of Saint Thomas, 68. 39 Brock, Philosophy of Saint Thomas, 90–91. Emphasis original. Aquinas, following Aristotle, describes the human soul as “that which is in a way all things”; see, for example, ST I, q. 84, a. 2, ad 2. 40 See this causal principle employed at ST I, q. 2, a. 2. 41 De potentia, q. 5, a. 1, resp. 42 We discussed this point above; see ST I, q. 76, a. 1, resp. 37 38 1172 Scott J. Roniger operations. When we reflect on such experience philosophically, we can see the entity itself as an effect of its form (and matter) and its operations as displaying its nature. Dewan says, “To say that an effect depends on its cause is first of all to say that the being of a thing depends on its form.”43 To grasp the form of a thing is to grasp that upon which the thing depends for its being (esse). Thus, an incipient understanding of cause and effect is on the scene from the start of human intellection, and it is metaphysics that reflects upon, highlights, and perfects this incipient understanding. In everyday interactions with entities and other human persons, human beings manifest a natural desire to know, as Aristotle says. More specifically, upon seeing an entity or state of affairs—for example, a fire in the hills of Los Angeles—human persons quickly understand it as an effect, and they desire to know the cause of that effect. After seeing the hills ablaze, the natural question is: “Who or what caused such a fire?” Once the entity or situation is apprehended as an effect, that is, once it is understood to be in some way dependent upon something, there is enkindled in human beings a natural desire, or natural inclination, to know its cause. To the thoughtful observer, even the operations themselves of entities can be recognized as the “effects” of the agent performing them, and thus there is a natural desire to know just how the agent is a cause of its actions. It is important to add that once an observer discovers the ontological source (cause) of an entity, operation, or event, he has an explanation for the phenomenon he has encountered. Alasdair MacIntyre points out that modern thinking tends to separate too sharply causes and explanations, whereas in the Aristotelian-Thomistic view, causes and explanations, while not the same, are intertwined. He says, “We in the idioms of our contemporary speech distinguish sharply causes from explanations, but cause is always explanation-affording and aitia qua explanation is always cause-specifying.”44 To discover and articulate a cause is to have an explanation for its effect, and to explain something is to see it as dependent upon its proper cause. That is, an explanation is a cause as displayed, as articulated by a human agent. This desire to know and to search for the causes of things, and thus to have legitimate explanations for them, fuels the natural sciences and innovations in technology, and it is contemplated and refined in philosophical reflection. Indeed, philosophers can name and talk about the very desire to know as an “effect” of the human form, the intellectual soul. Ultimately, the metaphysician searches for the causes of being, and therefore he can Dewan, Form and Being, 69. Alasdair MacIntyre, First Principles, Final Ends and Contemporary Philosophical Issues (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1990), 4. 43 44 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1173 highlight the role of form as that which gives being and the role of the end as the perfection of the form, the fullness of its being. For our purposes, it is important to note that Aquinas enumerates three reasons why the human person naturally desires to know. He says (1) that knowledge is the ultimate perfection of the human person, (2) that understanding is the operation proper to man, as we have discussed, and (3) that each thing has a desire to be united to its source.45 We can conclude that Aquinas presents the natural desire to know the causes of things, and ultimately to know the First Cause, as the fuel of metaphysics. For Thomas, metaphysical contemplation involves (1a) knowledge that perfects (2a) the operation most proper to man by putting him in touch, intellectually, with (3a) his source and end: God as the author of nature. Therefore, among human desires, Aquinas ranks the desire for truth, and specifically the truth about God, as the highest and the specifically human desire. He says: No desire carries on to such sublime heights as the desire to understand the truth. Indeed, all our desires for pleasure, or other things of this sort that are craved by men, can be satisfied with other things, but the aforementioned desire does not rest until it reaches God, the highest point of reference for, and the maker of, things. This is why Wisdom appropriately states: “I dwelt in the highest places, and my throne is in a pillar of a cloud” (Sirach 24:7). And Proverbs (9:3) says that Wisdom “by her maids invites to the tower.” Let those men be ashamed, then, who seek man’s felicity in the most inferior things, when it is so highly situated. 46 Aquinas concludes that metaphysics or “first philosophy” is ultimately ordered to the knowledge of God. As Aquinas shows, the desire to know and to grasp causes, if highlighted and perfected in philosophical reflection, leads to the knowledge of God as the one from whom “forms flow forth into all creatures,” that is, as the cause of creaturely forms and hence the cause of created being, who is himself form to the highest degree, form and being pure and simple.47 Thus, metaphysics is a kind of training, disciplining, and perfecting of the human desire to know, a desire originally manifest in everyday human interactions and the various natural sciences. See In I metaph., lec. 1, nos. 2–4. Summa contra gentiles (SCG) III, ch. 50. 47 For Aquinas’s description of God as the one from whom “forms flow forth into all creatures [ab eius intellectu effluunt formae in omnes creaturas],” see De veritate, q. 2, a. 1, ad 6. 45 46 1174 Scott J. Roniger Metaphysics, carried out from the philosophical perspective, forms this natural human desire, enabling it to reach its proper end, which is to enjoy the knowledge of God as First Cause; metaphysics is the natural completion and “interpreter” of the human desire for truth. On Aristotle’s account, such theoretical activity is at the heart of human happiness because it is the activity that most fully perfects our human function. He says that happiness is activity in accord with “the supreme virtue, which will be the virtue of the best thing. The best is understanding, or whatever else seems to be the natural ruler and leader, and to understand what is fine and divine, by being itself either divine or the most divine element in us.”48 Therefore, Aristotle argues: “We ought not to follow the makers of proverbs and ‘Think human, since you are human,’ or ‘Think mortal, since you are mortal.’ Rather, as far as we can, we ought to make ourselves immortal, and go to all lengths to live a life in accord with our supreme element.” Aristotle concludes that “for a human being the life in accord with understanding will be the supremely best and most pleasant. . . . This life, then, will also be happiest.”49 For Aristotle, moral and political excellences are not the highest expressions of human nature, although they are necessary and noble in themselves. The life of thinking is higher than the practical life, and thus there is something in human agency that transcends the practical necessities of politics. Aristotle suggests that, if human beings fail to acknowledge the superiority of the life of thinking, they will attempt to satiate their natural desire for the infinite by ruling over and dominating others. If they fail to see the excellence of the life of thinking, they will conclude that the practical life of ruling is best, and they will attempt to extend their domination over as many people as possible and as completely as possible. Aristotle says that one who makes this mistake will think that “supreme power is the best of all things, because the possessors of it are able to perform the greatest number of noble actions. If so, the man who is able to rule, instead of giving up anything to his neighbor, ought rather to take away his power; and the father should care nothing for his son, nor the son for his father, nor friend for friend.”50 Commenting on this text, Sokolowski says: “The life of ruling is not the simply highest life; we have to take our bearings from something higher. This also means that there is something in us that transcends political life, and only when political life acknowledges such transcendence can it find its proper place Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics (NE) 10.7.1177a13–17. Aristotle, NE 10.7.1177b32–78a2. 50 Aristotle, Pol. 8.3.1325a35–38. 48 49 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1175 in human affairs.”51 Truth—and the respect for human persons as those who can know and pursue truth—is the foundation for civic friendship. This life of thinking and pursuit of truth for its own sake is not limited to metaphysics; it includes arts, music, literature, and the nobler expressions of human culture. However, metaphysics disciplines this desire for the infinite and completes it through activities that perfect human agents and their companions. The contemplative life allows the thirst for the infinite to be properly channeled, and thus it enables the citizens and their polity to be active and at peace. In sum, metaphysics can be called the “interpreter” of the natural desire to know and to be united to our source, the highest cause that we call God, because metaphysical inquiry is the intellectual funnel through which our natural desire passes when it is active in philosophical reflection. Metaphysics “interprets” our natural desire to know by displaying to us what is most knowable in itself and hence what is most lovable, what is most worthy of our rational desire.52 Grace as a Form As we move from the natural to the supernatural, the structure of form as giving being and inclination continues to play a crucial role in Aquinas’s treatment of grace. Aquinas distinguishes two ways in which “man is aided by God’s gratuitous will.”53 First, Aquinas says that a human being is assisted insofar as his soul is moved by God “to know or will or do something, in this way the gratuitous effect in man is not a quality, but a movement of the soul; for ‘motion is the act of the mover in the moved.’”54 Second, St. Thomas says that human agents are assisted by God when he infuses a habitual gift (habituale donum) of grace into the human soul. Aquinas describes this habitual gift of grace as a supernatural quality, or super-added form, which heals, perfects, and uplifts the person made ad imaginem Dei. Aquinas argues that just as God gives human beings substantial forms to function as the principles of natural inclinations to operations perfective of the human agent, so too does God “infuse into those whom He moves Robert Sokolowski, “The Human Person and Political Life,” The Thomist 65 (2001): 505–27, at 518–19. 52 See Plato, Symposium 210a–212c. 53 ST I-II, q. 110, a. 2, resp. 54 ST I-II, q. 110, a. 2, resp. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange describes these two modes of God’s gratuitous will assisting human agents as, respectively, 1) actual grace and 2) habitual grace; see Grace: Commentary on the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, IaIIae, q. 109–114, trans. The Dominican Nuns of Corpus Christi Monastery (London: B. Herder, 1952), 117–43. 51 1176 Scott J. Roniger towards the acquisition of supernatural good, certain forms or supernatural qualities, whereby they may be moved by him sweetly and promptly to acquire eternal good.”55 In this way, grace works in the soul “not in the manner of an efficient cause, but in the manner of a formal cause.”56 Aquinas understands this habitual gift of grace as an “accidental” form in the human soul, giving a new kind of being and thus a new kind of inclination to the Christian.57 Concerning the habitual gift of grace, Aquinas argues that it has two effects: (1) it imparts a new mode of being to the soul, and (2) it flows forth into acts that perfect this new mode of being. He says, There is a double effect of [habitual] grace, even as of every other form; the first of which is being [esse], and the second is operation [operatio], as the work of heat is to make something hot and an external act of heating. And thus habitual grace, insofar as it heals or justifies the soul, or makes it pleasing to God, is called operating grace, whereas insofar as it is the principle of meritorious works, which also spring from free-choice, it is called cooperating grace.58 Just as a natural form “gives” being and operating to the composite that it activates, so too does the supernatural form of grace give a new mode of being and operations to the human soul. Grace, flowing from the action of Christ, the legislator of the New Law of Grace, reforms the image of God in man and gives him a new kind of being, a share in the divine life of the Trinity, thereby inclining the human person to acts of charity, Christian religion, and ultimately supernatural beatitude.59 The gift of grace therefore ST I-II, q. 110, a. 2, resp. ST I-II, q. 110, a. 2, resp. 57 For the description of grace as an “accidental form,” see ST I-II, q. 109, a. 1, and q. 110, a. 2, especially ad 1 and ad 2. The description of grace as an “accidental” form should not be understood to mean that grace is somehow unimportant or trivial. Accidental in this context only means that grace is not the essence of what it is to be human. Aquinas says, “Although grace is more efficacious than nature, yet nature is more essential to man, and therefore more enduring” (ST I-II, q. 94, a. 6, ad 2). We can still be human, logically and metaphysically speaking, even if we are not in a state of grace. It should also be noted that, according to Aquinas, accidents are central to the perfection of the human person; when they are “positive” accidents, they can be understood as “perfections” or “improvements.” Virtues are “accidents” that perfect the person. 58 ST I-II, q. 111, a. 2, resp. 59 For Aquinas’s description of Christ as the legislator of the New Law of grace, see ST I-II, q. 108, a. 1, resp. On the “threefold” image of God in man, see ST I, q. 93, a. 4. 55 56 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1177 generates a supernatural inclination to acts of communion and friendship with the triune God. In his discussion of the theological virtues, Aquinas describes charity as the “friendship of man for God,” and he says that God moves all things to their proper ends by impressing upon them the form whereby they are inclined to the end ordained by God, a point we have seen in some detail. By moving things to their due ends through the activity of their forms, God is said to order all things “sweetly.” However, Aquinas adds that the act of charity surpasses the natural ability of the human will, and so he concludes: Unless some form be superadded to the natural power, inclining it to the act of love, this same act would be less perfect than the natural acts and the acts of the other powers; nor would it be easy and pleasurable. And this is evidently false, since no virtue has such a strong inclination to its act as charity has, nor does any virtue perform its act with so great pleasure. Therefore it is most necessary that, for us to perform the act of charity, there should be in us some habitual form superadded to the natural power, inclining that power to the act of charity, and causing it to act promptly and with pleasure.60 In our discussion of Aquinas’s metaphysics, we saw that St. Thomas identifies three crucial aspects of natural desire: (1) the form/nature of an entity and (2) the inclination flowing from that form “toward” (3) the operations that achieve the end perfective of that agent. As Aquinas’s texts on grace and charity show, he argues that an analogous structure obtains in the supernatural realm; in order for human persons to know and to achieve the supernatural end prepared for them, namely the vision of the essence of the triune God, a new proportionality must be given to all three of these aspects: form, inclination, and operations. Through grace, a new mode of being is imparted to the human soul, and human agents are given the light of faith whereby the truth of their supernatural end and the means to achieve it are revealed. Therefore, a new inclination to acts that can “achieve” this end is imparted.61 ST II-II, q. 23, a. 2, resp. Aquinas says: “In order for a human being to be ordered toward the good of eternal life, it is also necessary that a sort of inception of that good should come to exist in the one who is promised eternal life. But eternal life consists in the full cognition of God, as is evident from John 17:3: ‘This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God.’ Hence, it is necessary that some inception of this supernat- 60 61 1178 Scott J. Roniger Lawrence Feingold says that, according to Aquinas, in order for human persons to enjoy beatitude: “A new proportionality needs to be given to man’s nature, by which he will be proportioned to the end of eternal life. From this new proportionality (participation in the divine nature, according to 2 Pt 1:4) there must flow a new inclination to the supernatural end. Finally, the acts by which that end is acquired must be proportioned to the elevation of that end.”62 Feingold says that for St. Thomas, “Sanctifying grace perfects nature by giving the creature a new proportionality with his supernatural end, and charity perfects the natural inclination of the will by giving it a new orientation.”63 Through grace and the inclination resulting from charity, the human will is directed to God, not merely as the Author of nature, but as the Author of grace. Feingold also says that “the acquisition or meriting of the end is given by means of the [acts of] other infused virtues, which are directed by charity.”64 The structure of supernatural desire mirrors that of natural desire, and therefore we see an instance of Aquinas’s principle that “grace and virtue imitate nature.”65 Christian prayer is situated within this new trajectory given to human beings by God’s grace. According to St. Thomas, prayer is an act stemming from the form of grace and perfecting the supernatural inclination of charity. Aquinas describes Christian prayer as one of the principle acts of the virtue of religion; he says it is an “interior act” of the virtue of religion enlivened by charity.66 Prayer is an act of the practical intellect, and St. Thomas says that “the cause of prayer is the desire of charity, from which prayer must arise.”67 Further, Aquinas describes prayer itself as the “interpreter of our desires.”68 Drawing upon our previous comments concerning the link between causes and explanations, we can say that the explanation for Christian prayer is God’s love for human beings revealed in Christ. ural cognition should come to exist in us. And this inception comes through faith, which on the basis of an infused light holds fast to things that by nature exceed our cognition” (De veritate, q. 14, a. 2, resp.; translation mine). 62 Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010), 88. 63 Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God, 88. 64 Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God, 88. 65 ST II-II, q. 31, a. 3, resp. 66 See ST II-II, q. 82, proem. Devotion is the other interior act of religion discussed by Thomas. 67 ST II-II, q. 83, a. 14; see also ST II-II, q. 83, a. 1, ad 2, for the claim that charity is the cause of prayer. 68 For Aquinas’s claim that prayer is an act of the practical intellect, see ST II-II, q. 83, a. 1, resp. For his description of prayer as the “interpreter of our desires,” see: ST II-II, q. 83, a. 1, ad 1; q. 83, a. 9, resp.; Super II Tim 2, lec. 1. The Metaphysician at Prayer 1179 The explanation for prayer is the gift of charity, enabling its recipient to love God and neighbor, that is, to desire union with the triune God and the good of one’s neighbor, and it is this desire that is both formed by and expressed within prayer. Aquinas argues that “we ought to pray for what we ought to desire”69 and that in the Lord’s Prayer, God himself, through the human nature of Christ, teaches us what is to be desired, in what order, and from whom. Aquinas says: For since prayer is in some way the interpreter of our desire before God, then alone is it right to ask for something in our prayers when it is right that we should desire it. Now in the Lord’s Prayer not only do we ask for all that we may rightly desire, but also in the order wherein we ought to desire them, so that this prayer not only teaches us to ask, but also gives shape to our whole affective life. Thus it is evident that the first thing to be the object of our desire is the end, and afterwards whatever is directed to the end. Now our end is God towards whom our affections tend in two ways: first, by our willing the glory of God, secondly, by willing to enjoy his glory. The first belongs to the love whereby we love God in himself, while the second belongs to the love whereby we love ourselves in God.70 Aquinas therefore presents Christian prayer, especially the Lord’s Prayer, as our graced response to God’s gratuitous revelation; prayer teaches us to ask God for the things we can rightly desire and shows us how our desires should be ordered and expressed. It is an act of the virtue of religion that perfects a supernatural inclination stemming from the gifts of faith, hope, and charity.71 The graced desire for the triune God and for what enables us to live a life in service to such a God, flowing from charity and the “form” of grace, is structured, given expression, and “interpreted” in prayer.72 In sum, Christian prayer is an act of the virtue of religion enlivened by the gift of charity that “interprets” our desires for and before God. We have now shown the similarities between metaphysics and prayer, ST II-II, q. 83, a. 7. As should be clear, we are speaking about the infused virtue of religion in this essay, as distinct from the acquired virtue of religion. On the distinction between infused and acquired virtues, see ST I-II, q. 63, aa. 3–4. 70 ST II-II, q. 83, a. 9, resp. 71 See ST II-II, q. 83, a. 1, ad 2; 72 For a treatment of the role of desire in prayer for St. Thomas, see Paul Murray, Praying with Confidence: Aquinas on the Lord’s Prayer (New York: Continuum, 2010). 69 1180 Scott J. Roniger namely that they are both interpreters of desire for God, and in both cases the desire is elicited by a prior act of intellect. Further, the role of form as giving being and inclination is central to both activities. However, in the next subsection we will briefly point out some important differences between the types of desire these activities “interpret” and the way in which desire is included within the acts themselves. Similarities and Differences The first difference between the desire of metaphysics and that of prayer is the source and end of each respective desire. The desire operative in metaphysics is natural, while Christian prayer is the “interpreter” of a supernatural desire. Metaphysics does not immediately address God the First Cause, much less God the Father. Metaphysics first attends to being; its subject matter is not God, but ens commune, and only afterward does it arrive at knowledge of God as the First Cause of being.73 Further, the knowledge of God gained in metaphysics pertains to God as known by natural reason, which means that God is only glimpsed as cause and end of these effects, and this flash of knowledge is available to the light of natural reason. By contrast, Christian prayer, especially its paradigmatic instance in the Lord’s Prayer, begins by directly addressing God the Father as he is made known by the incarnate Word. We address God in the relationship of friendship through filial adoption, such that we direct our prayer in a very personal manner to the triune God who is made known “not by flesh and blood,” but by the gift of grace. The second difference concerns the distinction between practical and speculative thinking. Aquinas presents prayer as an act of the practical intellect, while metaphysics is an act of the speculative intellect. It is important to note that Aquinas does not posit two intellects in the human mind; there is not one speculative intellect and one practical intellect. Rather, man has one intellect, or one power of understanding, that can be directed to the speculative work of simply contemplating truth or to the practical work of directing action in light of what it apprehends.74 As a On the point that God is not the subject of or even included in the subject of metaphysics, see John Wippel, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 31–64, esp. 38: “But not only is God not the subject of metaphysics. According to Thomas, God does not fall under the notion of being in general or being as being that is its subject. Hence God enters into the metaphysician’s consideration only indirectly, as the principle or cause of that which the metaphysician considers directly—being as being.” 74 See ST I, q. 79, a. 11. Concerning the intellective power as a whole, Aquinas claims 73 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1181 result, desire is operative in the speculative activities of metaphysics and in the practical activities of prayer, but in different ways. Aquinas identifies three factors that determine whether knowledge is speculative, practical, or partly practical and partly speculative: (1) the object known, (2) the mode of knowing the object, and (3) the end to which the knowledge is directed.75 The first source of the difference between practical and speculative knowledge is the object to which the desire tends. In the case of acts of speculative intellect in metaphysical contemplation, the person is engaged in understanding “speculables,” or objects that exist and operate independently of our actions. That is, we do not cause or “work on” God while contemplating the First Cause; metaphysics is the contemplation of objects that are not, strictly speaking, subject to our activities. Further, the contemplation itself of “inoperable objects” is the ultimate end of activities of speculative thinking. While desire is operative as a motivating force in the metaphysician, the desire is not “expressed” in the activity as personally or intimately as it is in acts of the practical intellect. Rather, the desire “hides” behind the speculative acts of the metaphysician, while the acts themselves are concerned to find and to behold the being of the objects in themselves and for the sake of contemplating their truth. On the other hand, prayer is an act of the practical intellect, since to pray is to act as a cause of the things prayed for.76 Prayer is a cause by requesting, but in the case of Christian prayer the request does not dispose the one to whom the request is made to grant it, but rather the one asking. By praying, we do not inform God of our desires, change his mind, or convince him to grant our requests; rather, the act of prayer disposes the person praying to receive the gifts that God wants to grant us by means of our prayers.77 here that it is accidental whether its object is directed toward the contemplation of truth or toward operation: “To a thing apprehended by the intellect, it is accidental whether it be ordered to operation or not, and according to this the speculative and practical intellects differ. For it is the speculative intellect which orders what it apprehends, not to operation, but to the consideration of truth; while the practical intellect is that which orders what it apprehends to operation.” 75 See ST I, q. 14, a. 16. 76 See ST II-II, q. 83, a. 1. 77 Aquinas says, “We need to pray to God, not in order to make known to him our needs or desires but that we ourselves may be reminded of the necessity of having recourse to God’s help in these matters” (ST II-II, q. 83, a. 2, ad 1). It is illuminating to compare this aspect of Aquinas’s treatment of Christian prayer (namely, that prayer disposes the one praying to receive God’s gifts but does not “dispose” or “influence” God himself ) with his statements at In I peri herm., lec. 7, no. 5, where he says that a subordinate has no power to “move” his superior except by the expression of his desire to the superior. This text shows both the similarities and 1182 Scott J. Roniger Thus, the object of prayer, the object of the request, is an “operable” object in a qualified sense. The Christian asking for his daily bread is asking for an object (and here object does not apply only to material things, but certainly includes them) that he “works on” or brings about by his activity as a concurrent secondary cause, and in this case the activity of prayer itself is a gift of God’s grace. Therefore, prayer is an expression of a supernatural desire, which flows from the form of grace and the inclination of charity, that functions by presenting the object prayed for as desirable from God the Father, and this presentation and expression of desire is part and parcel of obtaining the object from God known in faith as our Father. This biblical sense of God as Father, as one to whom we should and must pray, comes from hearing what God tells us about himself and the world, not from natural experience and thinking. We should not fail to mention the Augustinian insight that citizens of the heavenly kingdom must use the things of this world so as to draw closer to God and never use God to enjoy the things of this world. However, even our use of earthly realities is something that we must ask God for, since he ordains that he gives things “through” our acts of asking for them. Therefore, in metaphysical contemplation desire fuels the activity of the theoretical life in a less personal and less urgent manner, but in Christian prayer desire is more urgent and takes center stage. This fact makes Christian prayer more intensely personal than metaphysical speculation, since in prayer our desires are being expressed in a practical mode of thinking as dependent children of a loving Father, while in metaphysics the objects of thinking are discussed from a philosophical and thus contemplative perspective. In metaphysics, beings are marveled at for the sake of truth itself. Thus, the difference between prayer and metaphysics is not just that metaphysics flows from a natural desire while prayer stems from a supernatural desire, but also that desire enters into prayer in a way different from that in which it enters into metaphysics precisely because prayer is a causal act of the practical intellect. Thomism and the Theology of Disclosure Our reflections in the previous section of this essay were an exercise in Thomistic metaphysics and speculative theology, and they can be complemented by developing points from phenomenology and the theology of disclosure. In this section, we will discuss the ways in which the differences and similarities between metaphysics and prayer manifest themselves to us, and so we will be engaged in what Sokolowski calls the “theology of disclodifferences between natural speech and the graced speech of prayer. The Metaphysician at Prayer 1183 sure.” Sokolowski says that the “Christian things” contemplated and studied in theology are those realities “that have been presented to us in biblical and Christian revelation,” such as God known as triune, the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the sacraments, the Church, and Christian prayer. The theology of disclosure has the task of describing “how the Christian things taught by the Church . . . come to light. It is to examine how they appear.”78 Sokolowski situates the theology of disclosure between two other forms of theological reflection: (1) “speculative theology,” or theology of being, exemplified by Aquinas and other scholastics (the kind on display in the first section of this essay), and (2) positive theology, which focuses primarily on biblical studies and the historical context within which revelation took place and “attempts to show how the articles of faith are found in scripture and tradition.” 79 Sokolowski proposes that the theology of disclosure complements both speculative and positive theology by highlighting aspects of Christian experience and belief that are discussed but not made thematic in the other two forms of theology. He says: “The theology of disclosure differs from speculative theology because it examines the manifestation of Christian things and not, primarily, their nature, definition, and causes; and it differs from positive theology because it is concerned with essential structures of disclosure, which would hold in all times and places, not with matters of historical fact.”80 The theology of disclosure attempts to manifest, in theological reflection, the manifestation itself of “Christian things”; it attempts to describe the essential structures of appearance involved in how Christian things come to light for the believer. Although this theological thinking differs from both speculative and positive theology, Sokolowski says, “it is obviously related to them and does not contradict anything they establish as true.”81 While speculative theology often makes use of Thomistic metaphysics and positive theology utilizes historical, cultural, textual, and linguistic studies, the theology of disclosure uses insights from Husserlian phenomenology to shed light on how the truths of Christian faith present themselves to the believer. In our phenomenological reflection, we will highlight the fact that human reason is not solely the ability to abstract the forms of things, Robert Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure [hereafter, Theology of Disclosure] (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 7. 79 See Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 93–95. 80 Sokolowski, Theology of Disclosure, 8. 81 Sokolowski, Theology of Disclosure, 8. 78 1184 Scott J. Roniger make judgments, and reason from premises to conclusions, although such activities of thinking are important. Most fundamentally, reason is “the capacity to let things come to light, to let the intelligibility of things show up for ourselves and others.”82 To show how human reason sheds light on being, we will discuss two themes in phenomenology: (1) the importance of making distinctions and (2) the way in which things themselves are presented to us as identities within manifolds of appearance. We will then incorporate these two points into a theological reflection by (1a) discussing what Sokolowski calls the “Christian distinction” between God and the world and (2a) showing that the activity of Christian prayer presupposes that the one praying sees the world in a new light. Healed, elevated, and perfected by grace, human reason is able to allow the deepest intelligibility of things to come to light, to see the same realities contemplated in philosophy but set within a new trajectory set by God’s redemptive actions, and thus to see them as occasions for prayer and gratitude to the God who creates them. With the aid of phenomenology, we can describe the way things manifest themselves to the metaphysician qua philosopher as distinct from the way things present themselves to the Christian qua adopted child of God. Distinctions and Identities within Manifolds of Appearance Sokolowski says that the activity of making strategic distinctions is at the core of philosophy.83 By showing that this is not that, by drawing our atten Robert Sokolowski, Christian Faith and Human Understanding: Studies on the Eucharist, Trinity, and the Human Person (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 1. Aquinas himself says that the truth achieved by our minds can be compared to things as that which manifests to that which is manifested; see ST, I, q. 16, a. 3, ad 1. Concerning the relationship between Thomistic metaphysics and phenomenology, Sokolowski says that phenomenology “would provide an expanded analysis of what the person does in order to achieve knowledge, and it would also discuss the identity of the human ‘agent of truth.’ It would examine how things present themselves to the dative of manifestation, and how entities are identifiable between the two states of being simply and being known.” Sokolowski, “The Relation of Phenomenology and Thomistic Metaphysics to Religion: A Study of Patrick Masterson’s Approaching God: Between Phenomenology and Theology,” The Review of Metaphysics 68 [2014]: 603–26, at 617. For an excellent example of the fruitful integration of Thomism and phenomenology, see Kevin White, “Friendship Ground Zero: Aquinas on Good Will,” Nova et Vetera (English) 9 (2011): 539–78. 83 The following paragraphs on the nature and importance of distinctions are based on Sokolowski’s discussion of distinctions in the following works: “Making Distinctions,” The Review of Metaphysics 32 (1979): 639–76, reprinted in Robert 82 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1185 tion to the essential differences between things, and hence to their substantial sameness “with” themselves, distinctions are a fundamental way in which human reason is active in manifesting the being of things. It is true that we must have some familiarity with entities before we can distinguish them accurately, but a distinction is originally registered when realities or situations present themselves as a bundle, as entangled with each other. Distinctions are activities of reason that enable us to shed light on things or situations that present themselves as vague, confusing, or distressing.84 We may distinguish discipline from spite or the performance of a play from the play itself, or we may distinguish justice from fairness, or revenge from both justice and fairness. If we are making legitimate distinctions, we are shedding light on the being of things so that they are more vividly present, intellectually, to us and to our interlocutors. Although distinctions are made in a concrete setting, often in the face of a situation calling for a response or one shrouded in obscurity, they reach fundamental and necessary truths; distinctions are rooted in the particular experience of a concrete situation but transcend it. If we have hit upon a valid distinction, we are reaching the being of things and thus displaying a truth that holds “for all time.” To use Sokolowski’s example, if someone, in the heat of an argument, says, “I’m angry with you, but I don’t hate you,” he has manifested a distinction that holds for all arguers across the ages. Anger simply is not hatred, and distinguishing anger from hatred enables human persons to understand each reality, both anger and hatred, more adequately. We gain this clarity of understanding by showing that one item being distinguished necessarily is not and cannot be the other, and thus that each item has its own nature, its unique mode of being and manifestation. Distinctions are therefore immersed in both language and being; they are not merely linguistic somersaults or maneuvers in word games, nor are they entities locked within the mind of the one making the distinction. Such (mis)understandings of distinctions betray an insufficient philosophical grasp of the relation between words and the being of things. On Sokolowski, Pictures, Quotations, and Distinctions: Fourteen Essays in Phenomenology (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 55–92; “The Method of Philosophy: Making Distinctions,” The Review of Metaphysics 51 (1998): 515–32. While all philosophy, and indeed all clear thinking, includes the making of strategic distinctions, it is one of Sokolowski’s distinctive contributions to discuss distinctions as such. 84 Aquinas also speaks about human reason as a light; he says we can speak of human reason as a “light” precisely insofar as reason manifests being in and through its acts of cognition; see ST I, q. 67, a. 1. 1186 Scott J. Roniger this point, Sokolowski says: “There is an ontological force to distinctions as such. When we make distinctions we are not just determining language in isolation from being. In determining language we are also articulating being, not as two activities that only happen to be conjoined, but as a single activity that has two aspects.”85 Clearly, there are occasions, such as mistaken speech, outright lying, or “distinctions without a difference,” in which language and being may be separated. However, they could only be separated if they are ontologically correlated with each other in the first place. A lie or a “distinction without a difference” is only possible because speech has the natural function of manifesting being to another speaker. As Sokolowski says, “determining language and articulating being is a hendiadys.”86 The phrase “distinction without a difference” can assist us further in clarifying the relationship between being and language at work in the activity of making distinctions. One might be tempted to think of the “difference” as ontological, as out in the objective world, and the “distinction” as psychological or “in” the soul, and therefore when one makes a “distinction without a difference” there is nothing ontological (difference) corresponding to the psychological entity (distinction). However, such an understanding would miss the ontological force of distinctions as such. A distinction is as objective as the difference it illuminates; in fact, we should see that “a distinction is a difference that is explicitly displayed.”87 When someone makes a valid distinction, the distinction is the difference insofar as it, the difference, is displayed to the person(s) involved in coming to understand the two realities being distinguished through the use of language. Human agents can fail in at least two ways in making distinctions. First, a person can fail to distinguish a two, and thus incorrectly remain with the two as if they were a one. In this case, a genus is often identified with one of its species. The species is absorbed back into the genus, resulting in a failure to see that the genus can be itself in various ways. Second, a person can overdistinguish, and thus attempt to illegitimately break a one into a two. These are failures to display things as they are, not unbridgeable gaps between psychological and objective entities. Precisely because distinctions are differences as displayed, valid distinctions enable the human agents who make them to see entities at work being the kinds of things they are. That is, distinctions are related to our intel Sokolowski, “Making Distinctions,” in Pictures, Quotations, and Distinctions, 74. Sokolowski, “Making Distinctions,” in Pictures, Quotations, and Distinctions, 74. 87 Sokolowski, “The Method of Philosophy,” 521. 85 86 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1187 lectual grasp of the forms of things and hence to formal causality. When we distinguish between anger and hatred, or between a rat and a mouse, then each item “stands forth in a kind of vivid necessity, each could not be the other, and hence each necessarily is what it is.”88 Distinctions help to manifest the formal causes of the items distinguished and therefore sharpen our understanding of the forms of things. As we saw in the first section of this essay, both Aristotle and Aquinas argue that the form of an entity is the source of the difference of that entity, and the activity of distinguishing two items displays this difference, and thus manifests the shape of each item in the distinction precisely by showing that it cannot be the item from which it is now distinguished. Distinctions bring the formal causes of things more vividly to light. This point enables us to see how phenomenology complements Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics; it shows in rich detail the activities of the human subject in manifesting objective reality, and conversely how reality manifests itself to us. Thus, phenomenology helps us see how cognition is a “joint activity of subject and object.” Because distinctions assist human agents in recognizing the forms of entities, they are also at the basis of judgments, definitions, and the search for causes so important for metaphysics. We can only make judgements if we register, at least implicitly, that a feature (such as brown) is not the subject of which it is a feature (hair); we can only define an object if we register its genus and its specific difference from other kinds within that genus. For example, Aristotle defines a virtue of character as a “state [hexis] concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason and the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect.”89 In order to formulate this definition, Aristotle must first distinguish states from feelings and capacities, a mean from extremes, a mathematical mean from a “mean relative to us,” and an extreme of excess from one of deficiency. Distinctions provide the raw material for judgments and definitions. Further, we can only search for the causes of things if we first register the distinction between a cause and its effect. Perhaps more fundamentally, we must also register the distinction between an entity in itself and an entity precisely as an effect, as pointing toward a source of its being. These distinctions enable us to investigate the causes of things, that is, to engage in the kind of thinking proper to metaphysics. Since distinctions bring things from obscurity to light, they enable human agents to recognize more clearly the identity of things and are Sokolowski, “The Method of Philosophy,” 528. NE 2.6.1106b35–07a4. 88 89 1188 Scott J. Roniger therefore crucial for moral deliberation. The registration of a distinction and the increased clarity it brings to the items distinguished enables human agents to respond to those entities in more appropriate ways. Distinctions allow us to see things as they are, and conversely they allow things to be themselves for us, and this clarity of vision makes it possible for us to enhance our moral interactions with entities and other people. For example, when a child is able to distinguish discipline from spite, or when a man distinguishes justice from revenge or anger from hatred, a new avenue of possible behavior opens up before him. He is no longer locked into a certain way of responding, and thus the distinction liberates him to see possibilities of action that would otherwise remain closed. A child can more adequately respond to discipline when he can distinguish it from spite, and a man can better undertake just actions when he can distinguish justice from revenge. More fundamentally, one can draw a crucial distinction between the end of an activity or entity (its telos, completion, or perfection) and the purposes (intentions or motivations) of human agents in acting.90 When this distinction dawns upon a human agent, then she can see that her purposes are not the sole, or even the primary, arbiter in moral matters, and she is therefore freed to be more creative and virtuous in her activities. Her actualization of this potential, which has opened for her due to the dawning of the distinction, will depend upon her character, itself a deposit of her prior actions and (in part) a legacy of her upbringing, but the distinction provides her with the dunamis to reform or solidify her character. Distinctions enable human agents to see things under a new slant, and therefore they open possibilities of moral action in accord with the natures of things, including human nature. We now turn to the second theme from phenomenology, a theme which has two aspects. An important, bipartite claim in phenomenology is (a) that human agents, in perception and thinking, are in touch with the things themselves, and (b) that the entities known manifest themselves in and through a manifold of appearances. Sokolowski says: “The core doctrine in phenomenology is the teaching that every act of consciousness that we perform, every experience that we have, is intentional; it is essentially ‘consciousness of ’ or an ‘experience of ’ something or other. All our See Francis Slade, “Ends and Purposes,” in Final Causality in Nature and Human Affairs, ed. Richard Hassing (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 83-85. See also Slade, “On the Ontological Priority of Ends and Its Relevance to the Narrative Arts,” in Beauty, Art, and the Polis, ed. Alice Ramos (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 58-69. 90 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1189 awareness is directed toward objects.”91 By concentrating on this sense of intentionality, phenomenology is able to show that: “The mind and the world are correlated with one another. Things do appear to us, things truly are disclosed, and we, on our part, do display, both to ourselves and to others, the way things are.”92 Phenomenology gives an account of the various ways in which things appear to human agents, thereby shedding light on the nature of human intelligence by focusing on the intentional nature of consciousness. Phenomenology also enables us to focus on the identity of a given entity as it manifests itself to us in a manifold of appearances. When we encounter an object in perception, we grasp the thing itself in a continuous flow of sides, aspects, and profiles. We do encounter the thing itself in our experience, but we always encounter it from a certain angle. I may see the front of the building but not the back, and thus the building itself is given to me in a blend of presences and absences. Looking at the front of the building from a given angle, the front (side) is present to me as I look at it “from here” (aspect) within a unique temporal flow (profile), while the back of the building is absent to me. Although the back of the building may be absent from me, I am aware, based upon my perception of the front, of the back of the building as absent and of my ability to walk around and make it present. Such awareness is not inference, but a more immediate sense of the absence of a side of a given object that we encounter in experience. In Husserl’s terminology, the front of the building would be given in a fulfilled intention because we are in the direct presence of this side, but the back of the building would be given in an empty intention, since we are aware that the back is absent to us but could become present. Perception is therefore a blend of presence and absence in which the thing itself is given to us in a manifold of appearances. For its part, the object is the identity “in” and “behind” these presences and absences. The object is the identity within the manifold of its appearances, so by attending to the appearances of an entity we are attending to the way a given entity shows itself. We recognize the identity of the thing in its modes of appearance. The things we encounter in perception can also be remembered, imagined, named, discussed, and anticipated. In all these modes of human involvement, the thing itself is encountered and known, and in each act of perception, speech, or memory the thing itself is the identity within the manifold of its appearances and is recognized as such. The appearances of the thing are distinguished from the thing, but the thing itself is the Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 8. 92 Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 12. 91 1190 Scott J. Roniger identity presented in and behind its characteristic appearances. Further, the being of the thing, we could say its form and characteristic operations, determines its mode of appearing. Sokolowski says: “Each kind of thing prescribes its own particular series of appearances within which it can be identified as itself; Husserl says that each kind of thing is a rule for a certain sequence of ordered appearances. The thing itself governs its own appearances, within which it is recognizable for what it itself is.”93 Things—knives, trees, dogs, men, words, games—have a characteristic mode of appearing, and an essential aspect of human reason is the ability to recognize and to respond to things as they are perceived, understood, spoken about, and remembered. Appearances, therefore, are not merely psychological events, but the unfolding of a thing’s nature, and we, as rational agents, are able to see things as the identity within their manifold of appearances. Aquinas argues in a similar way. He claims: “Our intellect, which takes cognizance of the essence of a thing as its proper object, gains knowledge from sense, of which the proper objects are external accidents. Hence from external appearances we come to the knowledge of the essence of things.”94 Further, the identity of a thing, its nature, is seen more clearly by human agents as they perceive it, speak about it, remember it, and distinguish it from other entities. Phenomenology restores appearances to their proper ontological place by showing how being displays itself to us, and therefore it allows us to identify a given reality as the identity “within” and “behind” its characteristic manifestations. Sokolowski says: “The point of phenomenological description is to show what kind of manifold is involved in bringing about the concrete and intuitive presence of the object we are concerned with, which is the identity within this manifold [of appearances].”95 Phenomenology helps us to begin with what is “first for us” by showing that appearances are a part of what is real. Appearances are a part of being; appearances are, and they should not be contrasted with being or put over against it. Rather, appearances must be described so as to see how they manifest the being and identity of things. Theology of Disclosure: The Christian Distinction as the Framework for Prayer I wish to claim that the two phenomenological themes we have discussed Sokolowski, Theology of Disclosure, 24. ST I, q. 18, a. 2, resp. 95 Robert Sokolowski, Husserlian Meditations: How Words Present Things (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 103. 93 94 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1191 can be developed in the theology of disclosure in order to clarify the relationship between metaphysics and prayer. First, we will extend the philosophy of distinctions by appealing to what Sokolowski calls the “Christian Distinction.” Second, we will show that faith gives a new profile on both entities in the world and our own desires, a new profile that leads us to prayer. Sokolowski points out that, in the realm of Christian faith as a response to God’s revelation, the world is seen as radically distinct from God. God is not the best thing in the world, as he may have been conceived by Aristotle and other pagan philosophers, nor is the world co-eternal with God, as it certainly was conceived by Aristotle. Rather, Christian life and teaching introduce a purified notion of God, such that God freely chooses to create the world ex nihilo at the beginning of time.96 Sokolowski says: “In Christian faith God is understood not only to have created the world, but to have permitted the distinction between himself and the world to occur. He is not established as God by the distinction.”97 However, by creating the world, God’s being, goodness, and greatness are not thereby increased. God would be, and indeed “was,” all that there is without diminishing his goodness or perfection. Even without creating the world he is the utter perfection of being and goodness. After creation, there are more beings and more good things, but God’s eternal perfection and simplicity are not thereby altered in any way.98 God’s being, goodness, simplicity, and perfec Sokolowski’s notion of the Christian distinction aligns nicely with and extends Aquinas’s distinction between the philosophical and theological understandings of creation. Philosophically we can know that all things are ontologically dependent upon the First Cause, but we cannot decide if the world is eternal or not. The revelation of Sacred Scripture and the gift of grace enable us to know through faith that the world also had a “temporal” beginning. Sokolowski’s Christian distinction highlights the differences that come into play once God is revealed as the Creator of the cosmos ex nihilo and in time. For Aquinas’s position on creation, see: Mark Johnson, “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?” The New Scholasticism 63 (1989): 129–55; Johnson, “Aquinas’ Changing Evaluation of Plato on Creation,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66 (1992): 81–88; Timothy B. Noone, “The Originality of St. Thomas’s Position on the Philosophers and Creation,” The Thomist 60 (1996): 275–300; Lawrence Dewan, “Thomas Aquinas, Creation, and Two Historians,” Laval théologique et philosophique 50 (1994): 363–87; Dewan, “St. Thomas and Creation: Does God Create ‘Reality’?” Science et esprit 51 (1999): 5–25; John Wippel, “Aquinas on Creation and Preambles of Faith,” The Thomist 78 (2014): 1–36. 97 Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason, 33. 98 See Aquinas, De malo, q. 5, a. 1, ad 4: “Bonum creatum additum bono increato non facit maius bonum, nec magis beatum.” 96 1192 Scott J. Roniger tion are so complete and intense that the act of creation in no way improves him, nor is creation necessitated as in an emanationist philosophy. Just as natural distinctions enable us to understand better the items distinguished and thus enhance our capacity to respond to those things virtuously, so too the Christian distinction gives us a fuller understanding of both God and the world and enables us to respond to God through the virtue of religion, with its acts of prayer and devotion.99 An important difference, however, between natural distinctions and the Christian distinction is that we make natural distinctions through the exercise of our own rationality, whereas the Christian distinction comes to us through God’s gratuitous revelation of it. The Christian distinction is the difference between God and the world as displayed, that is, as revealed by God. Thomas Prufer says: “Publicity, choosing to manifest to others and manifesting choices determining others, becomes in the extreme both the gratuitous establishment of the plurality of being (the choice that-others-be) and the gratuitous revelation of the gratuitousness of this establishment.”100 Human language is now used to express divinely revealed truth, and thus the Christian distinction, or the distinctive understanding of the difference between God and the world made available to us in God’s gratuitous revelation of this difference, sheds light not only on the divine being but also on the being of the world. That is, because the Christian distinction reveals a fuller understanding of God, it thereby manifests a more profound understanding of the world. As a result of the Christian distinction, the world and ourselves—the most favored parts of the world, the ones created to the image and likeness of the creator—are seen in a new light. Sokolowski says: This shift in thinking does not just introduce a new sense of the divine. It also introduces a new sense of the world, which is now seen as capable of not being, and a new sense of ourselves, who are seen to have been created through the personal knowledge and choice of God. . . . Everything looks different. Salvation is now understood as being achieved by a divine action that has no parallel in the I do not wish to suggest that there are no echoes of the Christian distinction within the natural order. In fact, Aquinas holds that it belongs to the natural law to ask God for assistance and to offer sacrifice to God (see ST I-II, q. 85). Rather, our point is simply that the understanding of what God is, of what the world is, and of the relation between God and the world becomes thematized and purified in an unexpected (indeed, unexpectable) way in Christianity. 100 Thomas Prufer, Recapitulations: Essays in Philosophy (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 33. 99 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1193 interventions of the gods described in polytheistic religions. We are saved by the redemptive action of God in Christ, as action that was anticipated by the providential and saving acts of the Old Covenant, an action that sheds light even on the act of Creation, which is now seen as the first of the saving acts of God.101 Since God is revealed to be who he is, to be He Who Is, the world is now understood to be the result of sheer generosity, wisdom, and love. The metaphysical and the personal are integrated in an extraordinary way in this understanding of God, who as Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, chooses that others be and chooses to reveal his choice that others be. Therefore, we can come to know that we exist as the result of something like a personal transaction, and since the world and ourselves come to be through the personal, free, and unnecessitated loving choice of God, gratitude and prayer are now displayed as the appropriate responses to such a God. This unique distinction between God and the world, a central tenet of Christian belief, opens up the logical and theological space for understanding the other mysteries revealed by God in Christ, and therefore it has an especially important role in Catholic theology. Guy Mansini says that part of the “theological importance of the Christian distinction is that it provides the framework within which the Christian mysteries can be asserted without incoherence.”102 Within the framework of the Christian distinction, we can “assert without incoherence” the intimate connections between the doctrines of creation and divine governance, on the one hand, and religion and prayer, on the other hand. According to Aquinas, because God is so intensely perfect and transcendent, he is active in the world he creates without destroying or interfering with the natures of his creatures. His being and goodness are such that he can govern things most immanently without competing with them or impinging on their proper autonomy.103 As Dewan says, God’s “immanence flows from his transcendence,” and thus God, understood in Christianity, governs creatures sweetly, that is, in accordance with the natures that he has created.104 He is the cause of Sokolowski, Theology of Disclosure, 228–29. Guy Mansini, “Christology of Disclosure in Robert Sokolowski,” in Theology Needs Philosophy: Acting against Reason Is Contrary to the Nature of God, ed. Matthew L. Lamb (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2016), 216. 103 See ST I, qq. 103–5. 104 See Lawrence Dewan, “St. Thomas and the Divine Origin of Law: Some Notes,” Civilizar Cienceas Sociales y Humanas 15 (2008): 123–34, at 129. 101 102 1194 Scott J. Roniger the secondary causality of his creatures, both making them to be at work being themselves and directing them through his law and grace. God is such that his governing direction of creatures includes their ability to be real causes, to participate in the dignity of being a source of order in the world. In the light of the Christian distinction, we more readily see God as both the transcendent creator and the intimate governor of reality, which is the “profile” of God we need in order to exercise the Christian virtue of religion and its various acts, such as prayer. According to Aquinas, to be “religious” means to know God precisely as creator and governor and ourselves as owing service to him, not for his benefit but for our own. Aquinas argues that we must understand a servant in relation to his proper lord, and thus where there is a unique kind of lordship there must be a unique mode of service corresponding to it. He says: “Now it is evident that lordship belongs to God in a proper and singular way, because he made all things, and because he has supreme primacy over all. Therefore a special type of service is due to him. And this service is designated by the name ‘latria’ among the Greeks. And therefore it pertains properly to religion.”105 He says that it pertains to the virtue of religion to reverence God precisely insofar as he is “the first principle as to the creation and governing of things.”106 Enjoying the virtue of religion and exercising it in the acts of prayer presuppose that we see the world and God in a particular light. We must see the world as wanted and chosen by a God who, to be perfectly blessed, needs neither the world nor the service of its highest creatures, and who creates and governs all things without corrupting their natures or lessening their autonomy. It is fitting to pray to such a God and to render him the service of religion. Aristotle’s understanding of God is an anticipation of this elevated knowledge of the divine, but to know God only as Aristotle knew him does not provide a sufficient framework for the acts of prayer as they are understood in Christian faith. To extend an Aristotelian analogy, one would not ask the general of the army for help tying one’s shoes, unless one knew more about the general than merely that he was a general.107 The revealed doctrine of creation and the Christian distinction are therefore crucial for the proper understanding of religion and prayer: prayer flows from religion, which appropriately regards God as the creator and governor of the world. The distinction between God and the world as ST II-II, q. 81, a. 1, ad 3. ST II-II, q. 81, a. 3, resp. 107 See Aristotle, Metaphysics, 12.10. 105 106 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1195 we have described it opens up the logical and theological space for us to exercise religion and prayer appropriately. We can therefore see another aspect of the relationship between metaphysics and Christian prayer. Prayer, in the Christian understanding, rests on the metaphysical doctrine of the God who is ipsum esse per se subsistens, who creates the world out of sheer generosity, governs it suaviter, and redeems it in the Incarnation. Unless prayer is appreciated along the lines of this understanding of creation and divine governance given in Christian faith, that is, unless it is seen in the light of the Christian distinction, it will be truncated or deformed. Aquinas also discusses the ways in which faith and the understanding of God that it opens to human agents are necessary for prayer. He says: “Faith is necessary in reference to God to whom we pray; that is, we need to believe that we can obtain from him what we seek.”108 Aquinas adds that it is “through faith that man comes to know of God’s omnipotence and mercy, which are the source whence prayer impetrates what it asks for.”109 Faith not only enables us to believe that we can obtain from God what we pray for, in a qualified sense of obtaining, but it also shows us that the God to whom we are praying is such that he can enable our prayers to be efficacious without undergoing change on his part. Faith is necessary for prayer because it enables the believer to know the depth of God’s omnipotence and his mercy, or better, to know that God is merciful because he is omnipotent. Without the understanding of who God is, imparted by faith, we would be unable to say, as we do now, both (1) that prayer is efficacious in its own mysterious way and (2) that prayer does not change or “influence” God. We could not say that God, from all eternity and without undergoing any change, ordains that some things be given to us through our own acts of prayer, which are themselves gifts of grace. The metaphysics of creation expressed in the Christian distinction enables us to avoid the extremes (a) of a God who is altered and influenced by our religious actions, a God who needs our praise and is angry without it, and (b) of a God who is remote, distant, cold, and unconcerned with the actions of mortals. Without the Christian distinction, our understanding of prayer would inevitably slip back into a quasi-pagan view, in which the divine being(s) can be persuaded or appeased by the prayers of mortals or in which a perfect being would be unaware of and unconcerned with our prayers. I wish now to develop our reflection on the Christian distinction by appealing to the second phenomenological theme we discussed above. ST II-II, q. 83, a. 15, resp. ST II-II, q. 83, a. 15, ad 3. 108 109 1196 Scott J. Roniger We showed how an entity presents itself as the identity within a manifold of appearances, and therefore we encounter entities in a blend of sides, aspects, and profiles. I wish to claim that the gift of grace and the Christian doctrines of creation and redemption enable us to take up a new profile on things, but a profile different from the natural profiles we have of things. This new profile of things is only analogous to its natural ones. Through God’s revelation and gift of grace, the Christian is enabled to recognize another dimension of the things he encounters, its “deepest” dimension where it is being held in existence by a God who created the world and time itself out of love, became incarnate, died, and rose from the dead. As Sokolowski says, the Christian distinction introduces a “dimensional difference, a new way of taking things. It introduces a new way in which the world as a whole, and everything in the world, can be interpreted.”110 The dimensional difference introduced by Christianity enables us to recognize this new aspect of things. The new aspect on things is that they are now seen as wanted, redeemed, and guided by a personal God, and we understand ourselves to be created, redeemed, and subject to divine providence in a more excellent way. The Christian distinction and the new aspects and profiles it makes possible are not merely contemplative, but also call for a response on our part, a response that is made possible by the God to whom we are now called to pray. Prayer is part of the graced response called for by this new dimension of things visible to the one who has eyes to see. Given this new profile, the things we need to live and to flourish, our daily bread, are now presented to us as things to be asked for in prayer, and thus the way to attain them involves beseeching God for them in faith. As we move to the theological realm, where the imago Dei is reformed by grace,111 the ordinary things in the world now manifest themselves as creatures of the Most Holy Trinity, and the response of the Christian in prayer is to praise the creator for his great gifts and to ask him for the necessities of life. Things “show up” as gifts of the triune God. The same realities that can be studied in terms of act and potency now show up as occasions of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, and therefore the identity of things is intensified for the Christian believer. For the metaphysician, the entities in the world manifest themselves as things to be analyzed and contemplated. It is illuminating in this regard to contrast Aristotle’s probing investigations of plant and animal life with St. Francis’s Cantico delle creature, in which Francis praises God for Brother Sun and Sister Moon. The move from Sokolowski, Christian Faith and Human Understanding, 46. For Aquinas’s “stages” of the imago Dei, see ST I, q. 93, a. 4. 110 111 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1197 metaphysics to Christian prayer comes with the recognition of the Christian distinction, but this recognition is itself a gift of grace elevating the human mind and heart. In the first part of this article, we discussed Aquinas’s understanding of prayer as the “interpreter of our desires” for God, and we said that due to grace and charity our desires are healed, transformed, and lifted into a new trajectory. We can now add that, due to the new dimension of things manifest in the light of faith, human desires also appear in a new light. Because those desires are healed and elevated and the mind of the believer is enlightened by faith, human desires present themselves in a new way. The Christian recognizes his most fundamental desires as given by God and in need of God’s intimate direction. His desires now present themselves as needing to be conformed to God’s will, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and transmitted in Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and the Church’s magisterial teachings. Part of this new profile on our transformed desires is the realization that the restructuring and redirection of our affective life is to be done only with God’s help. Thus, our desires themselves are now seen to have a new aspect, a new dimension; they display themselves as needing to be conformed to the loving will of the Father in and through prayer, and prayer itself is revealed as the means through which God himself shapes and directs our desires. In the Garden of Gethsemane, but not only there, Jesus manifests what it is to align our wills and desires to the will of God in prayer, and we are called to imitate Jesus’s intelligent abandonment to the Father in and through prayer, an imitation made possible by God’s gift of grace flowing from the Incarnation, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. We should note that Jesus’s obedience to the Father is possible because of the Incarnation. Only as human, as exercising a human nature with a fully human intellect and will, can Jesus obey his Father and our Father, and thus the Incarnation is the prime display of what obedience and service to God look like in and through prayer. Through the Incarnation, we can be taught that our ultimate desire must be “thy will be done.” In the supernatural realm, as in the natural, ontology and manifestation go hand-in-hand. The new profile introduced by Christianity touches upon more than entities and our desires. The events of human life, the chosen, the unplanned, and the tragic, are seen as the expression of the loving plan of an omnipotent God that Christians rightly address as “Our Father,” and even suffering is no longer seen as a brute fact. Suffering presents itself as allowed by God, as having a deeper intelligibility, and as meant to help human persons grow in faith, hope, and charity; human suffering now appears as an opportunity for intimate union with the suffering and 1198 Scott J. Roniger crucified Christ. All these transformations in presentation are necessary structures of manifestation in Christian life, but they are possible because the God who reveals himself to us is known as one who is so transcendent to the world he freely creates that he can become incarnate within it without ceasing to be God or destroying the natures in the world; he can be addressed as “Our Father” who knows how to and wants to give good gifts to his adopted children. As our knowledge of God is enhanced by faith, the world and our lives also appear in a new light, making Christian prayer possible and reasonable. Conclusion In closing, we will briefly make one final point and answer two possible objections to our reflections on metaphysics and prayer. In the first section, we discussed Aquinas’s articulation of the Aristotelian idea that the human function (ergon) is the activity of the soul in accordance with reason, and, given the points we have made throughout this essay, it is illuminating to compare this Aristotelian concept with the opening lines of St. Augustine’s Confessions. Within the new context opened by Christianity, the activities of the soul in accordance with reason, healed and elevated by grace, are now seen to culminate in the works of prayer, praise, and worship of the creator who reveals himself as savior in the Incarnation. St. Augustine captures this refined function of man once he is set within the context of creation and redemption: Great are you, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is your power, and your wisdom is infinite. And man desires to praise you, since he is a part of your creation. Man bears his mortality about with him and carries the evidence of his sin and the proof that you resist the proud. Yet he desires to praise you, this man who is but a small part of your creation. You excite us to delight in praising you, for you have made us to yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.112 In this famous text, we see that Augustine, aided by his understanding of creation and redemption, identifies our end with our beginning, and he says that Christians desire to return to this origin-end through acts of prayer and praise, which are now seen as part of the perfection of Christian life. By comparing the ergon of man according to Aristotle and St. St. Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1, trans. John K. Ryan (New York: Doubleday, 1960). I have slightly modified Ryan’s translation. 112 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1199 Augustine, we can see that the question of “what man is” is always linked to the question of “how the world manifests itself to him.” All the thinkers we have drawn from in this essay are realists, and consequently they recognize that each person sees the world itself through the prism of his own character. As Aristotle says, it is the virtuous man who can see the world as it really is, and therefore he is the rule and measure of human action because he submits himself to the way things show themselves.113 The Christian distinction adds another dimension to this classical idea. The person reformed by grace can see the truth of things as they manifest themselves to the glory of their creator, ruler, and redeemer. The Christian can recognize and respond to the deepest truth of things because he has been healed, elevated, and perfected by God’s redemptive actions, and so he can be a more vivid rule and measure precisely because he is more fully ruled and measured by God. We now turn to the first objection. One might argue that we have too radically separated metaphysics and prayer and that we have exalted prayer and the Christian conception of God to the denigration of metaphysics. However, such an objection would miss the continuity between the natural and supernatural, and therefore we must add that the forgoing discussion should not be manipulated to conclude that metaphysics is vacuous for the Christian; on the contrary, metaphysical knowledge retains its own perfection under the action of grace. Metaphysical speculation undertaken from the philosophical perspective pertains to natural necessities and excellences, and the knowledge contemplated by the metaphysician is in a sense more fitting to the human person qua agent of truth, while Christian prayer is more perfective absolutely speaking as it stems from the order of redemption. However, the natural is never destroyed by grace; it is rather healed and perfected. Thus, even within the life of a believer, there remains the “natural moment” of the search for the knowledge perfective of the human person as an agent of truth. As Thomas Joseph White says: The orders of theological faith and human philosophical reason, while distinguishable, are not intended to be separated but tend inherently under grace toward greater and greater mutual interaction and, in a qualified way, toward mutual influence. But it is equally the case that they also tend precisely insofar as they mutually influence each other to become each more themselves, in terms of their own inner tendencies and capacities. The person of faith becomes more aware over time of the primacy and distinctness of See NE 3.4.1113a22–b1. 113 1200 Scott J. Roniger the supernatural with respect to the natural, but the philosophical believer also becomes equally aware over time of the integrity or dignity of philosophical argument as such, according to its own inner structure and teleological orientation, in distinction from theological understanding and argumentation.114 It is important to note that philosophy and theology can positively influence each other because both are modes of wisdom. As Aristotle says, it belongs to the wise man to order, and thus the introduction of a superior kind of wisdom through grace does not destroy or sweep away the philosophical realm, but rather incorporates it within a higher order. As for the second objection, one might argue that our integration of Thomistic metaphysics and phenomenology, and thus our use of speculative theology and the theology of disclosure, is arbitrary or unhelpful. One could claim that Husserlian phenomenology and Thomistic metaphysics, and the theologies developed from them, are disparate and do not illuminate each other. However, as we have shown, these two modes of thinking do reinforce and complement one another. Sokolowski says that each of the three kinds of theological reflection (positive theology, speculative theology, and the theology of disclosure) has not only its characteristic strengths but also its characteristic pitfall, its unique kind of error or extreme toward which it can tend and which its practitioners must be careful to avoid.115 Speculative theology and the metaphysics it builds upon can fall into “rationalism,” the failure to respect the transcendence of faith and revelation to reason and philosophy, and such thinking can neglect the philosophical order of discovery. Phenomenology and the theology of disclosure, by contrast, can fall into “psychologism,” the reduction of entities, objects, and states of affairs to human projections, mental acts, or mere appearances in the human psyche.116 Integrating speculative theology and the theology of disclosure, and hence Thomistic metaphysics and Husserlian phenomenology, as we have done in this essay, assists thinkers in avoiding the pitfalls of rationalism and psychologism. The theology of disclosure shows the formal structures of appearance Thomas Joseph White, “Engaging the Thomistic Tradition and Contemporary Culture Simultaneously: A Response to Burrell, Healy, and Schindler,” Nova et Vetera (English) 10 (2012): 605–23, at 622. 115 See Sokolowski, Theology of Disclosure, 7–9. 116 Recognizing these characteristic possibilities for error is certainly not to claim that Aquinas himself fell into the trap of rationalism, nor is it to claim that phenomenology is necessarily psychologistic. 114 The Metaphysician at Prayer 1201 of “Christian things” and thereby manifests how the transcendence of faith to philosophy is revealed without denigrating the natural excellences of human reason. By describing the necessary structures of appearance of entities and states of affairs, phenomenology enables metaphysics to remain rooted in human experience and to avoid the temptation to remain only on the level of a “logical analysis of concepts and of the reasoning connected therewith” in which “the categories employed risk having a content devoid of much density or flexibility.”117 By providing a disciplined and systematic reflection on being and its causes, Thomistic metaphysics enables phenomenology to remain true to its nature as a reflection on the ways in which beings manifest themselves as they are. By integrating these two approaches, we are better equipped to avoid the errors we have identified because we have a fuller philosophical and theological account of the realities that are manifest in human experience but transcend it. In conclusion, Aquinas’s reflections on formal causality and natural inclinations provides an important resource for both metaphysics and speculative theology. In line with Thomas’s thinking, we can see metaphysics as the interpreter of our natural desire for knowledge of being and its causes. Analogously, Christian prayer, as an effect of charity and situated within the framework of the Christian distinction and the dimension it opens for believers, is the interpreter of our supernatural desires for union with and service to the triune God. We can therefore see Athens and Jerusalem, and the activities they represent, as seats of desire for God and the N&V “interpretation” of these desires, both natural and supernatural.118 These descriptions of the possible pitfalls of Thomism come from Louis de Raeymaeker, “What St. Thomas Means Today,” The Review of Politics 20 (1958): 3–20, at 19. On the same page, de Raeymaeker says, as we did in the previous footnote, that Aquinas himself did not fall prey to these errors. He notes that while Aquinas’s philosophy is rooted in experience, as all philosophy must be, it is “permissible to regret that the Angelic doctor has not left us a description—let us call it a phenomenological one—of the living basis of his theories. This basis he has at his disposal throughout his philosophic work.” As we have shown, phenomenology complements Aquinas’s work by providing a “phenomenological description” of the “living basis” of philosophical theories. 118 I wish to thank Fr. Stephen Brock, Fr. Cassian Derbes, O.P., Fr. Robert Sokolowski, and Christopher Kaczor for helpful conversations about the issues discussed in this article. Their generous comments improved the essay but are not, of course, the cause of its shortcomings. 117 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1203–1219 1203 The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions in the Writings of Thomas Aquinas John Rziha Benedictine College Atchison, KS Flowing from its Greek and Judeo-Christian roots, the idea that humans are composed of a body and a soul has been a mainstay of Western thought. Yet, how the soul and body are related has been the subject of much debate going back at least as far as Plato and Aristotle. In modern times, the relation between the body and soul is widely disputed, with many people completely rejecting the existence of the soul (known in philosophical circles as materialists or physicalists).1 Although the materialist rejection of the soul is often based on deep philosophical assumptions, some contemporary materialists believe that the findings of modern neuroscience disprove the existence of the soul (or at least make speaking about a soul irrelevant).2 They note that thoughts, feelings, and even love For an anthology that nicely shows this dispute, see The Waning of Materialism, ed. Robert Koons and George Bealer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). For a nice introductory philosophical work that explains and critiques both dualism and materialism and then expounds an Aristotelian hylmorphic view, see James Madden, Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013). 2 For example, Nancey Murphy and Warren S. Brown state in the introduction to Did My Neurons Make Me Do It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007): “Science can help direct philosophical arguments away from implausible alternatives; we believe that the role of developments in neuroscience (e.g. functional brain imaging studies) in persuading many philosophers of mind to abandon dualism is one of the most important examples” (6). Although Murphy denies dualism, she does not consider herself a reductive materialist. Francis Crick (a scientist who helped discover the structure of DNA) argues that just as modern science shows that many views held by ancient humans are false, so modern biology also shows 1 1204 John Rziha can be measured though physiological changes in the body. For example, electroencephalography (EEG) can measure brain waves, and by studying this and other forms of biofeedback, scientists can tell a lot about what a person is thinking and feeling. From these scientific advances a materialist might argue that modern neurobiology, endocrinology, and psychology can explain all the actions formally attributed to the soul. Furthermore, these actions can be mapped to different functions and parts of the brain and body with the conclusion that there is no integrated self (or soul) underlying actions such as thought or free choice.3 These scientific discoveries might be a challenge to someone who believes the body and soul to be two distinct substances (similar to Descartes). 4 However, a person with a proper hylomorphic understanding of the relation between the body and soul, should not be troubled by these scientific findings. In fact, not only do these scientific findings not disprove the existence of the soul (or make it irrelevant), those with a proper understanding of the relation between the body and the soul would expect science to discover that the body causes human actions. This article will examine Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the body as the instrumental cause of actions in order to help explain both the role of the soul and the body within human actions. This essay is not meant to convince the materialist that a soul exists, but it should show that it is quite rational to both believe the findings of modern neuroscience and hold that the human soul that there is no need to posit the existence of a soul, further noting that most neurobiologists do not believe in a soul (The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for a Soul [New York: Touchstone, 1994], 3–7). 3 See, for example, Patrick Haggard, “Does Brain Science Change Our View of Free Will,” in Free Will and Modern Science, ed. Richard Swinburne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 7–24. In this work, Haggard does not specifically state the conclusion as strongly as I do in the argument given in the present text, but he does conclude: “Conventional metaphysics of free will invokes an ‘I’ to consciously initiate willed actions. Instead, neuroscience emphasizes that ‘freely willed’ actions may simply have a more complex set of causes than simpler actions. Nevertheless, these causes are not special in any particular sense: they simply reflect the flexibility and complexity of our response to the environment” (23). In opposition to this view, see William Hasker, The Emergent Self (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998). Hasker argues for a unity of consciousness within humans. 4 This “substance” dualism that can especially be found in Descartes (although in some form it already existed in Plato and in gnostic philosophy) continues to have a widespread acceptance in popular culture. Among recent philosophers, Richard Swinburne is a proponent of this view. Modern scientific findings will challenge substance dualism if it is believed that the body and soul are two competing or partial causes of the action of the person. In this view, if the body is the cause, then there is no need for the causality of the soul. The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions 1205 exists. In order to make these points I will explain four essential aspects of Thomas’s understanding of primary and instrumental causality and directly apply these concepts to the particular case of the relation between the body and the soul. This essay is only meant to introduce these ideas and hopefully stimulate other philosophers and theologians to work on this topic to apply it more thoroughly to contemporary debates. As is well-documented, Thomas speaks of the soul as the form of the body. This is the hylopmorphic view of the relation between the body and soul.5 What is less well-documented is that Thomas further explains the interactions between the body and soul by speaking of the soul as the primary cause and the body as the instrumental cause. In his commentary on De anima, Thomas comments on the following words of Aristotle: “For all natural bodies are instruments of the soul: whether of animals or of plants, they exist as for the sake of the soul.” In his commentary on the passage Thomas states: “For it is evident that all such bodies are, as it were, instruments of the ‘soul’—not only of animals’ souls but of the plant soul as well.”6 The language of the body as an instrumental cause comes from Aristotle, and Thomas will continue to use it throughout his corpus.7 Although the term instrumental cause can also refer to animal and plant bodies, the present article will be solely concerned with human bodies and souls. To better understand what Thomas means when he says the body is the instrument of the soul, I will give some general background information on the Thomistic concepts of primary cause and instrumental cause. Although Thomas will often sometimes speak of primary and secondary causes rather than primary and instrumental causes, I will use the terms For an explanation how a hylomorphic understanding of the soul overcomes many of the problems of materialism and substance dualism see Madden, Mind, Matter, and Nature, 251–86 (ch. 8). 6 Aristotle’s text: “πάντα γὰρ τὰ φυσικὰ σώματα τῆς ψυχῆς ὄργανα, καθάπερ τὰ τῶν ζῴων, οὕτω καὶ τὰ τῶν φυτῶν, ὡς ἕνεκα τῆς ψυχῆς ὄντα·” Thomas’s Latin: “Videmus enim quod omnia naturalia corpora sunt quasi instrumenta animae, non solum in animalibus, sed etiam in plantis” (In II de anima, lec. 7, no. 322, trans. Kenelm Foster, O.P., and Sylvester Humphries, O.P. [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1951]; emphasis added; all English translation from De anima or In de anima is from this edition). 7 See also: In I de anima, lec. 2, no. 19; In II de anima, lec. 9, no. 348; Summa contra gentiles [SCG] IV, chs. 33, 41, and 73; Summa theologiae [ST] I, q. 78, a. 1. Translations of the SCG are by Vernon Bourke and Charles O’Neil (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), and translations from ST are by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1948). 5 1206 John Rziha “secondary cause” and “instrumental cause” synonymously.8 For Thomas primary and secondary causes are not competing causes but are causes on two different orders—where the primary cause moves the secondary cause to act.9 For example, Aquinas will speak of the craftsman moving and guiding the cutting tool (the instrumental cause) to make furniture (Summa theologiae [ST] III, q. 19. a. 1). In this example, the craftsman causes the action of cutting by moving the tool to cut. Both the craftsman and the tool are true and immediate causes of the cutting, but each in its own unique way.10 Aquinas speaks of secondary causality whenever something causes an action by participating in the power and guidance of a higher cause.11 Technically, instrumental causality is a type of secondary causality, but this distinction is not necessary for the present essay. 9 See: ST I, q. 105; SCG III, ch. 70. See also Michael Dodds, O.P., Unlocking Divine Action: Contemporary Science and Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 187–204, for more on primary and secondary causality in general. The distinction between primary and secondary causality is a different type of distinction from that between formal, material, efficient, and final cause. See Dodds, Unlocking Divine Action, 191–92, for a brief explanation. In relation to the formal, material, efficient, and final cause, there can be primary and secondary causality within each of these types of causality. For example, God is the first efficient cause of the actions of all created beings and created beings are the secondary efficient causes of their actions. Likewise, God is the first exemplary and final cause of the order and goodness in all things while subsisting beings are the secondary exemplary causes and secondary final causes of these things (in various different ways). 10 See SCG III, ch. 70, no. 5, where Thomas says that both God and the created being are immediate causes but each in its own unique way. 11 The concept of primary and secondary causality in Aquinas is rooted in the concept of participation—where the secondary cause shares in the perfections that the primary cause has by nature. By doing this, Thomas has enriched the Aristotelian understanding of instrumental causality with the neo-Platonic concept of participation. See for example, De potentia, q. 3, a. 7: “Because an instrument is in a manner the cause of the principal cause’s effect, not by its own form or power, but in so far as it participates somewhat in the power of the principal cause through being moved thereby [Instrumentum enim est causa quodammodo effectus principalis causae, non per formam vel virtutem propriam, sed in quantum participat aliquid de virtute principalis causae per motum eius]” (trans. Dominican Fathers of the English Province [Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1952; repr. of 1932]). For example, the perfection of wisdom in humans participates in the Wisdom of God (who is wise by nature). Hence, when a human acts wisely, he is a secondary cause of the wise act and God is the primary cause. For more on the metaphysical roots of primary and secondary causality see John Rziha, Perfecting Human Actions (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 57–62. See also ST I, q. 45, a. 5. 8 The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions 1207 In his writings, the most common instance of primary and secondary causality is that of God causing actions through secondary causes (created beings).12 Just as the craftsman moves and guides the saw to perform the action of cutting in accordance with the goal of the craftsman, God moves and guides the created being to perform actions in accord with his divine plan. Other examples of primary and secondary causality in the writings of Aquinas are the divine person (the Son) acting through the human nature of Christ (ST III, q. 19), God acting through the sacraments (instrumental causes of grace),13 and God supernaturally causing humans to perform divine actions by participation in his divine nature.14 Finally, Aquinas also speaks of the soul as the primary cause and the body as the secondary or instrumental cause.15 All of these instances, where Aquinas speaks of primary and secondary causality, have received treatment in contemporary North American scholarship with the exception of the relation between the body and the soul.16 This lack of treatment is understandable since Aquinas himself See, for example, SCG III, ch. 103, and De potentia, q. 7, a. 2. See ST III, q. 62, aa. 1–5. See also the closely related concept of God working through ordained ministers who are instrumental causes of salvation (SCG IV, chs. 74 and 77). 14 E.g., De potentia, q. 3, a. 1. Although this is similar to God working through created beings in general, I mentioned it in particular because it is a different type of participation in divine nature—by the power of grace rather than nature. The mature Aquinas also specifically notes that there can be no secondary cause in the act of creation since an instrumental cause is moved in accord with its own power and hence cannot perform the infinite act of creation (De potentia, q. 3, a. 4). 15 Closely related to this he will speak of various ways that any elements or parts of a compound substance are instruments of the subsisting thing (e.g., In I de anima, lec. 2, no. 19). 16 For example, regarding God as first cause and humans as secondary causes, see Brian Shanley, O.P., “Divine Causation and Human Freedom in Aquinas,” American Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1998): 98–122, and Dodds, Unlocking Divine Action. Regarding the sacraments as instrumental causes, see Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., “The Instrumental Causality of the Sacraments: Thomas Aquinas and Louis-Marie Chauvet” in Nova et Vetera (English) 4, no. 2 (2006): 255–94, and Reginald Lynch, O.P., The Cleansing of the Heart: The Sacraments as Instrumental Causes in the Thomistic Tradition (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2017). Regarding the human nature of Christ as an instrumental cause of salvation, see Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Christ and Spirituality in St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 92–96, and Thomas Joseph White, O.P., The Incarnate Lord: A Thomistic Study in Christology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2016). J. P. Moreland, in his presentation of a Thomistic substance dualism, does refer to the body as the instrumental cause and the soul as the 12 13 1208 John Rziha does not develop this topic extensively; rather, he assumes the reader already understands how the body is an instrumental cause of actions and hence uses this notion as an analogy to help explain other more complex cases of primary and secondary causality such as the human nature as an instrument of the divine nature of Christ. For example, in Summa contra gentiles [SCG] IV, ch. 41, Thomas considers a couple analogies for the relation between the human and divine natures in Christ. He notes that the analogy of the soul as form and body as matter will not work, since when applied to Christ, it would mean there is only one nature in Christ (which is false). However, the body is also the instrument of the soul, and this analogy can be applied to the relation between the human and divine nature, provided that one properly understands that the human body is a conjoined instrument (and not separate).17 In this passage Thomas assumes that the reader is well acquainted with the idea that the soul moves the body as an instrumental cause, and he does not need to spend time applying his rich understanding of primary and secondary causality to this particular topic. However, today, there are vast disagreements on the relation of the soul and body, and this application could be helpful in overcoming some of these disagreements. The present essay is only meant to give some of the basic ideas in hopes of encouraging someone to write a much more detailed analysis of the topic. Having given some background information, I will analyze Thomas’s understanding of primary and secondary causality in a more detailed manner and apply this analysis to the relation between the body and the primary cause, but his analysis is severed from the deeper Thomistic understanding of the philosophy of nature and metaphysics, causing Moreland to come to a very different understanding of the relation between the body and soul (see Moreland, “Substance Dualism and the Body: Heredity, DNA, and the Soul,” ch. 6 in Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics [Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2000]). For a very brief but proper treatment of Thomas’s understanding of this issue, see Joseph Bobik, Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 137–51. 17 A particularly interesting example can be found in the ST where Thomas uses the relation between the soul and the body as an analogy to help explain God’s causation of sinful acts without actually being the cause of sin. Thomas gives the example of a person with a limp. Although the soul causes the movement of walking with a limp, the soul does not actually cause the limp, which is caused by the defect in the body. So also, God causes humans to perform sinful actions, but does not actually cause the sin, which is caused by the defect in the secondary cause (ST I, q. 49, a. 2, ad 2; I-II, q. 79, a. 1). The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions 1209 soul.18 The first point is that both the primary cause and the secondary cause act in accord with their form. Thomas notes that things act in accord with their forms, both their substantial forms and their accidental forms.19 Their substantial form determines their nature; hence, all things act in accord with their nature. For example, dogs perform dog actions, and humans perform human actions. Regarding instrumental causality, a human can use a dog as an instrument, such as when the Benedictine monks of St. Bernard Abbey used St. Bernard dogs to find travelers stuck in deep snow. These dogs were a suitable instrument for this work since by their nature they had a keen sense of smell, a friendly disposition, and the ability to dig for buried travelers. Because the secondary cause is moved in accord with its form, other animals such as cats or hamsters would not have been able to perform the actions willed by the monks. In addition to substantial forms, beings also have accidental forms. “Accidental forms” refers to all the dispositions and perfections that a being has in addition to its nature. For example, some humans have the accidental form of wisdom. Hence, as first causes, they can wisely move instruments to perform actions, or as secondary causes they can be moved by God to act wisely. In speaking of the necessity of the sacrament of holy orders, Thomas gives the example of the ordained minister as an instrumental cause of our salvation. He notes that instruments must be proportionate to the agent and hence, ministers must be in conformity with Christ, the agent. He concludes that ministers must participate somehow in Christ’s divinity through some spiritual power (SCG IV, ch. 74). In other words, the minister must be given an accidental form through sacramental grace which transforms him to be proportionate to the actions Christ moves him to perform. Not only do both causes act in accord with their form, but the secondary cause is also moved in accord with the form of the first cause.20 For example, if a human is the piano player and the piano is the instrumental cause, the piano is moved to make music in accord with the abilities of the piano player. A good piano player can move the piano to make good music Thomas’s understanding of instrumental causality matured throughout his lifetime, so I will not refer to anything written before De veritate. 19 See ST I, q. 76, a. 4, where Thomas notes that there is only one substantial form in man but there are many other accidental forms including the sensitive and nutritive souls that are contained virtually. 20 In SCG III, ch. 103, Thomas states: “There proceeds from an instrument not merely an effect corresponding to the power of the instrument, but also an effect beyond its power, insofar as it acts through the power of the principal agent [Ex instrumento autem procedit non solum suae virtuti correspondens effectus, sed etiam ultra propriam virtutem, inquantum agit in virtute principalis agentis].” 18 1210 John Rziha and a bad piano player moves the piano to make bad music. (But in both cases the piano makes piano music since the piano is also moved in accord with its form.) Thomas uses the analogy of the craftsman and the cutting tool to explain this truth: Wherever there are several mutually ordained agents, the inferior is moved by the superior, . . . since what is moved by another has a twofold action, one which it has by its own form, the other, which it has inasmuch as it is moved by another; thus the operation of an axe according to its own form is to cut, but inasmuch as it is moved by the craftsman, its operation is to make benches. Hence the operation which belongs to a thing by its form is proper to it, nor does it belong to the mover, except in so far as he makes use of this kind of thing for his work: thus heating is the proper operation of fire, but not of a smith, except in so far as he makes use of fire for heating iron. But the operation which belongs to the thing, merely as moved by another, is not distinct from the operation of the mover; thus to make a bench is not the work of the axe independently of the work of workman. Hence, wherever the mover and the moved have different forms or operative powers, the proper operation of the mover and the proper operation of the moved must be distinct; although the moved participates in the operation of the mover and the mover uses the operation of the moved, and consequently, each acts in communion with the other.21 Thomas is careful to show how on the one hand both the agent and the instrument have their own proper effect for each acts in accord with ST III, q. 19, a. 1: “Ubicumque sunt plura agentia ordinata, inferius movetur a superiori. . . . Quia actio eius quod movetur ab altero, est duplex, una quidem quam habet secundum propriam formam; alia autem quam habet secundum quod movetur ab alio. Sicut securis operatio secundum propriam formam est incisio, secundum autem quod movetur ab artifice, operatio eius est facere scamnum. Operatio igitur quae est alicuius rei secundum suam formam, est propria eius; nec pertinet ad moventem, nisi secundum quod utitur huiusmodi re ad suam operationem, sicut calefacere est propria operatio ignis; non autem fabri, nisi quatenus utitur igne ad calefaciendum ferrum. Sed illa operatio quae est rei solum secundum quod movetur ab alio, non est alia praeter operationem moventis ipsum, sicut facere scamnum non est seorsum operatio securis ab operatione artificis. Et ideo, ubicumque movens et motum habent diversas formas seu virtutes operatives, ibi oportet quod sit alia propria operatio moventis, et alia propria operatio moti, licet motum participet operationem moventis, et movens utatur operatione moti, et sic utrumque agit cum communione alterius.” Cf. ST III, q. 62, a. 1, ad 2. 21 The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions 1211 its form. The craftsman does actions in accord with his level of skill and strength (both his substantial and accidental forms, e.g., the habit of the art of carpentry). Likewise, the axe is moved as an axe (not a hammer or a cell phone) to do the proper action of an axe—to cut (cf. ST III, q. 62, a. 1). Yet, on the other hand, to the extent the instrument is moved by the agent, the operation of the instrument is not distinct from that of the agent. The axe is moved to perform rational actions (the ordered movements required to make benches), not because it is rational, but because the craftsman is a rational being. The axe is moved by the power of the agent, in accord with the plan in his mind, and for the sake of the end of the agent. For, “the bench is not like the ax, but is like the art which is in the craftsman’s mind.”22 In relation to the body and soul, both the body and the soul act in accord with their form.23 (Here I am not referring to the substantial form of the body, which is the soul, but to the accidental form of the body as ordered matter.)24 The rational soul moves the body in accord with its plan (ratio) and its end (for example it might move the body to run in accord with the plan of exercise and the end of health). The body is moved in accord with its particular form; for example, some people can run more easily than others because of their bodily disposition. Since the body is moved in accord with its form, and is a “full” cause of the action, a study of it will give an explanation of the action.25 In other words, I could explain ST III, q. 62, a. 1: “Unde effectus non assimilatur instrumento, sed principali agenti, sicut lectus non assimilatur securi, sed arti quae est in mente artificis.” 23 See SCG IV, ch. 73: “Now, the body is the instrument of the soul, and an instrument is for the use of the principal agent: therefore, the disposition of the instrument necessarily must be such as becomes the principal agent. Hence, the body is disposed in harmony with the soul [Quia vero corpus est animae instrumentum; instrumentum autem est ad usum principalis agentis: necesse est quod talis sit dispositio instrumenti ut competat principali agenti; unde et corpus disponitur secundum quod congruit animae].” 24 By saying that the instrumental cause is moved in accord with its form, there is a danger of confusion since the soul is the substantial form of the body. I am not really sure what term I could have used that would be less confusing, so I continued to use the word “form” here because Thomas uses it in general to show how secondary causes are moved in accord with their dispositions (see ST III, q. 19, a. 1). The dispositions include both a secondary cause’s substantial form and its accidental forms (the word “substantial form” is used analogously in the case of an artifact). For example, a cutting tool is not only moved as a cutting tool, but also as a sharp or dull cutting tool. So also, the body is not only moved in accord with the matter, but in accord with the disposition of the body as a healthy or strong human body. 25 More on how both the instrument and primary cause are full causes will be explained below. 22 1212 John Rziha running as the complex action of the brain sending nerve impulses to the leg muscles causing them to contract in a rhythmic manner. Or from the perspective of the soul, I could explain running as an act ordered to health (which is also true of the body since the act of the instrument is not distinct from that of the agent).26 Let us go back to the example of the piano player and piano. Since the piano is moved in accord with its form and it is moved to make music in accord with the form of music in the mind of the player, the act of making music can be described in two different ways (although both descriptions are incomplete without the other). First, the music could be described solely from the perspective of the instrumental cause: the music is caused by hammers striking wires of various lengths causing different vibrations in the air. Or from the perspective of the first cause: the music is caused by the piano player striking certain keys in an ordered manner in accord with the form in his mind (resulting in music, not noise). Since both causes “fully” cause the music, from one perspective both explanations explain why the music comes out of the piano. If someone looked solely at the piano, a nearly complete explanation of the cause of the music could be given. However, the explanation would fail to fully explain why the particular notes were played. When this understanding is applied to the relation between the soul and body, we see that a modern neuroscientist could look at the body and give a “complete” explanation of the acts of thinking, loving, bodily movement, and so on. After all, the body is moved in accord with its form. Since the human body is much more complex than a piano, a much more comprehensive explanation of human actions could be given. With a Thomistic understanding of the relation between the body and soul, this should be expected. However, what would be left out of this explanation would be a deeper level explanation of why the body moved in this way. In other words, one might say that a particular brain activity is the material cause of a thought, but this does not explain why the brain acts in this way. Although many further surface-level explanations could be given that explain these human actions—genetic makeup, response to environment, and so forth—all of these explanations fail to give a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon of free choice when it is understood as a rational activity.27 With Thomas’s understanding of primary and secondary For a non-Scholastic explanation of how a study of the body gives an account of actions but does not rule out non-material causes, see E. J. Lowe, Personal Agency: The Metaphysics of Mind and Action (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 27 There is a great deal of debate on this topic within the realm of philosophy of mind and it is beyond the scope of this essay to enter further into the debate. However, to 26 The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions 1213 causality, it is quite appropriate and important to study secondary causes to understand the nature of the effect. However, this knowledge is always incomplete without some understanding of the primary cause, since the instrument is moved in accord with the form of the primary cause.28 A second point derived from Thomas’s understanding of instrumental causality is that because the primary and instrumental cause are in different orders, they are not each partially causing the action, but each fully causes the action in its own way. To a certain extent, the idea of each cause as fully causing the action was seen in the last section, but in this section I want to emphasize that the primary and instrumental causes are not competing causes. In the context of speaking of God moving creatures to act, Thomas explains: support this point, I want to point to a book written by a philosopher and a psychologist in response to the common view that, if people are materialists, they cannot believe in free rational actions. In Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Murphy and Brown are “physicalists” (they do not like the term “materialists,” for, although they do not believe that there is a soul, they do believe in God and other immaterial things) who believe that “our neurobiological equipment makes rationality, responsibility, and free will possible” (4). They admit that most popular developments in neuroscience and philosophy are written by physicalists who are also reductionists—those that reduce all perceptions of free will, rationality, and moral responsibility to the laws of neurobiology. They further note that these reductionists then discredit the idea that humans have these characteristics because they can be explained by neurobiological explanations. The book seeks to show how one can be a physicalist but not reduce all of these experiential perceptions to the laws of neurobiology. Their solution is to propose “a concept of downward or top-down causation, which, in turn, needs to be understood in the context of dynamic systems” (8). I use this as an example to show how for many philosophers of mind a solely neurobiological explanation is very unsatisfactory (even if they come up with a solution). As noted, it is beyond the scope of the present article to argue against this book, but at the end of the day I think Murphy and Brown are simply replacing a “simpler,” more imminent biological determinism with a more complex, universal biological determinism. For a critique of materialism in general see Madden, Mind, Matter, and Nature, 132–216 (chs. 5 and 6). 28 This is true in all cases of primary and secondary causality. For example, in studying the biological notion of evolution, it is the role of the natural sciences to study secondary causes, and hence the role of biology to determine whether or not evolution is true. However, it is the role of philosophy and theology to study the primary cause (God), and hence a purely biological understanding of evolution can never answer the deeper questions of existence. By showing the relation between the soul as primary cause and the body as secondary cause, Thomas gives an answer to the physical causal closure argument for physicalism made Jaegwon Kim. Kim argues that a physical effect can only be caused by a physical cause, and since neuroscience provides a complete physical explanation, non-physical causes are redundant; see Kim, Physicalism or Something Near Enough (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 1214 John Rziha It is apparent that the same effect is not attributed to a natural cause and to a divine power in such a way that it is partly done by God and partly by the natural agent: rather, it is wholly done by both, according to a different way, just as the same effect is wholly attributed to the instrument and also wholly to the principal agent.29 When Thomas says that each cause wholly performs the action, he does not mean that the instrument can perform the action by its own power, for inasmuch as it is an instrument it cannot act unless moved by the principle agent. However, as an instrumental cause, it completely causes the action, albeit by participating in the power of the first cause. Again the example of the piano player and the piano is helpful. It would be incorrect to say that the piano and player were competing causes such that, to the extent the piano causes the music, the causality of the player is reduced, or vice versa. Rather, although a better piano is capable of producing better music (for it is moved in accord with its form), this greater ability does not diminish the ability of the player to make great music, but enhances this ability. The primary cause and instrumental causes are not competing causes such that the causality of one diminishes the causality of the other; rather they are both fully causes of the action in such a way that the perfection on the part of one enhances the causal ability of the other.30 When this concept is applied to the body and soul, we see that a more healthy body does not diminish the causal action of the soul, but allows the soul to perform its proper actions more perfectly. If the body and soul are seen as competing causes, such that any causality on the part of the body reduces the causality on the part of the soul, then the discoveries of modern neuroscience will lead to a rejection of the idea of the soul. The line of reasoning goes as follows: Acts are caused by either the body or the soul. Science has discovered that acts are caused by the body. Hence, acts are not caused by the soul. If acts are not caused by a soul, then there is no reason to believe a soul exists. In actuality, this argument has probably not caused many people to stop believing in a soul, but if someone already assumes that souls do not exist, an argument SCG III, ch. 70: “Patet etiam quod non sic idem effectus causae naturali et divinae virtuti attribuitur quasi partim a Deo, et partim a naturali agente fiat, sed totus ab utroque secundum alium modum: sicut idem effectus totus attribuitur instrumento, et principali agenti etiam totus.” 30 An understanding of this concept is essential in understanding how God causes humans to act freely. In fact, a misunderstanding of this concept is one of the greatest causes of the failures of modern ethics as influential thinkers such as William Ockham, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the enlightenment thinkers misunderstood this concept. However, explaining this is beyond the scope of this essay. 29 The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions 1215 like this can allow them to keep from taking arguments for a soul seriously. A proper understanding of instrumental causality averts arguments based on competing causality. A third point derived from Thomas’s understanding of instrumental causality is that because both causes act in accord with their form, a defect in either the primary or secondary cause results in a defective action. For example, a bad craftsman will make bad benches. But a good craftsman with a bad axe will also make bad benches. Thomas notes: “For unless an instrument is well-disposed, no matter how perfect the principle agent may be, a perfect action of the agent does not come about through the instrument.”31 In his commentary on De anima, Thomas specifically applies this to the soul and body. He notes that the lack of ability to think is not caused by a defect in the soul, but in the body: If the soul itself decayed, it would decay especially in old age; that is when the organs of sense grow feeble. Yet, in fact the soul itself is unaffected by old age; if an old man could be given a young man’s eye he would see just as well as a young man. The decline of old age, then, is not due to a decline in the soul or in the faculties of sense, but to the body; just as in sickness or drunkenness it is the body, not the soul, that is enfeebled. Hence “understanding” (simple apprehension) and “thinking” (the intellectual activity of combining and distinguishing ideas), grow weak, not through a weakness in the intellect, but through “the decay of something else within” (the intellect’s organ or instrument). Understanding “in itself cannot be affected.”32 Thomas, following Aristotle, notes that the weakening of the intellect with age is not because of a weakening of the soul, but because of the weakening ST I-II, q. 58, a. 3, ad 2: “Sicut non sequitur perfecta actio alicuius agentis per instrumentum, si instrumentum non sit bene dispositum, quantumcumque principale agens sit perfectum.” Cf. ST I-II, q. 58, a. 3, ad 2; q. 65, a. 3, ad 1. 32 In I de anima, lec. 10, no. 164: “Si enim corrumperetur anima, maxime corrumperetur a debilitate quae est in senectute, sicut accidit in organis sensitivis, quae debilitantur ex senectute: tamen anima non debilitatur ex hoc; quia si senex accipiat oculum iuvenis, videbit ut iuvenis. Quare senectus debilitat, non quidem quod ipsa anima patiatur seu virtus sensitiva, sed id in quo est. Sicut in aegritudinibus et in ebrietatibus non debilitatur anima, sed corpus. Sic ergo intelligere, idest simplex apprehensio et considerare, idest operatio intellectus quae est in componendo et dividendo, marcescunt, non quidem quod intellectus corrumpatur et patiatur, sed corrupto quodam alio interius, idest corrupto aliquo, quod est organum intellectus. Ipsum autem intelligere est impassibile.” 31 1216 John Rziha of its instrument, the body. Hence, differences in the ability to think can be attributed to either the soul or the body. The defect could be in the soul since some have not acquired the virtues necessary to think well. However, others, because of differences in the brain, or even injury or disease, vary in ability to think—not because of a defect in the soul, but a defect in the body. This applies to moral actions as well—evil can come from someone with an “evil” soul or from someone with a physiological defect keeping her from performing her proper actions. Someone who knows Thomas’s writings might object to this example since Thomas (and Aristotle) will also argue that in the act of understanding, the intellect does not use the body as an instrumental cause.33 However, Thomas also believed that although the act of understanding is an immaterial act of combining or separating intellectual forms (concepts), in order for a human to actually combine or separate these forms, the forms must be represented by sense images (phantasms: usually words, but also pictures).34 In other words, humans think in words that represent concepts. These words are sense images that are located in the brain which is used as an instrument of the intellect. Hence, although for Thomas the act of understanding in itself exceeds the capacity of the body, in humans on earth, every act of understanding requires the use of the body since intellectual forms are represented by sense images (words).35 Thus, Thomas and Aristotle can See for example Thomas’s commentary on De anima 3.4, where Aristotle will note that the body is not the instrumental cause of understanding since the acts of the intellect are not performed through a bodily organ. For Thomas’s commentary on this passage see §§ 684–99 of In III de anima. See also the disputed questions on De anima 10 where Thomas argues that the acts of understanding and willing are not done through a bodily organ since they exceed the capacity of the body. See also SCG IV, ch. 41. 34 See ST I, q. 84, a. 7: “In the present state of life in which the soul is united to the passible body, it is impossible for our intellect to understand anything actually, except by turning to the phantasms. . . . Wherefore it is clear that for the intellect to understand actually, not only when it acquires fresh knowledge, but also when it applies knowledge already acquired, there is need for the act of the imagination and of the other powers [Quod impossibile est intellectum nostrum, secundum praesentis vitae statum, quo passibili corpori coniungitur, aliquid intelligere in actu, nisi convertendo se ad phantasmata. . . . Unde manifestum est quod ad hoc quod intellectus actu intelligat, non solum accipiendo scientiam de novo, sed etiam utendo scientia iam acquisita, requiritur actus imaginationis et ceterarum virtutum].” 35 This is true even in reference to immaterial things of which there are no phantasms. Thomas states that in this present state of life when we know immaterial things such as God we only know them “by way of remotion or by some comparison to corporeal things. And, therefore, when we understand something about these 33 The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions 1217 at the same time observe that human intellectual powers diminish with age and still argue that the act of understanding exceeds the capacity of the intellect. This corresponds nicely with the findings of modern neuroscience which can detect electronic changes in the brain corresponding to human thoughts. Consequently, the soul works through the body in understanding and if there are physiological defects in the body, the ability of the soul to understand will be diminished.36 A fourth point that can be drawn from Thomas’s understanding of instrumental causality stems from the distinction he makes between a conjoined and a separated instrument. In the context of using the relation between the body and soul as an analogy for the relation between the human nature and divine person in Christ, Thomas states: “Now, the body and its parts are the organ of the soul in one fashion; external instruments in quite another. For this axe is not the soul’s very own instrument, as this hand is, for by an axe many can operate, but this hand is deputy to this soul in its very own operation.”37 Thomas goes on to distinguish between the way that all humans are instruments of the divine Son and the way the human nature of Christ is an instrument of the divine Son. All humans are separated instruments of the Son, but the human nature of Christ is conjoined to the Son as the body is conjoined to the soul.38 However, the way that the body is conjoined to the soul is different from the way that the human nature of Christ is conjoined to the divine Son. Unlike in Christ where there are two natures, in humans the soul is the substantial form of the body and the principle by which the body lives and acts (ST I, q. 76. a. 1). If this substantial unity is not maintained, then there is the danger of falling into substance dualism. Thomas explicitly rejects this view that the soul is not united to the body as its form and things, we need to turn to phantasms of bodies, although there are no phantasms of the things themselves” [. . . per remotionem, vel aliquam comparationem ad corporalia. Et ideo cum de huiusmodi aliquid intelligimus, necesse habemus converti ad phantasmata corporum, licet ipsorum non sint phantasmata]” (ST I, q. 84, a. 7, ad 3). 36 The same is true for acts of willing that also require the body due to the role of sense knowledge in the practical intellect and the sense appetites in the act of willing. 37 SCG IV, ch. 41: “Aliter enim est animae organum corpus et eius partes, et aliter exteriora instrumenta. Haec enim dolabra non est proprium instrumentum, sicut haec manus: per dolabram enim multi possunt operari, sed haec manus ad propriam operationem huius animae deputatur.” Cf. In II de anima, lec. 9, no. 348, and ST III, q. 62, a. 5. 38 Thomas goes on to state that the unity between the human nature and the divine Son is greater than the unity between the body and soul. 1218 John Rziha has a different substantial form (where the soul acts like the captain of a ship).39 In other words, the statement that the body is an instrumental cause of the soul can easily be misinterpreted, since an instrument can also be a separated instrument (or even a conjoined instrument of a different nature).40 However, for Thomas, an instrumental cause can be a fundamental part of something.41 The discussion of the body as an instrumental cause must always be kept within the context of the soul as the form of the body in order to properly understand the relation between the body and soul. In summary, Thomas has a rich understanding of instrumental causality and he uses it in many different settings. Hence, a proper understanding of this concept can help the reader better understand many aspects of Thomas’s thought. In the context of this paper, an understanding of instrumental causality can help modern readers understand the relation between the body and soul and how the discoveries of modern neuroscience relate to this knowledge. The body and soul each act in accord with their form and the body is moved both in accord with its form and the form of the soul. Hence, the body will do bodily actions that can be measured and explained by neuroscience, but the ultimate cause and reason for these actions is the soul (which is more properly explained by insights from philosophy and theology). Furthermore, the body and soul are not competing causes; rather the perfection of one increases the causal ability of the other. Hence, psychological health is a very important aspect of free human actions. Also, just because the actions are caused by the body does not mean there is not a soul—but it might mean that one needs a more complex understanding of the relation between the body and the soul (since the body is moved in accord with the forms in the soul). Finally, the body is a conjoined instrument that is informed by the soul. Because modern neuroscience studies the secondary cause, as long as its findings are true, it should never be considered as an opponent to philosophy or theology. Rather, since the soul works through the body, its findings help us better understand things like free human actions, human culpabil ST I, q. 76, a. 4. In q. 76, a. 1. Thomas also rejects the idea that the body is an instrument of the soul in the Platonist sense. 40 Moreland makes this error by speaking of the body as an instrumental cause, but not understanding the way it is conjoined to the soul; see “Substance Dualism and the Body.” 41 Bobik makes the point that all the bodily components (as in the elements the body is composed of ) are instrumental causes of actions (Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements, 141–43). 39 The Human Body as an Instrumental Cause of Actions 1219 ity in actions, bioethical decisions, the role of art, how to teach better, and so on. Nonetheless, like all sciences, it has its limitations, and ultimately the soul is the primary cause of human actions. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1221–1241 1221 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millennium: The Anthropological Stakes Bernard N. Schumacher University of Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland Translated by Michael J. Miller “But, happiest beyond all comparison are those excellent Struldbruggs, who born exempt from that universal Calamity of human nature, have their Minds free and disengaged, without the weight and depression of Spirits caused by the continual Apprehension of Death.”1 Gulliver’s exclamation upon discovering the existence of the immortal Struldbruggs is only one of the countless examples of mankind’s dream to free itself from its destiny ever since it was banished from the Garden of Eden. Ever since then, man has lived alongside death, which has ceaselessly prowled around its future prey. Strongly attracted by immortality, on the one hand, and on the other hand feeling repugnance and anguish toward death, the human being has developed a multitude of ways to domesticate it, to make it less frightening, less horrible in its appearance. Some think of it as the reaper who gathers the good grain and takes the harvest to paradise or makes room for the new generation. Others see it as an angel that will accompany them to an afterlife or as a liberator from the evils of this Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2002), 176. Gulliver discovered, however, that although immortal, the Struldbruggs were in fact miserable, for they were subject to all disabilities, miseries, and human weaknesses. 1 1222 Bernard N. Schumacher one. Still others take it to be God’s servant who bestows the laurel crown on the hero, gives the palm to the martyr, the halo to the saint, rest to the weary, and renders justice to the oppressed. Worried that it might surprise them and wishing to escape the violence of its coming, the philosopher of antiquity and then the early Christian monk counseled us to meditate continuously on death—hence the presence of the skull on their table, or in their oratory. In both cases, man thought that he would receive the wages for his acts in an afterlife. As for Epicurus, because he rejects the idea of an afterlife, he also refuses to reflect on death, so as to live his life without always being disturbed by something he can do nothing about. So it is that two diametrically opposed philosophical attitudes have emerged: to be wise by reflecting on death, by living in its presence, or else to be wise by refusing outright to think about death. Still another possibility is the position of Martin Heidegger, with his thesis of Being-toward-death, which disputes immortality a priori, just like the Epicureans and the Stoics. Nevertheless, far from refusing to think about death, he proposes looking it in the eye. Aware that he cannot escape it, he invites it to sit down at the table so as to live in its presence in an attitude of authenticity. These attitudes toward death, however different they may be, all testify to a humble recognition of the helplessness that we experience in confronting the thing that deprives us so brutally of life. Coming to light these days, however, is a new response to what the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre calls “the permanent alienation of my being-possibility which is no longer my possibility.”2 It is no longer a matter of submitting to death, but of attacking it head-on. This is what the supporters of transhumanism propose. In radical opposition to Heideggerian Being-toward-death, as well as to the laisser-faire attitude of the Epicureans and Stoics, they claim that death is only an accident in the living being’s process, in short, that it is only an organic defect. One can be cured of death and reach, as it were, the dreamed-of goal of immortality. Certainly, we are not talking about immortality in the strict sense of the word, but rather about a sort of a-mortality in which the only death that occurs is accidental, for reasons that are external to the living being. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (London: Routledge, 2000), 547. [originally L’Être et le Néant: Essai d’ontologie phénoménologique (Paris: Gallimard, 1943), 631–32: “l’aliénation permanente de mon être-possible qui n’est plus ma possibilité”]. Unless otherwise noted, all English translation is my own. 2 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1223 My purpose here is not to elaborate the arguments of the philosophers who, following Bernard Williams and Hans Jonas,3 are currently debating whether immanent (this-worldly) immortal life is desirable. Nor do I wish to present the transhumanists’ methods of escaping death, such as human–machine hybrids, “digital” or virtual immortality, and so on, or to examine whether or not they are realistic. However I will not conceal the fact that I strongly doubt it, given the similarity of their proposal to that one that the German neo-Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch developed in The Principle of Hope, which will be described briefly later on—a utopian view that did not withstand the catastrophes of the past century. Instead I wish to examine their discourse within the context of man’s attitude toward his own death. I will ask whether their attitude, which manifests a radical refusal of anything that eludes knowledge and will, does not ultimately amount to a reduction of freedom itself. The transhumanist attitude, certainly, distances itself in part from contemporary proposals of the Epicurean and Heideggerian sort in matters concerned with death. Although Epicurus and Heidegger have their respective representations of death—extrinsic for the Greek, intrinsic for the German—they approve of a certain humility in accepting natural limits, the fact of being a mortal subject. Both consider the desire for immortality as “vain” and “irrational,” and so they concentrate instead on how to live well in the present. The transhumanists, in contrast, do not want to acknowledge these limits and assert that man, by his own power, is capable of liberating himself from what he considered until now to be his unfortunate destiny: the wages of The question arose in opposition to the Epicurean thesis which claims that death is nothing to us and should therefore not be considered as an evil. Adopting the perspective that views death as an evil depending on the circumstances, the philosophers then wondered whether a human life that was without death, “immortal,” would be desirable. The great majority of the arguments correspond to a utilitarian, consequentialist ethic that attempts to weigh and compare incommensurate factors, the principles of which can be found also in the debate over whether it is desirable to prolong life, which is associated with the notion of “quality of life.” See: Bernard Williams, “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,” in Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973 [repr. 1995]), 82–100; Hans Jonas, “The Burden and Blessing of Mortality,” in Mortality and Morality. A Search for the Good after Auschwitz, ed. Lawrence Vogel with introduction (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 87–98 [first presented to the Royal Palace Foundation in Amsterdam on March 19, 1991, and then published in English in The Hastings Report 22, no. 1 (1992): 34–40, and in German as “Last und Sterblichkeit,” in Jonas, Philosophische Untersuchungen und metaphysische Vermutungen (Frankfurt am main: Suhrkamp, 1994), 81–100]. 3 1224 Bernard N. Schumacher his sin or quite simply the consequence of nature. The transhumanists too are characterized by a will to control and a refusal to “let go.” Such “letting go” would imply some openness to a new dimension, distinct from domination, the dimension of the gift. In the first part of this article I will discuss the thesis of the rejection of the desire for transcendent (other-worldly) immortality because, as they say, it would be a refusal to live this mortal life, as well as the proposals of contemporary philosophers of death who aim to live happily while accepting man’s radical finitude. I will present the position of Epicurus, who is experiencing a very strong resurgence of interest in the context of contemporary philosophy, as well as the thesis of the Heideggerian inversion of Being-toward-death, which imbues contemporary thanatology to such an extent that some have considered it irreversible. Then, after presenting the desire for immortality through technology, I will argue that the above-mentioned rejections of transcendent immortality presuppose a reduction of reality to what will and reason are able to control. These refusals are based on a concept of individual autonomy that does not allow for the possibility of receiving immortality as a gift while remaining profoundly free. To conclude, I will maintain that at work at the heart of the desire for immortality is an anthropological insight implying the dimension of otherness and availability, a dimension that eludes control and, by that very fact, can receive immortality gratuitously as a gift. The Anguish of the Desire for Transcendent Immortality Belief in a transcendent immortality has been decried as profoundly inhumane, since it keeps a human being from getting involved in life to make the world more just. “I conjure you, my brethren, remain faithful to earth and do not believe those who speak unto you of superterrestrial hopes! Poisoners they are whether they know it or not. Despisers of life they are, decaying and themselves poisoned, of whom earth is weary: begone with them!”4 Anyone who entertains such a desire for immortality in a transhistorical next world is fleeing life, Friedrich Nietzsche exclaims. He is a coward, the German philosopher Günther Anders explains, for he adopts Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, vol. 8 in The Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. Alexander Tille (New York: Macmillan, 1896), 5–6 [originally Also sprach Zarathustra, vol. 4 in Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, 15 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1999), 15: “Ich beschwöre euch, meine Brüder, bleibt der Erde treu und glaubt denen nicht, welche euch von überirdischen Hoffnungen reden! Giftmischer sind es, ob sie es wissen oder nicht. Verächter des Lebens sind es, Absterbende und selber Vergiftete, deren die Erde müde ist: so mögen sie dahinfahren.”]. 4 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1225 a dying, backward-looking attitude. “I think that hope is just another word for cowardice. . . . No, we should not raise hopes, we should prevent hope. For because of hope no one will act. Everyone who hopes leaves improvement up to some other authority.”5 Referring to a superterrestrial hope is tantamount to rejecting action and involvement in this life. He goes on to write: “But in a situation in which only one’s own action matters, ‘hope’ is just a word for the renunciation of autonomous action.”6 The French philosopher Albert Camus denounces such a desire for immortality and its hope in a life after this earthly life as a posture of “resignation”7 that is radically opposed to life. He sees Nietzsche’s bid and raises it: “For if there is a sin against life, it lies perhaps less in despairing of it than in hoping for another life and evading the implacable grandeur of the one we have.”8 Moreover, according to the French philosopher Françoise Dastur, the next world is a “deceptive” “illusion,”9 and so if a human being invents for himself a superterrestrial immortal soul, it is because he cannot manage “to accept the finitude of its earthly condition.”10 This rejection of the desire for transcendent immortality, which deeply imbues contemporary thanatology, leads philosophers to transform their meditation on death into a meditation on life, in the framework of what Emmanuel Levinas describes as a “finitude without infinity.”11 Two aspects Günther Anders, Günther Anders antwortet: Interviews und Erklärungen (Berlin: Tiamat, 1987), 151–52: “Ich glaube, Hoffnung ist nur ein anderes Wort für Feigheit. . . . Nein, Hoffnung hat man nicht zu machen, Hoffnung hat man zu verhindern. Denn durch Hoffnung wird niemand agieren. Jeder Hoffende überläßt das Besserwerden einer anderen Instanz.” 6 Anders, Interviews, 152: “Aber in einer Situation, in der nur das Selbsthandeln gilt, ist ‘Hoffnung’ nur das Wort für den Verzicht auf eigene Aktion.” 7 Albert Camus, “Nuptials,” in Lyrical and Critical Essays, ed. Philip Thody, trans. Ellen Conroy Kennedy (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), 63–106, at 92 [originally “Noces,” in Essais (Paris: Gallimard, Pléiade, 1965 [repr. 1990]), 51–88, at 76: “résignation”]. 8 Camus, “Nuptials,” 91 [original: “S’il y a un péché contre la vie, ce n’est peut-être pas tant d’en désespérer que d’espérer une autre vie, et se dérober à l’implacable grandeur de celle-ci”]. 9 Françoise Dastur, How Are We to Confront Death?, trans. Robert Vallier (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), 42 [originally Comment affronter la mort? (Paris: Bayard, 2005), 83: “leurre . . . trompeur”]. See Werner Fuchs, Todesbilder in der modernen Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1969), 50–51. 10 Dastur, How Are We to Confront Death? 11 [Comment affronter la mort? 25: “à accepter la finitude de sa condition terrestre”]. 11 Emmanuel Levinas, God, Death, and Time, trans. Bettina Bergo (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 36 [originally Dieu, la mort et le temps (Paris: Grasset, 1993], 45: “finitude sans infini”]. 5 1226 Bernard N. Schumacher of this rejection are prevalent once again at the beginning of this new millennium: one illustrated by Epicurus, the other by Heidegger. The Foolishness of Someone Who Desires Transcendent Immortality The famous Epicurean thesis that “death is nothing for us”12 results from the presupposition that death is inscribed in iron-clad natural laws; Lucretius explains that “each thing proceeds after its own fashion.”13 The key to happiness lies in the knowledge of these limits and in deep respect for them, in other words, in the refusal to transcend them. The wise man takes as his watchword the resolution not to want to go beyond these limits and to be content with what can be controlled, in the present. Recall the distinction made by Epictetus in his Handbook: the wise man worries only about things that depend on him. As for those that do not depend on him, namely those things that by nature are not under his control, he accepts them without being upset by them. So it is with death, which is beyond the power of our will, and therefore no one should try to transcend it, on pain of presumption and useless suffering. Similarly, Epicurus proposes reducing to a minimum the desires that one cannot fulfill, so as not to suffer at all. A human being becomes wise by renouncing both an afterlife and the desire for it. He limits himself to desires whose objects he can obtain by his own power. “Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency”; thus the wise man is self-sufficient,14 he does not depend on anyone or anything else in order to actualize his desires. An existence that is autarchic to this extent is the very life of the gods, who are self-sufficient. Epicurus could not be clearer when he exclaims on the subject of the wise man: “You will live like a god among men.”15 To indulge in desires that one cannot satisfy would lead only to anxiety and disturbance. The prospect of a future that eludes the will troubles the soul; it fears being unable to obtain the object of its desire. The desire for immortality is a vain desire. Jean Salem neatly explains Epicurus’ position: “Human unhappiness essentially has to do with failure Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 125, trans. Cyril Bailey, in The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers, ed. Whitney J. Oates (New York: Modern Library, 1940), 30–33, at 30. 13 Titus Lucretius, De rerum natura 2.5.923, trans. William H. D. Rouse, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 405: “res quaeque suo ritu procedit.” 14 Epicurus, Vatican Sayings 77, in Letters, Principal Doctrines and Vatican Sayings, trans. Russel M. Geer (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 72. 15 Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 125 at 33: “You will never be seriously troubled, but you will live like a god among men. For the man living in immortal goods in no way resembles a living mortal.” 12 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1227 to check a desire that would try to force nature [such as the desire for immortality]; to be happy, in contrast, is to know the limit of one’s desires and, as a corollary, the limit of goods and evils.”16 This is the ideal of the mortal free man. He shifts the meditation on death toward meditation on life. Confronting death could prove dangerous, for that involves unsettling the individual in question. The Epicurean wise man agrees with the very contemporary attitude, inspired by Stoicism, that consists of avoiding confrontation with death so as to stick to what one can master. Baruch Spinoza nicely illustrates this attitude (which was adopted recently by the French philosopher André Comte-Sponville): A free man, that is, he who lives solely according to the dictates of reason, is not guided by fear of death, but directly desires the good, that is, to act, to live, to preserve his own being in accordance with the principle of seeking his own advantage. So he thinks of death least of all things, and his wisdom is a meditation upon life.17 If Epicurus and the Stoic tradition renounce desires that go beyond man’s control, it is in the final analysis because they are anguished by the idea of suffering and being troubled: “For it is to obtain this end that we always act, namely, to avoid pain and fear.”18 To this we might add the anguish of finding oneself in a situation that escapes the control of the will, in a situation of extreme vulnerability in which achieving one’s desire would depend on others. Ultimately the reason for this limitation of one’s own desires, the deliberate renunciation of a dimension that is beyond one’s control, and of any additional meaning given to death is found in the fear of being upset and constrained to accept not being lord and master of oneself and having to commend oneself to another instead. This reason also implies the idea that the loss of control would restrict the subject’s freedom and thereby would go against his very dignity. I maintain that such anguish is at the origin of the Heideggerian thesis of Being-toward-death. Heidegger acknowledges Jean Salem, Tel un Dieu parmi les hommes (Paris: Vrin, 1989), 83: “Le malheur humain tient essentiellement à l’illimitation d’un désir qui voudrait forcer la nature [tel, par exemple, le désir d’immortalité] ; être heureux, par contraposition, c’est connaître la limite des désirs et, corollairement, celle des biens et des maux.” 17 Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, pt. 4, prop. 67, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1982), 193. See André Comte-Sponville, Le Bonheur, désespérement (Nantes, FR: Éditions Pleins Feux, 2000). 18 Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 128 (p. 31). 16 1228 Bernard N. Schumacher with Epicurus the natural limits circumscribing human existence; he distances himself from the Greek philosopher, as we will see in a moment, by maintaining that death is a constitutive part of life. Midway between these two propositions emerges Ernst Bloch’s new Jerusalem in The Principle of Hope. Bloch defends a desire for immanent immortality whose realization in hope, however, depends only on human action. It is a matter of setting up a “messianic kingdom of God—without God”19 by praxis alone, through socio-political activism, in short by the worldwide Marxist revolution: “Where there is Lenin, there is Jerusalem.”20 The tragedies of the twentieth century ended up killing this desire for immortality in immanence, obtained by human strength alone, that the philosophers of progress and the prophets of the earthly city had promised. Hence this desire was relegated to the domain of “religious” experience (understood as irrational). The German philosopher Thomas Macho explains: No one believes in immortality any more. . . . In the past few decades the last remaining substitutes for hopes of immortality were shattered. We have no more reason to expect to live on in our children or in our works; we have no more reason to trust in the “everlasting life” of the human species or in the development of the “world spirit.”21 Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope, trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986), 3:1200: “The utopia of kingdom destroys the fiction of a creator-god and the hypostasis of a heavenly god, but not the end-space in which ens perfectissimum contains the unfathomed depth of its still unthwarted latency. The existence of God, indeed God at all as a special being is superstition; belief is solely that in a messianic kingdom of God—without God. Atheism is therefore so far from being the enemy of religious utopia that it constitutes its precondition: without atheism messianism has no place” [originally Das Prinzip Hoffnung, in Ernst Bloch Werkausgabe, 16 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1969), 5:1413: “Utopie des Reichs vernichtet die Fiktion eines Schöpfergotts und die Hypostase eines Himmelsgotts, doch eben nicht den End-Raum, worin Ens perfectissimum den Abgrund seiner noch unvereitelten Latenz hat. Dasein Gottes, ja Gott überhaupt als eigene Wesenheit ist Aberglaube; Glaube ist einzig der an ein messianisches Reich Gottes—ohne Gott. Atheismus ist folglich so wenig der Feind religiöser Utopie, daß er deren Voraussetzung bildet : ohne Atheismus hat Messianismus keinen Platz”]. 20 Bloch, Principle of Hope, 2:610 [Prinzip Hoffnung, 711: “Ubi Lenin, ibi Jerusalem”]. 21 Thomas Macho, Todesmetaphern (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1987), 116: “An Unsterblichkeit wird nicht mehr geglaubt. . . . In den vergangenen Jahrzehnten haben sich noch die letzten Substitute der Unsterblichkeitshoffnungen zerschlagen. Wir haben keinen Anlass mehr, unser Fortleben in den Kindern oder in den 19 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1229 Hence the question arises: How to live life in the presence of the certainty of death? The Jewish woman Etty Hillesum gives us her answer. We read in her journal entry dated July 3, 1942—she would be sent to the gas chamber in Auschwitz on November 30, 1943: By “coming to terms with life” I mean: the reality of death has become a definite part of my life; my life has, so to speak, been extended by death, by looking death in the eye and accepting it, by accepting destruction as part of life and no longer wasting my energies on fear of death or the refusal to acknowledge its inevitability. It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life, we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich it.22 The proposal to invite death to table and to live somehow with it was developed before World War II by Heidegger, in his famous thesis of Beingtoward-death, in which he denounces the fact that modern man does not live in the presence of death, as the German philosopher Max Scheler had emphasized before him, incidentally. The Heideggerian Thanatological Inversion In the early twentieth century Max Scheler, in his book Death and Survival, had formulated an original thesis on the subject of the decline of belief in transcendent personal immortality. This decline is not based Werken zu erwarten; wir haben keinen Anlass mehr, auf das ‘unendliche Leben’ der menschlichen Gattung oder auf den Bildungsprozess des ‘Weltgeistes’ zu vertrauen.” See also Chantal Delsol, L’Âge du renoncement (Paris: Cerf, 2011), 188–89: “L’homme contemporain sans identité ne recherche pas non plus l’immortalité. Il a éloigné de soi les religions et les espérances d’éternité. Il a révoqué les idéologies et les espoirs millénaristes de l’immortalité sociale. Mais aussi, comme individu souverain et indépendant, il a délié son existence des œuvres tout humaines propres à le dépasser. Il apparaît, et c’est peut-être la première fois dans l’histoire, absolument privé du temps long” (“Contemporary man, having no identity, does not seek immortality either. He has put away religions and hopes of eternity. He has dismissed ideologies and millenarian hopes of social immortality. But as a sovereign, independent individual, he has also detached his existence from altogether human works that are capable of surpassing him. He appears, perhaps for the first time in history, absolutely deprived of the long term”). 22 Etty Hillesum, journal entry of July 3, 1942, in An Interrupted Life—The Diaries, 1941–1943, and Letters from Westerbork, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans, with introduction and notes by Jan G. Gaarlandt and foreward by Eva Hoffman (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 155. 1230 Bernard N. Schumacher on the rational deconstruction of the “proofs,” nor even on the decision to relegate it to the status of a practical postulate, but rather, he explains, on “modern man’s relation to death itself,”23 in other words, on the way in which “modern man intuitively pictures his life and his death” and “experiences them.” Indeed, even if, as Scheler asserts, immortality is the object of an “immediate intuition,” of an “unthinking experience,” of “his natural worldview,”24 modern man flees from this intuition because he has ceased living in “death’s presence.” He represses it from his consciousness. The individual is content to live his everyday life in what Heidegger calls inauthenticity and the “One dies,” which is invariably perceived as someone else’s business. The phrase “one dies” dominates everyday life and expresses something distressing, “an indefinite something which above all must duly arrive from somewhere or other, but is proximately not yet at present-athand for oneself, and is therefore no threat.”25 This more or less conscious refusal to confront death expresses also a refusal to reflect on the possibility of transcendent immortality. Indeed, having a sure awareness, while living, of being mortal, the person realizes the threat of his possible disappearance. By facing up to this unavoidable reality he is revealed as fully human and transcends in a way his biological dimension. Although Heidegger, following Scheler, urges contemporary man to live in the authenticity of his condition as a mortal, he radically overturns the latter’s thesis by positing that death is not only inherent to the structure of a living thing at the biological level but also constitutive of the ontological structure of a human being. Anguish in the face of death can be overcome and mastered only by acknowledging that the human ontological structure is defined by Being-toward-death. Death is the limit that has been established a priori, in terms of which it is necessary to consider the authenticity of a human life. We should not desire to surpass this limit. Death is neither an accomplishment nor a terminus at the end of the road, but rather one of man’s ways of being, from the moment he is thrown into the world. Being-toward-death is for Heidegger the very “selfness” of the human being, in other words, what constitutes him in his individuality. It Max Scheler, Tod und Fortleben: Schriften aus dem Nachlass, vol. 1 (Bern: Francke-Verlag, 1957), 15: “das Verhältnis des modernen Menschen zum Tode selbst.” 24 Scheler, Tod und Fortleben, 13: “unmittelbare Intuition”; “unreflektierter Lebenserfahrung”; “natürlichen Weltanschauung.” 25 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 297 [originally Sein und Zeit, 16 ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1986), 253: “Ein unbestimmtes Etwas, das allererst irgendwoher eintreffen muss, zunächst aber für einen selbst noch nicht vorhanden und daher unbedrohlich ist.” 23 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1231 is ontologically immanent to him in terms of a constant possibility, which however cannot be overtaken. Death is a possibility-of-being which Dasein itself has to take over in every case. With death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost potentiality-for-being. This is a possibility in which the issue is nothing less than Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. Its death is the possibility of no-longer-being-able-to-be-there. . . . This ownmost non-relational possibility is at the same time the uttermost one. As potentiality-for-being, Dasein cannot outstrip the possibility of death. Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein. Thus death reveals itself as that possibility which is one’s ownmost, which is non-relational, and which is not to be outstripped. As such, death is something distinctively impending.”26 For a large number of contemporary thanatologists, the Heideggerian thesis of Being-toward-death is definitive. Hence, supposedly, we can no longer speak reasonably about a desire for transcendent immortality. That is the lot reserved for fools and church mice As the German philosopher Hans Ebeling puts it: Before Heidegger, even philosophical thanatology had still preserved the hope for some kind of immortality. With Heidegger it is abandoned. And since Heidegger it can no longer be restored with the methods of philosophy.27 Heidegger, Being and Time, 294 [Sein und Zeit, 250: “Der Tod ist eine Seinsmöglichkeit, die je das Dasein selbst zu übernehmen hat. Mit dem Tod steht sich das Dasein selbst in seinem eigensten Seinkönnen bevor. In dieser Möglichkeit geht es dem Dasein um sein In-der-Welt-sein schlechthin. Sein Tod ist die Möglichkeit des Nicht-mehr-dasen-könnens. . . . Diese eigenste, unbezügliche Möglichkeit ist zugleich die äusserste. Als Seinkönnen vermag das Dasein die Möglichkeit des Todes nicht zu überholen. Der Tod ist die Möglichkeit der schlechthinnigen Daseinunmöglichkeit. So enthüllt sich der Tod als die eigenste, unbezügliche, unüberholbare Möglichkeit. Als solcher ist er ein ausgezeichneter Bevorstand”]. Dasein designates the human being, i.e. the being who “is-there” in the world as existing. 27 Hans Ebeling, “Einleitung: Philosophische Thanatologie seit Heidegger,” in Der Tod in der Moderne, ed. Hans Ebeling (Frankfurt am Main: Hain, 1992), 11: “Vor Heidegger hatte auch die philosophische Thanatologie die Hoffnung auf eine Unsterblichkeit noch bewahrt. Mit Heidegger ist sie preisgegeben. Und seit Heidegger ist sie mit Mitteln der Philosophie nicht mehr zu restaurieren.” 26 1232 Bernard N. Schumacher If Ebeling is right, the Heideggerian thanatological inversion renders obsolete any philosophy that tries to transcend temporality, any attempt to uphold the hope of a superterrestrial life. Man’s greatness would then lie in the acceptance of his Being-toward-death, in his authenticity when he comes to terms with his radical finitude. To accept our mortal condition is just what Françoise Dastur recently proposed, incidentally: “Becoming a mortal would require that we stop giving in to the illusions of immortality and become capable of truly living on the earth and dwelling in a body.”28 The Heideggerian proposal of Being-toward-death, like that of Epicurus, is rooted in the refusal to let oneself be upset by a reflection that would lead to something beyond death; this line of argument renounces the possibility of receiving some meaning that would transcend Being-toward-death. The Heideggerian thesis, nevertheless, is based on an a priori limitation of time. This presupposition is erroneous, because to be constituted as a being that is essentially in-front-of-itself does not imply logically and a priori that a human being is a Being-toward-the-end, a mortal-being. This implies instead that he is radically open to a future of possibles, to the indeterminate. His future remains resolutely uncertain for him. He does not know how he will be and what he will become. From an ontological perspective, nothing allows us to conclude that the tending of a human being toward the future implies an end. In other words, one cannot maintain that the human being is a Being-toward-death by referring solely to the statement that he tends toward the future. The ontology toward the future of possibles recently appeared within analytic philosophy in the context of the debate about death. One of the key figure of this current, the American philosopher Thomas Nagel, while debating the status of death considered as an evil and responding to the Epicurean position, notes (without however referring to existentialism or to vitalism): “A man’s sense of his own experience, on the other hand, does not embody this idea of a natural limit. His existence defines for him an essentially open-ended possible future. . . . He finds himself the subject of a life, with an indeterminate and not essentially limited future.”29 Therefore in contrast to Heideggerian ontology and to his theory of death that is immanent through dread of death, one can propose a radically open ontology (that would not be limited by any end). This is the framework Dastur, How Are We to Confront Death? 47 [Comment affronter la mort? 93–94: “Devenir mortel, ce serait en effet cesser de céder aux illusions de l’immortalité et parvenir à véritablement habiter la terre et séjourner dans un corps”]. 29 Thomas Nagel, “Death,” in Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 9–10. 28 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1233 within which the transhumanists present their proposal to repossess death through science and prophesy an immanent immortality. The Transhumanists’ Desire for Immanent Immortality The transhumanists attack the Heideggerian assertion that a human being is a Being-toward-death. They maintain that death is not immanent to life. Following August Weismann,30 they assert that death is extrinsic to the living being. Or, as the French philosopher Edgar Morin puts it: “Biology discovered that death was not a necessity of organic life. Living beings, at their origin, in their elementary structure, are not Heideggerian at all. Only accidental death is natural.”31 It follows that if death was considered as a sickness, one could recover from it. He continues: “Old age and death as disturbances therefore open the way to action. Practical action which for the moment can be only palliative, but which can become restorative.”32 Within this context of practical action, the transhumanists take up again the torch of the philosophers of progress. They endorse a certain hope: the actualization of the object of this hope depends solely on the subject and on his action. Thus they agree with Bloch’s hope—while categorically refusing to acquiesce in natural limits. Their objective is to surpass them definitively, to abolish them with the help of technology and genetics. The will asserts that it wants to free itself from death by itself, through reason that would construct a perfect body, free of all imperfections, failings, and vulnerabilities. The French sociologist David Le Breton summarizes the position as follows: “The body is the endemic illness of the mind or of the subject”; the human body is “the rough copy to be corrected” until one obtains “the ultimate perfection.”33 And the sociologist of the body explains, in his book L’Adieu au corps (farewell to the body): See August Weismann, Über Leben und Tod. Eine biologische Untersuchung ( Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1884). 31 Edgar Morin, L’Homme et la Mort (Paris: Seuil, 1976), 331: “La biologie a découvert que la mort n’était pas une nécessité de la vie organique. Les êtres vivants, à leur origine, dans leur structure élémentaire ne sont nullement heideggériens. Seule la mort accidentelle est naturelle.” 32 Morin, L’Homme, 339: “La vieillesse et la mort comme perturbations ouvrent donc la voie à l’action. Action pratique qui pour le moment ne peut être que palliative, mais qui peut devenir restaurative.” 33 David Le Breton, L’Adieu au corps (Paris: Éditions Métailié, 1999), 10: “Le corps est la maladie endémique de l’esprit ou du sujet”; “le brouillon à corriger”; “la perfection ultime.” 30 1234 Bernard N. Schumacher In scientific discourse the body is thought of as indifferent matter that merely supports the person. Ontologically distinguished from the subject, it becomes an object to be disposed of, on which to act so as to improve it, a sort of prime matter in which personal identity is diluted, and no longer as a root of a human being’s identity. . . . Removed from the human being whom it embodies in the manner of an object, emptied of its symbolic character, the body is emptied of all value too. As the envelope of a presence, the architecture of materials and functions, the basis of its existence is then no longer the irreducibility of its meaning and value, the fact that it is a human being’s flesh, but rather the permutation of the elements and functions that keep it in working order. The body is broken down into detached pieces, it crumbles. . . . Given this disdain for being made of flesh, the body is dissociated from the human being whom it embodies and is envisaged as something in itself. It is doomed to countless revisions in order to escape its precarious nature and limitations, and to control that elusive part, to achieve a technological purity. There is a demiurgic temptation to correct and modify it, if not to make of it a really flawless machine.34 “The final goal of the algenist is to engineer the perfect organism,”35 Jeremy Rifkin observes. It is no longer a matter of withdrawing into a Stoic atti Le Breton, L’Adieu au corps, 9–11: “Dans le discours scientifique le corps est pensé comme une matière indifférente, simple support de la personne. Ontologiquement distingué du sujet, il devient un objet à disposition sur lequel agir afin de l’améliorer, une matière première où se dilue l’identité personnelle et non plus une racine identitaire de l’homme. . . . Soustrait de l’homme qu’il incarne à la manière d’un objet, vidé de son caractère symbolique, le corps l’est aussi de toute valeur. Enveloppe d’une présence, architectonique de matériaux et de fonctions, ce qui fonde alors son existence ce n’est plus l’irréductibilité du sens et de la valeur, le fait qu’il soit la chair de l’homme, mais la permutation des éléments et des fonctions qui en assurent l’ordonnance. Le corps se décline en pièces détachées, il s’émiette. . . . Face à ce dépit d’être constitué de chair, le corps est dissocié de l’homme qu’il incarne et envisagé comme un en-soi. Voué aux innombrables biffures pour échapper à sa précarité, à ses limites, contrôler cette part insaisissable, atteindre une pureté technicienne. Tentation démiurgique de le corriger, de le modifier, à défaut d’en faire une machine réellement impeccable.” 35 Jeremy Rifkin, Algeny (New York: Penguin, 1983), 17. See also Human Enhancement, ed. Julian Savulescu and Nick Bostrom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), and Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988) and Mere Machines to Transcendent Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 34 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1235 tude, but of freeing oneself from the limits of one’s body. The Belgian philosopher Gilbert Hottois acknowledges that the elimination of death would finally come to free us from “our dread of death, our experience of the ephemeral and universal contingency.”36 Le Breton also explains, quite pertinently, that “the struggle against the body increasingly reveals the underlying motive for it: the fear of death.”37 In order to make this fear disappear, the transhumanists propose rebelling against death and rejecting categorically the natural limit that it represents. They say that they are on the way to eliminating it. These “magicians of biotechnology”38 (as Jonas calls them) claim that “immortality is within our grasp,”39 Ray Kurzweil notes; Mike Treder rejoices that this will be “hopefully within your lifetime.”40 And Kurzweil maintains, in his famous book The Singularity Is Near: “We have the means right now to live long enough to live forever.”41 “Our mortality will be in our own hands. We will be able to live as long as we want.”42 The transhumanist proposal claims to be the extension of humanism and the Enlightenment project: to make human nature better by liberating it from all laws imposed from outside, including, in the transhumanists’ view, the ultimate limit to the subject’s autonomy, which is the mortal, suffering, vulnerable body. Here is the creed of the philosopher Nick Bostrum, founder of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA) in 1998 and director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University: “We are no longer forced to accept what nature has given us.” Mastery of death implies, in the final analysis, that we have “more control over our own life, total mastery, and that we develop the type of ideal that we want.”43 The elimination of death would make it possible Gilbert Hottois, Essais de philosophie bioéthique et biopolitique (Paris: Vrin, 1999), 76: “. . . notre angoisse de la mort, [de] notre expérience de l’éphémère et [de] la contingence universelle.” 37 Le Breton, L’Adieu au corps, 11: “La lutte contre le corps dévoile toujours plus le mobile qui la soutient: la peur de la mort.” (translation mine) 38 Jonas, “Burden and Blessing,” 97 [“Last und Sterblichkeit,” 98: “die Hexenmeister der Biotechnologie”]. 39 Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, Fantastic Voyage—Live Long Enough to Live Forever (New York: Rodale, 2004), 3. 40 Mike Treder, “Emancipation from Death,” in The Scientific Conquest of Death: Essays on Infinite Lifespans, ed. Immortality Institute (Buenos Aires: LibrosEnRed, 2004), 187–196, at 187. 41 Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking, 2005), 271. 42 Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 23. 43 Cited in Antoine Robitaille, “Entretien avec Nick Bostrom, le transhumaniste 36 1236 Bernard N. Schumacher to be freed from the limits that circumscribed both the Epicurean-Stoic and the post-Heideggerian attitudes, so as finally “to determine ourselves radically,” Morin emphasizes.44 In the anthology The Scientific Conquest of Death, edited by the Immortality Institute, Treder explains that the promise to “live forever free from illness, disease, and physical disability” implies that we will finally be “free to do whatever we want with our lives.”45 The Anthropological Stakes of the Desire for Immortality The various contemporary thanatological positions that we have just reviewed agree in their refusal to be upset by death and their intention of mastering it: by refusing to think about it, or else by thinking of it unceasingly, or else categorically by eliminating it. This attitude of mastery is opposed to the attitude of “passive” availability; when the free subject adopts the latter, he finds himself so to speak “compelled” to be open to otherness, to someone or something else that radically eludes his desire for mastery. The transhumanist proposal, just like those that preceded it, is based on freedom understood as sovereign. The subject should not desire anything that exceeds his will; every desired object should be obtainable by his mastery. And so therefore, according to the German philosopher Dieter Birnbacher, submitting to a desire such as the desire for transcendent immortality would be contrary to human dignity, which is based on the absolute autonomy of the subject. Professing the impossibility of any immortal life and therefore the illusory character of the desire for transcendent immortality, he maintains that reference to any superterrestrial hope infantilizes a human being, reducing him to a pre-Enlightenment state. en chef,” in Le nouvel homme nouveau: voyage dans les utopies de la posthumanité (Quebec: Boréal, 2007), 175–188, at 176: “Nous ne sommes plus contraints d’accepter ce que la nature nous a donné”; “plus de contrôle sur notre propre vie, [que nous en soyons] totalement maître et [que nous puissions] développer le type d’idéal que nous souhaitons.” See also Nick Bostrom, “In Defense of Posthuman Dignity,” Bioethics 19, no. 3 (2005): 202–14, at 202–3: “Transhumanism is a loosely defined movement that has developed gradually over the two decades and can be viewed as an outgrowth of secular humanism and the Enlightenment. It holds that current human nature is improvable through the use of applied science and other rational methods, which may make it possible to increase human health span, extend our intellectual and physical capacities, and give us increased control over our own mental states and moods. . . . Such enhancements may make us, or our descendants, ‘posthuman’ beings who may have indefinite health spans, much greater intellectual faculties than any current human being, . . . as well as the ability to control their own emotions.” 44 Morin, L’Homme, 348: “s’autodéterminer radicalement.” 45 Treder, “Emancipation from Death,” 190. The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1237 The explanation for this rejection lies in the anthropological consequences of the notion of hope: the actualization of the object then eludes human action; it depends neither on having nor on doing, but rather on the voluntary acceptance of the gift. This hope, according to Birnbacher, would be contrary to “what are in our culture fundamental notions of personhood, autonomy and coexistence defined by respect and equality.”46 Encouraging someone else to hope in this way amounts to considering him dependent on another and therefore not considering him as an equal. “To raise hopes in an adult for which there is no rational latitude, means treating him not as an interlocutor but as a patient. He is in a certain way incapacitated.”47 Hoping for something when its actualization does not depend on human will is the sign of a sick, dependent person, in short, of someone who is imperfect, suffering, and mortal. This refusal to transcend the limit set by human will characterizes the Epicurean-Stoic, Heideggerian, and transhumanist attitudes. They deliberately close themselves off from additional meaning that comes from elsewhere, from a certain receptiveness of the will; indeed they fear to go freely beyond what is in their power; such a step would imply a loss of freedom and would reduce them to the status of a minor. Are we looking at an erroneous concept of freedom? This at least is the thesis advanced by the American philosopher Michael Sandel in his recent book The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering. He describes the transhumanist ideal as “the ultimate expression of our resolve to see ourselves astride the world, the masters of our nature.” He insists that to seek to master everything is to understand freedom solely within the parameters of what can be mastered, which excludes every gift, even the gift of life. “But that vision of freedom is flawed. It threatens to banish our appreciation of life as a gift, and to leave us with nothing to affirm or behold outside our own will.”48 The transhumanists’ desire for immortality can be viewed as “the ultimate expression of the hubris that Dieter Birnbacher, “Hoffnung—eine philosophische Annäherung,” in Hoffnung in Wissenschaft, Gesellschaft und Politik in Tschechien und Deutschland, ed. Michael Andel, Detlev Brandes, and Jiri Pesek (Essen: Klartext-Verlagsgesellschaft, 2008), 17–32, at 32: “mit den in unser Kultur tragenden Vorstellungen von Personalität, Autonomie und eines durch Achtung und Gleichheit bestimmten Miteinanders.” 47 Birnbacher, “Hoffnung,” 32: “Einem Erwachsenen Hoffnungen zu machen, für die kein rationaler Spielraum besteht, bedeutet, ihn nicht als Diskurspartner, sondern als Patienten zu behandeln. Er wird in gewisser Weise entmündigt.” 48 Michael Sandel, The Case against Perfection. Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007): 99–100. 46 1238 Bernard N. Schumacher marks the loss of reverence for life as a gift.”49 And so desiring immortality leads to a more fundamental anthropological question: at the heart of our humanity, is there not something more primordial—not so much chronologically as ontologically—than mastery? Something on the order of a gift? Distancing himself from the ideal of the manly, heroic Heideggerian subject who masters himself in his Being-toward-death, Emmanuel Levinas inverts the relation to the knowing subject’s death by making it analogous to the subject’s relation toward others: “The unknown of death signifies that the very relationship with death cannot take place in the light, that the subject is in relationship with what does not come from itself. We could say that he is in relation with mystery.”50 Death is a mystery that eludes man’s mastery and control. “Death announces an event over which the subject is not the master, an event in relation to which the subject is no longer a subject,”51 in other words, an event toward which he is passive, even if he were to choose his death. Death expresses “what we cannot take upon ourselves.”52 Levinas emphasizes: “At a certain moment we are no longer able to be able. It is precisely thus that the subject loses his very mastery as a subject.”53 Earlier he elaborates: It is not with the nothingness of death, of which we precisely know nothing, that the analysis must begin, but with the situation where something absolutely unknowable appears. Absolutely unknowable means foreign to all light, rendering every assumption of possibility impossible, but where we ourselves are seized.54 Sandel, Case against Perfection, 127. Emmanuel Levinas, Time and the Other, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1987 [repr. 2002]), 70 [originally Le temps et l’autre (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983), 56: “L’inconnu de la mort signifie que la relation même avec la mort ne peut se faire dans la lumière; que le sujet est en relation avec ce qui ne vient pas de lui. Nous pourrions dire qu’il est en relation avec le mystère”]. 51 Levinas, Time and the Other, 70 [Le temps et l’autre, 57: “La mort annonce un événement dont le sujet n’est pas le maître, un événement par rapport auquel le sujet n’est plus sujet”]. 52 Emmanuel Levinas, Alterity and Transcendence, trans. Michael B. Smith (London: Athlone, 1999), 155 [originally Altérité et transcendance (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1995), 158: “que l’on ne peut assumer”]. 53 Levinas, Time and the Other, 74 [Le temps et l’autre, 62: “À un certain moment nous ne pouvons plus pouvoir; c’est en cela justement que le sujet perd sa maîtrise même de sujet”]. 54 Levinas, Time and the Other, 71 [Le temps et l’autre, 58: “Ce n’est pas du néant de 49 50 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1239 The subject’s autonomous will, understood as mastery, finds itself compelled to abdicate when confronted with death. This abdication nevertheless does not necessarily lead ultimately to nothingness. Aspiring to immortality does not originate in dread of nothingness, but rather in the subject’s desire for additional meaning that surpasses him, that transcends the domineering dimension of his will and reason. Freedom requires absolutely that one be open to a broader dimension, on the order of the gift, which radically eludes mastery. Life does not belong to us. It is given to us, as Sandel emphasizes. It is transcendent. The desire for transcendent immortality is different from reason and will as they were promoted by Enlightenment thinkers or the transhumanists. The will must decide not to be able to control everything and to consent to be moved and upset by a world that is broader than what can be known by technological, rationalist reason alone. The will must decide, not to be merely passive, but to offer an active response, to receive “from elsewhere,” in other words to accept no longer being the master of what is to be desired and known. In short, the will must consent to be vulnerable—contrary to what Birnbacher says about it—and to be open to a hope that consents to the fact that human existence and its future do not depend on its own power. What is at stake is the very freedom of the human being, who does not define himself exclusively by an assured mastery of reality, but also and above all by the ability to choose to make himself available, to receive a gift and to consent to it. In order to do this, it is necessary to renounce absolute control of oneself, the autarchy that Sandel denounces. Ultimately it is about renouncing the renunciation of desires just because one cannot personally realize them, so as to consent to going beyond the will’s mastery, so as to be open to transcendence. C. S. Lewis marvelously summarizes this concept of freedom: We have been like bathers who want to keep their feet—or one foot— or one toe—on the bottom, when to lose that foothold would be to surrender themselves to a glorious tumble in the surf. The [result] of parting with our last claim to intrinsic freedom. . . [is] real freedom.55 Ultimately freedom consists of letting oneself be seized by something that la mort dont précisément nous ne savons rien que l’analyse doit partir, mais d’une situation où quelque chose d’absolument inconnaissable apparaît; absolument inconnaissable, c’est-à-dire étranger à toute lumière, rendant impossible toute assomption de possibilité, mais où nous-mêmes sommes saisis”]. 55 C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991), 131. 1240 Bernard N. Schumacher eludes the will that masters what it desires. It presupposes a receptivity that is not passive but active in the sense of a welcoming availability. One is receptive in exemplary fashion in the act of hope that is open to what does not depend on human will and reason, to what eludes them, to what a human being has no hold on. Hope is the entreaty of non-mastery, of receptivity to the gratuitous gift in the radical sense of that term. The French philosopher Gabriel Marcel explains that, “metaphysically speaking, the only authentic hope is one that pertains to what does not depend on us, the hope that springs from humility, not pride.”56 Its object can be received only as a gift. The Canadian philosopher Kenneth L. Schmitz explains: For that hope is grounded in a recognition of a certain transcendence in things that carries us beyond ourselves and our new-found power. The proposal, then, is a call to thoughtful conversion through an approach to the world about us that responds to it as a gift and not simply as a given.57 The desire for immortality finally implies an attitude toward human life that results in an apparent paradox with regard to human freedom. It will flourish only inasmuch as it voluntarily agrees to relinquish its mastery of reality so as to allow itself to be captured by a dimension that transcends it; so too with life received as a gift. A kind of freedom that refused to be open to alterity (otherness) and was content with what it was capable of mastering would lead to a denial of the gratuitous character of life. On the contrary, being open to death, which is alterity par excellence, consists, as François Cheng says, of “receiving life as a invaluably generous gift.”58 And the German philosopher Josef Pieper adds that this confrontation with death reveals the hidden structural law of all life: . . . that one possesses only what one lets go of, and that one loses what one tries to hold. What is required of man in the moment of death, for the first and only time, is to realize this very thing. It is required, but at that moment he is also enabled to do so; he is Gabriel Marcel, Position et approches concrètes du mystère ontologique (Louvain and Paris: E. Nauwelaerts and Vrin, 1949), 73: “métaphysiquement parlant, la seule espérance authentique est celle qui va à ce qui ne dépend pas de nous, celle dont le ressort est l’humilité, non l’orgueil.” 57 Kenneth L. Schmitz, The Recovery of Wonder: The New Freedom and the Asceticism of Power (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), xiii. 58 François Cheng, Cinq méditations sur la mort autrement dit sur la vie (Paris: Albin Michel, 2013), 37: “recevoir la vie comme un don d’une générosité sans prix.” 56 The Desire for Immortality at the Dawn of the Third Millenium 1241 expected literally, not just “by intention,” not just “in good will,” not just symbolically and rhetorically, but in reality to lose his life in order to gain it.59 Confronting death in this way is not motivated by dread of nothingness, and therefore by an irritable contraction, but rather by a fundamental hope that allows a person to inhabit life fully by welcoming it, which thereby enlarges it. Even though he recognizes that death is the evil par excellence, a human being imbued with hope does not escape into an afterlife that prevents him from becoming involved to make the world a better place. On the contrary, he inhabits it fully, while remaining open to another world, ready to let himself be inspired by something that does not come from himself. N&V Josef Pieper, Death and Immortality, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (South Bend, IN: St- Augustine’s Press, 2000), 92 [originally Tod und Unsterblichkeit, in Werke in acht Bänden, ed. Berthold Wald (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1997), 5:280–397, at 371: “Daß man nämlich nur das besitzt, was man losläßt, und daß einem verloren geht, was man zu behalten sucht—genau dies zu realisieren ist dem Menschen nun, im Augenblick des Todes, zum ersten und einzigen Mal abverlangt, aber auch ermöglicht und zugetraut: das eigene Leben nicht nur ‘der Intuition nach’, nicht nur ‘in der guten Meinung’ und nicht nur symbolisch und rhetorisch, sondern buchstäblich und wirklich zu verlieren—um es zu gewinnen”]. 59 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1243–1286 1243 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure’s Literary Style in Medieval Preaching Randall B. Smith University of St. Thomas Houston, TX It has been claimed that , after his elevation to the position of Minister General of the Franciscan Order, Bonaventure developed a mode of expression “wholly alien to the language of the schools.”1 Indeed, the noted Bonaventure scholar Jacques-Guy Bougerol, in his Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure, still a standard reference work, declares that, as Minister General, Bonaventure set himself “free from the patterns of the Schools, that is free to develop a form for his thought more concordant with his vision.”2 There is certainly no denying Bonaventure’s creativity, and works such as the De reductione artium ad theologiam, the Breviloquium, and his Collationes on the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and on the six days of creation certainly do not resemble the kind of standard “disputed question” format that one finds in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae [ST].3 Kent Emery, “Reading the World Rightly and Squarely: Bonaventure’s Doctrine of the Cardinal Virtues,” Traditio 39 (1983): 183–218. I think Prof. Emery is quite right about Bonaventure’s doctrine of the cardinal virtues. Where I think he is mistaken is in this off-hand comment about Bonaventure developing a mode of expression “wholly alien to the language of the schools”—a comment that I take it has little or no bearing on the substance of the rest of his article. 2 Jacques-Guy Bougerol, Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure, trans. José de Vinck (Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1964), 123. A revised French edition of the work (Paris: J. Vrin) appeared in 1988, but it was never translated into English. 3 On the likely origins of the text we have come to know as the De reductione artium ad theologiam, see Joshua C. Benson, “Identifying the Literary Genre of the De reductione artium ad theologiam: Bonaventure’s Inaugural Lecture at Paris,” Fran1 1244 Randall B. Smith And yet, the “disputed question,” as important as it was to the education and work of any thirteenth century medieval master, was not the only rhetorical form that characterized the schools. The third duty of the medieval master, along with lectio and disputatio, was praedicatio, “preaching.” This famous threefold list of the master’s duties can be traced back to a comment in the Verbum abbreviatum, a late twelfth century work by Peter Cantor (d. 1197), who declared that “the training [exercitum] of sacred Scripture consists in these three: lecture, disputation, and preaching.”4 Peter goes on to compare the relationship between the three to the parts of a building: lectio is the foundation, disputatio the walls, and praedicatio the roof. Preaching, in other words, was considered the “summit” toward which the other two were to be directed and for which they were thought to be foundational. I do not wish to argue here whether or to what degree Bonaventure’s advanced style still owed much to his training in lectio and disputatio or whether or to what extent we can still discern vestiges of them in the later works. For the purposes of this article, I want to turn our attention elsewhere—to the profound influence Bonaventure’s training in Scholastic preaching had on him throughout his career. The form of preaching popularized at the University of Paris that became standard across Western Europe during the course of the thirteenth century was known as the sermo modernus (the “modern sermon”).5 This style of preaching, based upon the division and development of a single Bible verse, was the form thirteenth-century medieval masters used in all their sermons, and it was the form they used in all their early ciscan Studies 67 (2009): 149–78. The only difference between this text, Bonaventure’s resumptio address, which made up the final part of his inaugural ceremonies as a master of the sacred page at Paris, and the text we have come to know as the De reductione artium ad theologiam is the first paragraph. 4 Peter Cantor, Verbum abbreviatum 1: “In tribus igitur consistit exercitum sacrae scripturae: circa lectionem, disputationem et praedicationem . . .” (ed. Monique Boutry in Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaeualis 196 [Turnhout: Brepols, 2004]). 5 Michèle Mulcahey, for example, notes that John of Wales, a Franciscan master at Paris around 1270, wrote in his De arte praedicandi that the older style of homily “did not sit particularly well with modern listeners, who liked to see the clear articulation of a sermon developed from a scriptural thema,” as was Thomas’s practice. Indeed, by 1290, the Italian Dominican Fra Giacomo da Fusignano, prior of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, would write that the older style was suitable only for preaching to the ignorant. See Michèle Mulcahey, First the Bow Is Bent in Study: Dominican Education Before 1350 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1998), 403n10. Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1245 prologues, whether to their biblical commentaries or to their commentaries on the books of Peter Lombard’s Sentences.6 It was the form they used when they delivered what was known as their principium in aula and resumptio addresses during their inception as masters of sacred doctrine. And it seems also to have been the form used when they delivered the first lecture each term (also known as a principium), in which they lectured on a book of the Bible.7 When those lectures were sent to the stationer and published, that first lecture, the principium, would serve as what we would call the “prologue” of the book. The sermo modernus style was thus a constant presence in the life of a bachelor of sacred doctrine during his studies at the University of Paris, both as a bachelor biblicus and later as a bachelor sententiarum. It was a “form” that had become so commonly accepted at Paris by the middle of the thirteenth century that it seems to have been treated as a formal requirement. So, for example, all of Thomas Aquinas’s earliest prologues, even the prologue to his Commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate, were written in this style. Later, after Thomas left Paris, he stopped adhering to its formal requirements as stringently in his prologues, although he used it in all his extant sermons. When he returned to Paris years later for his “second Parisian regency” and lectured on the Gospel of John, he reverted to the formal requirements of the sermo modernus style, suggesting that, although this formal style was not always required at Orvieto or in Rome, I will provide a description of the basic elements of the “modern sermon” below. For more on thirteenth-century sermons, see: Gillian Rosemary Evans, “Introduction,” in Alan of Lille, The Arts of Preaching, trans. G. R. Evans (Collegville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1982), 5–6; Nicole Bériou, L’avènement des maîtres de la Parole: La Prédication à Paris au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Institute d’Études Augustiniennes, 1998), 1:134–69; David d’Avray, Preaching of the Friars: Sermons Diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1985), 163–80; James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of the Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), 269–355; Étienne Gilson, “Michel Menot et la Technique du Sermon Medieval,” in Les Idées et les Lettres (Paris: J. Vrin, 1932), 93–154; and Randall Smith, Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2016), esp. ch. 2. 7 See Mariken Teeuwen, The Vocabulary of Intellectual Life in the Middle Age (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), esp. 315: “The term principium is generally used, in the context of the medieval university, for the inaugural lecture of a course. In the context of a student’s career an inaugural lecture of this kind marked the transitions from one phase to another, and was, usually, a solemn and public occasion. Bachelors of Theology, who were first allowed to teach on the Bible and then on Peter of Lombard’s Sententiae, held principia or inaugural lectures on each of these occasions, in which they eulogized the texts and gave short analyses or introductions.” 6 1246 Randall B. Smith it was expected, perhaps even required, when a master of sacred doctrine was commencing a series of lectiones at Paris. Where Thomas had become adept over time at using the “modern sermon” style—one can compare his rudimentary early efforts as a bachelor biblicus in the prologues to his “cursory” commentaries on Jeremiah and Lamentations with the later, more complex prologues to his commentaries on John or the epistles of Paul—Bonaventure, by contrast, was a master at its use even as a bachelor. For evidence, one need only examine the amazing prologue to his early Commentary on the Gospel of Luke. Although the text of this commentary may have undergone revision between its first version and the final one found in the Quaracchi edition, according to an early chronicler (Salimbene) and a recent scholar (Jay M. Hammond), Bonaventure most likely undertook the first version of the work in 1248 while he was a lector biblicus in the Franciscan studium at Paris and not yet a master at the University.8 Everyone seems agreed that the text shows remarkable proficiency. Indeed, one Bonaventure scholar, Theodore Crowley, has argued that “a mere baccalarius biblicus” could not have produced the Commentary on Luke: “The Commentary in its present state is undoubtedly the work of a master and not a beginner.”9 Jay Hammond’s suggestion seems most reasonable, that Bonaventure composed the earliest version while he was still a lector biblicus, a position above a cursor biblicus (who could give only a cursory reading of the text) but below a magister, the position needed to “determine” a question arising within the text. Either way, the sophistication of this early prologue is remarkable. It is worth recalling that, unlike Thomas, who came to Paris after his early training at Naples, Bonaventure had been studying at the University Paris for nearly twenty years before his inception in 1253, having entered as a layman to study the arts in 1235 at fourteen years of age.10 Bonaven See Jay M. Hammond, “Dating Bonaventure’s Inception as Regent Master,” Franciscan Studies 67 (2009): 179–226, esp. 186–90. See also J. Guy Bougerol, Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure, trans. José de Vinck (Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1964), 94–95: “Brother Salimbene tells us, in his Chronicle, that ‘Brother John of Parma gave formal license to Brother Bonaventure of Bagnorea to ‘read’ in Paris, which was not done heretofore as he was a bachelor not yet installed in his Chair: and so he ‘read’ a very beautiful and perfect commentary on the whole Gospel of Saint Luke: this was in 1248.” 9 Theodore Crowley, “St. Bonaventure Chronology Reappraisal,” Franziskanische Studien 56 (1974): 320; quoted from Hammond, “Dating Bonaventure’s Inception,” 189. 10 In all cases, I have followed the dating from Hammond’s “Dating Bonaventure’s Inception,” which is scrupulously researched and argued. 8 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1247 ture’s works, even from early on, show evidence of a superb literary education. Thomas Aquinas, by contrast, though a clear and penetrating thinker, rarely showed the literary skills we see in evidence in Bonaventure’s works. Perhaps one example will be helpful. According to the canons of the sermo modernus style, the preacher was supposed to maintain a strict parallelism among items listed in a subdivision. So, for example, in Thomas’s principium in aula sermon, Rigans montes, he associates the word “mountains” with the dignity required of the teachers of sacred doctrine and then claims that a threefold dignity is required of masters: first, “because of the height of the mountains” (propter montium altitudinem)—that is, the teachers are to keep their minds set on things above; second, “because of the splendor [of the mountains]” (propter splendorem)—that is, as the mountains are the first things to receive the light of the sun, so too masters should be illuminated from above; and third, “because of the defense of the mountains” (propter montium munitionem)—that is, the masters are supposed to defend the Church with good arguments the way mountains shield towns from invasion by foreigners. Notice how Thomas has maintained, with one minor exception, the parallel clauses: the preposition propter with a genitive and an accusative. When in the same principum address Thomas describes the condition required of the students, he says that listeners (auditores) should be like the earth: “low” in humility (infimi per humilitatem); “firm” in the rectitude of sense ( firmi per sensus rectitudinem); and “fecund,” so the words of wisdom they hear may bear fruit in them ( fecundi, ut percepta sapientiae verba in eis fructificent). Notice that, in this example, Thomas does not maintain the parallelism among the phrases. The content is edifying, but according to the standards of the sermo modernus style, his prologue lacks polish and precision. Bonaventure never makes this mistake; he never fails to make his clauses match, even though they are often quite complicated. For example, in his own principium in aula, Bonaventure divides his opening thema verse from Wisdom 7:21: “Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia” (“The maker of all things taught me wisdom”).11 He says that these words show “the fourfold cause” [of the Scriptures]: namely, “the excellence of the author from the sublimity of the principle” (“auctoris excellentiam ex sublimitate principia”); “the contents of the matter from the utility of the sign” (“materiae Throughout, I have used the Latin text that can be found only in Joshua C. Benson, “Bonaventure’s Inaugural Sermon at Paris: Omnium Artifex Docuit Me Sapientia: Introduction and Text,” Collectanea franciscana 82 (2012): 517–62. All English translations of this text are my own. 11 1248 Randall B. Smith continentiam ex utilitate signi”); “the evidence of the form from the singularity of the mode” (“formae evidentiam ex singularitate modi”); and “the sufficiency of the end from the uncommon teachability of the good” (“finis sufficientiam ex docibilitate boni”). Note the complexity of the parallel constructions when compared with Thomas’s. This is Bonaventure’s style. Even from his earliest student days, Bonaventure was able to write complex parallel phrases like these. It seems clear that many of Bonaventure’s peers took his preaching to be a model of the sermo modernus style at its best. Curious readers can consult the wonderful translation by Timothy J. Johnson entitled The Sunday Sermons of St. Bonaventure, where they will find a sermon for each Sunday of the liturgical year. As Professor Johnson argues in the introduction to that volume, it is likely that this collection was put together precisely to serve as a manual of “model sermons” for younger preachers to learn from.12 What I hope to show in what follows is how Bonaventure used and adapted the sermo modernus style in his later theological works. For the purposes of this essay, I have chosen to focus attention on Bonaventure’s Collations on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, but a similar analysis of the structure and method of the text could be done for nearly all of Bonaventure’s mature works. I will suggest that reading Bonaventure’s texts through the interpretive lens of the thirteenth-century sermo modernus style of preaching can help us better appreciate and understand the structure of his works and the various methods he employs. After he became Minister General of the Franciscans, Bonaventure did not choose to write theological works in the style of the Scholastic “disputed question,” but the “disputed question” was not the only style or form that characterized the university. The other, equally important form was the one that characterized preaching, and that form was in its own way as “formal” as the one that governed the writing of “disputed questions.” To argue, as I do below, that Bonaventure used and adapted the sermo modernus style that characterized the preaching and prologues at the University of Paris will take nothing away from our estimation of him as a creative—indeed, as I hope to show, a poetic—genius. But just as modern scholarship has shown more and more that Thomas Aquinas’s genius was not in creating new insights ex nihilo, but in synthesizing and ordering The Sunday Sermons of St. Bonaventure, trans. Timothy J. Johnson, Works of St. Bonaventure 12 (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2008), 22–32. Unless otherwise noted, all citations of Bonaventure’s sermons are taken from this volume. 12 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1249 all the widely divergent traditions passed down to him, so we should be able to grant that Bonaventure too did not create a style ex nihilo, nor one entirely foreign to the universities. Rather, his style would have been seen at the time as a recognizable adaptation of a “university” style, not of disputation, but of preaching, principia, and prologues. In the first section below, I will describe the basic characteristics of the thirteenth-century sermo modernus style that masters such as Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure used when they were crafting their sermons and prologues. Some of that discussion will be necessarily general, employing examples from contemporary preaching manuals, but I will also include illustrative examples from Bonaventure’s own sermons. The goal of this first part of the essay is to introduce readers to the methods of medieval preaching so that, in the latter section, I can show how he adapted these methods for use in other works. So as not to prolong this essay unnecessarily, I will be focusing attention on an illustrative section of just one of Bonaventure’s later works: namely, the early sections of his Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. And yet it is important to note that this same sort of interpretive analysis I will be making of Bonaventure’s style using the categories of medieval preaching could be made of nearly all of Bonaventure’s later works, not only the Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, but also the Collations on the Ten Commandments and the notoriously complicated Collations on the Six Days of Creation. The Basic Elements of the Thirteenth-Century “Modern Sermon” The sermo modernus style of preaching that arose in the early thirteenth century was a product of what has been called the “homiletic revolution of the thirteenth century.”13 Prior to Alan of Lille’s 1199 work De arte praedicatoria (On the Preacher’s Art), only three works could qualify as serious theories of preaching: St. Augustine’s fourth century work De doctrina christiana (On Christian Doctrine); Pope St. Gregory the Great’s sixth-century text the Cura Pastoralis, or “Pastoral Rule; and Guibert de Nogent’s eleventh-century Liber quo ordine sermo fieri debeat (A Book about the Way a Sermon Ought to be Written).14 Within the next twenty See Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, 309–55. Much of the material in this section has been adapted from my Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas, ch. 2. In that book, I showed how these basic principles found in the preaching manuals can illumine our understanding and appreciation of Aquinas’s sermons. Here, I am attempting to show how the same principles can illumine our understanding and appreciation not only of Bonaventure’s sermons, but also of many of his other theological works. 14 Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, 309; for a nice overview of these works and 13 1250 Randall B. Smith years after the publication of Alan of Lille’s De arte praedicatoria, however, a whole new rhetoric of preaching spread across Europe and hundreds of theoretical manuals were written for aspiring preachers to learn from.15 By the middle of the thirteenth century, this new style had been fully developed, complete with its own technical vocabulary and a stable pattern of organization.16 Thomas Waleys, an Oxford Dominican looking back from the perspective of the early fourteenth century on the fruits of these thirteenth-century developments, wrote a widely circulated tract entitled De modo componendi sermones (On the Manner of Composing Sermons). The difference between the “modern” sermons of the thirteenth century and the “ancient” sermons of the Church Fathers, said Waleys, was that, whereas the “ancient” sermon consisted of a verse-by-verse commentary on the entire Gospel reading for the day, the “modern” sermon was built around a thema or single Bible verse. University of Toronto scholar of early Dominican life Michèle Mulcahey notes that “the theme [that is, the thema] of a sermon modernus was often likened by the authors of preaching manuals to the root of a tree which was the sermon, or similarly it was the trunk from which sprung the various branches.”17 “Although a brief thema is used when preaching to clerics,” says Waleys, “nevertheless, in some parts, for example in Italy, commonly, when preaching not to clerics but to the people, a brief thema is not used; rather the whole Gospel which is read in the Mass is taken for the thema, and the whole is expounded upon, and many beautiful and devout things are said.” Waleys considered the older style, the style of the early Fathers of the Church, still the best for preaching to the laity, declaring: “And, in my judgment, this manner of preaching to the people is not only easier for their influence on preaching, see 269–308. For an invaluable introduction to the various preaching aids that became available, see d’Avray, Preaching of the Friar, esp. 14–28 and 163–203. 16 Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, 309–10. For excellent surveys of the development of the style, see: Bériou, L’avènement, 1:133–214; Richard Rouse and Mary Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1979), ch. 3 (“The Evolution of Sermon Form in the Thirteenth Century”), esp. 65–87; and Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, 311–55. 17 See Mulcahey, First the Bow Is Bent in Study, 404–5, quoting a passage from the manuscript in Anger, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 1582, fol. 132: “Unde, quia thema est quasi radix totius sermonis et per ipsum fundamentum totius aedificii fabrica consurgit.” For more on the thema, see Thomas-M Charland, Artes praedicandi: contribution à l’histoire de la rhétorique au moyen âge (Paris: Institute d’Études Médiévales, 1936), 111–24. 15 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1251 the preacher, but also more useful for the listener among all the modes of preaching. And such was the ancient manner of preaching of the saints, as is clear in their homilies.” Waleys decried those who preach to the uneducated in the manner appropriate to clerics. “When they fill their sermons with such theological subtleties,” says Waleys, they make it all but impossible that “multiple errors” and “unfitting phantasies” (phantasiae ineptae) will not arise in the minds of their listeners. Waleys thought it “better simply not to preach to the people at all than to preach to them in this way.” 18 Waleys appears to have been swimming against the tide, however, for as Mulcahey points out, the Franciscan master John of Wales wrote in his 1270 treatise De arte praedicandi (On the Art of Preaching) that the older sermo antiquus homily of the sort Waleys favored “did not sit particularly well with modern listeners, who liked to see the clear articulation of a sermon developed from a scriptural theme” (i.e., thema). So too in 1290 the Italian Dominican Fra Giacomo da Fusignano, prior of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, wrote that the older style was suitable only for preaching to the ignorant. To other, more intelligent and literate listeners, this sort of exposition was, he thought, unnecessary. The sermon “more common to modern preachers” (“modernis praedicatoribus communior”), writes Fra Giacomo, was one in which a theme (thema) was divided into various parts.19 The thema served as a mnemonic device that provided the structure for the topics covered in the sermon. When the sermon was preached, the thema verse also served as a mnemonic device to help the listeners identify their place within the progress of the whole and then recall the contents of the sermon after it was finished. To recall the contents of the sermon, one merely had to bring to mind the opening thema verse, and each word would suggest the topics the preacher had associated with it.20 See Thomas Waleys, De modo componendi sermones, in Charland, Artes praedicandi, 344. 19 See Mulcahey, First the Bow Is Bent, 403n10, quoting Bologna, Collegio di Spagna, MS Lib. sacr. 50, no. 2, fol. 124r: “Est autem hoc satis populo rudi utilis. Ceteris literatis et intelligentibus auditoribus populariis exposicio non est necessaria.” 20 For a discussion of the difference between “memory” and “recollection” and their importance for appreciating the sermo modernus style, see my Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas, 11–19. For a fuller treatment of the arts of memory in the Middle Ages, see Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990). See also d’Avray, Preaching of the Friars,193–94, who, in response to the objection that university preaching would have been quite different from popular preaching, mentions in 18 1252 Randall B. Smith After a brief prologue called a prothema, the medieval preacher would restate his opening thema and make a divisio of the verse into several parts, each of which was associated with a separate section of the sermon. So, for example, in the principium he delivered at his inception as master, Bonaventure took as his opening thema a verse from Wisdom 7:1, Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia (“The creator of all things has taught me wisdom”), which he divided into these four parts: 1. artifex (“the maker”) 2. omnium (“of all things”) 3. sapientia (“wisdom”) 4. docuit me (“he has taught me”) Bonaventure then divided each of these four into four more subdivisions. Although there are obviously many ways to divide a single sentence, medieval preaching manuals provided elaborate rules about how these divisions were to be done.21 After the medieval preacher had made his basic division of the thema, he then had to develop or “dilate” each. Dilatatio is sometimes translated “amplify,” but I prefer to stay closer to the Latin original. To those unaccustomed to the style, a preacher’s “dilation” of a word or group of words will often seem motivated by nothing more than an oblique association of words. But as we will see, there were in fact many creative ways of dilating upon a word or a group of words recommended by the preaching manuals of the day. This style of preaching, which was based on developing content from the divided words of an opening biblical verse, will seem odd, perhaps even a bit off-putting, to many of us today. But it was clearly not considered odd or off-putting to listeners in Bonaventure’s time. As Waleys’ complaints about it quoted above suggest, the style was preferred by most “modern” listeners. I will not delve here into the complex debate about whether this style of preaching could possibly have been popular among the less educated passing: “A schematic framework of rhythmic divisions and subdivisions would be easy to fix in the mind. Guibert de Tournai, discussing the original principium of division (in his huge work called Erudimentum doctrine), states that its purpose is to avoid confusion and help the memory (ut cesset confusion et adiuvetur memoria). This could have been true for popular [preaching] as well as for learning preaching.” 21 For more on the various methods of divisio, see my Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas, 49–112. Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1253 congregations in the rural countryside or whether it characterized university preaching alone. To these questions, I can only supply the judgment that David d’Avray offers: “So far as sermon form or technique is concerned, [the thesis that university preaching and popular preaching are fundamentally different] is not the conclusion of recent writers.”22 So too Richard and Mary Rouse assure their readers that “the type of sermon evolved at the University of Paris through the course of the thirteenth century was an admirable instrument for routine preaching to laymen.”23 Whether or not further scholarship brings this conclusion into question is largely immaterial to our current concerns, since most of the material we will be examining was preached to an audience made up mostly of Franciscan friars at the Franciscan house of studies in Paris, many of whom would have been students at the university. The Thema Verse: Finding Words to Fit the Occasion As we have seen, the division and development of an opening thema verse was the hallmark of the sermo modernus style. What modern readers of medieval sermons must understand, however, is that medieval preachers did not preach on their biblical thema verse in the sense of doing exegesis. Rather, the thema verse was used as a mnemonic device, a memory aid, to give structure to the sermon. Each word or group of words from the thema verse suggested a different section of the sermon. Thus, when the preacher was selecting a potential thema verse, he had to consider how the words of a particular verse might suggest or be associated with the points he wanted to make. On many occasions, a medieval preacher was required to select his thema verse from among the liturgical readings for the day. On special feast days, such as All Saints or on the feast of a particular saint, they sometimes allowed themselves to select a verse from elsewhere in the Scriptures. When a medieval master needed to write a principia address for a course in which he lectured on a book of the Bible, he had to find a passage that fit his needs, and it was rare that he chose a verse from the biblical book he was commenting upon. More often, he took something from the Old Testament. The Forma praedicandi, an early-fourteenth-century preaching manual written by Englishman Robert of Basevorn, provides this example. Let us say that the sermon was to commemorate the feast day of one of the doctors of the Church, the preacher might choose as his thema the verse from Proverbs 14:35 (“The intelligent minister is acceptable to the king”) D’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, 193. Rouse and Rouse, Preachers, 84. 22 23 1254 Randall B. Smith and divide it as follows: “intelligent” might be associated with his mental perfection; “minister” might be taken to refer to his spiritual humility; and “acceptable to the king” might be associated with his brotherly kindness. What one must not do, however, is to select words for the divisio which were too similar to the words in the thema. So, for example, it would not be right to divide the thema above such that “intelligent” is associated with the saint’s intellectual perfection, “minister” is associated with ministerial humility, and “acceptable to the king” is associated with fraternal acceptance. To repeat the words in this way, claims Robert, would show a lack of artfulness and also drain the words of the divisio of their force and communicative power.24 After choosing an appropriate thema, the medieval preacher’s next task was to make a suitable “division” (divisio) of the verse and a “dilation” (dilatatio) of each of the parts. The preaching manuals of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries identified several possible ways of carrying out each. The lists varied somewhat, but the methods were basically the same.25 Robert of Basevorn’s early-fourteenth-century preaching manual, the Forma praedicandi, can be found in the Latin original in Charland, Artes Praedicandi, 233–323, and in English translation in Robert of Basevorn, The Form of Preaching, trans. Leopold Krul, O.S.B., in Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts, ed. James J. Murphy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971). 25 In what follows, I will be reporting the rules of preaching contained in Robert of Basevorn’s Forma praedicandi, especially ch. 33, and in another late-thirteenth- or early-fourteenth-century manual known as the Ars concionandi, especially section 1. The Ars concionandi has a complicated textual history, to which I devote a long footnote in Reading the Sermons of Aquinas (44n30), for readers interested. Suffice it to say for the moment that the Latin original appears in the preface to volume 9 of the Quaracchi edition of the Opera Omnia of St. Bonaventure (Ad Claras Aquas [Quaracchi]: Collegii s. Bonaventurae, 1882–1901; hereafter “Quaracchi edition”), from which all Latin quotations in this article will be taken. But, for reasons too complicated to get into here, the editors of the Quaracchi edition actually considered it as being of dubious authenticity—that is to say, not written by Bonaventure. The situation is complicated by the fact that the sole English translation of the text can be found in a dissertation by Harry Charles Hazel entitled “A Translation, with Commentary, of the Bonaventuran ‘Ars Concionandi’” (Washington State University, 1972), from which all English translations of the work will be taken. Prof. Hazel believed the treatise was written by Bonaventure. I have no final opinion on the matter, and although one might wish we could attribute this treatise to Bonaventure, there are reasons to believe he was not the author. This is not crucial for our purposes, however, since I am not proposing that either of these works had a direct influence on either Thomas or Bonaventure. I put them forward merely as representing the status of the craft during the period under consideration. Interested readers might also fruitfully compare the 24 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1255 The Divisio: An Ordered Structure of Parts to the Whole According to Robert of Basevorn’s Forma praedicandi, essential to a good divisio was that the preacher make clear how the parts were ordered to the whole. It was also essential that the division should be exhaustive and complete.26 Consider, for example, says Robert, this thema verse from Proverbs 14:35, “the intelligent minister is acceptable to the king.” According to Robert, the preacher might begin by dividing it into three parts: the intelligent // minister // is acceptable to the king He could then associate the first word, “intelligent,” with “the splendor of truth by which God is celebrated in the power of one’s vision.” With the next, “minister,” he might associate “the course of purity by which one lives with affection.” Finally we are left with the words “is acceptable to the king.” What does one do with them? According to Robert, the preacher might speak of “hope for the sweetness of charity” and the purity of life by which one hopes to become “acceptable to the king.” Notice that, in this divisio, the powers of vision and feeling—that is, “Thomistic” tract on preaching translated by Harry Caplan and published as “A Late Medieval Tractate on Preaching” in Studies in Rhetoric and Public Speaking in Honor of James Albert Winans, ed. A. M. Drummond (New York: Century, 1925), 61–90, with the two “Franciscan” tracts I will be drawing upon below. Both the Caplan “Thomistic” tract and Robert of Basevorn’s text are from the early fourteenth century, while the Ars concionandi is likely earlier—from sometime in the late thirteenth century. All three contain basically the same rules and advice. 26 In this regard, the reader might fruitfully compare the medieval method of divisio employed in the sermo modernus style of preaching with the method of divisio commonly used in the exegesis of texts. A useful article on the topic is John F. Boyle’s “The Theological Character of the Scholastic ‘Division of the Text’ with Particular Reference to the Commentaries of Saint Thomas Aquinas,” in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. J. D. McAuliffe, B. D. Walfish, and J. W. Goering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 276–83. As Boyle points out, a Scholastic “division of the text” always involved the articulation of a “theme that provides a conceptual unity to the text” and always “begins with the whole and then continues through progressive subdivisions, every verse stand[ing] in an articulated relation not only with the whole but ultimately with every other part, division, and verse of the text” (276). “For the scholastic division of the text to work,” he adds, “the unity must be an intrinsic conceptual unity; there must be a unifying idea in the light of which the whole can be seen and, still more important, each part can be understood” (277). In other words, the parts must fit together correctly and the whole they come together to form must be complete: an apt description of what a good divisio of the thema in a sermon was supposed to do. 1256 Randall B. Smith reason and will—are the two basic parts of a whole: the soul. The preacher might have used the same thema to point out that it is faith that disposes us to the knowledge of truth, hope that adds certitude to the life of purity, and charity that is the reward of the king that brings us to our ultimate end with him in heaven. What is crucial in either case is that the preacher make his divisio in such a way that the parts “fit” into a structured “whole” and that the list of parts is complete. If the preacher had mentioned only faith and hope, the congregation would ask, “where is charity?” Similarly, one could make a divisio according to the three sides of a triangle or according to the four corners of the earth—north, south, east, and west—but what one should not do is mention only two sides of a triangle or only three directions: north, south, and east. After deciding upon an appropriate divisio, the preacher was supposed to “declare” it. The rules for “declaring” these parts were not entirely different from the rules governing “parallelism” in English grammar today. Most readers will know that it is appropriate in English to say, “he likes running, hiking, and swimming,” but not, “he likes running, hiking, and to swim.” Nor is it acceptable to say, “he likes to run, to hike, and swimming.” The individual words or phrases in the list must be “parallel” in their construction. So too, in the “declaration of parts,” a medieval preacher had to formulate each of the parts according to an acceptable pattern of parallel verbal constructions. A common way of achieving this parallelism was to set up a pattern based on employing similar constructions using one of the parts of speech: adjectives, verbs, adverbs, nouns, participles, or prepositions. According to Robert of Basevorn, pronouns, conjunctions, and interjections rarely worked well. This is not the place to go into a detailed discussion of each of these methods, but I will list three illustrative examples. One way of “declaring the parts” of the divisio, for example, was to use a series of adjectives or adjectival phrases, such as (to use Robert of Basevorn’s example) if the preacher said: “In these words we are taught, first, honorable excellence; second, compensative patience; and third, ineffable friendship.” Using a noun modified by a descriptive adjective was recommended and seems to have been common: not just excellence, but honorable excellence; not just patience, but compensative patience, and so on. St. Bonaventure was especially adept at crafting these parallel constructions. In Sermon 29, for the second Sunday after Pentecost, for example, for which the thema verse was taken from Luke 14:16—“A certain man made a great supper and invited many”—Bonaventure says that “Our Lord . . . commends three things in the proposed verse, which render any supper complete and perfect: first the excellence of the singular dignity; second, Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1257 the affluence of abundant bounty; third, the benevolence of welcoming cordiality.”27 Note the three characteristics of the supper are not merely its “dignity,” its “bounty,” and its “cordiality,” nor merely its “excellence,” its “affluence,” or its “benevolence”; in Bonaventure’s works, one will almost always find more complex phrases such as “the excellence of the singular dignity,” “the affluence of abundant bounty,” and “the benevolence of welcoming cordiality.” In subsequent subdivisions, the parts can get even more complex. In this sermon, Bonaventure sets up a threefold subdivision of the third part, “the benevolence of welcoming cordiality.” Here is the way Bonaventure formulates the three parts of that sub-division: Our Lord, by reason of his cordiality and benevolence, did not wish to be alone at the supper, but instead called many from various nations. For first, he urgently calls without ceasing by instructing through teachings and examples [instanter sine desitione instruendo per documenta et exampla]; second, freely without recompense by attracting through benefits and promises [gratis sine recompensatione alliciendo per beneficia et promissa]; and third, generally without exception by threatening through eternal punishments [generaliter sine acceptione comminando per aeterna supplicia].28 Note the long Latin phrases, each of which remains strictly parallel. So too, when he chose the opening thema for his principium in aula address from Wisdom 7:1 (Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia [“The creator of all things has taught me wisdom”]), Bonaventure divided it, as I mentioned above, into four parts: artifex (“the maker”), omnium (“of all things”), sapientia (“wisdom”), and docuit me (“he has taught me”). In his “declaration of the parts,” he associates each of these parts with one of the four Aristotelian “causes”: (1) the efficient cause or author, (2) the material cause or subject matter, (3) the formal cause or manner of proceeding, and (4) the final cause or purpose of the work. These make up the four parts of his “declaration of parts.” When we praise the Scriptures, says Bonaventure, we can praise: (1) “the excellence of the author due to the sublimity of the principle (auctoris excellentiam ex sublimitate principiae)—namely, Bonaventure, Sermon 29, no. 1. All English translations from Bonaventure’s sermons are taken from Johnson’s translations in The Sunday Sermons. The Latin texts are taken from Sancti Bonaventura Sermones dominicales, ed. Jacques-Guy Bougerol (Grottaferrata, IT: Collegio S. Bonaventura, 1977). 28 Bonaventure, Sermon 29, no. 1. 27 1258 Randall B. Smith God; (2) “the contents of the material from the utility of the sign” (materiae continentiam ex utilitate signi)—that is, that it covers everything; (3) “the evidence of the form from the singularity of the mode” ( formae evidentiam ex singularitate modi)—that it is like no other book; and (4) “the sufficiency of the end from the uncommon teachability of the good” ( finis sufficientiam ex docibilitate boni)—that it brings humans to their ultimate end and good more readily and effectively than any other book. Read each of those phrases in Latin, and you will find that they scan with the same poetic meter. For a more dramatic example, see the list of “middles” or media that Bonaventure associates with the “days” of creation in his Collations on the Six Days (although, obviously, both the biblical account and Bonaventure include the seventh day, the day of rest): 1. “Primum medium est essentiae aeternali generatione primarium.” 2. “Secundum medium est naturae virtuali diffusione pervalidum.” 3. “Tertium medium est distantiae centrali positione profundum.” 4. “Quartum medium est doctrinae rationali manifestatione praeclarum.” 5. “Quintum medium est modestiae morali electione praecipuum.” 6. “Sextum medium est iustitiae iudicali recompensatione perpulcrum seu praecelsum.” 7. “Septimum medium est concordiae universali conciliatione pacatum.” Each clause is perfectly parallel with the others, scans metrically, and rhymes. This is one of the reasons that Bonaventure is so difficult to render into English prose. Translating his divisions and subdivisions is often more like translating poetry than prose. Indeed, the famous medieval scholar Étienne Gilson has remarked on “the constantly rhythmic nature and assonance of the divisions” in the sermo modernus style, adding: “In this respect, as in others happily more important, Saint Bonaventure is a master of the genre.”29 Although the most common method of formulating the “declaration of parts” involved phrases using words all of one type, there were other methods. Take, for example, the thema we were considering above from Robert of Basevorn’s Forma praedicandi: “The intelligent minister is acceptable to the king” (Proverbs 14:35). Different preachers could make the same threefold divisio—“minister,” “intelligent,” and “acceptable to the king”—but Gilson, “Michel Menot,” 122. 29 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1259 formulate the “declaration of the parts” differently. One way would be to use descriptive nouns: “minister” might be taken to refer to a person’s spiritual humility; “intelligent” might be referred to his mental perfection; and “acceptable to the king” might be taken to refer to his brotherly kindness. Or one might use nouns with a modifying adjective or adjectival phrase: in which case, “minister” might refer to an innocence of life; “intelligent” might refer to the greater knowledge following from this innocence; and “acceptable to the king” might be taken as referring to the gratifying satisfaction that follows from both. But one might also formulate the divisio to answer questions such as who, what, when, and why. The preacher could say what kind of man a priest ought to be (namely, intelligent), what he should do for others (minister), and whom he should please by this life and acts (he should be “acceptable to the king,” meaning to Christ). Another common method involved using the properties or attributes of nouns. Robert of Basevorn’s example of the method is designed for a sermon on the Trinity, for which the preacher might employ the following declaration of parts: “In the first [word or phrase from the thema], there is a likeness to the wisdom of the Son; by the second, we understand the clemency of the Holy Ghost; and by the third, the power of the Father. The relevant nouns in this example are “wisdom,” “clemency,” and “power.” Notice that, by linking these three with the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Father, the preacher has made a nice, complete series, which is what he is supposed to do. According to Robert of Basevorn, the preacher should be attentive to the specific attributes and properties of the nouns he is using. If the preacher were using the opening thema “The intelligent minister is acceptable to the king,” for example, he should note that the word in the verse is “intelligent,” not “learned”; that it is a “minister,” not “magister” (teacher); and that it says “acceptable to the king,” not “rejected.” If there were different words in the thema verse, this would necessitate a different declaration of parts. Robert provides further examples based on a thema drawn from Ezra 32:7, “I will cover the sun with a cloud.” One could set up a threefold divisio based on a metaphorical appropriation of the properties of the nouns in this way: “First, the sun shines alone with the gravity of law and judges; but later it comes under the cloud by the kindness of the Incarnation; and finally at the judgment it is covered with the equity of the sentence, because it does not respect the person [that is the status] of the man.” Clearly, if the thema verse had used the image of the moon rather than the sun, or if the sun had not been said to be “covered with a cloud,” but was shining hot in the middle of the day, or if the sun were not covered by a cloud but instead 1260 Randall B. Smith eclipsed by the moon, then the declaration of parts would have had to be different, and the new declaration could not have been associated with the law, the Incarnation, and the status of mankind in the same way. Consider in this light Bonaventure’s general prologue to his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. As the reader may recall, all such prologues were crafted in the sermo modernus style. On this occasion, Bonaventure chose as his opening thema a single verse from Job 28:11: “The depths of rivers he hath searched, and hidden things he hath brought forth to light” (“profunda quoque fluviorum scrutatus est et abscondita produxit in lucem”).30 He then made a fourfold divisio of the verse in order to associate each with one of the four Aristotelian causes: material, formal, final, and efficient.31 The material cause he associates with the word fluviorum (“rivers”); the formal cause with the word profunda (“depths”); the final cause with the word abscondita (“hidden things”); and the efficient cause with the words scrutatus est (“he has searched”) and produxit in lucem (“he has brought forth to light”). The image that suffuses the whole is of Peter Lombard, “the Magister,” having searched out (scrutatus est) the depths (profunda) and the hidden things (abscondita) of the rivers—of which there are four, corresponding to the four books of the Sentences—in order to bring them forth into the light (produxit in lucem). In the body of the prologue, Bonaventure makes especially creative use of the subject matter and form of the four books of the Sentences by employing various senses of “depth” and “hidden.” Another way of crafting the “declaration of parts” was to use verbs, such as (to use Robert of Basevorn’s examples): “The first perfects oneself as oneself; the second draws the love of others; and the third makes one happy with God.” Another verbal series is: “The first commands the beginning by which there is a start; the middle by which there is progress; and the third, the end by which there is an exit.” A nice example of Bonaventure using a progression of verbs to create an opening divisio can be found in his Sermon 15 (Ductus est Iesus), where he divides the verse “Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit so he might be tempted by the devil (Matt 4:1) into three parts: “Jesus was led by the Spirit,” “into the desert,” and “so he might be tempted by the devil.” Christ wishes to instruct us by these three how to triumph over the devil, The Latin text of Bonaventure’s prologue to his Sentences Commentary can be found in the Quaracchi edition of Bonaventure, 1:1–6. 31 For a discussion of the origin and use of this “Aristotelian” prologue, see A. J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 5–6 and 28–29. 30 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1261 since like him, a person should, first, “be directed by the Holy Spirit,” then “remain in a fortified place,” so as to later “sustain the constant attack of the devil.” Another fascinating example can be found in a sermon Bonaventure delivered on Palm Sunday. On this occasion, he chose as his thema the first part of the verse in Song of Songs 3:11: “Go forth and see, daughter of Zion, King Solomon in the diadem with which his mother crowned him [in the day of his espousal in marriage and in the day of the joy of his heart]” (“egredimini et videte filiae Sion regem Salomonem in diademate quo coronavit eum mater sua in die disponsionis illius et in die laetitiae cordis eius”).32 As it was Palm Sunday and the congregation had processed out of the city and back before beginning the liturgy, Bonaventure begins by suggesting that this procession represents the fact that Christians must learn first to “leave behind the deformity of sin” (“a peccati deformitate exire”), then “know and see God in the clarity of their own conscience” (“in propria conscientiae Dei claritatem cognoscere et videre”), and finally “show Him the honor due to his majesty” (“debitum honorem eius maiestati exhibere”). Bonaventure associates these three “movements” of the congregation—first exteriorly in procession and second interiorly in their souls—with the three parts of his opening thema verse. For, the Holy Spirit bids Christians to forsake their deformity and be prepared to receive God’s illumination in the words “Go forth, daughter of Zion.” “Zion” here, says Bonaventure, can be interpreted as “mirror” and “signifies the pure soul prepared like a mirror to receive the divine reflection.” Next, the text invites us to contemplate the royal beauty and to delight in it, when it adds, “and see King Solomon.” Solomon here is taken to signify Christ. Finally, the verse professes that the soul must recognize his honor and grandeur so that it can be instructed, when it says, “in the diadem with which his mother has crowned Him.” Each step leads naturally to the next, “for purity of conscience prepares one for the knowledge or vision of the beauty proper to divine wisdom, and contemplation of the eternal lights prepares one to honor divine majesty.” Note how Bonaventure has successfully woven together the three parts of the processional the congregation has just completed with the three parts of his opening thema verse that will define the three topics of his sermon. And yet, in the statement of his divisio, he has not repeated any of the words from the opening thema verse, which would be contrary to the rules. As in Sermon 15, Bonaventure has illustrated a spiritual transformation with a physical change of place—in this case, a physical change of Bonaventure, Sermon 20. 32 1262 Randall B. Smith place the congregation has undergone during the Palm Sunday procession, rather than the one Christ undertook into the desert. And yet, this was not the only way Bonaventure could have chosen to make his divisio. On page 120 of volume 9 of the Quaracchi edition of Bonaventure’s works, we find another sermon based on this verse from Song of Songs 3:11, but on this occasion, Bonaventure used the entire verse rather than quoting it only in part. The entire verse in Song of Songs 3:11 reads: “Go forth and see, daughter of Zion, King Solomon in the diadem with which his mother crowned him in the day of his espousal and in the day of the joy of his heart” (“egredimini et videte filiae Sion regem Salomonem in diademate quo coronavit eum mater sua in die disponsionis illius et in die laetitiae cordis eius”). This sermon was preached not on Palm Sunday, but on the solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord. On this occasion, Bonaventure tells his listeners that these words are meant to “excite the souls of the faithful maximally [maxime] to meditate and consider, venerate and watch” for the coming of Christ. On this occasion, instead of making a threefold division, he divides the full verse in four parts. The first words of the verse suggest that Christ is “near or present to those expecting Him in hope” (“propinquam sive praesentem exspectantibus per spem”) when it says, “Go forth daughter Zion,” that is to say, “go forth” because your lover is near. The next words suggest that Christ is “high to those expecting Him in fear” (“excelsam venerantibus per timorem”), when it says, “and see the king Solomon.” Christ is “brilliantly clear to those watching for Him in faith” (“praeclaram speculantibus per fidem”), which is suggested by the words “in the crown with which his mother crowned him” (“in diademate quo coronavit eum mater sua”). And he is “greatly rejoiced and delighted in by those desiring Him in love” (“laetabundam sive iucundam desiderantibus per amorem”), when it adds: “in the day of his espousal and in the day of the joy of his heart.” The artistry of making suitable divisions is one that Bonaventure used to good effect when he created subdivisions, and subdivisions of those subdivisions. But making suitable divisions was only the first part of the preacher’s task. After he had divided his opening thema verse, his next task was to develop the ideas in each of the sections he had created. Medieval preaching manuals contained rules and advice on how this was to be done. The Dilatatio: Methods of “Unfolding” a Sermon The common term for this “developing” of content from the words of the thema verse was dilatatio. Dilatatio literally means “an expanding” (as in the English “dilation”), but it may help to think of it as an “unpacking” or “unfolding” of the semiotic possibilities inherent in the words of the thema Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1263 verse. Both the Ars concionandi and Robert of Basevorn’s Forma praedicandi list eight methods of “dilating” a word or phrase from the opening thema. 1. By proposing a discussion based on a noun as it occurs in definitions or classifications (proponendo orationem pro nomine, sicut fit in diffinitionibus seu quibuscumque notificationibus). 2. By subdivisions of the original divisio (per divisionem). 3. By reasoning or argumentation (ratiocinando vel argumentando). 4. By “chaining” together concordant authorities (per auctoritates concordantes). 5. By setting up a series running from the positive through the comparative and arriving finally at the superlative in the manner of “good, better, best” (ut ponendo superlativum curratur ad positivum et comparativum). 6. By devising metaphors through the properties of a thing (excogitando metaphoras per proprietetem rei). 7. By expounding the thema in diverse ways accordingly to the literal, allegorical, tropological, and/or anagogical senses (exponere thema diversimode: historice, allegorice, moraliter, anagogice). 8. By a consideration of causes and their effects (per causas et effectus). Since some of these phrases may be rather cryptic, leaving the reader still a bit vague, so allow me to illustrate with examples of each. Method 1: Proposing a Discussion Based on a Noun as It Occurs in Definitions or Classifications Let us say that the thema for the sermon is to be taken from Wisdom 10:10, which says that Wisdom “led the just man in the right paths, and showed him the reign of God, and gave him the knowledge of holy things.” And let us say that the preacher divides this passage by saying that Wisdom does three things for the just man: first, she led the just man in the right paths; second, she showed him the reign of God; and third, she gave him the knowledge of holy things. Our question now is how the preacher can “develop” or “dilate” each of these three. For our present purposes, let us focus on only the first of these three, in which Wisdom is said to have “led the just man in the right paths.” According to the nearly identical instructions in both the Ars concionandi and Basevorn’s Forma praedicandi (which henceforth I will simply refer to as “our manuals”), one could “dilate” this phrase, first, by defining the “just man” as “he who gives everyone his proper due.” Then 1264 Randall B. Smith the preacher might further develop this thought by expounding upon how “giving everyone his proper due” applies first to God, second to one’s neighbor, and finally to oneself. Alternatively, the preacher might define “justice” and then develop the idea by expounding upon those things that are contrary to justice, such as vices of various sorts or surrender to the passions. Or he might discuss the virtues related to justice, such as prudence, temperance, and fortitude, suggesting that: prudence is “the ability to discern good things from evil”; fortitude is “the sustaining of difficulties because of love”; and temperance is “the firm command of sensual desires.” The preacher would then introduce this discussion or conclude it using words such as these: “Therefore, prudence consists in discerning, fortitude in enduring, temperance in checking illicit passions, and justice in giving to each one his proper due.”33 Using this method, the preacher would have succeeded in taking one word from his thema verse—in this case, “just”—and turning it into a discussion not only about justice, but about all of the cardinal virtues. And given that the original context proposes that “Wisdom” is “leading the just man,” the preacher might also declaim on the relationship between Wisdom and the virtues, or on how God’s “Wisdom” is the Holy Spirit, then developing the relationship between the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The possibilities are nearly endless—so much so that the Ars concionandi bids the aspiring preacher to notice “how an expansion can be made in the oration by using a noun, not only by indicating what is contained in the [word] itself, but also by indicating other things which can be drawn from it.”34 And yet, medieval preachers were also warned that there were limits, that they “should not attempt to take up definitions or descriptions of everything indiscriminately.”35 How well a particular preacher may have observed those limits—that is, how “indiscriminate” he might appear to be in the definitions and descriptions he added to a particular sermon— will depend to a large degree upon each reader’s taste and tolerance for such things. Readers who just want to “get to the point and be done with it” will likely find these “dilations” on various related topics annoying. Others, like me, who enjoy word games and word associations and seeing the connections between ideas, will find the method rather more delightful. Like any word game, however, the method can be confusing, and thus be a bit frustrating at first. Once you get the hang of it, though, the results can be not only intellectually satisfying, but great fun. Ars concionandi 3.33. Ars concionandi 3.33. 35 Ars concionandi 3.33. 33 34 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1265 Bonaventure was especially adept at the creation and use of complex metaphors. So, for example, for the prologue to the first book of his Sentences commentary, he chose as his thema the verse from Job 28:11: “The depths of rivers he hath searched, and hidden things he hath brought forth to light” (“profunda quoque fluviorum scrutatus est et abscondita produxit in lucem”).36 In his dilation of this verse, Bonaventure associates the material cause of the Lombard’s Sentences with the word fluviorum (“of rivers”) and the four properties of a material river, which he identifies as: (1) perpetuity (perennitatem), since rivers are always flowing; (2) spaciousness (spatiositatem), which distinguishes a river from a brook or a stream; (3) circulation (circulationem), for as it says in Ecclesiastes 1:7, “All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea doth not overflow: unto the place from whence the rivers come, they return, to flow again”; and finally (4) cleansing (emundationem), for the waters cleanse the earth through which the river runs so that it is not polluted. From these four properties of a material river, Bonaventure metaphorically discerns the four properties of what he calls a “spiritual river.” This spiritual river is perpetual in that it involves an emanation of persons, and this emanation is without beginning or end. So too the first book of the Sentences deals with the emanation of persons in the Trinity. The second property of a material river is its spaciousness, and this Bonaventure associates with the subject matter of the second book of the Sentences: creation. The third property of a material river is its circulation, and just as the beginning of a circle is joined to its end, so in the Incarnation, the subject of the third book of the Sentences, the highest is joined to the lowest, God to man. The fourth property of a material river is cleansing. So too the fourth book of the Lombard’s Sentences deals with the sacraments, which cleanse us “from the pollution of sin.” Method 2: Creating Subdivisions After the original division of the opening biblical thema, a preacher would sometimes make further subdivisions within one or more of the “members” of his opening divisio. Bonaventure loved this method of dividing divisions into further subdivisions. As anyone who has had experience of the infinite orderliness and elasticity of his mind can attest, Bonaventure was quite capable of making all these divisions, subdivisions, and sub-subdivisions while mentally keeping track of each and every one of them. I mentioned above that Bonaventure took as his thema verse for his The Latin text of Bonaventure’s prologue to his Sentences commentary can be found in the Quaracchi edition of Bonaventure, 1:1–6. 36 1266 Randall B. Smith principium in aula address the verse in Wisdom 7:21: “Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia” (“Wisdom, the maker of all things, taught me”). On that occasion, he made a fourfold divisio of the thema in order to associate each part with one of the four Aristotelian causes. 1. artifex (“maker”): author, or efficient cause; 2. omnium (“of all things”): subject matter or material cause; 3. sapientia (“wisdom”): form; 4. docuit me (“taught me”): end.37 From this first fourfold division, we get two others. The excellence of the author, he says, is related to the sublimity of the principle (“auctoris excellentiam ex sublimitate principia”); the contents of the material is related to the utility of the sign (“materiae continentiam ex utilitate signi”); the evidence of the form is related to the uniqueness of the mode (“formae evidentiam ex singularitate modi”); and the sufficiency of the end is related to Scripture’s superior ability to teach the good. The first of these, the sublimity of the principle, shows the “height” of the authority (“altitudinem auctoritatis”) of Scripture; the fullness of the subject matter shows the “breadth of its generality” (“latitudinem generalitatis”); the evidence of the form shows the “certitude of its truth” (“certitudinem veritatis”); and the sufficiency of the end shows the “fullness of its utility” (“plenitudinem utilitatis”).38 In each section, Bonaventure divides his original division into four subdivisions. A simple outline of the whole would look like this: 1. artifex (“maker”): author, or efficient cause A. superiority of reason B. priority of edition C. majority of correction D. stability of adhesion 2. omnium (“of all things”): subject matter, or material cause 1. A. utility of comprehension 2. B. totality of perfection 3. C. principle of attribution I will be referring to the Principium by the section numbers of the Latin text found in Benson, “Bonaventure’s Inaugural Sermon at Paris.” 38 Principium, no. 2. The reader can see already the point I was making above: Bonaventure is absolutely precise and feels no need to spare the complexity when he formulates these parallel constructions. 37 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1267 4. D. uniformity of consideration 3. sapientia (wisdom): the form A. highest in principles B. most certain in sentences C. most profound in mysteries D. most plain in necessary things D) docuit me (teach me): the end A. cognition of the truth B. argumentation against falsity C. reproof of iniquity D. building up of charity. Outlining the whole would require sub-subsections under each of the subsections. And this is one of Bonaventure’s simpler compositions! We might fruitfully compare the medieval method of division and subdivision employed in the sermo modernus style of preaching with the divisions and subdivisions commonly used in the exegesis of biblical texts. The method is similarly reminiscent of the divisions and subdivisions one finds in scholastic summae and disputed questions. D’Avray classifies all of these as expressions of what he calls “the subdividing mentality” of the Scholastics, of which sermons and disputed questions were two species of the same genus, and biblical commentaries a third.39 Fr. d’Avray was not willing to conclude that “the habit of systematically dividing sermons should be traced back to scholastic influence.”40 Tracing lines of influence can indeed be tricky, and we have no reason to dive into those troubled waters. Perhaps it is safest to say merely that they the practices of preaching, commenting, and disputing—the three duties of a medieval master— all expressed a similar habit of mind. In Bonaventure’s prologue to the Sentences and that of his Commentary on the Gospel of John, the sermo modernus style section can be found together with a complex divisio textus, and even with several disputed questions. Method 3: Argumentation Gilson once wrote that “the place for disputes is the School, the place for the sermon is the church” (“la place des disputes est à l’École, celle du See d’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, 176–79, esp. 176: “One feature which thirteenth-century mendicant sermons do share with the academic genres to which I would restrict the word ‘scholastic’ is the passion for dividing and sub-dividing.” 40 D’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, 178. 39 1268 Randall B. Smith sermon est à l’Église”).41 In this, he was simply echoing a warning made by thirteenth-century preaching manuals that a sermon should not sound like a disputation: that is, it should not proceed by setting forth premises from which a conclusion is then deduced.42 Clearly, such advice would have become necessary only once preachers had gained the education in logic on offer at universities such as those at Paris, Oxford, and others. And yet, to say that a sermon should not proceed in the manner of a disputation was not the same as saying that a sermon should not make use of arguments, since “argumentation” was universally recognized as a method of dilatatio. According to the Ars concionandi, the type of argument especially fitting for a sermon involved reasoning by opposing two contraries, one of which is approved and the other of which is made the subject of approach, “thereby demonstrating a type of cause.” The Ars concionandi proposes this example: to argue that continence should be fostered, the preacher should speak about riotous living and show that it destroys the body, the soul, possessions, and reputation, whereas continence does the reverse. Therefore, one ought to “practice continence.” Scholastically trained preachers like Bonaventure resisted the temptation to turn the sermon into another version of a disputed question, but they also understood that simple arguments were not foreign to a good sermon, especially with university audiences accustomed to hearing arguments. And yet, although argumentation was not at all foreign to preaching in the thirteenth century, it was usually not the single most essential element. Nor were the arguments used in sermons usually of the same type as those in “disputed questions.” Arguments in sermons were simpler, involving fewer steps, with more of the argumentative force depending upon the juxtaposition of contraries or the listing of costs suffered or benefits gained. Method 4: Concordance of Texts or the “Chaining” of Authorities Although medieval preachers occasionally used arguments in their sermons, they loved to quote Bible verses even more. A medieval sermon of the sermo modernus style would be noteworthy to any modern audience precisely because of its dual nature. On the one hand, it would sound extremely “Scholastic” because of its definitions, distinctions, and arguments. But it would also sound extraordinarily “biblical,” given that one Gilson, “Michel Menot,” 134. Cf. Ars concionandi 3.40, where the author warns that certain precautions should be taken “lest preaching seem like a disputation” (“Ne praedicatio videatur esse disputatio, oportet, quod sic fiat, quasi non esset argumentatio, ut scilicet non praemittantur propositiones, et postea inferatur conclusio”). 41 42 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1269 does not go more than a sentence or two without finding another biblical verse being quoted. As Mulcahey notes, “the use of [biblical] auctoritates by some preachers became so extensive that a whole sermon was sometimes virtually no more than an uninterrupted sequence of quotations.” She further suggests: “The problem facing the preacher was how to connect all his auctoritates in a logical and pleasing fashion. The usual method was to build up ‘chains’ of authorities by concording them all either verbaliter, verbally, with a key word of the member under discussion, or realiter, that is, by means of analogous ideas, or both.”43 This practice, sometimes described as the “chaining” of authorities was, as Mulcahey notes, “a device universally employed by the preachers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.”44 Like other medieval preachers, Bonaventure relished this method of “expanding” a sermon. And given his prodigious memory and wide knowledge of the Scriptures, he was adept at finding several Bible verses to support not only every argument, but nearly every passing remark. In Sermon 1, for example, in a discussion on why Christ was “desired” by the patriarchs and prophets, Bonaventure writes: First, he is the desired one because the splendor of original innocence delights the sight when viewed. No one was without actual or original sin except Christ alone, who is more beautiful than the sons of men (Ps 44:3), the desire of the everlasting hills (Gen 49:26), that is, of the angels and the holy fathers, the spotless mirror of the majesty of God (Wis 7:26) more splendid than the sun (Wis 7:29), in whom the angels desire to gaze (1 Peter 1:12) and truly he is symbolized by Solomon according to 1 Kings 10:24: All the earth desired to see the face of Solomon. In manifold fashion the figure represented by Solomon is the true Solomon, who is Christ. Augustine says as much in Book 17 of the City of God: “The things said of Solomon are really appropriate to Christ alone, since in Solomon the figure is veiled, but in Christ the truth is represented.”45 Method 5: Setting Up a Series: Good, Better, Best The short, one-sentence description of this method in Latin is harder to understand than the method itself. The rather complicated way the Ars concionandi describes the method is to say that the dilatatio is carried out Mulcahey, First the Bow Is Bent, 410. Mulcahey, First the Bow Is Bent, 409. 45 Bonaventure, Sermon 1, no. 8. 43 44 1270 Randall B. Smith “through those words which have the same meaning and which agree in root, although they carry incidental differences,” and therefore, “if a superlative has been proposed, one can proceed to the positive and comparative.”46 This is a complicated way of saying that the preacher should set up a series of “good, better, best.” The example the Ars concionandi gives is as follows. Suppose the division of the thema verse has left the preacher with this bit of the verse from Psalm 44:4, “Bind your sword around your thighs, strongest one.” This verse can be dilated by suggesting that: those people strongly bound by the sword are those who are married; those even stronger are the continent; and the strongest are the virgins. Or take the passage from the Song of Songs 5:1 which reads, “I have drunk, dearest one.” One might dilate this verse by suggesting that: those are dear who live in charity, although of an imperfect type; those are dearer who can endure adversity for the sake of Christ but with some annoyance; and those are dearest who laugh in the midst of their humiliations.47 Method 6: The Use of Metaphors Dilating using the metaphorical meanings of terms is one of the most common techniques one finds in Bonaventure’s sermons. There are about as many different ways of doing this as there are different ways of giving various metaphorical meanings to terms. We saw above in Bonaventure’s prologue to his Sentences commentary that he associates the characteristics of a material river metaphorically with what he calls a “spiritual river.” This spiritual river is perpetual in that it involves an emanation of persons in the Trinity. So too, as we have seen above in Sermon 20, Bonaventure accepts the notion from medieval sources that “Zion” means “mirror,” and so he interprets “Zion” in the verse Go forth, daughter of Zion as “mirror” and suggests that we can understand the verse as signifying metaphorically that the “pure soul” should be prepared like a clean mirror to receive the divine reflection. And in one final example, in Sermon 2, dilating upon the thema verse from Luke 21:28—“When these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads because your redemption is at hand”—Bonaventure tells his listeners that they should lift up their heads to see the signs that, Ars concionandi 3.42: “per ea eiusdam sunt cognitiones, quae scilicet conveniunt in radice, licet diversitatem habeant. Posito igitur superlativum, discurratur ad positivum et comparativum.” 47 Ars concionandi 3.42. 46 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1271 as Luke’s Gospel says, “will be in the sun, the moon, and the stars.” But they should also be wary because “many people many people are reckless in viewing these signs due to a lack of knowledge.”48 For, when the disciples asked Jesus in Matthew 24:3 and 29 “what is the sign of your coming and the end of the world?” he responded, “Following the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from the heavens.” The obscuring of the rays from the sun, says Bonaventure, “represents the signs of deceitful miracles that subvert the true faith.” For “just as the rays of the sun are obscured by clouds, so too, the ray of faith, darkened in the Christian deceived by these signs, will not give off the light of truth.49 Some readers might find these “metaphorical” interpretations rather far-fetched; others will love them: the more creative, the better. Much depends upon whether the reader likes and admires various forms of word-play. Much the same can be said for Bonaventure’s employment of the allegorical senses. Method 7: A Fourfold Exposition according to the Historical, Allegorical, Moral, and/or Anagogical Senses of Scripture It is sometimes mistakenly claimed that the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses of Scripture were largely abandoned in the thirteenth century, having given way to a greater focus on literal sense of the Scriptures.50 Although it is true that a new interest in and emphasis on the literal sense of the Scriptures arose in late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, we still find all four senses of Scripture in the preaching of the high Middle Ages as a means of “dilating” a term or phrase in the opening thema. So, for example, Bonaventure makes a fascinating use of the three spiritual senses in Collation 7 of his Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, in his discussion of the gift of counsel. This collation is the last one in a series of three collations—5, 6, and 7—all based on this passage from Proverbs 31:10–13: Bonaventure, Sermon 2, no. 2. Bonaventure, Sermon 2, no. 4. 50 There are others, of course, who assume that all the benighted medieval scholars used nothing but an allegorical approach to the Scriptures until the Protestant scholars of the sixteenth century or those of the nineteenth century (depending upon your viewpoint) finally restored biblical scholarship to an authentic dedication to the literal sense of the text. It was Beryl Smalley’s somewhat lonely task to disabuse many twentieth-century biblical scholars of this mistaken notion in her classic The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwells, 1941; latest edition currently available from University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). 48 49 1272 Randall B. Smith Who shall find a valiant woman [mulierem fortem]? Far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he shall have no need of spoils. She will render him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. She hath sought wool and flax, and hath wrought by the counsel of her hands [consilio manuum suarum]. With this as his thema verse, Bonaventure is able to discourse upon the gifts of both fortitude (“Who shall find a valiant woman?”) and counsel (“the counsel of her hands”). Thus in Collation 7, after distinguishing three types of “counsel”— according to the judgment of right reason, according to the command of good will, and according to the practice of virtue—Bonaventure turns directly in section 9 to the verse “She hath sought wool and flax, and hath wrought by the counsel of her hands.” He explains: “Coarse clothing is made from wool. Finer clothing is made from flax. Warm clothing is made of wool. Lighter clothing is made from flax. Further, outer garments are made of wool. Undergarments are made of flax.” These three properties will provide the basis for an allegorical, anagogical, and tropological understanding of the verse. Allegorically, says Bonaventure, “wool” and “linen” signify the Old and New Testaments—the Old Testament being more coarse or rough, like wool, and the New Testament being finer, like flax. In terms of anagogy, says Bonaventure: “Wool from which warm clothing is made signifies the revelation of prayer because prayer is like heat. On the other hand, flax from which softer clothing is made signifies delights.” Tropologically, according to the moral sense, wool, from which outer garments are made, signifies external things, while flax, from which undergarments are made, signifies the inner experiences of just people. What the reader should note in the sermons, however, is that Bonaventure employs the three spiritual senses as one method among others of “dilating” or “unfolding” a biblical verse. The spiritual senses have not been abandoned or forgotten—so, for example, Bonaventure will use the three spiritual senses to structure the entire second half of his De reductione artium ad theologiam—but they no longer serve as the foundations of preaching. The rules of divisio and dilatatio serve that purpose instead. Method 8: The Consideration of Causes and Their Effects The final method of dilatatio is the consideration of causes and their effects. In addition to being a creator of imaginative images, Bonaventure’s skill in dialectic was second-to-none, and hence this method of “dilating” a point seems to have come naturally to him, and he uses it frequently. Indeed, he Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1273 will often “chain” together a whole series of cause-and-effect relationships. In Bonaventure’s Sermon 1 (Veniet desideratus), based on the thema verse from Haggai 2:8—“The one desired by all the nations will come”— dilating upon the word veniet (“he will come”), Bonaventure notes: “If someone asks the principal reason and cause for God coming in the flesh, the best reason is the most excellent liberality of God by which, according to which, and because of which the Word became incarnate.”51 The cause of the Incarnation is God’s liberality, which Bonaventure distinguishes as consisting of three types: first, that of a “most gracious mediator displaying the remedies of peace and harmony”; second, that of a “most truthful doctor offering proofs of piety and justice; and third, that “of a most humble king, demonstrating examples of humility and subjection, that is, of poverty and indigence.” Our response to God’s liberality should be made accordingly: we should love him as a mediator, revere him as a doctor, and imitate him as a precursor. Distinguishing in this way allows Bonaventure in the following sections to develop each of these points in turn and thus “expand” his content. In all the examples I have supplied, notice how these methods of dilatatio are frequently used in conjunction with one another. A cause-and-effect discussion is often built upon an “interpretation of names” or a guiding metaphor, and each of these will provide opportunities for a concordance of texts and the “chaining” of biblical authorities. The methods of dilatatio overlap and intersect with one another as the author develops the content of the sermon. I suggest that none of this is just for play—although it is playful. These methods of dilatatio are the means by which a medieval preacher can, if he is capable, craft an intellectually sophisticated sermon with a serious theological point in such a way that it will be both compelling and memorable to his audience. A quick glance at any passage from Bonaventure’s works will reveal that making theological points using the methods outlined above simply is Bonaventure’s style. Even when he is not preaching per se in a liturgical context, Bonaventure still employs the arts of the sermo modernus. The Sermo Modernus Style in Bonaventure’s Later Work I do not wish to claim too much for the sermo modernus style’s influence on Bonaventure’s work. The style is readily apparent in many of his early works; but not, for example, when he writes a “disputed question,” in which case his style is very much determined by the nature of the genre. Even in a text like the Itinerarium mentis ad Deum, one of Bonaventure’s Bonaventure, Sermon 1, no. 3. 51 1274 Randall B. Smith most popular writings, although Bonaventure’s training in sermo modernus style preaching undoubtedly had an influence on that text inasmuch as it trained him to deal creatively with biblical images such as the six-winged seraph, still and all, that text is not written in the style we have been investigating. So the question naturally arises: Did Bonaventure observe the forms of his Parisian education when he was younger, either still in training or recently incepted, only to abandon them in later years after he had given up his master’s chair at Paris and become Minister General of the Franciscan order? To address this question, we will examine two of Bonaventure’s later writings: the Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, a text scholars tell us was likely written in the year 1268, some eleven years after he left his chair at the university; and the Collations on the Six Days of Creation, delivered during Easter of 1273, probably the last text he worked on before his death in 1274. As I propose to show in what follows, my thesis is that, although Bonaventure employs the forms of the sermo modernus style he learned at Paris somewhat more loosely and more creatively than before, one can still discern their presence. We might attribute some of this to the fact that, in these two collations, Bonaventure was addressing a group of young Franciscans who enrolled at the University of Paris. The Itinerarium was also written for his Franciscan brothers, and we do not see the same structured prologue or the same use of division and dilation that we saw in, say, the Breviloquium. And yet, when he wrote the Itinerarium, it is unlikely that Bonaventure thought of it as a “university” text. A “collation,” by contrast, was a standard university genre, and when Bonaventure undertook to write these two collations, he observed many of the rules of construction we have been reviewing thus far in previous chapters, even though it was over a decade after his inception. As we will see, it would be wrong to assume that he left the forms of his university education behind him as he matured and became enmeshed in his duties as Minister General. The Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Grace and the Moral Life The first thing to notice about the Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit is that the first collation—what the translator entitles “Conference 1”—serves much the same role as the prologues in his earlier works.52 For Collationes de septem donis Spiritus Sancti (hereafter, Collat. de sept.), I will quote from the English translation by Zachary Hayes in Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Works of St. Bonaventure 14 (St. Bonaventure, NY: 52 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1275 It introduces the work with an attempt to convince the listeners of the importance of the topic. As in Bonaventure’s sermons and prologues, each collation begins with its own biblical thema verse. And although Bonaventure does not divide this opening biblical verse into several parts and structure his entire discussion around the parts of the divisio, most of the methods of developing the content are the same as those we identified in the thirteenth-century “modern sermon.” The first collation begins with this thema verse from 2 Corinthians 6:1: “We exhort you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” After stating his thema, Bonaventure introduces another verse from Psalm 44:3 that serves as a kind of prothema: “Grace has poured out upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever.”53 This second text, says Bonaventure, refers to Christ, “who is the blessed one in whom all the peoples of the earth are blessed.” Note the interesting shift: in a treatise on the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, he begins, properly enough, with grace. But immediately he traces that grace back to its ultimate source: not the Holy Spirit per se, but Christ. It is the grace of Christ that is imparted with the gifts. We move Franciscan Institute, 2010). The work is divided into “conferences,” which are further divided into sections (so, Collat. de sept. 1.3 is “conference” 1, section 3). I will quote the Latin text from the version in vol. 5 of the Quarrachi edition. The reader should note, however, that new manuscripts of these Collationes have been discovered since the Quarrachi editors did their work, manuscripts that have generated some controversy as to the text we have known for over a century. For the details, see Jacqueline Hamesse, “New Perspectives for Critical Editions of Franciscan Texts of the Middle Ages,” Franciscan Studies 56 (1998): 169–87, esp. 180 and 183 (for Collat. de sept.). For the key article on the most interesting new manuscript, see G. Ouy and C. Cenci, “Manoscritti assisani reperiti nella biblioteca pubblica di Leningrado e nel Seminario di Firenze,” Antonianum 60 (1985): 335–42. Hamesse suggests in her article that “the Collationes de septem donis Spiritus sancti will be re-edited soon” and is to be published in the Corpus Christianorum, Series Medievalis. “The text that will published,” reports Hamesse, “will be quite different from that in the Quaracchi edition.” She does not say when that new edition is to be published. Her article appeared in 1998; it is now 2019, and to my knowledge, the edition has not yet appeared. It will be interesting for many reasons to see this edition when it comes out, but there will still be the necessary work of comparing the versions. And for the foreseeable future, the only version accessible to most readers will be the one translated by Zachary Hayes. When the new edition does arrive, I would hazard to guess that, although the wording may differ, the same literary and structural elements I have described here will remain essentially the same and the conclusion will be the same: Bonaventure writes in the sermo modernus style. I am grateful, however, to the anonymous reviewer of this article for informing me of the complexities in the manuscript tradition of which I was not otherwise aware. 53 Collat. de sept. 1.1. 1276 Randall B. Smith from an abstract consideration of grace right back to the person of Jesus Christ. To receive the gifts is to receive Christ. In section 2, Bonaventure relates his current series of lectures on the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit with a group of collations he had done the year before on the Ten Commandments, as though they were two parts of a single pedagogical project. “Two things are necessary for salvation,” he tells his audience, “namely knowledge of truth and practice of virtue.”54 Knowledge of truth comes through the Law, but the practice of virtue, he tells them, comes about through grace. We might pause for a moment to compare this little passage with a similar theme we find in Thomas Aquinas’s questions on the law. As I mentioned above in a discussion of Thomas’s prologues in the Summa theologia, the prologue to ST I-II, q. 90, reads: We have now to consider the extrinsic principles of acts. Now the extrinsic principle inclining to evil is the devil, of whose temptations we have spoken in the First Part. But the extrinsic principle moving to good is God, Who both instructs us by means of His Law, and assists us by His Grace: wherefore in the first place we must speak of law; in the second place, of grace. One will often find volumes with the title Thomas Aquinas: Treatise on Law, nearly all of them containing the material found in ST I-II, qq. 90–97. The problem is that, if we have been paying attention to Thomas’s prologue, we know that the questions on law continue up to the questions on grace, and the questions on grace begin with ST I-II, q. 109. This suggests that Thomas’s “treatise on law” continues from question 90 all the way to question 108 and includes the sections on the Old Law—that is to say, the Mosaic Law—and the New Law. Thus, for Thomas, as for Bonaventure, we are “instructed by means of the Law,” but this instruction is not enough. We also need to be “assisted by God’s grace.” In the Summa theologiae, Thomas describes “law” and “grace” as two remedies for human pride. Since man was proud of his knowledge, “as though his natural reason could suffice him for salvation,” God left man to the guidance of his reason alone without the help of the written law. As a result, man fell “headlong into idolatry and the most shameful vices.” So God gave him a written law, the Law of Moses, to serve “as a remedy for human ignorance, because ‘by the Law is the knowledge of sin’” (Rom 3:20). But, after man had been instructed by the Law, says Thomas, his Collat. de sept. 1.2. 54 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1277 pride was convinced of his weakness, through his being unable to fulfil what he knew. Hence, as the Apostle concludes (Rom 8:3–4), “what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sent His own Son . . . that the justification of the Law might be fulfilled in us.”55 Bonaventure describes the relationship between “law” and “grace” using the image of a bird with the power to see the heavens but without the power in its wings to fly. The Law is related to grace as the power to know is related to the ability to do, and as a tool is related to the power of the one who uses it. It is as though a bird had the power to see the heavens, but did not have strength in its wings. It would not be able to fly and hence could not reach the heights. . . . So it is clear that the grace of God is far more excellent than the Law itself. I have spoken to you at another time about the Law of the Decalogue, and now I will speak to you about grace. Grace is more necessary for us than the Law.56 As a feature of the “protreptic” dimension of this early collation, Bonaventure is telling his audience, in effect: “If you thought my Collations on the Ten Commandments last year were worthwhile, these collations on the Gifts of the Spirit are even more important, precisely because they are the necessary complement to those previous lectures.” Both Thomas and Bonaventure share the notion that the Law instructs us in the truth we could and should know by reason alone, but often do not because our reason and will have been damaged by sin, and that, even once we are taught by the Law, the full realization of the moral life and the perfection of the virtues depends upon the gift of God’s grace. As we have seen, however, each master expresses this view in his own characteristic fashion. At the conclusion of this brief introductory section, Bonaventure finishes with a feature characteristic of sermons with a prothema: he ends with a prayer that God may give him the grace to speak well on the topic he has proposed. In his sermons, these prayers concluding the prothema section can sometimes be very long. So, for example, in Sermon 5, Bonaventure concludes his prothema this way: Before all else it is necessary to ask God with a prayer, so that with his word of grace and piety, he wash the net, that is, our sermon and See esp. ST I-II, q. 98, a. 6. Collat. de sept. 1.2. 55 56 1278 Randall B. Smith ennoble it with the clarity of truth by removing the obscurity of error, with the delight of rest by removing the gravity of labor, and with the usefulness of charity by removing the unfruitfulness of the works, so that with clear understanding, delighted affections, and beneficial works, we might be able to say some things to the praise and glory, etc. So too, early on in Collation 1, before he restates his opening thema verse from 2 Corinthians 6:1, Bonaventure asks the Lord’s blessing: So to begin, we shall ask the Lord that our words may serve the cause of grace and that the intention of our mind, if it finds favor with the Lord, may find powerful expression in words so that we might be able to say something that will be for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.57 Prayers of this sort, imploring God’s help to speak worthily, were an essential part of academic sermons of the day. And yet, even a supremely devotional a text such as the Itinerarium mentis in Deum does not have an opening prayer of this sort. It presence here suggests strongly that the genre Bonaventure sees himself writing is related to the sermon. Restatement of the Thema Verse, Division, and Subdivisions In a sermon, after the prothema, we would expect a restatement of the thema verse. And sure enough, at the beginning of section 3, we find the opening biblical verse from 2 Corinthians 6:1 repeated: “We exhort you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” Bonaventure comments: “In this brief text, the apostle Paul encourages us to be receptive to divine grace, and once we have received that grace that we preserve it, and as we preserve it, that we seek to guard it and let it increase.”58 There are three categories here: receiving, preserving, and increasing. It may be a bit of a stretch to say that Paul includes all three of these in this single verse from 2 Corinthians 6:1. If this had been a full-fledged sermon, Bonaventure’s next step would have been to divide up this thema verse in such a way as to associate each of the parts with the topics he intended to discuss. He might, for example, have associated “receiving” with the word “receive”; “preserving” with “we exhort you”; and “increasing” with the words “not in vain.” Instead, he makes a quick transition from receiving (suscipiendam), Collat. de sept. 1.2. Collat. de sept. 1.3. 57 58 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1279 preserving (custodiendam), and increasing (multiplicandam) grace to a consideration of its origin (ortus), use (usus), and fruit ( fructus). This transition is a bit shocking and not immediately obvious. Verbally, he merely says this: “Therefore, he [St. Paul] urges us to be prompt in receiving, in preserving, and in increasing the grace of God. Three points come to mind that we must consider if this exhortation is to be realized in us. First, what is the origin of this grace; second, what is its use; and third, what is its fruit.”59 For many readers, these three—origin, use, and fruit—may have not have been the first three words that came to mind. But to be fair, I suppose we might say that we are enabled to receive grace when we know its origin, just as we are enabled to get water when we know where to get it. And we can better preserve it if we know its proper use; otherwise we might squander it. And finally, we can better increase it if we know the fruit it is supposed to bring us; otherwise we might mistake its proper fruit for, say, power or wealth, and not be as receptive to its increase. Here again, had this been a sermon of the strict sermo modernus style, Bonaventure might have associated the origin of grace with the words “grace of God,” its use with the word “receive,” and its fruit either with “exhort” or “not in vain” or both. And yet, although Bonaventure does not make the standard divisions and associations here that were characteristic of the sermo modernus style, he does employ the same style of threefold division and subdivision that was common practice in his earlier works. We have already seen him create the first threefold divisio by distinguishing the origin, use, and fruit of grace. In what follows, he will take each of these and dilate it by first making a further threefold subdivision. So, for example, the origin of grace he traces back, unsurprisingly, to Christ, the Word of God, but then makes a threefold subdivision, distinguishing (1) the incarnate Word (Verbum incarnatum), (2) the crucified Word (Verbum crucifixum), and (3) the inspired Word (Verbum inspiratum).60 Under the heading of the use of grace, he distinguishes three components: (1) faithfulness with respect to God ( fidelis respectu Dei); (2) strength in relation to oneself (virilis in se); and (c) generosity in relation to one’s neighbor (liberalis in proximum).61 Under the “fruits” of grace, he lists: (1) the remission of guilt (remissio culpae); (2) the fullness of justice (plenitudo iustitiae); and (3) the endurance of the happy life (perpetuatio vitae beatae) (section 13). Note in each list the sermo modernus style subdivisions and parallelism. It may have Collat. de sept. 1.3. Collat. de sept. 1.5. 61 Collat. de sept. 1.9. 59 60 1280 Randall B. Smith been eleven years since Bonaventure’s inception, but he had not lost his touch. Apart from choosing not to tie his discussion more firmly to the opening thema verse, this is precisely how Bonaventure created content in his sermons, prologues, and early writings: by divisio and dilatatio. He begins with a threefold division, which becomes, with a threefold subdivision of each, nine headings in which to develop content with comments and “chained” biblical texts. By devoting one or two sections to each subdivision, he is able to fill sections 5 through 16 with his discussion of these nine categories. In section 17, then, he formulates another divisio to help him transition from his discussion of the origin, use, and fruit of grace (with its series of “threes”) to the sevenfold division he needs to discuss the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Corresponding to the three “fruits” of grace—the remission of guilt, the fullness of justice, and the endurance of a happy life— Bonaventure identifies three types of grace: the “remission of guilt” is the result of “a grace that heals” (gratia curans); the “fullness of justice” is the result of “a grace that strengthens” (gratia corroborans); and “the endurance of the happy life” is the result of “a grace that brings to completion” (gratia consummans).62 “Healing grace” (gratia currans) is given in the seven sacraments. “Strengthening grace” (gratia corroborans) is associated with the seven virtues—the four cardinal and three theological—and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. And “consummating grace” (gratia consummans), the grace that brings to completion, is associated in this life with the seven beatitudes mentioned in Matthew 5:3–11 and in the next life with seven endowments, three of which relate to the soul—vision (the fulfillment of faith), enjoyment (the fulfillment of hope), and possession (the fulfillment of charity)—and four that overflow into the body from the joy of the soul: clarity, subtlety, agility, and impassibility. With this, Bonaventure has transitioned nicely from his series of “threes” to a series of “sevens,” and from his discussion in the earlier sections on grace to his discussion of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in the coming sections. Consider the challenge Bonaventure was likely facing. He was addressing a group of brothers over whom he had charge, many of whom were being educated at the University of Paris and influenced by the intellectual disputes that occurred there. By the year this series of collations was being composed, zeal for the works of Aristotle was rampant at Paris, especially among masters in the arts faculty. For devotees of Aristotle’s Ethics, the virtues would have been a prominent topic. It would have been Bonaven Collat. de sept. 1.17. 62 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1281 ture’s task to remind his audience of the human need for grace, without which we are not able to overcome our sinful human nature, become just, or reach our ultimate end, which is attained only in union with God in heaven, not merely in exercising the political virtues or in a life of contemplation. Kevin Hughes, among others, has argued that Bonaventure’s later Collations on the Six Days served as a protreptic discourse, as an exhortation to a particular form of wisdom and a related way of life.63 I would argue that this first collation, the “prologue” to Bonaventure’s Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, serves the same purpose: it calls upon its audience to embrace a Christian wisdom about the world and a biblically based understanding of human nature and human flourishing. Its message is that, although Aristotle can teach much that is valuable about the virtues and the moral life, without grace, we humans are like birds that can see the sky but have no power in our wings to rise upward. Structure of the Remaining Collations A collatio was understood to be a certain kind of sermon: not one delivered in the context of a liturgical service, such as Mass or vespers, but a sermon nonetheless. Some modern translators translate the word collatio with the odd hybrid “sermon-conference.” Strictly speaking, collatio is Latin for “bringing together.” But this tells us nothing about why the friars were coming together. “Sermon-conference” communicates that its style was that of a sermon, but not a sermon delivered in a liturgical context. Since it is a sermon, one of the keys to reading it and remembering its content is to note the characteristic sermo modernus structure. Allow me to illustrate with Collations 2 and 3. Collation 2 begins with the verse from Psalm 33:12: “Come, children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord.”64 This verse serves as the thema for the entire collation. Bonaventure does not make a divisio of the words and then order each section according to those divisions, but as he did with the verse from 2 Corinthians 6:1 in Collation 1, he opens with this verse and restates it after an introductory prothema section. The prothema verse in introduced immediately after the thema: “Listen in silence, and good grace will come to you because of your reverence” (Sirach 32:9). The wording of this passage allows Bonaventure to distinguish “good grace” from “evil graces.” “Evil grace,” like beauty, can make Kevin Hughes, “St. Bonaventure’s Collationes in Hexaëmeron: Fractured Sermons and Protreptic Discourse,” Franciscan Studies 63 (2005): 107–29. 64 Collat. de sept. 2.1. 63 1282 Randall B. Smith one vain. “Good grace” makes a person good. This is the sort of grace that, says Bonaventure, he described in the previous collation in terms of its origin, use, and fruit. This comment allows him to review the basic points he made in the previous collation, after which he brings his prothema to a conclusion with a prayer for success in speaking about the seven gifts.65 In section 2, he introduces the seven gifts by quoting the passage from Isaiah 11:2–3 where they appear: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord will fill him.” These seven gifts help to counter the seven deadly sins—pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and dissipation—and help foster the seven virtues mentioned in the Beatitudes: voluntary poverty, mildness, mourning, hunger for justice, mercy, purity of heart, and peace. According to Bonaventure’s account, the gift of fear destroys pride and introduces the good of poverty. The gift of piety destroys envy and introduces gentleness and meekness of spirit. The gift of knowledge destroys anger and introduces the gift of mourning. The gift of fortitude destroys sloth and introduces the hunger for justice. The gift of counsel destroys avarice and introduces mercy. The gift of understanding destroys gluttony and introduces purity of heart. The gift of wisdom destroys voluptuousness and brings in peace. “Thus, through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit all evil is destroyed and every form of good is introduced.”66 After suggesting that these seven gifts can be gotten only from “the Father of Lights” and that, to obtain them, we must ask in prayer, and after a rather unconvincing attempt to associate each of the seven gifts with a separate section of the Lord’s Prayer (section 4), Bonaventure returns to his opening thema verse—“Come, children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord”—thereby signaling to his audience that he is returning to the primary topic of the second collation: namely, the fear of the Lord.67 Bonaventure writes: “It seems to me that fear of the Lord is a very beautiful tree planted in the heart of the holy person and watered continuously by God. And when that tree has grown to its fullness, that person is worthy of eternal glory.”68 This is a lovely image, but it also sets up the divisions Bonaventure wishes to make next, in which he says he will describe “the root of the tree and its branches together with its fruit.” What this means in practice is that he will describe the origin of the fear of the Lord Collat. de sept. 2.1. Collat. de sept. 2.3. 67 Collat. de sept. 2.6. 68 Collat. de sept. 2.6. 65 66 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1283 (its root), its value (the branches), and its perfection (the fruit). This is his standard threefold divisio. Indeed, with one minor exception, he will fill out the rest of the collation with repeated use of threefold subdivisions. The first of these threefold subdivisions arises in conjunction with origin of the fear of the Lord. According to Bonaventure, it arises from: (1) a consideration of the sublime quality of the divine power (ex consideratione divinae potentiae); (2) a consideration of God’s all-seeing wisdom (ex consideratione perspicacitatis divinae sapientiae); and (3) a consideration of the severity of the divine punishment (ex consideratione severitatis divinae vindictae). Under the last of these, “severity of divine punishment,” he identifies seven judgments of God: six in the present life, the seventh in death. They are bondage, blindness, obstinacy, abandonment, scattering, despair, and condemnation.69 The value of the fear of the Lord is that it: (1) helps us to obtain the influence of divine grace (ad impetrandam divinae gratiae influentiam); (2) introduces us to the rightness of divine justice (ad introducendam divinae iustitae rectitudinem); and (3) helps us to obtain the enlightenment of divine wisdom (ad obtinendam divinae sapientiae illustrationem).70 Its perfection consists in: (1) perfect holiness or cleansing of conscience (in perfecta conscientiae sanctificatione et emundatione); (2) full readiness of obedience (in perfecta obedientiae promptitudine); and (3) the perfect firmness of trust (in perfecta fiduciae firmitate).71 Note the perfect threeby-three sets of divisions and subdivisions and the parallel Latin phrasing, both characteristic of the sermo modernus style. Much the same structure governs the third collation, on the gift of piety. It begins with a thema verse from 1 Timothy 4:7–8: “Train yourself in piety. For while bodily exercise is valuable in a limited way, piety is valuable in all ways since it has the promise of the present life as well as for the life that is to come.” 72 Interestingly, there is no prothema verse in this collation. This is not entirely surprising if one has read Bonaventure’s collection of Sunday sermons, for there too he will sometimes include a prothema, sometimes not. In this instance, the thema verse provides him with what he needs both for his introduction and for the body of the collation. In Collat. de sept. 2.10–12. To clarify, Bonaventure is not saying here that physical “bondage” and “blindness” are divine punishments. The “bondage” is the bondage to sin that chains a person’s inclinations toward evil so that they have difficulty doing good. And the “blindness” is the blindness of sin, which causes the mind to become “so darkened that it considers sin to be nothing of importance.” 70 Collat. de sept. 2.14. 71 Collat. de sept. 2.19. 72 Collat. de sept. 3.1. 69 1284 Randall B. Smith the introduction, he develops the notion of training oneself in piety and its juxtaposition with “body exercise” that is “valuable” only “in a limited way to insist on the greater importance of spiritual exercise over bodily exercise. After the usual prayer, he repeats his thema verse at the beginning of section 2, just the same as in collations where he interposes a prothema. The words of the thema verse here suggests three things to Bonaventure: (1) the exercise of piety (pietatis exercitium); (2) the reward of piety (pietatis emolumentum); and (3) the original source of piety (pietatis originale principium).73 The exercise of piety consists of three acts: (1) the reverence of divine worship (reverentiae venerationis divinae); (2) the guarding of interior holiness (custodia sanctificationis intrinsecae); and (3) the superabundance of interior compassion (superaffluentia miserationis internae).74 The original source of piety is: (1) the uncreated Trinity (a Trinitate increate); (2) the incarnate Wisdom (a Sapientiae incarnata); and (3) Holy Mother Church, sanctified by the Spirit (a sancta Ecclesia per Spiritum sanctificata).75 As is his custom, Bonaventure spends a section dilating each of these. After two sections spent exhorting his listeners to spread the oil of piety among their neighbors (section 14) and exhorting bishops in a particular way to be models of piety (section 15), Bonaventure comes finally to the usefulness of piety, which he says in useful for: (1) coming to learn the truth (ad vera cognoscenda); (2) avoiding all that is evil (ad omnia mala declinanda); and (3) the pursuit of all that is good (ad omnia bona consequenda).76 There is no need to carry on in this vein for every collation. I trust the reader has gotten the general picture by now. These collations read like sermons. They do not observe all the requirements of the sermo modernus style, but the influences are patent. They all begin with a thema verse that helps set up the discussion that follows, even though Bonaventure does not make a divisio of its words and order the rest of his comments around this original divisio. He does, however, fill content by making numerous divisions and subdivisions, usually in patterns of three, and by always using parallel constructions in Latin.77 And, as I have emphasized before, these Collat. de sept. 3.2. Collat. de sept. 3.3. 75 Collat. de sept. 3.10. 76 Collat. de sept. 3.16. 77 For a nice guide to the basic threefold divisions in each of the collations, see the fine introduction by Robert Karris to his English translation of the Collations on 73 74 Finding the Roots of Bonaventure's Literary Style in Medieval Preaching 1285 parallel constructions in English cannot always be rendered into parallel constructions in English, and thus the collations lose their poetic quality in translation. Recognizing that these collations are written in this modified sermo modernus style is not merely about showing that Bonaventure’s training in preaching influenced his writing throughout his career. More importantly, I want to suggest that, once readers have accustomed themselves to the way the sermo modernus style works, this can help them navigate through what might otherwise be confusing bits of text. It will sometimes happen, for example, that one will finish a section that is third in a list and find that the next section begins “second.” If one has not been keeping track of the overall structure, it is easy to imagine there has been a mistake. How can the author move from “third” to “second”? The answer is that the “third” section is the third member of a subdivision, and the “second” is the second member of the original division. Keeping track of the divisions and subdivisions helps turn what can become a confusing jumble into a meaningfully ordered set of parts within a whole. Bonaventure’s manner of composing these collations, rather than being “totally alien” to the schools, was rather, in my view, a creative development of the sermo modernus style of preaching—a style of composition that also characterized all university principia. Understanding the characteristic methods of the style these sermons and having greater experience with them can be a great help to readers as they try to make their way through complex texts such as Bonaventure’s later collations, in terms of both structure and argument. Bonaventure will often signal a change from one section to the next with a change in thema verse. So too, arguments that might seem odd for those accustomed to thinking of “Scholastic” texts solely in terms of dialectical arguments will better understand Bonaventure’s methods of arguing if they understand them as developments of the various methods of dilatatio: discussions based on the properties or classifications of a term, especially ones found in a biblical text; the “chaining” together of several biblical texts to make a point; devising metaphors from the properties of something; consideration of causes and effects; and a judicious use of the figurative senses. Not only does Bonaventure make good use of all of these common methods of “dilating” a sermon in his other works, but it is the judicious and plentiful combination of all of them coming one after another that makes his texts much less like a thirthe Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the diagram on p. 17, where he outlines the basic threefold structure of “origin, “use,” and “fruit” Bonaventure employs with each of the seven gifts. 1286 Randall B. Smith teenth-century disputed question and much more like a thirteenth-century “modern sermon.” There was no need for Bonaventure to “free” himself from the patterns of the schools to “develop a form for his thought more concordant with his vision,” as Jacques Bougerol has suggested.78 A “pattern of the schools” existed that was “concordant with his vision” precisely because it helped shaped his vision over the more than twenty years he spent in study at the University of Paris, a pattern in whose use he had become expert and that he was able to adapt and employ across a wide range of theological works: the patterns and methods of the thirteenth-century sermo modernus style N&V of preaching.79 Bougerol, Introduction, 123. See also Randall Smith, Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture of Medieval Paris: Preaching, Prologues, and Biblical Commentary (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). 78 79 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2019): 1287–1308 1287 Book Reviews Augustine’s Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology by Gerald P. Boersma (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), xiv + 318 pp. In Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, the protagonist perseveres in his faith despite his many failings because of one “convincing mystery—that we were made in God’s image.” “He would sit in the confessional,” Greene writes, “and hear the complicated dirty little ingenuities which God’s image had thought out.” The whisky priest could not help but see God in the policeman, the maniac, and the sinner in flagrante delicto. The average Christian takes for granted that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, but as Gerald P. Boersma illustrates in his new monograph Augustine’s Early Theology of Image, this teaching was anything but self-explanatory. Early Latin pro-Nicene theologians were eager to defend the doctrine that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and to do so they interpreted the Scriptural references to “image” as signifying total equality. According to this tack, when Paul states that Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), the Apostle is affirming the equality of Father and Son sharing one divine substance. But this equation of image and equality, which defends the Son’s divinity, also makes it difficult to affirm man’s humanity, for asserting that man is or has the imago Dei becomes tantamount to claiming that he is equal to God. At best, humans are only made in or toward (ad secundum) the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26) but are not themselves an image of the divine. Further complicating this anthropology is the question of whether this image in which man is made is an image of God, of Christ, or of the entire Trinity and to what degree, if any, the human body bears the divine image. To show how pro-Nicene Latin theology navigated these waters, Boersma carefully and sympathetically traces the development of image theology in the writings of Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, and Marius Victorinus. His perceptive explication of these authors often challenges commonly held readings, like the assumption that Ambrose’s rhetoric of “fleeing the body” implies a rejection of the corporeal. And his explanation of Marius Victorinus’s philosophy is the best of its kind that I have read. 1288 Book Reviews But Boersma’s real quest—and the subject of the second half of the book—is to explore image theology in the early writings of Augustine of Hippo. Even prior to his priestly ordination, Boersma maintains, Augustine had developed a theology of image that overcame the shortcomings of his predecessors. Specifically, Boersma contends that through a resourceful application of Platonic participatory ontology, Augustine was able to affirm that two images participating in the same original were not necessarily equal and that the Second Person of the Trinity and humanity are therefore both authentic images of God albeit in different ways. Further, although the imago Dei remains firmly fixed in the higher rational faculties of the human soul, the body may be said to participate in the divine image insofar as it reflects or bears witness to it. (This participation is particularly evident when the body is well governed by the soul in leading a virtuous and faithful life.) Boersma even argues that although Augustine was not operating out of an Aristotelian theory of hylomorphism, he was nonetheless able to avoid dualistic thinking and to affirm, in a way that other Church Fathers were not, the “integrated nature of the body-soul composite” (223). In addition to a nuanced examination of Plotinus, Boersma’s study of Augustine’s early thought focuses on the four Cassiciacum dialogues (particularly the Contra academicos and Soliloquia), the Diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus and De quantitate animae, and the De vera religione. The study concludes with an epilogue in which Boersma traces a significant continuity between Augustine’s early theology and the De Trinitate regarding the imago Dei. Given my own work on the Cassiciacum dialogues, I was particularly interested in and impressed with Boersma’s analyses of these often-neglected texts. I note here only a few minor quibbles. To reconstruct Augustine’s early image theology, Boersma turns to a passage regarding image and falsehood in Soliloquies 2 and to an allusion to the god Proteus as an “image of the truth” in Contra academicos 3.5.11 through 3.6.13, but he also contends that the former presents an incorrect and “negative evaluation of image” (189) that is corrected by the latter, which is an earlier work. The tension between the two passages could, I believe, be more fruitfully resolved by bringing to bear an insight that Boersma presents later in the book, namely, that for Augustine issues of falsity reside on the level of judgment rather than understanding; things are not false in se but only insofar as a mind fails to judge them as images of something else (see 236–37, 264). Augustine does not want the readers of his Soliloquies thinking that images qua images are deceptive, and his intention is clear when one attends to the dialogue’s ironic and dialectical Book Reviews 1289 dimensions. Soliloquia 2.16.10 through 2.7.13 occupies a provisional place in the narrative’s unfolding meaning. The main speaker here is Augustine’s wily and often misleading interlocutor Reason (Ratio), who here uses his examples of false images to prove two contradictory conclusions, that likeness is the mother of falsity (2.6.10) and that unlikeness is the mother of falsity (2.7.13). When the discussion resumes after a brief interlude, both of these conclusions are scrapped for a new option about the false that is free of the language of image and likeness (2.9.16). Fortunately, Reason’s and Augustine’s final consensus about falsity does not nullify their earlier musings in 2.6.10 through 2.7.13 (thereby keeping Boersma’s overall thesis intact), but his argument would have been stronger if he had made the consistency of Augustine’s underlying theology clearer. Another potential danger in Augustine’s Early Theology of Image is the tendency to “over-Christify” the Cassiciacum dialogues. Three examples of this tendency will suffice. First, Boersma contends that the myth of Proteus, in which one must hold on to the sea god and not be deterred by the terrifying shapes that he takes before he discloses his secrets, is used by Augustine at Cassiciacum as “a philosophical representation of the person of Christ” (177). Part of Boersma’s reasoning is that there is an implicit analogy between the two natures of Christ as truth (his divinity) and truth-like (his humanity). Yet the discussions involving Proteus in the Contra academicos concern the mind’s ability to move from the sensible to the intelligible. To borrow the language of Bernard Lonergan, Augustine uses the myth of Proteus to illustrate the nature of intellectual conversion rather than that of a religious conversion which includes recognition of God incarnate—and understandably so, for Proteus makes a poor Christ. As a sort of numinous aquatic leprechaun, the old man of the sea needs to be approached with suspicion and aggression; his many appearances are designed not to lead us closer to him, but farther away. Christ, on the other hand, took flesh not to conceal but to reveal; his bodily appearance is not a deception but an invitation to respond with love and trust. Certainly, a “Platonic” understanding of Proteus can pave the way for a better understanding of the Incarnation. But it is one thing to say that the metaphysical and cognitional structures that enable the mind to ascend from the sensible to the intelligible are the same basic structures that enable the believer to acknowledge God in the flesh; it is another to say that the former, as expressed in myth, is a personification of the latter. I therefore think that it is safer to conclude that Proteus “poetically attests to the possibility of the Incarnation” (181) and that Augustine uses the myth as “a metaphor for participatory Platonism” (180), as Boersma himself does, than to claim 1290 Book Reviews as well that the myth is deliberately a “veiled reference to the incarnate Christ” (178; see 166). Second, Boersma’s use of “philosophy” is ambivalent, for he seems to suggest that for Augustine “the face of philosophy” is the person of Jesus Christ (176). Yet Boersma also cites Robert O’Connell’s observation that Philosophy is graphically described as a woman with breasts, a bosom, and a lap (175, fn 25). Lady Philosophy may be an enormously helpful handmaid, but she cannot lead us to the true Teacher on her own—and she is not the Teacher’s face. It may be helpful to recall that in Contra academicos 3.19.42 Augustine defines “utterly true” philosophy as a harmonious blend of Plato and Aristotle, not of Plato and Scripture, and that while Augustine admonishes Romanianus to “philosophize” as a propaedeutic to religious assent, he never uses the noun “philosophy” in any of his writings to signify Christian thought, content, or practice. Third, Boersma states that Augustine’s incarnational theology “ultimately overcomes” Academic skepticism (188; see also 185), but such a formulation implies that Augustine’s earlier philosophical attempts to vanquish the Academics were unsuccessful and that only a faith in Christ could rescue him from skepticism. Such an account does not agree with the testimony of Augustine, who is satisfied that his own conclusions, which are based on a critical study of the inconsistencies in Academic teaching, are sufficient for accepting the proposition that man is capable of discovering the truth (2.20.43). It is only then that Augustine essentially says, “Besides, if I’m wrong and reason can’t refute skepticism by itself, there is always the authority of Christ, from which I will never depart” (see 2.20.43). In all of these “over-Christifications” Boersma is locating himself in a vein of scholarship seeking to correct the Harnack-O’Connell hypothesis that Augustine was more of a neo-Platonist than a Christian when he converted in AD 386, and while I share Boersma’s conviction that he is on the winning side of this debate, one must be on guard against over-corrections. The Cassiciacum dialogues may be thoroughly infused with an orthodox Christian sensibility, but they also respect philosophical questions and issues are on their own terms, at least provisionally. Finally, Boersma portrays Augustine as holding that the Academics “went astray” in their reception of Plato by “severing the image from the form” (184). Yet beginning in 2.13.30 Augustine devotes almost half of book 3 of Contra academicos to persuading Alypius (and the reader) that the Academics never went astray in their reception of Plato but were keeping Plato’s deepest insights hidden from the unworthy Stoics through a series of deceptive public stances that only made them look like skeptics. Book Reviews 1291 Indeed, as Blake Dutton notes in his Augustine and Academic Skepticism: A Philosophical Study, the reestablishment of Platonic philosophy in the glorious figure of Plotinus is due, according to Augustine, to the “unrivalled success” (26) of the person of Jesus Christ, who enables both the few and the many to return to the intelligible world without the hassle of philosophical bickering (2.19.42). It is arguably here that the doctrine of the Incarnation has its greatest impact on Augustine’s early thought. Perhaps Proteus is a better personification of Carneades or Cicero than of Jesus Christ. None of these reservations, however, diminish Gerald Boersma’s remarkable achievement, the many virtues of which I have not attempted to list. Augustine’s Early Theology of Image is an excellent study on a fascinating theological topic. I recommend it to scholars interested in Patristics, Trinitarian theology, or theological anthropology, and to anyone who, like Greene’s whisky priest, cannot and does not want to escape a convincing N&V mystery. Michael P. Foley Baylor University Waco, TX Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary by Brian Davies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), xxviii + 485 pp. Brian Davies’s Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary comes two years after the publication of his delightfully (some would say quixotically) ambitious Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae: A Guide and Commentary. Like the first, this second book “aims to be introductory, if also comprehensive, and it does not presume that its reader is already familiar with medieval thinking” (xvii). But while both volumes run close to five hundred pages, the much shorter length of the Summa contra gentiles [SCG] allows Davies a little more breathing room, and the result is a smooth and thoughtful overview of the entire text immensely useful for nonspecialists and worth consulting for specialists. After a brief discussion of Aquinas’s life and writings, Davies rejects the view that the SCG was written to aid missionaries, Dominican or otherwise, and instead claims (with the help of the opening chapters of the SCG) that Aquinas has provided “an extended essay in natural theology” in books I–III and then offers “defenses of the articles of faith” in book IV. “And that,” he concludes, “is all that we can confidently refer to 1292 Book Reviews when it comes to the question ‘Why did Aquinas write the SCG?’” (15). (But why the need to remark in a footnote that Aquinas “does refer to Islam” in these sections, offering “a brief tirade against Mohammed,” even though this “little anti-Islamic outburst” is hardly evidence of a missionary purpose? [397]) Of the remaining seventeen chapters, eight address God’s existence, nature, and creative power, six address creatures and their relation to God’s providential plan, and the final three address the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the sacraments and salvation. Each chapter follows the same plan: a section of the SCG is explained, with copious quotations and sometimes exhaustive (and exhausting) lists of arguments with lots of examples to make Aquinas’s claims both clear and attractive. Each expository section is then followed by Davies’s own evaluation of the text. These are the most interesting and readable sections (and worth perusing for a specialist working on the topic at hand), and they make many references to contemporary challenges one might offer to Aquinas, as well as arguments in defense of, and occasionally critical of, Aquinas’s views. Davies is most comfortable, and confident, in the eight chapters on God. These make up more than one third of his text (though treating about one fifth of the SCG), and an entire chapter is spent on SCG I, chapter 13 (arguments for God’s existence). Davies is certain that Aquinas’s arguments for God’s existence are not obvious failures, but stops short of calling them successful demonstrations. “My view is that [whether or not they are successful demonstrations] is not an easy question to answer since some of the arguments contain stages that are difficult to understand” (45). Like most defenders of Aquinas, he constructs an example of a causal chain with two types of causes. If my hand holds a stack of books, then each book keeps the book above it from falling to the ground. But my hand is a cause of a different sort, something “whose causal power runs through the chain in such a way as to make the members of the chain do what they do or be what they are” (52). But does Davies think the arguments work? As he often does throughout the commentary, he ends only by quoting from another Aquinas scholar, in this case Edward Feser’s defense of this type of argument, and then concludes: “I take it that Feser is suggesting that something that actually exists, but does not have to exist, is potentially nonexistent, and that its sheer existence depends on it being actualized by what cannot not-exist” (55). The remaining chapters on God focus on the divine attributes, which flow (as they do in the parallel questions in the Summa theologiae) from the conception of God as an uncaused cause. At the end of his discussion of God’s creative power, Davies comments on the assertion that if some- Book Reviews 1293 thing can be then God can make it be: “I find this assertion convincing if Aquinas is right in what he says in the SCG concerning God as a first cause who makes things to exist as one who does not have being but is being and is the cause of there being anything that does not have to exist because of what it is” (150). This is a nice reminder of Davies’s general approach to the chapters on God: given the possibility of analogical language, if God is an uncaused cause, then he is simple, and therefore good, omniscient, omnipotent, and so on. The next six chapters on creatures and their relation to God’s providence take up about the same number of pages as the chapters on God but cover three fifths of the SCG. Here the discussion is less focused, running through chapters on the contingency of creation, intellectual creatures (where he takes a stand on the disembodied soul: “For Aquinas, . . . if my soul and body are separated, then I cease to exist since what I am is a human being, and a human being is a composite of soul and body” [180]), agency, the end of all things, and providence. There are many interesting discussions in the commentaries at the end of these chapters, but two of the most striking address our ultimate happiness and traditional sexual morality. Davies offers some pointed criticism of Aquinas’s insistence in the SCG that our “every desire is fulfilled” in the beatific vision: “Though one might well see the force of the SCG 3’s denial that ultimate human happiness can lie in honors, glory, riches, and so on, one might reasonably feel that an account of ultimate human happiness that presents it as only a matter of seeing God intellectually, only a matter of understanding, cannot really be taking full account of the word ‘human’ in the phrase ‘ultimate human happiness’” (243). As usual, Davies does not follow up with a developed view, preferring simply to raise possible problems for further inquiry (his final paragraph on the subject ends, for example, with three long sentences, each of which is a rhetorical question). After developing Aquinas’s arguments in favor of the traditional connection between sexual activity and procreation, Davies argues that there are strong reasons to think that Aquinas has not offered good philosophical arguments against nonreproductive sex (of various sorts, though he is particularly interested in homosexual sexual activity). As usual, he ends by raising questions rather than answering them, though he refers the interested reader to Jean Porter’s Natural and Divine Law and Gareth Moore’s A Question of Truth, both of which are highly critical of Aquinas’s views on sexual morality; for a defense of the traditional view, he recommends (in the same footnote) two and a half pages of The Catechism of the Catholic Church: §§2351–59 (443). (The interested reader of this review 1294 Book Reviews would do well to try Alexander Pruss’s One Body and David O’Connor’s Plato’s Bedroom after finishing those two and a half pages.) The final three chapters, covering SCG IV (about one fourth of the SCG and one fourth of Davie’s commentary) address the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the sacraments and salvation. Here Davies is most interested in the philosophical arguments that Aquinas makes use of, even though he is treating doctrines of faith. At the conclusion of his presentation of Aquinas on the Trinity, for example, he says: “At the end of the day, Aquinas thinks of the doctrine of the Trinity as a mystery, revealed by God, as something that we can try to reflect on only so as to make some kind of feeble sense of it. In SCG 4, 2–26 he argues that we can make sense enough of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity so as to declare that it is taught in the Bible and so as to refute the idea that the doctrine is incoherent or nonsensical or unthinkable. But this is pretty much all he does in the SCG” (325). He concludes his presentation and discussion of Aquinas on the Incarnation in a similar fashion: “Aquinas takes the Incarnation to be beyond what human reasoning can fathom. . . . You might think that SCG 4, 27–49 tries to describe God in clear ways; but you would be wrong to do so. In these chapters, Aquinas defends certain traditional formulae as cohering with Scripture and as not being inconsistent” (351). The final chapter on the sacraments and salvation remains, again, focused on philosophical problems. On the Eucharist, for example, Davies quotes Herbert McCabe: “Aristotle could have made no sense of the notion of transubstantiation. It is not a term that can be accommodated within the concepts of Aristotelian philosophy; it represents the breakdown of these concepts in the face of a mystery” (371). This commentary (like its predecessor) is the obvious fruit of many years of reflection, and it is written with a relaxed thoughtfulness that would be the envy of any commentary writer. His footnotes are filled with references to most of the major recent works on Aquinas’s thought, and his reflections at the end of each chapter are both excellent introductions for nonspecialists and useful presentations of one scholar’s considered perspective on the lay of the land (though he almost always avoids decisive critical judgments; Davies’s noncommittal stance is the most maddening— bordering on the counterproductive—aspect of the entire commentary). Davies’s own interests are clearly shaped by modern religious skepticism, both within the academy and without, and his examples exhibit a fondness for the analytic style of his fellow Catholic Oxbridge philosophers who also fought tirelessly against that skepticism. (Herbert McCabe is Davies’s primary inspiration, with more references and quotations than any other author besides Aquinas and Aristotle—Augustine ties with Peter Geach Book Reviews 1295 for fourth.) And every page is clearly written to help his reader see, over and over, that there is something of immense value in St. Thomas Aquinas, and we ignore him at our own intellectual peril. I am happy to say that anyone who reads through Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles: A N&V Guide and Commentary will find it very hard not to agree. Raymond Hain Providence College Providence, RI The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age by Thomas Albert Howard (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), xvii + 339 pp. For many of us , there is no “quandary of the modern age.” We are at home with our liberal presumptions. They have afforded many millions of us with a new form of fraternity (the nation-state) founded on structures of liberty and equality our peasant ancestors could never have imagined. As a result of this familiarity, we find it difficult to imagine a time when the presumption of liberty, equality, and fraternity as ends in themselves did not exist. Thomas Albert Howard’s new book on Pope Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, ultramontanism, and historicism is a sophisticated antidote to this incapacity in our modern imagination. Seeking to bring us into some of the central tensions of nineteenth-century European Church–state relations, Howard expertly guides us through a charitable engagement with people, ideas, and movements we can scarcely countenance. This is an impressive accomplishment, and I commend this book to both Catholic and Protestant scholars desiring a wider historical perspective on our current contexts in Europe and the United States. As a historical narrative, the book is straightforward and a pleasure to read. The first chapter sets the stage for the nineteenth century by treating the French Revolution as a kind of “trauma” suffered by the European Church, and by the papacy in particular. Howard presents ultramontanism as a response to this trauma. In providing this context, Howard provides us with something sorely needed from our post–Vatican II perspective: a nuanced vision of the Catholic Church and its theological, social, and political motives in the nineteenth century. This vision is necessary for the clarification of our perspective for several reasons, not least of which is the ease with which we assume the American and French revolutions created a world that was providentially ordained and, so, inevitable. Howard thus guards us against the “enormous condescension of posterity.” 1296 Book Reviews That we would even be sensitive to such condescension is due in part to the influence of minds like Döllinger’s. So, Howard’s second chapter is an introduction to and retrieval of the life, training, and work of one of the most universally respected scholars in nineteenth-century Christendom (such as it was). Howard’s portrait of Döllinger is painstaking, fascinating, inspiring, troubling, tragic, and intimidating all at once. Readers will be surprised that Döllinger has not received more critical attention in anglophone scholarship. But readers will also discern some of the reasons for Döllinger’s obscurity. He is after all, despite his impressive learning and reputation, yet one more German scholar convinced of the purgative utility of historical inquiry and its necessity in the face of the (supposed) excesses of neo-Scholastic thought. Readers of this journal will be especially interested in Döllinger’s story as it pertains to the story of Thomism in the decades prior to Vatican II. In my estimation, it would be inappropriate to label Döllinger a modernist or a proto-modernist. But for those of us versed in that controversy, Döllinger’s life, training, and work will simultaneously corroborate and challenge our perspectives. In the third chapter, Howard provides us with a history of the First Vatican Council, told through the lens provided by the plentiful correspondence between Döllinger and Lord Acton. This is the crisis point of the book, for it places Döllinger’s careful historical researches into the history of the papacy’s temporal power in contradistinction to the ultramontanism fueling the infallibilists’ position at the Council. All of the ugliness and sorrow of the Church’s ordeal in the nineteenth century is on full display here: Pius IX’s plight in the midst of kulturkampf after kulturkampf, especially with Italy, France, and Germany; “Roman” theology versus “German” theology; the Vatican and runaway national churches; and not least, the excommunication of Döllinger himself, who can appear to be vindicated at the Second Vatican Council some decades later. Those Catholic and Protestant scholars who desire a clearer vision of the complex preludes to Vatican II would do well to visit this chapter carefully in light of Howard’s hope that we will read this history with “empathetic retrospection.” The final chapter details Döllinger’s contributions to the beginnings of the ecumenical movement in the nineteenth century and to the formation of the schismatic Old Catholic Church in Germany. Those familiar with Howard’s scholarship will recognize in this chapter a special interest of the author. Howard’s interest here is also a signal contribution to research into the nineteenth century, for Howard makes an incisive case against two prominent theses about the era: one, that the nineteenth century is the story of a burgeoning and unstoppable secularism; and the other, that the century is the story of a lamentable and retrograde confessionalism. In Book Reviews 1297 opposition to both of these hypotheses, Howard carefully demonstrates how Döllinger’s time was “neither preponderantly secular nor preponderantly confessional, but churningly religious and undeniably complex” (224). The book succeeds admirably in enabling the reader to appreciate an alien context with sympathy and insight. Where some specialists may want more astute readings of various social, political, philosophical, and theological controversies, Howard shows himself to be a circumspect historian willing to stick to his narrative and point specialists to the reality of the events. The bibliography is a trove. And though the writing is sometimes contrived, for this reviewer at least, Howard’s effort is a welcome addition to the increasingly sensitive and fascinating historical, philosophical, and theological research being done into the Church’s history between the N&V French Revolution and the Second Vatican Council. Jason A. Heron Mount Marty College Yankton, SD Ethics as a Work of Charity: Thomas Aquinas and Pagan Virtue by David Decosimo (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014), xiii + 272 pp. Ethics as a Work of Charity : Thomas Aquinas and Pagan Virtue is a careful and nuanced reading of Thomas Aquinas on the surprisingly complex matter of the way the habits of virtues can be said to inhere in those who are non-Christians. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that as Thomas teaches, on the one hand, man is fallen and without grace is incapable of completing thoroughly good works (see Summa theologiae [ST] I-II, q. 109, a. 8). On the other hand, however, it seems evident that there are those outside of Christian grace who do good. Decosimo engages with this challenge precisely in terms of the Augustinian and Aristotelian influences in Aquinas’s writing. A strong reading of Augustine seems to indicate that there is no real virtue in the pagans, but a semblance only. Whereas Aristotle, a pagan himself, has such an influence on Aquinas and seems to have a penetrating grasp of the nature of virtue, it seems odd to deny that there is an authentic sense of virtue in him or others like him. Decosimo commendably transcends the false dichotomy of the Aristotelian and Augustinian influence in Aquinas and often repeats and argues for the position that Aquinas is Augustinian by being an Aristotelian and Aristotelian by being Augustinian. This is highlighted by Decosimo 1298 Book Reviews when he notes that Aquinas is “unswervingly loyal to Augustine: First in his unbending, anti-Pelagian insistence that the supernatural end is, essentially, beyond the power of human nature to attain” (167). However, in our friendship with God it is fundamentally the Aristotelian account of friendship which informs Aquinas’s understanding, since it is Aristotle’s position that a friend is another self. Consequently, since the Christian is friends with God, when God works, the work is also ours. In this way, according to Decosimo, by remaining a strict Augustinian, Aquinas embraces Aristotle, and vice-versa (167). The driving hermeneutic of Decosimo’s reading is that of charity. That is to say, when reading Aquinas, Decosimio always understands Aquinas to be striving for the most charitable reading of any other author with whom he is engaging. According to Decosimo, “Thomas regards it a kind of failure if he cannot find the truth in the claims of Aristotle, Maimonides, and the like even when those claims seem contrary to Christian truth” (257). In this light, Decosimo rightly notes where Aquinas gently and discreetly corrects Augustine and goes beyond Aristotle. Thus, for example, when Augustine defines virtue as “a good quality of the soul” Thomas notes that “it would be more suitable if for quality we substitute habit” (ST I-II, q. 55, a. 4). Further, there is no ambiguity with Aquinas that infused virtue, something about which Aristotle could have had no conception, is more perfectly virtue, even as it is understood in Aristotelian terms. While there is much to be commended in Decosimo’s account of pagan virtue, and in his approach to Thomas, still he seems to overstate his position. According to Decosimo, “In all this, we have begun to see both that and why moral virtues—human moral virtues—are virtues simply (virtutes simpliciter)” (115). The problem with such a claim is that it contradicts what Thomas says elsewhere: It is therefore clear from what has been said that only the infused virtues are perfect, and deserve to be called virtues simply: since they direct man well to the ultimate end. But the other virtues, those, namely, that are acquired, are virtues in a restricted sense, but not simply: for they direct man well in respect of the last end in some particular genus of action, but not in respect of the last end simply. (ST I-II, q. 65, a. 2, corp.) In light of this clear declaration of St. Thomas, it becomes necessary for Decosimo to show how he can maintain his position. He is of course not unaware of this text and addresses the objection thus: Book Reviews 1299 As the preceding chapter showed, Thomas repeatedly characterizes acquired virtues as virtues perfect, simple, and true. Here, however, they are imperfect. Given the relative, contextual character of Thomas’s perfection language, this is unsurprising. Acquired virtues are and are not perfect and unqualified: perfect insofar as they attain virtues’ perfect ratio, the ratio of the species he elsewhere declares perfect, simple, true; imperfect insofar as their species falls short of another. (140) Looking back to his argument in the previous chapter, we see that Decosimo’s position turns on his reading of Aquinas in his commentary on the Nichomachean Ethics. Decosimo quotes this passage: “But divine virtue is more noble than human virtue, which we call virtue simply” (“Sed virtus divina est honorabilior virtute humana quam simpliciter virtutem nominamus”). It seems that Decosimo fails to recognize that while it is true that, with respect to divine virtue, human virtue is called virtue simply speaking, here Aquinas is not distinguishing between infused and acquired virtues. It would be wrong, then, when speaking of acquired virtue, or pagan virtue, to think that such are virtues simply speaking. The distinction between acquired and infused is contained under the more generic expression, human virtue. Consequently, while it is true that relative to “divine virtue” acquired virtue falls on the side of virtue simply speaking, still as Aquinas notes in the text above, it is only infused virtue that is virtue simply speaking. This being said, the arguments that Decosimo gives for pagan virtue being “perfect, unified, and true” are largely sound. Following Thomas, one should hold that acquired virtue can be perfect within a certain genus. So also, acquired virtues are rightly considered to be unified in prudence, and are certainly true virtues. The difficulty is whether all of these accounts of acquired virtue can belong to any pagan. That is to say, granted that human nature is ordered to act in accord with the acquired virtues by nature, it is not clear that any person without grace can possess the acquired virtues in their fullness. Decosimo manifests his familiarity with Aquianas’s texts and rightly takes up ST I-II, q. 109, a. 8. There Aquinas makes it clear that it is impossible that man be without mortal sin for a long time without grace: So, too, before man’s reason, wherein is mortal sin, is restored by justifying grace, he can avoid each mortal sin, and for a time, since it is not necessary that he should be always actually sinning. But it cannot be that he remains for a long time without mortal sin. Hence 1300 Book Reviews Gregory says (Super Ezech. Hom. xi) that “a sin not at once taken away by repentance, by its weight drags us down to other sins”: and this because, as the lower appetite ought to be subject to the reason, so should the reason be subject to God, and should place in Him the end of its will. Decosimo’s reply to this challenge to his position, however, is wanting. He says, “Thomas would suggest, I think, that Scripture calls the believer to live in a God-trusting tension of dual affirmation” (251). The idea being that we affirm both the corruption that comes from sin, and also the possibility of acquired virtue existing in pagans without grace. It is difficult, on the one hand, to deny this. On the other hand, it seems to miss the point. While it is true that Christians should affirm goodness wherever we find it and be slow to judge another’s actions negatively, in sacra doctrina we are addressing theological matters as they can be known scientifically. The idea that we should attempt to affirm something which seems speculatively impossible is strange. And it is precisely this speculative difficulty that Decosimo avoids answering. It is here that we strike at a rather overarching question about Ethics as a Work of Charity. It is difficult to precisely pin down to what kind of audience Decosimo is attempting to address in this work. The first two chapters, “Thomas and His Outsides” and “God, Good, and the Desire of All Things,” begin with surprisingly fundamental and even rudimentary accounts of Thomas’s work. However, he quickly goes into far more complex and sophisticated accounts of habit and virtue. The work seems to attempt to be simultaneously for the beginner and the proficient. Then, when he turns away from the speculative consideration and says that we ought to simply accept the pagan as virtuous, without adequately addressing the very real speculative difficulties, it seems that his work is no longer attempting to properly be sacra doctrina. This difficulty and the other objections aside, Decosimo’s work is an important contribution to Thomistic scholarship. His insistence that Aquinas is an Augustinian by being an Aristotelian, and vice-versa, seems true and important to observe when reading Aquinas’s writings. There is clearly an attempt by Aquinas to find the truth of the matter on any question he pursues and he accordingly brings to bear different authorities all for this intention. Augustine and Aristotle, however, are certainly preeminent in their influence. Decosimo’s insistence that the question of whether or not pagan virtue is real virtue not be decided on the basis of whether Aquinas is more Augustinian or more Aristotelian is exactly right, as far as this reader is concerned. What is more, it is clear that Decosimo has given a Book Reviews 1301 close reading of the pertinent texts, and all those who desire to understand Thomas better on the question of pagan virtue would benefit from carefully considering this reading, even if at last they do not agree. In the end, it seems that the common account that according to Aquinas virtues belong to pagans as disconnected and more easily lost is correct. While Decosimo makes a noble attempt to elevate pagan virtue it finally falls short because of the devastating effects of fallen human nature and the necessity of grace. For fallen man, following Aquinas, not only do we need grace to attain our supernatural end, but we need grace also for attaining merely our natural end. Decosimo is correct in arguing that pagan virtue is real, and that it is important that Christians do not dismiss the goodness they find in pagans out of hand. Pagan virtue, however, is still necessarily disconnected and vitiated by the fact that man cannot long avoid mortal sin by his own power. It seems, then, we must still side with those Decosimo labels “hyper-Augustinians.” Namely, we must insist that there is only a semblance of virtue in the pagan. Consequently, it seems that this work would have benefited from a close consideration of the relationship between acquired virtue and infused virtue in the believer. This is a question that is left unaddressed—although Decosimo has addressed it in a more recent article. When Aquinas is treating of acquired virtues, he is not simply speaking of what can happen outside of grace. Rather, Aquinas is speaking of what is according to nature. The question of grace and fallen nature are not addressed explicitly in this N&V level of abstraction. Daniel Lendman Ave Maria University Ave Maria, FL Five Proofs of the Existence of God: Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz by Edward Feser (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), 330pp. Notwithstanding Karl Barth’s famous “Nein!” against the possibility of natural theology in his debates with Emil Brunner, investigations into the possibility of arguments for the existence of God based on natural reason have not been absent in contemporary philosophy and theology. In fact, the traditional conviction that God’s existence is demonstrable by unaided human reason (demonstration here understood according to the Scholastic sense, “that the conclusion that God exists follows with necessity or deductive validity from premises that 1302 Book Reviews are certain, where the certainty of the premises can in turn be shown via metaphysical analysis” [306]) is not difficult to come by. This is in large part thanks to contemporary philosophers such as Edward Feser, whose works in Thomistic philosophy have made the Angelic Doctor’s philosophical views more accessible to a popular and non-Thomist audience. His most recent book, Five Proofs of the Existence of God, is no exception. For a lucid and intelligible explication of the oft-misunderstood quinque viae to God’s existence, one need look no further than Feser’s introductory work, Aquinas: A Begnniner’s Guide (or, for those who are more polemically disposed, one can hardly do better than Feser’s The Last Superstition). Five Proofs offers something new insofar as it does not focus strictly on the thought of Aquinas. According to Feser, the book answers to “a need for an exposition and defense of certain important arguments for God’s existence that Aquinas himself does not discuss and which have also received insufficient attention in recent work in natural theology” (10). To be sure, Thomas’s argument based on motion (taken from Aristotle) and his argument based on the essence–existence distinction make an appearance; nevertheless, it is clear that one need not restrict oneself to the high Scholasticism of the thirteenth century in order to find good and demonstrative arguments for God’s existence. Indeed, one need not restrict oneself even to Christian thinkers or to the Christian era. The book has seven chapters. Each of the first five works through a distinct argument for the existence of God. The proofs are presented in chronological order. Beginning with the Aristotelian proof, Feser proceeds to treat the neo-Platonic proof, the Augustinian proof, the Thomistic proof, and finally the rationalist (or Leibnizian) proof. Chapter 6, the lengthiest chapter of the book, is a treatment of the divine nature and God’s relationship to the world. Here, Feser discusses in detail the divine attributes as well as the question of God’s acting in and with secondary causal agents. The last chapter closes with responses to “common objections” to natural theology. Each chapter on a given proof is divided into two stages. In the first stage, Feser begins with a description (first mover, incomposite being, necessary being, etc.) and argues for the existence of a thing that corresponds to that description. In the second stage, he shows how that a thing must also have various attributes that are typically ascribed to God (simplicity, unity, goodness, intelligence, omnipotence, etc.). He then concludes to the existence of God. These two stages are presented first informally, as he says, “as if in a more discursive and leisurely way” (11), and then in a more formal manner, where the argument is spelled out step by step according to numbered propositions. Book Reviews 1303 While each of Feser’s arguments for God’s existence are discrete, nevertheless, they converge as they rise toward their conclusion. Thus, the proofs should not be viewed as compartmentalized and unrelated. Each argument, in its second stage, borrows from previous proofs. For example, once Feser has argued for God as actus purus in his Aristotelian proof, all the attributes that follow from God being actus purus are alluded to in the subsequent proofs as a sort of shorthand. This integral approach is related to Feser’s division of each proof into two stages. The first stage, distinct in each chapter, converges with the other proofs in entering the second stage, pertaining to the attributes of God. Insofar as all the arguments are attempting to prove the existence of the same God, this is not surprising. It is the second stage of this twofold division that constitutes the most helpful contribution of Feser’s work. Contrasting Feser’s two-stage manner of proceeding with Thomas’s famous quinque viae in Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3, highlights the former’s advantages. The quinque viae, which are not to be taken as stand-alone arguments for God’s existence, are frequently maligned on the basis that Aquinas moves far too quickly from the demonstrated existence, say, of the First Mover to the conclusion: “and this all understand to be God.” According to critics, these arguments may show that Aristotle’s First Mover exists; but it is in no way clear that this First Mover is identical to the God confessed in the Creed, the God who took on flesh. Such a criticism, while poor insofar as it overlooks the importance of reading the quinque viae within the broader context of the prima pars, is in some ways understandable. It is hard for someone only looking to the quinque viae (extracted from its context) to see that the same arguments leading to God’s existence are later appealed to in discussing the divine attributes. In Five Proofs, Feser highlights the close relation between the various arguments for God’s existence and the divine attributes. It becomes clear that the being whose existence is demonstrated (the first stage) is, precisely on account of the nature of the demonstration, the same being to whom the attributes traditionally to God belong (the second stage). Thus, Feser not only argues that there is a being that matches the description of the First Mover, but also that this being must, precisely in order to be First Mover, also be immutable, good, simple, omniscient, and so on. As a result, the relationship between the being whose existence is proven (i.e., God) and the attributes that are traditionally predicated of God (simplicity, immutability, goodness, intelligence, perfection, and so on) is shown more quickly and directly. The second stage of each of Feser’s arguments warrants his sixth chap- 1304 Book Reviews ter on the divine attributes and God’s relationship to the world. Here, he deals with the divine attributes directly. After spelling out background principles (the principle of proportionate causality, agere sequitur esse, and the analogy of being), Feser discusses each of the divine attributes on the basis of these principles and how they relate to the being whose existence has been demonstrated as purely actual actualizer, absolutely simple cause, divine intellect, subsistent existence itself, and absolutely necessary being. This chapter solidifies what has been discussed in previous chapters by showing not only that it is necessary that God exist but also that, on account of his existence and the sort of being that he is, certain things can and must be said about him. Insofar as natural theology falls under the purview of both theology and philosophy, this book is a good primer for budding philosophers and theologians on how natural theology is done. Philosophers will want to relate the existence of God to the question of being, and theologians (particularly Christian theologians) will want to see how this being is understood with respect to Holy Scripture. But insofar as truth is one and insofar as God is one, Feser’s work will greatly benefit both kinds of N&V thinkers. Joshua Lim University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN James, First, Second, and Third John by Kelly Anderson and Daniel Keating (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), xii + 284 pp. This recent volume from the reputable Catholic Commen- tary on Sacred Scripture series joins the expanding ranks of its library of New Testament commentaries. It is coauthored by two faculty of Sacred Heart Major Seminary (Detroit, MI), Kelly Anderson and Daniel Keating. Anderson covers the Epistle of James, while Keating takes up First, Second, and Third John. This volume completes the series’s treatment of the catholic epistles, as Keating contributed a previous volume concerning First and Second Peter and Jude. In keeping with the series format, Anderson’s introduction to James manages to be highly informative and well-developed, even for its concision. In just over ten pages, she deals uniformly with the contextual issues pertinent to the epistle’s proper interpretation. The discussion of the authorship of the epistle is substantiated by biblical and Patristic data. Anderson discusses a number of possible candidates, including: James Book Reviews 1305 son of Zebedee, brother of St. John the Evangelist—that is, James “the Greater”—and James son of Alphaeus, James “the Lesser.” Yet, she quickly dispenses with the two other James’s in favor of the unknown “brother” of the Lord. Due to his martyrdom in AD 44, Anderson rightly sets aside James the Greater, given his early death and that much of the epistle’s context appears to take place several decades thereafter (2–3). Although St. Jerome identified James the Lesser as author, Anderson persuasively shows that this is too unlikely, despite such an authoritative backing. With the field cleared away, Anderson hones in on a relative of Jesus (the “bother” of the Lord). In a rather compact way, she paints a vivid portrait of “James the Just,” who was a witness to the resurrected Jesus (1 Cor 15:7), who became the bishop and “pillar” of the Jerusalem church (Gal 2:9). As she explains, the prayerful James the Just was “put to death in AD 62 under the high priest Ananus II, a Sadducee, whom Josephus describes as arrogant in his judgments” (5). In a similarly rich way, Anderson then moves through other contextual matters, such as the epistle’s audience: “James addresses his letter to the ‘twelve tribes in the dispersion’ (1:1). ‘Twelve tribes’ seems to indicate those Jews who had accepted Jesus as the Messiah and were dispersed or scattered away from Palestine, the promised land” (5). After a discussion of the major theological themes of the epistle, Anderson’s introduction, like others in the series, wraps up in a pastoral way, with remarks about “the timeliness of James” (10–11). Here, she brings together the two horizons of biblical exegesis—the ancient and the contemporary, noting that James’s emphasis on believers’ growing in “spiritual maturity” remains a perennial challenge in the Church today. In the one hundred or so pages that follow, Anderson turns to the text itself. While such length is not excessive when compared with other contemporary commentaries, it is more than adequate. In fact, given that the English translation of James is just over twenty-five hundred words (or about five written pages), each of the epistle’s five chapters are dealt with adequately and with appropriate attention to each paragraph. One of the key strengths of the entire Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture series is its literary equilibrium—that is, presenting just enough but not too much in the way of technical data. One senses a great deal of thought and masterful editing throughout this volume, in order to inform but not unduly overwhelm the average Catholic adult reader. Anderson (and Keating) judiciously balance that which is brought forward and that which may reasonably remain in the background. This is no small feat, as many contemporary commentaries fail in precisely this way, overwhelming the reader and rendering themselves unusable except for technical use or as 1306 Book Reviews a reference work. Anderson’s skill is evident in providing at once a highly competent and highly readable commentary on this under-appreciated book of the New Testament. A few examples from her treatment of James 2 illustrate this balance. First, one of the overarching themes of the epistle is the necessity of “works,” and specifically, the notion that “faith” (pistis) without “works” (erga) is dead (Jas 2:17). As she explains, simply confessing “our glorious Lord Jesus Christ” (Jas 2:1) is in fact “pointless if one does not do the merciful deeds that he commands in his royal law of love (2:8). If faith in Jesus does not bring us to conform to his way of life, then it is useless” (56–57). While Anderson’s streamlined exegesis is straightforward and compact, her analysis of chapter 2 is accompanied by no less than three “Biblical Background” sidebar discussions that add flesh to the frame. The first is a word study of “faith” (43); a second compares James and Paul and their approach to the Law of Moses (51); and a third answers the question “is James Responding to Paul?” (63). In addition to such features, there are numerous “Living Tradition” sidebars throughout, which introduce the reader to voices and texts that evoke ecclesial wisdom, including: one from Lumen Gentium on “listening” (34); another from Veritas Splendor concerning “Freedom and the Law” (38); and an excerpt from a letter of St. Augustine on “love of neighbor” (52). In these and other ways, Anderson keeps the theological substance of the biblical text at the forefront, whilst not neglecting to help the reader dig deeper into the Tradition. The result is a rich blend of academically sound interpretation and spiritual depth. Throughout the swift-moving commentary, Anderson alerts the reader to connections between James and other books of the canon. As James takes the concern about “boasting” in chapter 4, she explains that it is appropriate when it glorifies the Lord: “Then the Blessed Mother was miraculously with child, she magnified and glorified God for the work that he had done for her (Luke 1:46–47). . . . Saint Paul boasts only in the cross (Gal 6:14) and instructs those who boast to boast in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17)” (93–94). Anderson closes the commentary dealing with its final two verses (Jas 5:19–20), in which the author reiterates his reason for writing: “the salvation of his readers and of those who have wandered from the truth.” She fittingly concludes: “Like Christ before him as a bishop and defender of the truth, James the Just seeks to save his flock and cover a multitude of sins, continuing the saving activity of his Master (1:1). There is no greater work” (121). The commentary then turns to First, Second, and Third John, with Book Reviews 1307 Keating analyzing the three epistles that are part of the larger Johannine corpus. Following a brief “General Introduction” to the epistles (123–24), each letter is taken up in turn. As with Anderson’s commentary (12–13), each book is accompanied by a structural outline of the text that follows each respective introduction to the three epistles (134–35, 244, 260). Among modern biblical critics, the question of Johannine authorship— of all five New Testament books—remains a debated issue. Here, Keating lays out the pertinent questions with care, demonstrating a depth of knowledge and prudent instincts. His discussion of this issue is primarily developed in his introduction to First John, and is not repeated as he moves through much the shorter introductions of Second and Third John (the latter being the shortest “book” in the New Testament). He writes, “Given the striking similarities in style and language, it is very likely that they [all three epistles] come from the same author” (124). Going further, he explains that because there are convincing parallels in both the “style and language” of First John and the Fourth Gospel, “the question about the authorship of 1 John is closely tied” to the Gospel (126). Like Raymond E. Brown and other Johannine scholars, Keating identifies the author of the Fourth Gospel with the figure known as “the beloved disciple” (John 13:23; 19:26). Yet, given the complexity of contextual questions involved, he refrains from concluding that they are one and the same person: “Whether or not this beloved disciple is John the apostle, the son of Zebedee, is a further question that we cannot answer with certainty” (127). Thus, we are dealing with three New Testament books in which there are questions as to their human authorship. Indeed Keating (like Anderson) is patient and prudent, and does not prematurely assert that which remains unclear at present to satisfy the anxious reader. Yet, such is not entirely necessary, as a hallmark that sets this commentary series apart from others is that it proceeds from a hermeneutic of faith, rather than one of suspicion (see Pope Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, §§33, 39, 45). Both commentators are to be commended for dealing carefully and judiciously with such questions, reflecting their academic rigor and Catholic sensibilities. As with Anderson’s balanced approach, Keating presents concise commentary on the text of each letter that lacks neither depth nor theological insight. Astute readers of the Johannine corpus will note that the so-called “antichrist” does not appear once in Revelation. All such occurrences are located in the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7). In a “biblical background” sidebar discussion, Keating provides the biblical background to this figure in a refreshingly clear and uncluttered way. Among the highlights of Keating’s treatment of all three epistles are 1308 Book Reviews “reflection and application” sections, in which he, like Anderson, brings the two horizons of biblical interpretation together in a fresh, practical, and theologically sound manner. Additionally, his use of secondary sources runs the length of sacred Tradition—one finds ample citations from St. Augustine on “the centrality of love” (210), St. Maximus the Confessor on “the deification of the Christian” (182), and Pope Francis, beckoning believers to hear the cries of the poor in Evangelii Gaudium (194). As with Anderson’s commentary, Keating’s inclusions enrich the presentation and deepen the reader’s understanding of the Johannine epistles. In addition to such source material, Keating himself deals with theological questions admirably, such as in his extended sidebar “What Does It Mean to Love One Another?” (214–15) and the so-called “Johannine Comma” of 1 John 5:7-8 (230). Although Second and Third John are admittedly brief, his analysis is quite thorough, running nearly thirty-five pages in length, and with as much care as his analysis of First John. In sum, James, First, Second, and Third John is another commendable volume in a series that continues to support both academic study and pastoral application of the books of the New Testament in a manner that is highly accessible, and that reverberates with academic insight and ecclesial N&V wisdom. Steven C. Smith Mundelein Seminary Mundelein, IL