et Vetera Nova Spring 2020 • Volume 18, Number 2 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 Spring 2020 Vol. 18, No. 2 Commentary Conscience, Relativism, and Truth: the Witness of Saint John Henry Newman .. . . . . . . . . . . Anthony Fisher, O.P. 337 In Memoriam Deus Providebit: Remembering Father Leo Elders, S.V.D. (August 7, 1926 – October 14, 2019). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jörgen Vijgen 355 Articles “Some Synchronic Moment”: Gregory of Nyssa, Théologie Mystique, and French Ressourcement.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michel René Ponchin Barnes The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theology of Creation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gerald P. Boersma Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emmanuel Durand, O.P. Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul Gondreau Contemporaneity: The Mystery of Liturgical Time.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. The Hermeneutic of Continuity and Discontinuity between Romano Guardini and the Joseph Ratzinger: The Primacy of Logos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roland Millare Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End: Two Visions of the Good Death in Christian Thought .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul Scherz An Inconsistency in Aquinas’s De veritate Account of Divine Ideas.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carl A. Vater 367 413 443 461 505 521 565 613 639 Symposium Globalism in Natural Law Theory: Pope Benedict XVI and Paul Francis Kōtarō Tanaka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kevin M. Doak Ratzinger’s Republic: Pope Benedict XVI on Natural Law and Church and State .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. 653 669 Review Essay Thomism in Ecstasy: Olivier-Thomas Venard on the Wording of Theology and the Expropriation of Cultural Discourses.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cyril O’Regan 695 Book Reviews Aquinas on Transubstantiation: The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist by Reinhard Hütter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P. Embracing Wisdom: The Summa theologiae as Spiritual Pedagogy by Gilles Mongeau, S.J.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. David Moser Lo Spirito Santo “anima” del Corpo Mistico: Radici storiche ed esempi scelti dell’ecclesiologia pneumatologica contemporanea by João Paulo de Mendonça Dantas.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Nepil Soundings in the History of Hope: New Studies on Thomas Aquinas by Richard Schenk, O.P... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . T. Adam Van Wart Saint Thomas d’Aquin: Lecteur du Cantique des cantiques by Serge-Thomas Bonino. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jörgen Vijgen In Defense of Conciliar Christology by Timothy Pawl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher Tomaszewski The Indissolubility of Marriage & the Council of Trent by E. Christian Brugger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christian D. Washburn 709 712 716 718 723 727 731 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 978-1-64585-040-3) is published quarterly by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 1468 Parkview Circle, Steubenville, OH 43952. 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Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 337–353 337 Conscience, Relativism, and Truth: the Witness of Saint John Henry Newman Anthony Fisher, O.P. 1 Archbishop of Sydney Sydney, Australia Conscience Today On October 13, 2019 the Church canonized a man whose life and work has been described by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI as “one great commentary on the question of conscience,”2 who was praised by Pope Saint John Paul II for his “deep intellectual honesty [and] fidelity to conscience and grace,”3 and who is celebrated by many as one worthy of This paper is a slightly revised version of one delivered to the conference on “Newman the Prophet: A Saint for Our Times” conducted by the Pontifical University of St Thomas (Angelicum), Rome, October 12, 2019. 2 Joseph Ratzinger, “Conscience and Truth,” in Values in a Time of Upheaval (New York: Crossroad, 2006), 75–100, at 84. Other texts of Ratzinger on conscience include: On Conscience (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007); “Conscience in Its Age,” in Church, Ecumenism and Politics (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 165–79; The Nature and Mission of Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995); Without Roots: Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, with M. Pera (New York: Basic, 2006), 51–80. See also: Vincent Twomey, Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007); Tracey Rowland, Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 39–40, 81–83. 3 Pope Saint John Paul II, Letter for the Centenary of the Elevation of John Henry Newman to the Cardinalate (1979): “It is my hope that this centenary will be for all of us an opportunity for studying more closely the inspiring thought of Newman’s genius, which speaks to us of deep intellectual honesty, fidelity to conscience and grace, piety and priestly zeal, devotion to Christ’s Church and love of her doctrine, 1 338 Anthony Fisher, O.P. the title of Doctor of the Church and specifically “doctor of conscience.”4 That such a high authority on conscience is being celebrated in this way could not be more timely: for rights of conscience are regularly flouted today and the very idea of conscience much contested. Some treat it as mere sincerity or subjective intuition; others as personal rivalry with authority; others again dismiss it altogether as mythology. Oxford don Julian Savalescu sounds like Newman’s nineteenth-century denigrators as he writes off appeals to conscience as “idiosyncratic, bigoted, and discriminatory.”5 Behind disputes over whether religious or moral believers engaged in healthcare or other pursuits should have the space to pursue their conscientious beliefs, and even have conscience protections,6 is the deeper question of the meaning, basis, and scope of conscience, and there is no one better to explore this with than our new saint. Conscience in Newman’s Day Newman was heir to a long and rich tradition on conscience going back to Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, and Thomas More.7 Joseph Butler mediated unconditional trust in divine providence and absolute obedience to the will of God” (L’Osservatore Romano [English], May 21, 1979). 4 E.g.: Drew Morgan, “John Henry Newman, Doctor of conscience, Doctor of the Church?,” Newman Studies Journal 4, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 5–23; John Henry Newman, Doctor of the Church, ed. Phillippe Lefebvre and Colin Mason (Oxford: Family Publications, 2007). 5 E.g.: Julian Savalescu, “Conscientious Objection in Medicine,” British Medical Journal 332 (2006): 294–97; Udo Schuklenk, “Conscientious Objection in Medicine: Private Ideological Convictions Must Not Supercede Public Service Obligations,” Bioethics 29, no. 5 (2015): ii–iii; J. Savalescu and Udo Schuklenk, “Doctors Have No Right to Refuse Medical Assistance in Dying, Abortion or Contraception,” Bioethics 31, no. 3 (2017): 162–70; U. Schuklenk and R. Smalling, “Why Medical Professionals Have No Moral Claim to Conscientious Objection Accommodation in Liberal Democracies,” Journal of Medical Ethics 43 (2017): 234–40; J. Savalescu and U. Schuklenk, “Conscientious Objection and Compromising the Patient: Response to Hughes,” Bioethics 32, no. 7 (2018): 473–76; Doug McConnell, “Conscientious Objection in Healthcare: How Much Discretionary Space Best Supports Good Medicine?,” Bioethics 33, no. 1 (2019): 154–61. 6 See the special issues of the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 4, no. 1 (Spring 2004)–especially the contributions by M. Kramlich, N. Nikas, E. Furton, M. Latkovic, and P. Cataldo—and The New Bioethics: A Multidisciplinary Journal of Biotechnology and the Body 25, no. 3 (Sept 2019), especially the essays of D. Oderberg, M. Neal and S. Fovargue, T. Saad, N. Gamble, and M. Pruski. 7 See: Eric D’Arcy, Conscience and its Right to Freedom (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1961); Anthony Fisher, O.P., “Conscience: The crisis of authority,” ch. 2 in Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Conscience, Relativism, and Truth 339 much of that tradition to Newman’s generation. He described conscience as “moral Reason, moral Sense, or divine Reason . . . a Sentiment of the Understanding, or a Perception of the Heart” by which an agent reflects on action prospectively or retrospectively, applying moral principles available to all.8 Butler reflected the turn away from metaphysical to more psychological explanations of ethics in that age. In Newman’s own century new views of conscience were emerging: for Nonconformists, conscience was freedom of religion along with moral constraints on anything that made you smile; for the Kantians, it was stern-faced practical reason holding duty up before the agent for their acquittal or condemnation; for the liberals, it was about “doing it my way” constrained only by law and education; for the Darwinists, an evolved mechanism for managing conflict between competing natural impulses or species; for the Marxists and Nietzscheans, a social policeman, the construct of a controlling community. It was against such a background that Newman sought to teach his version of the tradition on conscience. His most famous treatment was in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,9 but we find thoughts on conscience in his sermons, treatises, hymns, even novels. Conscience rates a mention 588 times in his letters and diaries alone. But as with Thomas More, we see in Newman someone not just speculating about moral theory but often personally agonizing over what to do.10 2012); Douglas Langston, Conscience and Other Virtues from Bonaventure to MacIntyre (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001). 8 Joseph Butler, “Of the nature of virtue,” in The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, 2nd ed. (London: Knapton, 1736), no. 1; see also Butler, Fifteen Sermons Preached at Rolls Chapel, rev. ed. (London: Knapton, 1729), III.6 and XIII.7 (in preface). On Butler on conscience see: S. Darwall, “Conscience as Self-Authorizing in Butler’s Ethics,” in Joseph Butler’s Moral and Religious Thought: Tercentenary Essays, ed. C. Cunlliffe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 209–42; A. Garrett, “Reasoning about Morals from Butler to Hume,” in Philosophy and Religion in Enlightenment Britain, ed. R. Savage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 169–86; A. Rorty, “Butler on Benevolence and Conscience,” Philosophy 53, no. 204 (1978): 171–84; B. Tennant, Conscience, Consciousness and Ethics in Joseph Butler’s Philosophy and Ministry (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2011); Aaron Garrett, “Joseph Butler’s Moral Philosophy,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online (https://plato. stanford.edu/entries/butler-moral/). 9 John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk on the Occasion of Mr. Gladstone’s Recent Expostulation” (1875; hereafter, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk), repr. in Lectures on Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, vol. 2 (Miami, FL: HardPress, 2013), 175–378. 10 Some of these quandaries are explored by his biographers and commentators: 340 Anthony Fisher, O.P. Newman gave his witness to Catholic conscience in an environment in which it was not always well-respected. Pope Emeritus Benedict attributes Newman’s youthful conversion from rationalism to Christianity to the discovery of “the objective truth of a personal and living God, who speaks to the conscience and reveals to man his condition as a creature.” This first conversion—and the subsequent two, to High Churchman and then to Catholic—were not well-received by all. Yet from the Calvinist Thomas Scott he learnt “his determination to adhere to the interior Master with his own conscience, confidently abandoning himself to the Father and living in faithfulness to the recognized truth.” Though “he was subjected to many trials, disappointments and misunderstandings, . . . he never descended to false compromises. . . . He always remained honest in his search for the truth, faithful to the promptings of his conscience, and focused on the ideal of sanctity.”11 After “pope-ing” in 1845, Newman’s honesty was impeached by Reverend Charles Kingsley. This provoked his famous Apologia Pro Vita Sua, a spiritual autobiography that detailed his tussles of conscience Frederick Aquino and Benjamin King, The Oxford Handbook of John Henry Newman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); Louis Bouyer, Newman: His Life and Spirituality (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011); John Cornwell, Newman’s Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint (London: Continuum, 2010); John Crosby, The Personalism of John Henry Newman (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014); Eamon Duffy, John Henry Newman: A Very Brief History (London: SPCK, 2019); Avery Dulles, John Henry Newman (New York: Continuum, 2009); Reinhard Hütter, John Henry Newman on Truth and its Counterfeits: A Guide for Our Times (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2020); Ian Ker, John Henry Newman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Newman After a Hundred Years, ed. Ian Ker and Alan Gill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); The Cambridge Companion to John Henry Newman, ed. Ian Ker and Terrence Merrigan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Gerard Skinner, Newman the Priest—Father of Souls (Leominster, UK: Gracewing, 2010); Roderick Strange, John Henry Newman: A Mind Alive (London: Darton, Longman, Todd, 2008) and Newman 101: An Introduction to the Life and Philosophy of John Cardinal Newman (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2008); Joyce Sugg, John Henry Newman: Snapdragon in the Wall (Leominster, UK: Gracewing, 2001); Frank Turner, John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001); Juan Velez, Passion for Truth: The Life of John Henry Newman (Tan, 2012) and Holiness in a Secular Age: The Witness of Cardinal Newman (New York: Scepter, 2017). 11 Benedict XVI, “Message to Symposium of the Friends of Newman,” November 18. 2010 (www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/letters/2010/documents/ hf_ben-xvi_let_20101118_newman-friends.html), citing Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua, ch. 1. Conscience, Relativism, and Truth 341 and responded to the accusations of bad faith. A few years later (1852) Newman spoke out against a former Dominican friar, anti-Catholic demagogue, and serial rapist, Giacinto Achilli.12 Newman was accused, tried and convicted of criminal libel, despite overwhelming evidence from Achilli’s victims of the truth of his claims.13 He escaped imprisonment, and his fine and court costs—the equivalent of more than 1.5million pounds in today’s values—were paid by admirers. But first he received a humiliating tongue-lashing from the judge about his moral deterioration since becoming a Catholic. Another occasion on which Newman gave witness to conscience was in 1874 when former Prime Minister William Gladstone published a pamphlet declaring that following the Vatican Council the English Catholic was bound “to forfeit his moral and mental freedom, and to place his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another.”14 It fell to Newman to defend Catholics against these charges of disloyalty to the nation and subjection to papal tyranny in his “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.” Newman on the Voice of Conscience Writing on the occasion of the first centenary of Newman’s death, John Paul II observed that Newman’s “doctrine on conscience, like his teaching in general, is subtle and whole, and ought not to be oversimplified in its presentation.”15 Rather, Newman’s complex account begins with an insis John Henry Newman, Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000; originally 1852). 13 The Times recognized the verdict for the travesty it was, reporting: “We consider . . . that a great blow has been given to the administration of justice in this country, and Roman Catholics will have henceforth only too good reason for asserting that there is no justice for them in matters tending to rouse the Protestant feelings of judges and juries” (quoted in Wilfrid Ward, Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman [Charleston, SC: BiblioLife, 2010], 292). On the trial see: M. C. Mirow, “Roman Catholicism on Trial in Victorian England: The Libel Case of John Henry Newman and Dr Achilli,” Catholic Lawyer 36, no. 4 (1996): 401–53; Edward Short, “How the Achilli Trial Changed John Henry Newman,” Catholic World Report, March 18, 2018. 14 William Gladstone, Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Expostulation (London: John Murray, 1874), 11. 15 Pope Saint John Paul II, Letter on the First Centenary of the Death of John Henry Newman (1990), §3, www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1990/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_19900618_arc-birmingham.html. See also Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Address on the First Centenary of the Death of John Henry Newman (1990), www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_ cfaith_doc_19900428_ratzinger-newman_en.html. 12 342 Anthony Fisher, O.P. tence that there is more to conscience than the English “sense of propriety, self-respect or good taste, formed by general culture, education and social custom. Rather is it the echo of God’s voice within the heart of man, the pulse of the divine law beating within each person as a standard of right and wrong, with an unquestionable authority.”16 This “voice of God in the nature and heart of man, as distinct from the voice of Revelation”17 is what Tradition calls the natural law. Conscience applies that law in judgment that “bears immediately on conduct, on something to be done or not done.”18 Newman begins his account here. But such obedience to natural conscience can be a preparation for obedience to divine revelation.19 Thus in his novel Callista the saint says: I feel that God within my heart. I feel myself in His presence. He says to me, “Do this: don’t do that.” You may tell me that this dictate is a mere law of my nature, as it is to joy or to grieve. I cannot understand this. No, it is the echo of a person speaking to me. . . . It carries with it proof of its divine origin. My nature feels towards it as towards a person. When I obey it, I feel a satisfaction; when I disobey, a soreness—just like that which I feel in pleasing or offending some revered friend. . . . An echo implies a voice; a voice a speaker. That speaker I love and I fear.20 In his “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,” Newman explained whose voice that is: Conscience is not a long-sighted selfishness, nor a desire to be consistent with oneself; but it is a messenger from Him, Who, both in nature and grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by His representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its perempto John Paul II, Letter on the First Centenary, §3. Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 247. 18 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 134. 19 John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 8 (Miami, FL: HardPress, 2018; originally 1843), 202: “Obedience to conscience leads to obedience to the Gospel, which, instead of being something different altogether, is but the completion and perfection of that religion which natural conscience teaches.” 20 John Henry Newman, Callista: A Tale of the Third Century (1855; BiblioLife, 2010; HardPress, 2013), 314–5. See: Ian Ker, Newman on Vatican II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 134–8; L. Terlinden, “Newman and Conscience,” in Lefebrve and Mason, John Henry Newman, 201–19, at 210. 16 17 Conscience, Relativism, and Truth 343 riness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas, and, even though the eternal priesthood throughout the Church could cease to be, in it the sacerdotal principle would remain and would have a sway.21 Yet talk of inner lights and strange voices has a decidedly gnostic or even psychotic feel to it. If we hear voices no one else can hear, we should probably see a doctor or an exorcist! And were conscience really a voice from outside our reasoning, it would play no part in moral philosophy and might suggest a double truth in moral theology: my merely human practical reasoning tells me to do X, but my “divine voice” says to do Y, not X.22 So, does Newman think conscience is like an inbuilt sat-nav, or like the angel who appears on Fred Flintstone’s right shoulder whispering into his right ear about his duty in contradiction to the bad angel whispering temptations into his left—which we must decide whether to obey? Several things might be said about this. First, conscience is for Newman “a constituent element of the mind” like perception, reasoning, and aesthetic judgment, and its primary function is the rational judgment of the moral sense that interprets human nature.23 It is the subjective experience of the objective moral law at play in the actor’s life. Its reliable use requires moral education and practice. Here Newman is following the classical notion of synderesis and conscientia mediating a divine law even to unbelievers. The use of the metaphor of voice, then, is to emphasize that conscience does not invent its own principles but receives and recognizes them. Secondly, it is this quality of conscience as “the rule of ethical truth, the standard of right and wrong, a sovereign, irreversible, absolute authority in the presence of men and angels”24 that gives it its authority both with respect to the agent—who might otherwise choose the more convenient course—and the state, which should respect the individual not merely as a voter but as a voice of God. “We are accustomed to speaking of conscience as a voice,” Newman explains in the Grammar of Assent, “because it is Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 129. Pope Saint John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, Encyclical Letter on the Church’s Moral Teaching (1993), §56, noted a similar kind of “double truth” operative in attempts to legitimize supposedly “pastoral” solutions to moral dilemmas contrary to objective moral truth and also in seeking personal exceptions in conscience from universally binding norms. 23 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 248. Cf. See also Gerard Magill, Religious Morality in John Henry Newman: Hermeneutics of the Imagination (Cham: Springer, 2015), 199–201. 24 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 246. 21 22 344 Anthony Fisher, O.P. so imperative and constraining, like no other dictate in the whole of our experience.”25 Conscience must be obeyed: “He who acts against his conscience loses his soul.”26 The metaphor of voice, then, as he puts it in The Development of Doctrine, serves to emphasize the “directing power” of conscience.27 Thus, as Pope Benedict has observed, conscience for Newman is both capacity for truth and obedience to that truth, both moral sense and moral judgment.28 Thirdly, natural conscience serves to plant “seeds” of faith and morals in the human soul, so that people are already ordered to receive the Gospel. It is by the universal sense of right and wrong, the consciousness of transgression, the pangs of guilt, and the dread of retribution, as first principles deeply lodged in the hearts of men, it is thus and only thus, that he has gained his footing in the world and achieved his success.29 Fourthly, once a person has the gift of Christian faith, Newman implies this natural voice is transformed into the Christian sense of responsibility before God. In the Apologia Newman says believers would rather follow and, if need be, be wrong with their religious conscience, than follow and be right with their reason.30 Conscience, then, is now recognized as the voice of a God who is known and loved and whose instructions have even more imperative force than before.31 “Left to itself and disregarded, it can become a counterfeit of the sacred power it is, and turn into a kind of self-confidence and deference to a person’s own subjective judgment. Newman’s words are unequivocal and perennially valid: ‘Conscience has its rights because it has its duties’”32—duties to self, to one’s fellows, above all to God. Thus Reinhard Hütter argues John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992; originally 1870), 40, 47, 72–83. 26 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 138. 27 John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (Leominster: Gracewing, 2018; originally 1845), 361. In Difficulties of Anglicans Newman describes conscience as “a messenger from Him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil” (2:248). 28 Pope Benedict XVI, Christmas Address to the Roman Curia, 2010. 29 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 132. 30 John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864/1865; BiblioLife, 2010), 455. 31 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §60. 32 John Paul II, Letter on the First Centenary, §4, quoting Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 250. 25 Conscience, Relativism, and Truth 345 that Newman’s understanding of conscience is “essentially theonomic.”33 Fifthly, in response to liberal tendencies of his day, Newman insisted that Christians must form their consciences in accord with the Scriptures, Tradition, and magisterium. The sense of right and wrong is so delicate, so fitful, so easily puzzled, obscured, perverted, so subtle in its argumentative methods, so impressible by education, so biased by pride and passion, so unsteady in its course, that, in the struggle for existence amid the various exercises and triumphs of the human intellect, this sense is at once the highest of all teachers, yet the least luminous; and the Church, the Pope, the Hierarchy are, in the Divine purpose, the supply of an urgent demand.34 Ecclesiastical authority, on this account, is not so much an external force commanding us to act against our best judgments, but rather a divinely ordained assistance for rooting out errors in our moral reasoning which the faithful willingly appropriate.35 Famous for agreeing to toast the pope but only after toasting conscience first, Newman did not overstate the roles either of the magisterium or of personal conscience, but demonstrated their service to each other and the role of each in articulating God’s purposes.36 Sixthly, if the light of reason and/or revelation is properly given to the intellect, conscience is then a property or function of the intellect. Yet in many places in Newman conscience seems to be a quality of the will as much as or more than of the intellect. This helps explain Newman’s prefer Reinhard Hütter, “Conscience ‘Truly So Called’ and Its Counterfeit: John Henry Newman and Thomas Aquinas on What Conscience Is and Why It Matters,” Nova et Vetera (English) 12, no 3 (2014): 701–67, at 703: “Conscience is not simply a human faculty, but is in its root constituted by the eternal law, the Divine Wisdom communicated to the human intellect. It is upon its theonomic nature and upon it alone that the prerogatives and the supreme authority of conscience are founded” (see also 707–8). 34 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 132. 35 Ryan Marr, “Newman Contra Liberalism: Conscience, Authority, and the Infidelity of the Future,” Public Discourse, July 22, 2019, https://www.thepublicdiscourse. com/2019/07/54164/. 36 On reading this highly contentious remark see: Benedict XVI, Christmas Address to the Roman Curia, 2010; Austin Cooper, O.M.I., “Newman and the Magisterium,” in Lefebvre and Mason, John Henry Newman, 173–87; Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 418; John Finnis, “Conscience in the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,” in Ker and Hill, Newman After a Hundred Years, 401–18; Magill, Religious Morality in John Henry Newman, 199. 33 346 Anthony Fisher, O.P. ence for the analogy of a voice rather than light for conscience. Reverence for and obedience to this “voice” make for sound conscience; self-sufficiency (“I loved to choose”), rebelliousness (“pride ruled my will”), and sensuality (“I loved the garish day”), on the other hand, distort judgment and behavior.37 The sound action of conscience thus requires a conversion or purification not just of intellect but also of will, a putting on of the mind and heart of Christ, to follow Paul’s language, a trusting in the lead of the Kindly Light, not merely the consistent application of self-evident (or should-be-evident) principles. And without subjecting ourselves to the Church, which is the “undaunted and the only defender” of truth, conscience easily fades, as Newman puts it in The Idea of the University.38 Newman on Conscience in the Contemporary Magisterium It is here, at the intersection of the sovereignty of conscience and the fragility of conscience without guidance, that we find Newman’s answer to the questions of relativism and truth which so often cloud discussion around his thinking. In his tussle with Gladstone, Newman insisted that the pope’s authority rests precisely on the authority of conscience—for his magisterium is there to serve the consciences of the faithful by forming and informing them—and so can never contradict conscience without “cutting the ground from under his feet.” What’s more, he pointed out, the teaching of popes is mostly general and the judgments of conscience particular, so it is hard to see how they could conflict.39 The idea of making Newman a bishop had been abandoned long before the First Vatican Council, and he was unwilling to attend as a peritus. 40 He was very present at the Second Council, however, held long after his death. That Council readily adopted his language of the voice, echo, messenger, or sanctuary of conscience. In Gaudium et Spes the Council fathers said: See John Henry Newman, “Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom,” in Verses on Various Occasions (Miami, FL: HardPress, 2019; originally 1867). 38 John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976; originally 1852/1858), 414. See also Joseph Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006), 148. 39 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 221–52, 256–57. 40 B. C. Butler, O.S.B, “Newman and the Second Vatican Council,” http://vatican2voice.org/3butlerwrites/newman.htm; George Weigel, “Newman and Vatican II,” Catholic World Report, April 15, 2015 (available at firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/04/newman-and-vatican-ii); Ian Ker, Newman on Vatican II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 37 Conscience, Relativism, and Truth 347 In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is his very dignity; according to it he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man: there he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths. 41 Conscience featured fifty-two times in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. The Council taught that: • Human dignity consists in being creatures who by nature have the God-like ability to reason and choose. Thus all people are bound to seek, embrace and live the truth faithfully.42 • Every human agent has the capacity for and fundamental principles of conscience. Conscience is experienced as an inner “voice,” ‘sanctuary’ or “tribunal,” yet one which mediates a universal moral law which is objectively given (by nature, reason, God) rather than personally invented.43 • Thus conscience summons us to inscribe the divine law in every aspect of life by seeking good and avoiding evil, loving God and neighbour, keeping the commandments and universal norms of morality.44 • To follow a well-formed conscience is not merely a right but a duty: persons are judged according to how they form and follow particular judgments of conscience.45 • Whether because of their own fault or not, agents may err in Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, §16. See also: John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §54; Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], §§1778, 1795. 42 Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, §§1–2; Gaudium et Spes, §§16, 41. See also John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §31. 43 Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, §3; Gaudium et Spes, §16. See also: John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §§52–57; Evangelium Vitae (1995), §§29, 40; CCC, §§1778, 1795. 44 Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, §3; Gaudium et Spes, §§16, 43, 74, 79; Lumen Gentium, §36; Apostolicam Actuositatem, §5. See also: John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §§52–57; Evangelium Vitae (1995), §§29, 40; CCC, §§1778, 1795. 45 Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, §§1, 11; Gaudium et Spes, §16. See also: John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §§58–61; CCC, §§1778, 1798–1800. 41 348 Anthony Fisher, O.P. matters of conscience.46 Catholics should therefore seek to form their consciences so that they are “dutifully conformed to the divine law itself and submissive toward the Church’s teaching office, which authentically interprets that law in the light of the Gospel.”47 • Claims of personal freedom or of obedience to civil laws or superiors do not excuse a failure to abide by the universal principles of conscience.48 • Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion should be respected by civil authorities and people should not be coerced in matters of religion.49 Suffice it to say that this teaching is very much in the tradition of Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, More—and Newman. Pope Saint Paul VI attributed to Newman’s wisdom much of the Council’s thinking in this area.50 Subsequent popes have regularly praised Newman’s contribution on conscience and drawn upon it.51 He is quoted directly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Veritatis Splendor in their treatments of conscience.52 Newman on Conscience in Contemporary Society If Newman’s influence on the Church’s understanding of conscience Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, §§8, 16, 43, 47, 50. See also: John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §§62–63; CCC, §§1799–1801; CCC §§1799–1801. 47 Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, §§8, 14; Gaudium et Spes, §§31, 50, 87; Gravissimum Educationis, §1; Apostolicam Actuositatem, §20; Inter Mirifica, §§9, 21. See also: John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §64; CCC, §11798. 48 Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, §8; Gaudium et Spes, §79. See also: John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §32. 49 Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, §3; Gaudium et Spes, §79; Gravissimum Educationis, §1, 6, 8. 50 Pope Saint Paul VI, Address to Symposium on John Henry Newman, April 7, 1975. See also Ker, Newman on Vatican II. 51 E.g.: St Paul VI, Address to Symposium on John Henry Newman, 1975); John Paul II, Letter on the Centenary of the Elevation of John Henry Newman to the Cardinalate (1979); John Paul II, Letter on the Centenary of the Death of John Henry Newman (1990); John Paul II, Address to Symposium on the Centenary of John Henry Newman, April 27, 1990); John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor; John Paul II, Letter on the Second Centenary of the Birth of John Henry Newman (2001); Benedict XVI, Address to Prayer Vigil on the Eve of the Beatification of John Henry Newman, September 18, 2010; Benedict XVI, Homily for the Mass of Beatification of John Henry Newman, September 19, 2010; Message to Symposium of the Friends of Newman 2010; Christmas Address to the Roman Curia 2010. 52 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §34; CCC, §1778. 46 Conscience, Relativism, and Truth 349 is clear, has he also affected civil understandings? Several authors have recently explored how Newman’s writings on conscience influenced the thinking and action of Sophie Scholl, leader of the White Rose resistance movement under Nazism.53 In 1942 she gave two volumes of Newman’s sermons as a parting gift to her boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel, as he was sent to the Eastern Front. From the horrors of the battlefield Fritz wrote to Scholl that Newman’s writings were “like drops of precious wine.”54 Many others were also influenced by Newman’s teachings on conscience and took heroic stances for the truth at risk to their safety and comfort. Yet conscience today is more often asserted in defense of following personal inclinations according to a subjectivist or relativist ethic. ServaisThéodore Pinckaers noted that in Catholic circles “a certain allergic aversion to law [has] shifted the center of gravity in moral theology away from law and toward personal freedom, the individual subject and conscience.”55 “Follow your conscience” has come to be code for pursuing personal preferences in sexuality, bioethics, remarriage, and Church practice.56 The language of “the primacy of conscience,” unknown to the tradition from Paul to Newman, more often implies contest with Catholic teaching than with the spirit of the age or culture.57 This is not the Christian conception Dermot Fenlon, “From the White Star to the White Rose: Newman and the Conscience of the State,” in Realisation—Verwirklichung und Wirkungsgeschichte: Studien zur Grundlegung der praktischen Theologie nach John Henry Newman, ed. Günter Biemer and Bernd Trocholepczy (Frankfurt: Graf, 2010); Paul Shrimpton, Conscience Before Conformity: Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Resistance in Nazi Germany (Leominster: Gracewing, 2018); K. V. Turley, “How John Henry Newman’s writing fought the Nazis,” National Catholic Register, August 29, 2019, citing Fenlon, Shrimpton, and Marr (see note 34 for Marr). 54 Turley, “How John Henry Newman’s writing,” quoting Marr. 55 Servais Pinckaers, O.P., Morality: The Catholic View (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2003), 56–57. 56 On these see: David Bohr, In Christ a New Creation (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1993), 170; John Finnis, “Conscience, Infallibility and Contraception,” The Month, 239 (1978): 410–17; Finnis, “IVF and the Catholic Tradition,” The Month 246 (1984): 55–58; Finnis, “‘Faith and morals’: a Note,” The Month 21/2 (1988), 563–67; Germain Grisez, John Finnis, and William E. May, “Indissolubility, Divorce and Holy Communion,” New Blackfriars 75 ( June 1994): 321–30. 57 See, for example: Richard Gula, “Conscience,” in Christian Ethics, ed. Bernard Hoose (London: Cassall, 1998), 114; L. Hogan, Confronting the Truth: Conscience in the Catholic Tradition (New York: Paulist, 2002); James Keenan, Commandments of Compassion (Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward, 1999), 112, 134; A. Patrick, Liberating Conscience: Feminist Explorations in Catholic Theology (New York: Continuum, 1996). 53 350 Anthony Fisher, O.P. of conscience at all: as Ratzinger observed, it is rather “a cloak thrown over human subjectivity, allowing man to elude the clutches of reality.”58 Newman was alert to this tendency. “In this century,” he said, conscience “has been superseded by a counterfeit, which the eighteen centuries prior to it never heard of, and could not have mistaken for it, if they had. It is the right of self-will, . . . an Englishman’s prerogative to be his own master in all things.”59 When men [today] advocate the rights of conscience, they in no sense mean the rights of the Creator, nor the duty to Him, . . . but the right of thinking, speaking, writing, and acting, according to their judgment or their humour, without any thought of God at all. They do not even pretend to go by any moral rule, but they demand . . . for each to be his own master in all things, and to profess what he pleases, asking no one’s leave, and accounting priest or preacher, speaker or writer, unutterably impertinent, who dares to say a word against his going to perdition, if he like it, in his own way. . . . Conscience has rights because it has duties; but in this age, with a large portion of the public, it is the very right and freedom of conscience to dispense with conscience, to ignore a Lawgiver and Judge, to be independent of unseen obligations.60 Thus Newman already saw how revelation, Tradition, community, even reason itself, could progressively be seen as adversaries of the free agent. Instead of being informed by right reason and Church teaching, appeals to conscience were more and more about personal preference. He argued prophetically that conscience is only worthy of our respect because it is about hearing the truth and obeying God. But “left to itself, though it tells truly at first, it soon becomes wavering, ambiguous, and false; it needs good teachers and good examples to keep it up to the mark and the line of duty; and the misery is, that these external helps, teachers, and examples are in many instances wanting.”61 In critiquing misconceptions of conscience, Newman argued that just as the value of memory is Ratzinger, “Conscience and truth,” 79. See also John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §32–33. 59 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 130. 60 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 250. 61 John Henry Newman, “Discourse 5: Saintliness the standard of Christian principle,” in Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations (Leominster: Gracewing, 2002; originally 1849), 83. 58 Conscience, Relativism, and Truth 351 in remembering accurately, so the value of conscience is in yielding right judgment and godly action. Truth always had primacy for him. The Second Vatican Council followed Newman’s lead in celebrating the dignity of conscience, but also habitually qualified the word with adjectives such as “right,” “correct,” “well-formed,” “upright,” or “Christian”— allowing that not a few consciences are confused, deformed, secularized, or otherwise misleading. 62 Conscience often goes astray, sometimes invincibly, that is, by no fault of the agent and so without losing its dignity; but at other times voluntarily, that is, because of negligence or vice, in which case conscience is degraded.63 It taught that: In the formation of their consciences, the Christian faithful ought carefully to attend to the sacred and certain doctrine of the Church. For the Church is, by the will of Christ, the teacher of the truth. It is her duty to give utterance to, and authoritatively to teach, that truth which is Christ Himself, and also to declare and confirm by her authority those principles of the moral order which have their origins in human nature itself. . . . The disciple is bound by a grave obligation toward Christ, his Master, ever more fully to understand the truth received from Him, faithfully to proclaim it, and vigorously to defend it, never—be it understood—having recourse to means that are incompatible with the spirit of the Gospel. At the same time, the charity of Christ urges him to love and have prudence and patience in his dealings with those who are in error or in ignorance with regard to the faith.64 In response to the view that the Catholic conscience might come to conclusions at odds with the magisterium, Newman said: “Natural Religion . . . needs, in order that it may speak to mankind with effect and subdue the world, to be sustained and completed by Revelation.”65 “At first our conscience tells us, in a plain and straightforward way, what is right and what is wrong; but when we trifle with this warning, our reason becomes perverted and comes in aid of our wishes, and deceives us E.g. Vatican II, Apostolicam Actuositatem, §§5, 20; Inter Mirifica, §§9, 21; Gravissimum Educationis, §1; Lumen Gentium, §36; Gaudium et Spes, §§16, 26, 43, 50, 52, 76, 87. 63 See John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §§62–63. 64 Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, §14. 65 Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 254. 62 352 Anthony Fisher, O.P. to our ruin.”66 It is Church teaching that keeps conscience to its proper course. 67 Thus on the eve of Newman’s beatification Pope Benedict noted that: At the end of his life, Newman would describe his life’s work as a struggle against the growing tendency to view religion as a purely private and subjective matter, a question of personal opinion. Here is the first lesson we can learn from his life: in our day, when an intellectual and moral relativism threatens to sap the very foundations of our society, Newman reminds us that, as men and women made in the image and likeness of God, we were created to know the truth, to find in that truth our ultimate freedom and [deepest] fulfilment. 68 Doctor of Conscience This short paper has barely scratched the surface of Newman’s teaching on conscience as the voice of God. Much is made of his insistence that conscience be respected and followed above all else. Yet on his account the authority of conscience lies in its pointing us to moral and religious truth, and prompting us to follow the divine will. Far from being a cause or excuse for relativism, then, conscience is its ultimate rejection. But because conscience is also relativism’s most vulnerable target, Newman insists on the Church’s role as its defender and formator. This brought a young peritus at the Second Vatican Council named Father Ratzinger to see that, without Church authority, conscience is the ready slave of personal passion and social fashion—what he would famously dub “the dictatorship of relativism.” On the centenary of the saint’s death, the now grown-up Cardinal Ratzinger paid tribute to Newman’s “liberating and essential” truth that the “we” of the Church develops from and guarantees the “me” of personal conscience. For conscience, on Newman’s account, is above all about discipleship: the implicit discipleship of those who hear and respond to God unknowing, as they follow their best reason in their choices; and the Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, 8:67. Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, 132 (among others places in the Letter). 68 Benedict XVI, Address to Prayer Vigil on the Eve of the Beatification of John Henry Newman 2010. See also his Benedict XVI, Christmas Address to the Roman Curia 2010, and John Paul II, Letter on the First Centenary, 4: “Few people championed the full rights of conscience as he did; few writers pleaded so persuasively on behalf of its authority and liberty, yet he never allowed any trace of subjectivism or relativism to taint his teaching.” 66 67 353 Conscience, Relativism, and Truth explicit discipleship of the faithful, who know that conscience, guided by the Gospel and the Church, is our surest guide. St John Henry Newman, Doctor of Conscience—pray for us! N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 355–365 355 Deus Providebit: Remembering Father Leo Elders, S.V.D. (August 7, 1926 – October 14, 2019) Jörgen Vijgen Major Seminary St. Willibrord Tiltenberg, the Netherlands In the last version of his autobiographical notes, which Father Elders handed to me on September 23, 2019, he praises his parents for shaping him very early on towards a priestly life of service by asking him to hand out pamphlets against alcoholism in the poor suburbs of his home town of Enkhuizen, the Netherlands, where he was born on August 7, 1926, to bring clothes his mother made to a poor family, and to play chess with a frail boy suffering from tuberculosis. The last is something that he would continue to do until his teenage years when the principal warned him: “Leo Elders, you should better practice your Greek vocabulary instead of walking around with a chessboard.”1 During the Second World War, Leo Elders was finishing high school in a Catholic boarding school in the most southern part of the Netherlands, right on the border with Germany, in the former Rolduc Abbey. His father had given him a devotional card of St. Joseph and asked him to pray daily for his future state of life, which he did. One night he saw how an English bomber was being shot from the sky and the crew jumping out of the airplane. This harrowing event made him think: “If they are willing to sacrifice their lives to liberate us, shouldn’t I be doing something extraor1 During the last years of his life, Father Elders penned down several autobiographical notes. One of these is entitled “My life as a disciple of St. Thomas,” in Libenter Praeceptorum Laudes Celebrarem: Stories and Reflections in Honor of Leo J. Elders, S.V.D, on His Ninetieth Birthday, ed. Jörgen Vijgen (Haarlem, NL: Kerkrade, 2016), 1–12. 356 Jörgen Vijgen dinary as well?” In the Catholic culture of those days and with a lively missionary spirit among the youth in the school, the thought of becoming a missionary priest almost naturally occurred to him. He asked the moderator of the school’s missionary activities for a list of congregations. When he saw what was written about the Society of the Divine Word (Societas Verbi Divini)—founded by the German priest Arnold Janssen (1837–1909) who was canonized by Saint John Paul II in 2003—namely that it was the “most austere and intellectual of all the missionary congregations,” his choice was made. Graduating in June of 1944, he was able to return home to the north of the Netherlands, but then the hongerwinter (literally: “hunger winter”), the Dutch famine of 1944–1945 in the north of the country due to the German blockade of food and fuel, prevented him from entering the novitiate. As with so many of his countrymen, the hongerwinter brought out the best of human comradery and ingenuity: making a primitive lamp out an empty jar, some oil, and a razor blade with some cork on it; collecting driftwood for some elderly people, taking a sack of wheat at night in a small boat to a mill to have it ground; hiding with his brother, who had escaped from a German labor camp, in a hole they had made under the wooden floor in the house, pushing a stack of old newspapers over their heads because it was said that bullets would not pass through a thick layer of paper when the Germans fired through the floor. When a member of the resistance movement, who had been active in finding safe places for Jews and others in hiding, had been arrested and it was feared that he might talk under duress, the Elders family had to flee for several weeks to different secret destinations. For their help to the resistance and in particular for hiding a number of Jews in their house, his father and mother were awarded posthumously in 2016 the honorific “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vesham (The World Holocaust Remembrance Center) and the State of Israel. Notwithstanding all this duress, Leo Elders sought to prepare himself for the novitiate. His parish priest gave him Jacques Maritain’s Les Degrés du Savoir; ou Distinguer pour Unir, another priest in a nearby village introduced him to philosophy by way of Joseph Gredt’s Elementa philosophia Aristotelico-Thomisticae, and in exchange for some potatoes, an Amsterdam professor gave him private lessons in Spanish. These few anecdotes already are emblematic for the both austere (idleness would never become a part of his dictionary!) and generous life of Father Elders. Deus Providebit 357 Formation Years (1945–1953) His philosophical and theological education, in Latin of course, were years of intense intellectual and physical labor. He enjoyed Gredt’s manual as well as those of Diekamp, Prümmer, and Scheeben. His teacher, Father Grevelhörster, a student of Garrigou-Lagrange, instilled in him the love for Saint Thomas and gave him Garrigou-Lagrange and Del Prado as extra reading assignments because “Elders can easily manage his studies.” The reading of Del Prado’s three volumes on the “De auxiliis” debate instilled in him “some reservation regarding the Jesuits although later in the Netherlands and the United States I met some excellent Jesuits.” The Cursus theologiae of John of Saint Thomas was a faithful companion during summer vacations. He took the voluminous books along on the luggage carrier of his bicycle to their vacation destination, to the mild hilarity of his classmates who said that in the mission on the island of Flores, Indonesia, he might even climb up a coconut tree to find a quiet spot for reading John of Saint Thomas. Physical training was an integral part of preparing the missionaries: thirty-mile walks, working on the farm of the study house, swimming during the winter in the pool the students had dug out themselves. Two visits to the studium made an immense impact on the young Leo Elders. The first was by the Austrian linguist and ethnologist Wilhelm Schmidt, S.V.D. (1868–1954), who, when lauded for his impressive intellect, replied: “The secret is not the ‘spirit of the times’ (Zeitgeist) but the ‘taming of the time’ (Zeitgeiβ).”2 The second visitor was the general superior of the Verbite Fathers, Joseph Grendel (1878–1951), who stressed the importance of manuals and said that “even a bad manual is far better than a random collection of notes.” Due to health reasons, his ordination for the Spring of 1951 was postponed. In hindsight, Father Elders considered it as another sign of God’s divine providence. It gave him the opportunity to make long trips on his motorcycle to Spain and immerse himself in the language but also to enroll at the university of Utrecht and take classes with Cornelia de Vogel (1905–1986), an international authority in ancient philosophy, who taught him the love and appreciation for the original texts and the world of classical culture. Upon his priestly ordination on February 28, 1953, the appointment to the island of Flores, Indonesia, had to be cancelled due to its struggles for independence from the Netherlands, while his other classmates had already been given assignments. Put on a waiting list, he could continue his studies. “Our Good Lord arranged by way of the postponement of my ordination He was making a wordplay on the German Zeitgeist (“spirit of the times”) to emphasize the importance of managing one’s time well in order to achieve results. 2 358 Jörgen Vijgen that my life was being directed toward a life of science and research.” Canada (1954–1959) In September of 1954, he arrived in Granby (Quebec) to teach classical languages in French in a recently founded high school of the Verbite Fathers. After some time, his request to pursue doctoral studies was granted, provided it did not interfere with his full schedule of classes (twenty hours per week) and he would find his own financial resources. A Dutch Canadian who owned a grocery store in Granby offered to drive him to Montreal in exchange for helping him load and unload supplies from the Montreal harbor. He could stay at the Christian Brothers in Montreal where he would celebrate Holy Mass and hear confessions on Thursdays and Fridays in exchange for two Canadian dollars, enough to get through the day and save some money for books. And so began the weekly rhythm of driving Wednesday afternoon after classes to Montreal, taking courses by Fathers Régis, O.P., Lachance, O.P., and others on Thursday when there were no classes in Granby, and returning on Friday to resume his duties in Granby. The most important encounter came when he met Werner Jaeger (1888–1961), who advised him to write his dissertation on book Iota of the Metaphysics, the contents of which, Jaeger said, he himself had never understood very well. This is how he came to write Aristotle’s Theory of the One: A Study of Book X of the Metaphysics under the direction of Vianney Décarie (1917–2009) at the Université de Montréal.3 Japan (1959–1971) Around that time a Boston confrère suggested Father Elders to the generalate of the Verbite Fathers for an assignment in Japan, much to the chagrin of the Canadian provincial. An attempt to assign him to a new seminary in the Congo failed because of struggles for independence from Belgium. And so towards the end of 1959 he arrived in Japan, the country for which he signed up back in 1953. After a year and a half mastering the Japanese language, he was assigned to the seminary and Nanzan University in Nagoya teaching Saint Thomas, in Japanese of course. The Japanese years were particularly fruitful, collaborating with the Thomistic Institute, established by the Canadian Dominicans, writing (among other texts) two monographs on Aristotle and editing a seven-volume work with the texts of Vatican II and commentaries in Japanese.4 Published as Aristotle’s Theory of the One: A Commentary on Book X of the Metaphysics (Assen, NL: Van Gorcum, 1961). 4 Aristotle’s Cosmology. A commentary on the De Caelo (Assen, NL: Van Gorcum, 3 Deus Providebit 359 As an illustration of the atmosphere, he often recalled how a critical study of his on Karl Rahner’s ideas on mission could only be published with the mitigating subtitle “Remarks on . . .” and in the section “Discussion Notes” of the journal so as not to discredit the towering authority of Karl Rahner.5 By the end of the 1960s, the cultural revolution of 1968 and its effects in the Church had arrived to Nagoya. Henri van Straelen (1903–2004), a Dutch confrère in Japan, fearing that Father Elders’ extensive workload as full professor, rector of the seminary, and dean of the philosophy department—combined with the continuing difficulties in the Church—would become too much, suggested his name, without Father Elders’s knowledge, to the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Franjo Seper. Rome 1971–1976 The work for the doctrinal section of the CDF from 1971 onwards proved to be somewhat tiresome, having to deal mostly with deviances from the Catholic faith and few concrete results. As a Dutchman, Father Elders became particularly involved in the study of the writings of the Flemish Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx (1914–2009), who at the time had come under scrutiny from the CDF. Father Elders responded to his Christology in several articles written under pseudonyms such as G. Van Rossem and G. Visconti. Teaching assignments at the Lateran University and the Angelicum, however, provided a welcome counterweight, as did the many enduring friendships which originated in those Roman years: Fathers Abelardo Lobato, O.P. (1925–2012), and Clemens Vansteenkiste. O.P. (1910–1997), Giuseppe Perini, Monsignor Brunero Gherardini (1925–2017), Philippe Delhaye (1912–1990), Carlos Cardona (1930–1993), Father Georges Cottier, O.P. (1922–2016), Lluis Clavell, and in particular Monsignor Antonio Piolanti (1911–2001), the vice-president of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which Father Elders would be appointed in 1980. 1966); Aristotle’s Theology: A commentary on book Lambda of the Metaphysics (Assen, NL: Van Gorcum, 1972). 5 See his “Die Taufe der Weltreligionen. Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie Karl Rahners,” Theologie und Glaube 55 (1965): 124–31. In fact, the editors of the journal prefaced the article with this statement: “The editors publish this article as a discussion piece to a problem which Karl Rahner thankfully has raised in a new way.” As a Verbite priest, he would often return to this theme. For instance, in: “Vers une théologie chrétienne du pluralisme religieux (étude critique du livre de J. Dupuis),” Sedes sapientiae, no.71 (1999): 64–100; “Évangélisation et inculturation, ” Nova et Vetera (French) 76 (2001): 31–51; “Karl Rahner und die nichtchristlichen Religionen,” Theologisches 34 (2004): 201–8. 360 Jörgen Vijgen He also made regular visits to the aging Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani (1890–1979), for whom Father Elders put his polyglot talents to use in writing fundraising letters for an orphanage in the Trastevere division of Rome which Cardinal Ottaviani had taken under his wing early in his career. When asked by then Cardinal Taguchi of Osaka to edit a volume on the most debated topics in post-conciliar theology, he was able to include the participation of then Professor Joseph Ratzinger, which was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. 6 As a result of the many priests of Opus Dei he befriended in Rome, he took part for more than thirty years in their annual theology conference at the University of Navarra in Pamplona. While the theme of these conferences was always on a general topic, he took it upon himself to introduce each time the insights of Saint Thomas on the topic at hand.7 During these years a long collaboration with such renowned journals as Divus Thomas, Doctor Communis, Divinitas, and Revue thomiste was started, as well as with the International Theological Commission of the Vatican. The apex of his stay in Rome was undoubtedly the commemoration of the seven-hundredth anniversary of the death of Saint Thomas in 1974. The international conference at the Angelicum in honor of St. Thomas’s thought brought, to the surprise of many, even Thomists, an amazing number of enthusiastic scholars and students to Rome. In the Apostolic Letter Lumen Ecclesiae of the same year Paul VI insists on returning to the timeless validity of St. Thomas’s thought. Against the background of the theological turmoil after Vatican II and the many dissenting voices, and in light of what Paul VI himself in his first encyclical Ecclesiam Suam (§26) writes about the Church “being engulfed and shaken by a tidal wave of change” which causes men “to run the risk of becoming confused, bewildered and alarmed” and “to adopt the most outlandish views” similar to the era of modernism, Father Elders saw the unexpected events of 1974 as an affirmation and a clear response from both the magisterium and the Thomistic community. Rolduc 1976–2016: “The Center of My Absence” Meanwhile in 1966 in the Netherlands, the bishops and religious supe As cardinal Ratzinger in 2003 and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2016 he wrote two prefaces for the two libri amicorum I edited. 7 Many of these were later collected in two volumes: Conversaciones teológicas con Santo Tomás de Aquino (San Rafael, ARG: Ediciones del Verbo Encarnado, San Rafael, Mendoza, 2008) and Conversaciones filosoficas con Santo Tomás de Aquino (San Rafael, ARG: Ediciones del Verbo Encarnado, 2009). 6 Deus Providebit 361 riors had decided to close all the seminaries and houses of formation in order to “professionalize” and “modernize” the priestly formation. Hence they sent their “students,” as they were now called, to the “big cities” to newly founded institutes and “student communities” where they could “experience” and “dialogue” with “the world.” The devastating effect of these measures on the spiritual life of seminarians and novices needs no elaboration. But even worse were some of the official policies put in place by some religious congregations. The Jesuits, for example, made it an official policy that in the house of their newly founded student community in Amsterdam it was not allowed to have chapel in the house. Instead, once a week a Jesuit priest would visit the house and “celebrate” Holy Mass at the kitchen table. Although some bishops were already very soon convinced that the entire arrangement was a disaster, it took a courageous bishop, Johannes Gijsen (1932–2013), appointed bishop of the southern diocese of Roermond, to realize the necessity for a new seminary, which he founded in 1974 in the former Rolduc Abbey. The “urgent request” from the Secretariat of State to “help out” Bishop Gijsen with setting up the philosophical formation program brought Father Elders back to his former high school in the summer of 1976 where he would remain until 2016. The opposition against “this Tridentine seminary,” “this wretched undertaking” as it was called—whereas in fact bishop Gijsen was implementing Optatam Totius, Vatican II’s decree on Priestly Formation—was so vehement that the superiors of the religious orders and congregations in the Netherlands issued a veto against participating in this undertaking, prohibiting their members to teach at the new seminary. Father Elders, who was still a member of the Japanese province of the S.V.D., was, at the instigation of the Vatican, transferred to the German province in order to avoid the veto of his Dutch home province. But Father Elders was never someone to let politics interfere with loyalty and personal friendships. Inspired by the remark of the former superior general Joseph Grendel, he set out to write manuals for all the main philosophical disciplines according to guidelines set out in Optatam Totius §15. These manuals set forth Saint Thomas’s position from within the perspective of the history of philosophy before and after Thomas, and they would in subsequent years be translated into English, French, Italian, German, Czech, Polish, and even the Korean and Persian languages. 8 For the English translations see: The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1990); The Metaphysics of Being of St. Thomas Aquinas in a Historical Perspective (Leiden: Brill, 1992); The Philosophy of Nature of St. Thomas 8 362 Jörgen Vijgen Summers were usually spent in the house of the Verbite Fathers in Boston, from where, between 1984 and 2012, he drove to countless parishes between Philadelphia and the Canadian border for mission appeals, acquiring a vast geographical knowledge of this part of the United States. In fact, I once witnessed at a conference at Ave Maria that colleagues introducing themselves to him were each and every one greeted by Father Elders with a detailed insight into the region they came from, often with details unknown even to them. These visits naturally included meeting his good friends Ralph McInerny (1929–2010) and Jude Dougherty. The second part of the summer often included trips through Central and South America, lecturing in various countries and often culminating in participating in the Semana Tomista in Argentina. Under his instigation the Rolduc seminary in a small town on the border between the Netherlands and Germany became a center for Thomism during the 1980s, when Thomism was still very much the odd one out in philosophy and theology. The international conferences he organized brought such international scholars as Jan Hendrick Walgrave, Geert Verbeke, Servais Pinckaers, Ralph McInerny, William Wallace, Jean-Pierre Torrell, Leo Scheffczyk, John Finnis, G. C. Anawati, Georges Cottier, and many others to the seminary and gave a certain praesentialitas to Thomism, much to the amazement of colleagues and students.9 In these years he also turned his scholarly attention to Aquinas’s biblical exegesis and reading of the Church Fathers and in doing so was instrumental in what is now called “biblical Thomism” or “ressourcement Thomism.”10 Once the program of philosophy formation at the Rolduc seminary was Aquinas: Nature, the Universe, Man (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1997); The Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas (Frankfurt am Main Peter Lang, 2005; repr. Catholic University of America Press in 2019) 9 The proceedings of these five international conferences were published by the Vatican Publishing House in the Studi Tomistici series. 10 Many of these studies are collected in Sur les traces de saint Thomas d’Aquin: Étude de ses commentaires bibliques, thèmes théologiques (Paris: Parole et Silence and Presses Universitaires de l’IPC, 2009), 590. In addition there are: “La présence de saint Grégoire le Grand dans les œuvres de saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Nova et Vetera (French) 86 (2011/2): 155–80; “The Presence of the Church Fathers in Aquinas’ Commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of John,” in Reading Sacred Scriptures with Thomas Aquinas. Hermeneutical Tools, Theological Questions and New Perspectives, ed. Piotr Roszak and Jörgen Vijgen (Turnhout, BE: Brepols, 2015), 257–86; “La présence de Saint Ambroise dans les écrits de Thomas d’Aquin,” Nova et Vetera (French) 94 (2019): 77–102, and “The Presence of the Alexandrian and Cappadocian Fathers of the Church in the Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas,” Espíritu 58 (2019): 337–63. Deus Providebit 363 underway, he accepted various teaching positions elsewhere, such as the Center for Thomistic Studies in Houston, the Studium Notre-Dame de Vie in southern France, and the Gustav Siewerth Academy in Bavaria. For thirty years he lectured monthly at the Institut de Philosophie Comparée in Paris. In addition he lectured at various universities throughout Europe, and also many monasteries and convents, mainly in France (Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux, Notre-Dame de Fontgombault, Sept-Fons, Saint-Joseph de Clairval, Sainte-Marie de Lagrasse, Fraternité de Saint Vincent Ferrer). As a result he would jokingly refer to the Rolduc seminary as the “center of his absence.” On the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of his Ordination to the Priesthood in 2003 he was honored by a Festschrift, prefaced by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.11 In 2006, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Maritain Association. In a letter thanking Ralph McInerny, Father Elders commented on receiving the award with the following phrase, characteristic of his humility and zeal: “I do not think that I really deserved it, but in the coming years it will remind me of what I still should do.” In 2009 he was the recipient of the Order of St. Thomas from the Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas (Houston, TX) for “his superb contribution to the study of St. Thomas Aquinas.” Teteringen (2016–2019) At the age of ninety, he resigned his many teaching positions and retired to the provincial house of his religious congregation in Teteringen in the Netherlands, where so many decades ago he received his theological formation. He was honored by another Festschrift, again prefaced by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.12 Ever since teaching for several years in the early 1980s a graduate course on Aquinas’s commentaries on Aristotle at the Center for Thomistic Studies, Father Elders had envisioned a book-length monograph on all of these commentaries with the goal of evaluating, by way of a close reading of the text, Aquinas’s reception of these foundational texts. His many teaching, lecturing, and writing assignments in subsequent years did not allow him to undertake this task. Now, freed from many of these obligations, he was Indubitanter ad veritatem: Studies offered to Leo J. Elders, S.V.D., in Honor of the Golden Jubilee of his Ordination to the Priesthood, ed. Jörgen Vijgen, with preface by His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Budel, NL: Damon, 2003). 12 Libenter praeceptorum laudes celebrarem: Stories and Reflections in Honor of Leo J. Elders, S.V.D., on His Ninetieth Birthday, ed. J. Vijgen (Haarlem, NL: Kerkrade, 2016). 11 364 Jörgen Vijgen able to devote his time almost entirely to what he regarded as his magnum opus. While originally written in English, a French translation already appeared in 2018 and a revised English edition is planned for the future.13 In 2018 he also published his Thomas Aquinas and His Predecessors: The Philosophers and the Church Fathers in His Works with The Catholic University of America Press. Emphasizing the crucial importance of Aristotle for both the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas, Father Elders often compared the transposition of Aristotle brought about by St. Thomas to the systematic rebuilding of a historical monument: the old bricks, slates, and beams are still used, but a more coherent whole is produced; some new windows are added; there is now much more light in the building, which becomes more livable; a new clarity envelops the whole monument.14 Ever since his encounter with Cornelia de Vogel in the 1940s, herself a Plato scholar, he remained attentive and sensitive to both the (anti-) Platonic elements in Aristotle as well as to the Neoplatonic influences on Saint Thomas. It is therefore not surprising that the last book he finished— on October 1, 2019, I received his last email containing a correction to the Greek in the manuscript of the book—was a commentary on Saint Thomas’s commentary on Dionysius’s De divinis nominibus, the French original of which was published posthumously in late 2019.15 Since the Spring of 2019 he was working on a commentary on De substantiis separatis. Upon the discovery of a terminal illness in the summer of 2019, he continued working saying: “St. Thomas and my Guardian Angel will take care of me.” Although he asked the Lord “to give me six more months to finish my book,” by early October his strength had diminished to the point that “I can no longer work but I can pray all the more.” On October 14, 2019 at 2:15 p.m. he passed away quietly and peacefully. Father Elders was above all else a missionary priest, summarizing the spirituality of Saint Arnold Janssen as follows: “Devotion to the Holy Trinity, the Divine Word and the Holy Spirit, simplicity of life, readiness to serve others anytime and anywhere, apostolic zeal.” Hence, “when people call upon you as a priest you can never refuse to help” because as a priest “one is a mediator between God and the people.” “The central task of a Aristote et Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Les Presses Universitaires de l’IPC, 2018). A useful summary of this position can be found in his “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et Aristote,” Revue thomiste 96 (1988): 357–76. 15 Leo J. Elders, Les Noms Divins de Denys le Pseudo-Aréopagite selon Saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Les Presses Universitaires de l’IPC, 2019). 13 14 Deus Providebit 365 priest,” therefore, “is to celebrate Holy Mass for the Church and the world.” God’s predilection and providence caused this missionary priest to become a missionary for Saint Thomas Aquinas and to lead a life which he himself described as “a life devoted to a restless and never interrupted study of St. Thomas and his sources.” He saw this vocation as an act of obedience to the following words of the old constitutions of the Divine Word Missionaries which were engraved in his memory: Fratres semper occupati inveniantur in studiis philosophicis et theologicis. His uncompromising fidelity to God’s vocation shaped Father Elders’s much-admired discipline, humility, and generosity. Nowadays one is often in search of what it means to be a Thomist. Father Elders was unmistakably clear: “The works of St. Thomas are so to speak the house in which my mind was allowed to live, the warmth and the light which held me upright amidst so many opinions, errors and criticisms, that which brought me the truth and the insight which I longed for and they still contain new treasures and inexhaustible insights.” I have been given the grace and privilege—as so many others—to accompany Father Elders on his tireless efforts to understand and spread the thought of Saint Thomas. Father Elders was a man of God, a man for God whose simplicity, warmth, and humble generosity gave testimony to the truth he espoused with Saint Thomas as Master. Although his road on earth has come to an end—and with it part of my own road as well—St. Thomas’s “inexhaustible insights” remain there to explore. May Saint Thomas greet him with the same words once spoken by Christ himself: “You have written well of me” (bene scripsisti de me) and accompany him towards his eternal reward, the beatitude given us in Jesus N&V Christ whom Father Elders so devotedly served. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 367–411 367 “Some Synchronic Moment”: Gregory of Nyssa, Théologie Mystique, and French Ressourcement Michel René Ponchin Barnes The Augustine Agency Milwaukee, WI “In the cold light I only live for you To love and adore you. [It’s all that I have.] Why do I keep falling?” In memory of Michael Ossorgine, Dennis Vincent Higgins, and Franny Glass Introduction The present importance of the thought of Gregory of Nyssa and the wisdom of a contemporary scholarly “turn” to his theology is so much taken for granted now that it can seem as though any thoughtful early-twentieth-century theologian looking to explore a patristic-sourced “mystical theology” obviously would have sought out Gregory. However, a pre–World War II patristics student seeking an existential theology not captive to rationalism more likely would have settled upon Gregory of Nazianzus—Gregory “the Theologian”—who wrote mystical poetry, or John Chrysostom, whose interests spanned all genres of writing.1 The turn to Gregory of Nyssa in modern theological sensitivities is not a Note the large number of volumes devoted to Chrysostom in the original late-nineteenth-century Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series (series 1)—attention not in keeping with post-war theological recourse to patristic theology. 1 368 Michel René Ponchin Barnes development to be regarded as inevitable, nor should the motives for the turn be presumed to be obvious or inevitable. In its simplest form, my hypothesis for explaining this turn to Gregory of Nyssa is that through his writings on the human experience of God (i.e., on mystical ascent) Gregory personified the principal question of the day: “How do faith and philosophy co-exist?” His theology was easily contextualized within the new appreciation of Neoplatonism (as was also the case with, e.g., Peter Brown’s biography of Augustine); he was regarded as “orthodox” but problematically so; and he was a stepping-stone to Origen. It is difficult not to see Gregory’s marginal status as reflecting the experience of his more thoughtful mid-twentieth-century readers. Moreover, Gregory’s theology was written with a strong anthropological bent, and taken as a whole (as it was in Migne) it seemed potentially to offer an anthropology as comprehensive as Augustine’s; this allowed for Gregory’s theology to be easily merged with a modern theological logic that started from “human nature” rather than divine.2 I believe the plastic capability of Gregory’s theological anthropology recommended his work to theologians newly bedazzled by subjectivity and new notions of “consciousness” (other than simply Bewusstein). Gregory wrote several treatises on theological anthropology (unlike, e.g., the mystical poet, Gregory of Nazianzus), and anthropology is a genuine and consistent concern for Gregory. Last (but not least!) among hypothetical motives for a modern theological “turn” to Gregory may be that his works laid out an epistemology—or, at the least, he was explicitly concerned with epistemological questions of the day. This concern places Gregory among a small group of early Church Fathers—such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine—whose theology was framed with an awareness that revelation and epistemology were inevitably intertwined. Modern questions such as “is certain knowledge mediated, and if so, how?” or “what in humans properly knows God?” can be posed to Gregory direct One way to make this point is to take note of the different significances the theology of Gregory of Nyssa has in Lossky’s 1944 Essai sur la théologie mystique de l’Eglise d’Orient, which appears in English as Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, trans. Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997 [original English translation 1957] ). In the three chapters “Uncreated Energies,” “Created Being,” and “Image and Likeness,” Gregory has a significant role only in the last. “Uncreated Energies” is dominated by Gregory Palamas; “Created Being” is dominated by Maximus the confessor; and only in “Image and Likeness” does Gregory step to the fore and begin to “carry the weight” of Lossky’s argument. In that chapter, when speaking of image and likeness, participation, and the theology of Gregory of Nyssa, Lossky makes statements that Hans Urs von Balthasar would find untenable (and vice versa). 2 “Some Synchronic Moment” 369 ly.3 Given the theological focus on the encounter with God as experience or encounter, Gregory can share our question of “in what state of mind does a person approach knowing God?”4 The line between an account of “mystical experience” and of “human openness to God (or not)” is blurred and each theologian works through a theological anthropology that is propaedeutic to a théologie mystique. Among Catholic and Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, Gregory of Nyssa was rehabilitated before Origen. The utility of Origen’s theology was uncertain;5 even more uncertain was his status as a bona fide representative of early Christian theology. Aside from the traditional concerns regarding Gregory’s problematical “Origenism” there was the modern linking of Gregory to Origen by Adolf von Harnack, who found Origen’s brand of “Hellenization” in the theologies of the Cappadocians—especially Gregory of Nyssa.6 The defense and rehabilitation of Gregory accepted Harnack’s fundamental criticism of Origen’s theology as Hellenism—but revealed Gregory’s theology to be rooted in a hermeneutic radically different from Origen’s: Gregory’s theology was fundamentally different from Origen’s in its relationship to pagan philosophy; this difference is manifested clearly and significantly in each theologian’s understanding of God’s accessibility to human reason. Each author utilized familiar categories from pagan philosophy to describe how and to I proposed, long ago (1992), that Gregory’s epistemology owed to a Hippocratic model of “powers,” and my thesis has been taken up recently as a conclusion among many analytic readers of Gregory: see John Milbank, “Force of Identity,” in Christian Origins, ed. Lewis Ayres and Gareth Jones (London: Routledge, 1998), 94–116. Balthasar finds in Gregory a series of intrinsic dialectical antinomies which his theology resolves. Lossky recognizes in Gregory another early exponent of an “essence–energy” ontology and epistemology. 4 Several episodes in Moses’s life figure heavily in answering this question—von Balthasar the “backside of God,” for Daniélou and Lossky, the cloud of “darkness,” and for all, Gregory’s Life of Moses. 5 Note the link between Origen’s rehabilitation in ressourcement theology and the perception of a “use” or need for what he can bring to theology (e.g., Henri de Lubac). 6 In his long treatment of Gregory of Nyssa, Leopold Malevez recapitulates the general thesis by Harnack of patristic Christianity succumbing to “Hellenization”—or, more accurately, to “school Platonism.” Malevez also describes the charges against Gregory of Nyssa specifically. He rejects the “Platonization” thesis completely and defends Gregory against his detractors; see “L’Eglise dans le Christ: Etudes de théologie historique et théorique,” Récherches de science religieuse 15 (1935): 257–91, 418–44. As will be clear, Balthasar acknowledges his debt to Malevez in the two Francophone versions of his 1942 Presence et pensée” and presumes the terms of Malevez’s argument. 3 370 Michel René Ponchin Barnes what degree God is knowable, that is to say, how we understand God to be transcendent. Origen’s core logic is Hellenistic, as is his use of Platonic philosophy. Gregory’s theology owed not to a logic of reason or rationalism but to the experience of God; his theology was a théologie mystique, a phrase which meant, minimally, an existential theology of encounter with God by the Christian person. (The emphasis on “personal” leads to the strong development of topics in theological anthropology, e.g., humans as full images of God.) With Origen the transcendental language taken from Plato (especially) transformed Christian religion into a propositional science; with Gregory Plato’s transcendental language was transformed by the experience of a living God. The trope that a given patristic theologian had “taken up and transformed” features of pagan philosophy became standard in mid-twentieth-century neopatristic and ressourcement hermeneutical strategies. Gregory had accomplished this “transformation”; Origen had not—his Christianity had, indeed, suffered a transmutation of gold into lead. Writing within two years of each other, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean Daniélou, and Vladimir Lossky each offer the same argument for Gregory, against Origen. The similar form and content of their independent but virtually simultaneous arguments is the subject of this article.7 Modern patristic scholarship on Gregory of Nyssa derives in large part from work done in France during the 1940s. Daniélou is most associated with the “rediscovery” of Gregory, while Balthasar may be said to have “popularized” Gregory as a bona fide theologian. Both of these authors Daniélou’s Platonisme et théologie mystique: doctrine spirituelle de Grégoire de Nysse (Paris: Aubier, 1944) has never been translated despite the importance of this work for ressourcement theology, as well as for Gregory scholarship; all translation from the work in the present article is my own. Lossky’s Théologie mystique was the first to be translated into English, followed by—decades later—Balthasar’s Presence et pensée, as Presence and Thought, trans. Mark Sebanc (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995) (I will mostly cite from the Sebanc translation, but I will sometimes cite or quote from the 1942 French edition and provide my own stated translation). The last two texts were translated in very different theological contexts, with different English-speaking audiences in mind; while they are quoted in translation, my comparisons between them are of the content of the original French texts. In my opinion—impossible to prove one way or the other—the late translation of Presence et pensée and the non-translation of Platonisme et théologie mystique are tokens of the marginal status they occupy in Anglophone ressourcement studies. (Opinions on the significance of Balthasar’s Gregory book for his oeuvre may vary among scholars, but there is no disputing that Platonisme et théologie mystique was Daniélou’s magnum opus.) On the peculiarities of the English translation of Lossky’s Théologie mystique, see my “De Régnon Reconsidered,” Augustinian Studies 26, no. 2 (1995): 51–79. 7 “Some Synchronic Moment” 371 contributed descriptions of Gregory’s thought which have set the parameters for the studies of Gregory which followed. Daniélou’s work on Gregory, Platonisme et théologie mystique: doctrine spirituelle de Grégoire de Nysse, is written shortly after Balthasar’s and with it in mind, as Daniélou makes clear.8 From a technical perspective, Balthasar’s contribution to the stud of Gregory of Nyssa was his treatment of diastema, the l’espacement, or interval, in Gregory’s thought.9 Daniélou contributed the redefinition of Gregory as mystic.10 As I will show, both authors wrote with sensitivity to the charge that Gregory was a Hellenizer, and that he was more of a Platonist that he was a Christian. Both authors are concerned to defend Gregory from these charges, and to make his orthodoxy clear. In this last endeavor they are joined by another scholar in France, Lossky.11 Lossky is not usually associated with Daniélou and Balthasar as being Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique, 6. See Brooks Otis, “Cappadocian Thought as a Coherent System,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958): 109n35: “It was, so far as I know, Balthasar who first realized the great significance of the Cappadocian use of the term diastasis or diastema.” In his translation of Presence et pensée, Sebanc brings attention to the difficulty of translating von Balthasar’s use of diastema; see Presence and Thought, 28n16. For a recent treatment of the concept see Scott Douglass, Theology of the Gap: Cappadocian Language Theory and the Trinitarian Controversy (New York: Peter Lang, 2005). None of the three Second World War theologians under consideration here expand Gregory’s “language theory” into the content of “the Trinitarian Controversy” as Douglass does—an omission, I contend, that raises serious questions. 10 One can make this claim for Daniélou for a number of reasons, but the one I will offer here is that Daniélou wrote about Gregory with an active and substantial awareness of the scholarly literature on mysterion and the vocabulary of mystical theology; he made explicit the “conversations” he was building upon. He cited, for example, Joseph Maréchal’s judgment that “participation” was the key concept in Gregory’s theology; he actively engaged in the running debate over Ps. Dionysius; and Daniélou used his reading of Lossky’s judgments on Dionysius to develop nuances of his own. For Lossky on Dionysius, see his “La Théologie Negative dans la Doctrine de Denys L’Areopagite,” Revue des sciences philosophique et théologiques 28 (1939): 204–21. The date of the article makes it relevant, as does Daniélou’s frequent engagement with the work in his book. Many of the themes and several of the personages—e.g., Gregory, Origen—that appear in Lossky’s Théologie mystique make their debut in “La Théologie Negative” and the article thus provides the means for Daniélou to conduct a “conversation” with material in Lossky’s contemporary book. See, for example, Platonisme et théologie mystique, 209–10. 11 Daniélou and Lossky knew each other during the war years and were involved in substantial theological exchange during that time. The questions posed by Gregory and Eunomius had already been broached in scholarly “conversation” through an exchange on “how do we understand the Mystical Theology of Ps. Dionysius?” In Platonisme et théologie mystique Daniélou engages Lossky on the disputed question 8 9 372 Michel René Ponchin Barnes a framer of the modern understanding of Gregory; his constant effort to relate other authors to his paradigmatic theologian, Gregory Palamas, results in less emphasis in Gregory himself as an important theologian. But Lossky shared with his French contemporaries the project of refuting the charge against Gregory of Hellenizer and of reestablishing Gregory as a paradigm of Greek patristic orthodoxy. As I shall show, he also shares with them a specific and significant evaluation of Eunomius; his greater concern, like theirs, is the problem of a “rational” or “scientific” theology which reduces theology and the experience of God to logical truth.12 The common concern with Eunomius was one of the first characteristics that drew me to see a common ground among the three scholars.13 When a contemporary scholar of Gregory of Nyssa reads these works by Balthasar, Daniélou, and Lossky, what is most startling is the complete evacuation of Trinitarian theology from Eunomius’s theology. Their quesof whether Ps. Dionysius’s mystical ontology can be called “Neoplatonic” without robbing it of its Christian content. In his 1939 article—cited above—Lossky says “no!” and that remains his answer, more elaborated, in Théologie mystique. Daniélou’s answer is “yes”: his argument draws heavily upon the judgments of Maréchal (in Etudes sur la psychologie des mystiques); to whatever else that is at stake for Lossky in his claim on “mystical theology” there should be added the perceived need to shake out Maréchal’s “erroneous” (but positive) appropriation of the Areopagite. In the time frame considered in this article Balthasar does not treat the case of Ps. Dionysius; much later in his multi-volume Glory of the Lord, he defends the “true Christianity” of the Aeropogite against charges made against him due to his “obvious dependence” on Neoplatonic forms of thought. Balthasar’s argument is noteworthy: “ [Ps. Dionysius] turned the tables against” his critics by claiming that God’s wisdom was the source of whatever wisdom the philosophers possessed (The Glory of the Lord, vol. 2, trans. Andrew Louth et al. [London: T & T Clark, 1984; French original 1962], 208). This kind of argument is used to support Gregory and will later be applied to support Origen’s orthodoxy. Details on the relationship between Daniélou and Lossky (indeed, on most of Daniélou’s life at this time) can be found in Erick Moser, “‘Combat for Culture’: The Formation of Jean Daniélou’s Vision for the Church in Secular France, 1925 –1950” (PhD diss., St. Louis University, 2015). 12 In 1940s scholarship the argument for understanding Eunomius’s theology to be one in which philosophy had replaced revelation can be found in the writings of: C. Isaye, “Vom Platonismus zur theorie de Mystik zur Erkenntisleher Gregors von Nyssa,” Scholastik 11 (1936): 163–95; and E. Vandenbussche, “La part de la dialectique dans la théologie d’Eunome le technologue,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 40 (1944–1945): 47–72. Vandenbussche’s article is contemporary to Daniélou’s and Lossky’s monographs. 13 Malevez’s extensive defense and “rehabilitation” of Gregory against the charges of “Platonizing” and “Hellenizing” in “L’Eglise dans le Christ . . .” makes no use of Eunomius. “Some Synchronic Moment” 373 tion is always “how did Eunomius speak about God?” rather than “what did Eunomius say about the Trinity?” The controversy over Eunomius’s “rationalist” theology was never argued simply for the sake of “getting theological method right.” Eunomius argued, in his own way, over what the New Testament reveals about God, the Trinity.14 If Eunomius’s understanding of knowing God seems fundamentally unrelated to his doctrine of the Trinity that is not because Eunomius articulated it in such a way, but because Balthasar, Daniélou and Lossky engage him—insofar as they engage the historical Eunomius at all—principally through the medium of book 2 of Gregory of Nyssa’s Against Eunomius, the one book in the three-volume work of that name by Gregory which is dedicated to the question of speech about God. From the perspective of contemporary scholarship the judgments of Eunomius’s theology expressed in these three French writings do not map out the content of Eunomius’s writings, but represents a specific interpretation—which they share with one another.15 It is as though for whatever problem they are facing neither “God as One” nor “God as Trinity” provides the solution to their commonly perceived problem. It is a sign of their times that the most important speech about God is to speak of simply “Being” or “Beyond Being” (two synonyms).16 For Eunomius, the name “Unbegotten” was taken as the ultimate Name—following in the lineage of “Almighty,” “Lord,” and” “He Who Is”; this Name was revealed (Eunomius thought) by Christ himself when he called God “Father.” This is not the place to give an account of Eunomius’s anti-Nicene theology—its motivation and content against the Trinitarian theology promulgated in the name of the Creed of Nicaea, 325. Eunomius’s theology was dense, prolific, and hearty: it survived well into the sixth century despite constant imperial suppression. Although the only text by Eunomius that survives (the Apologia) includes philosophical appeals, the work, when translated into English in the seventeenth century, was regarded by some Anglicans (e.g., William Whiston, George Rust, as Isaac Newton) as a remnant of the pre-Constantinian, “primitive” church. 15 See my “Background and Use of Eunomius’ Causal Hierarchy,” in Arianism After Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts, ed. Michel Barnes and Daniel Williams (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993), 217–36, my “Eunomius of Cyzicus and Gregory of Nyssa: Two Traditions of Transcendent Causality,” Vigiliae Christianae 52 (1998): 59–87, and my 2001 The Power of God: Dunamis in Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Theology (repr. 2016). 16 Elsewhere I have criticized the popular idea that Western Trinitarian theology “begins” with the unity while Eastern Trinitarian theology “begins” with the relations. I want to now suggest that the “unity Trinitarian theology” critiqued for decades is in fact the product of the specifically modern problematique that “‘Being’ equals Being” is necessarily singular: one, a unity. The modern “unity of being” resembles the old Scholastic “unity of being” for all the reasons Baring provides in Converts to the Real—“resembles” not “equals”: a false continuity has 14 374 Michel René Ponchin Barnes When we read Balthasar’s Presence et pensée, Daniélou’s Platonisme et théologie mystique, and Lossky’s Théologie mystique de l’Eglise d’Orient, we should recognize that these are three books written in French and published in France within two years of each other.17 When the books are considered together, synchronically, as theological articulations contemporary in place, common shapes and contents of the books emerge: it is these common shapes and contents that I explore in this article.18 The most important common features in their arguments for Gregory’s orthodoxy are easy to list:19 first, almost simultaneously these three authors published books with been imposed between medieval and early twentieth century arguments on God’s single “Being.” See my “De Régnon Reconsidered,” for the role of the French Augustinians Henri Paissac and André Malet. 17 We must bring to the fore the spiritual concerns common in pre-World War II modern France and be especially mindful of the irenic mixture of premodern and modern thought that characterized intellectual engagement in the early twentieth century, for example, the Aristotelian vocabulary of Franz Brentano, the rabbinic hermeneutic of Sigmund Freud, the neo-Thomism of Pierre Rousselot, and the Scholasticism of Martin Heidegger. 18 It is important that the reader understand the intentional limits of my work here. I am concerned with one book by each author, these all published in France within a two-year “window.” I do not endeavor to locate each book’s content within a trajectory of development by the author. My “canon” is limited. (This is a methodology which should be familiar to most contemporary theologians.) I allow myself one deviation from my strict method: when other works by each author are written within two years of the texts at hand, then these works are consulted. Thus I include Balthasar’s article from published the year before Presence et pensée in my methodological “canon”: “Patristik, Scholastik und wir,” Théologie der Zeit 3 (1939): 65–104, as translated by Edward T. Oakes, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” Communio 24 (1997), 347–96 (citations will be from the English). (The word wir in the original title will figure occasionally as a hermeneutical point of leverage in my reading.) 19 Phenomenologically each of these books is in its own way a product of dislocation. Presence et pensée reworks material from Balthasar’s earlier study in German, and it is the only major work by him written in French; it was published in occupied France while he was safe in Switzerland where he lived through to the end of the war; the book announces his conclusion that the Greek theology of Gregory of Nyssa has little to offer a modern theologian other than as a kind of a role model of affect. (Most of Balthasar’s life during the decade of the 1930s qualifies as geographical dislocation in one way or another. He was a Swiss Gulliver.) Platonisme et théologie mystique was written in defeated and occupied France (“Greater Germany”) after Daniélou had served in the French Armée de L’air and was held briefly as a prisoner of war. Théologie mystique was written in Lossky’s adopted homeland, while in permanent exile from his native Russia, and living in a country conquered by the same army now invading Russia. The fact that the majority of ressourcement works were published after 1950 obscures the fact of “Some Synchronic Moment” 375 the common purpose of rediscovering and promoting a théologie mystique of premodern Christianity;20 second, each book recovers this théologie mystique by exploring the theology of Gregory of Nyssa; third, each book is written as a defense of Gregory’s theology against the charge that it is Platonism masquerading as Christianity;21 fourth, each work argues for Gregory by contrasting his theology against that of Eunomius of Cyzicus; fifth, in each book the characterization and criticism of Eunomius’s theology follows the same form, namely that the conflict between Gregory and Eunomius was a conflict between two types of Christianity, mystical versus rationalist; sixth, each author treats Origen as the archetype of Western rationalist theology, in order to (seventh) argue their case by “reducing” Eunomius’s theology to the source of “scientific” theology, Origen.22 Finally, ressourcement’s origin in a defeated culture, within which the authors lived at the edge of a potentially new—and very hostile—kind of history, such as de Lubac’s often neglected book Drame de l’humanisme athée (published in 1944, the same year as Daniélou’s and Lossky’s books). See also Kevin L. Hughes, “Ressourcement and Resistance,” in Reading Scripture as a Political Act, ed. Matthew Tapie and Daniel Wade McClain (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2015), 219–34. 20 If one regards these authors as a closed circle of discourse in which these scholars interacted with each other and with the patristic texts at hand (i.e., Gregory of Nyssa, Ps. Dionysius, Origen), then the origin of the term théologie mystique seems straightforward: the term arises directly from the primary sources. On the other hand, if one regards these three authors within a wider diachronic arc of Francophone Christians engaged in a broad conversation of renewal, the origins and significance of the term become a complex, intertextual question. For example, in his 1910 Notre Junesse, Charles Peguy used mystique in the sense of “radical” or fundamental. To appreciate the wide circumference of Catholic intellectuals, see Paul Cohen’s 1988 Piety and Politics: Catholic Revival and the Generation of 1905–1914 in France, Stephen Schloesser’s 2005 Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris 1919–1933, and the already indispensable Baring, Converts to the Real. 21 Harold Cherniss argued in The Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa (1930) that Plato was the source of Gregory’s fundamental terms and concepts, and that his Christianity covered a deeper Platonism. Cherniss’s book was known to Balthasar, Daniélou, and Lossky. 22 There is no inclination in Presence et pensée to “rehabilitate” Origen: indeed, the guiding topos in the book is that Gregory succeeds where Origen (and Eunomius) failed, and the same judgment is held by Daniélou and Lossky. From the perspective of the Catholic ressourcement theology developing in France, these works by Balthasar and Daniélou will be the last in which what I call the “Harnackian” judgment of Origen is accepted, The project of the “rehabilitation” and appropriation of Origen will mark the movement: voila de Lubac’s 1950 Histoire et esprit: l’intelligence de l’ecriture d’apres Origene and Henri Crouzel, Origene et la “Connaissance Mystique” (Bruges: Desclee De Brouwer, 1959). De Lubac writes a long Preface 376 Michel René Ponchin Barnes for each of these modern theologians the conflict between Gregory’s theology and Origen’s is tested as a theological resource for the contemporary struggle against modern forms of rationalist theology.23 For me to organize a synchronic reading of the three works, Presence et pensée, Platonisme et théologie mystique, and Théologie mystique de l’Eglise d’Orient, according to their treatment of Eunomius of Cyzicus might seem to be to organize my study around a minor, incidental figure or topic. What is remarkable—what needs to be remarked by scholars—is that in all of these works so “minor” a personage as Eunomius carries the entire weight of each author’s claim that Gregory refutes Origen and his theo-logic (whatever one takes Origen’s theology to have been). If there is no Eunomius’s theology to stand for or equal Origen’s theology, then any argument that Gregory rejected the latter’s theology would be tedious and anything but “dramatic”—if indeed it could be made successfully! For any student of late-fourth-century Greek theology Eunomius is an enormously important figure—but not for the reasons that motivate Balthasar’s, Daniélou’s, and Lossky’s interest in him. The two sets of motives barely intersect each other, but the arguments are close to identical. The Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa For the purposes of my argument here, the most important critic of Gregory was Harnack—who reduced Gregory’s theology to that of Harnack’s for Crouzel’s book. The works of each of these two scholars should be read with recourse to the other—de Lubac’s “Origen” set beside Crouzel’s “Origen.”) 23 Who or what Balthasar, Daniélou, and Lossky wrote against in each of their writings is more clear in post–Vatican II scholarship than it is in their own texts. The possible “candidates” for theologies of oppressive and desiccating rationalism in pre–WWII France are numerous: Scholasticism, certainly, but Kantianism, Rénanism, empiricism, and futurism are all likely candidates for causes of the spiritual suffocation so many Francophone intellectuals experienced since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The credibility of any contemporary hypothesis claiming one of these in particular to be the villain turns upon three prior scholarly judgments: a knowledge of the many “antinomies of crisis” being articulated in French literature prior to World War II; the degree to which it is useful to consider these articulations as truly distinct from one another; and a firm judgment on the relative permeability (or a firm boundary) of French theology to the contemporary French culture. For myself, I cannot imagine French Catholic theology as a bubble floating above the tumult of the age. (I think that my interpretation is well illustrated by the fates of Rousselot and Peguy.) For excellent insight into the crisis of rationalism in pre–World War I French culture, and the varieties of responses, see Robert C. Grogin, The Bergsonian Controversy in France 1900–1914 (Calgary: University of Calgary, 1988), and Schloesser’s Jazz Age Catholicism. “Some Synchronic Moment” 377 arch villain, Origen.24 Harnack does no worse to Gregory than he does to the other Cappadocians, especially Basil, but it is bad enough. Harnack believed that the true Nicene orthodoxy of Athanasius was transmuted by the Cappadocians into a “new orthodoxy,” as typified by Constantinople I, and the (spurious) creed of that council. True Nicene orthodoxy was centered on homoousios, and the equality of Father and Son—what Harnack called “substantial unity.” However, a neo-orthodoxy, Harnack argued, was championed by Basil of Ancyra and the Cappadocians, and gave implicit conceptual priority to homoiousios, although it explicitly acknowledged homoousios (but omitted it from the creed of the Council, 381), and gave logical and natural priority to the Father (over the Son), even as it insisted that the “three” were “one.” 25 Harnack says: The entire Origenistic speculation regarding the Trinity, with which Athanasius would have nothing to do, that is, of which he knew nothing, was rehabilitated. Science concluded an alliance with the Nicene Creed; that was a condition of the triumph of orthodoxy. If at the beginning of the controversy the scientific thinkers—including those among the heathen—had sympathized with Arianism, men were now to be found as the defenders of the Nicene Creed to whom even a Libanius yielded the palm. These men took their stand on the general theory of the universe which was accepted by the science of the time; they were Platonists, and they once more naively appealed to Plato in support even of their doctrine of the Trinity.26 Harnack bases his characterization of Cappadocian theology on the common methodology he finds between Origen and the Cappadocians. According to Harnack, Origen was a man of science rather than faith, rationalism versus experience—the same oppositions at stake in Balthasar, Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, 7 vols., repr. (New York: Dover, 1960). Harnack, History of Dogma, 4:98–100. See my “The Fourth Century as Trinitarian Canon,” in Theology, Rhetoric and Community, ed. L. Ayres and G. Jones, Studies in Christian Origins 1 (New York: Routledge, 1997), 47–67. Harnack’s argument that the Cappadocian understanding of Nicaea and homoousios is intrinsically subordinationist is given a new kind of articulation by Balthasar. As we shall see, Balthasar’s disagreement with Harnack is about the significance of philosophical language in patristic doctrine, not over its presence, and not even over its effect on Christian doctrine. For example, Balthasar judged Cappadocian theology to include a subordinationist “step-wise” logic in its “Nicene” Trinitarian theology. See Balthasar, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 375 ff. 26 Harnack, History of Dogma, 4:87–88. 24 25 378 Michel René Ponchin Barnes Daniélou, and Lossky. This same “scientific [i.e., rationalist] Christianity” is found in the neo-orthodoxy of the Cappadocians. I rehearse Harnack’s opinion in detail because he stands as the most forceful example of the characterization(s) of Gregory that Balthasar, Daniélou and Lossky were attempting to overcome. The quotation immediately above makes clear that Harnack saw Gregory and the Cappadocians as Hellenizing dogmatists. It is precisely this judgment that French scholarship in the forties is attempting to overturn for their own theological reasons, as I will show through a brief and select treatment of details in each book. However, we must be clear that Harnack’s negative judgment of Origen as arch Hellenizer was taken over by the three authors during the time treated in this essay. The kind of problem that Harnack identified was not rejected by these three authors; rather, they each found Harnack’s exclusion of philosophy—“Platonism”—to be a failed and inadequate appreciation of the Incarnation—of the complete “taking up” of the human.27 In their three books, Balthasar, Daniélou and Lossky displayed very similar understandings of true Christianity, of the real danger of scientific or rationalist Christianity, and of the identities of rationalist Christianity in the past and in the present.28 It had been clear for some time that modernism’s embrace of rationalism or ”science” left faith in the arms of a cold and loveless romance.29 Harnack’s criticisms of Origen Balthasar criticizes Harnack and other Protestant historians of dogma for concluding that the influence of philosophy in a doctrine calls into question its Christian authenticity, (see “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 368–69.). 28 For example, Balthasar says of Origen: “We can no longer deny that in his case and despite his unbending will to be and to remain in authentic Christian, not only were certain words but also basic forms of the Hellenism allowed to penetrate into the inner realm of Christianity, and to a great extent they were established themselves their henceforth because of the unique influence of this giant of the spirit (a fact which has not yet been sufficiently research and evaluated). It is not so much a question of certain individual doctrines that worked their way inside . . . as it was much more a question of the inner space of the spirit, a whole tissue of assumptions from time memorial that are not easy to get ahold of, an atmosphere the formal methodology” (“The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 372). In Presence and Thought, see 19, 20, 68, 71, and 85. 29 On one side of “rationalism” were the neo-Kantians and the empiricists, on the other side were the manualists: two sterile options. Schloesser’s, Jazz Age Catholicism is especially relevant here, as are the first two chapters of Derek Hastings’s 2011 Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism. A tragically neglected work on the French response to the “cold romance” is the thoughtful and detailed research in Grogin’s Bergsonian Controversy. For primary sources, see, e.g., any of the writings by Henri Poincaré, Peguy’s 1910 Notre Jeunesse (published in English as Temporal and Eternal), or any issue of the 27 “Some Synchronic Moment” 379 become tropes common to my three authors: “Origenistic speculation,” the triumph of rationalism over faith, and the specter of Platonism (i.e., of pagan philosophy) appear as notional clusters in these works by Balthasar, Daniélou, and Lossky.30 Hans Urs von Balthasar If one reads Balthasar’s 1942 book on Gregory, Presence et pensée: essai sur la philosophie religieuse de Grégoire de Nysse, within its original context, and without the benefit of knowing, in retrospect, the arc of Balthasar’s theology within which it stands as a point, the genre of the work is not obvious.31 However, for many of Balthasar’s contemporary readers “hindjournal Esprit from this time. I regard the use of these tropes as a choice on the part of the three theologians: they all make the same scholarly and theological judgment that Origen’s “theology” was indeed “rationalist.” There are other—positive—judgments of Origen alive in European theology, but either out of ignorance or by informed decision, none of these writers took up the alternate understanding of Origen. I am thinking of Walther Voelker’s 1931 Das Vollkommenheit des Origenes and Aloisus Lieske’s 1938 Die Théologie der Logos mystic bei Origenes (1938)—both works prior to those of von Balthasar, Daniélou, and Lossky. In Krivocheine’s judgment in1958 these two scholars mark the first modern recognition of Origen’s theology as “mystical” (“The Holy Trinity in Greek Patristic and Mystical Theology I,” Sobornost, ser. 3, no. 21 [Summer 1957]: 462–68, and “The Holy Trinity in Greek Patristic and Mystical Theology II,” Sobornost, ser. 3, no. 22 [Winter 1957–1958]: 529–36). While technically Krivocheine’s judgment may be correct, there was nothing exclusively “modern” or recent about the “recovery” of Origen. His doctrines were defended by Giovanni Pico in 1572 and by Fr. Etienne Binet, S. J., in 1629. In 1668 P.D. Huet (Huetius), O.S.B., published his two volume Origeniana. Late-seventeenth-century English and German Pietism recognized the positive “mystical” character of Origen’s theology. In scholarship, see especially Edgar Wind, “The Revival of Origen,” in Studies in Art and Literature for Belle Da Costa Greene, ed. Dorothy Miner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954), 412–24, and D. P. Walker, “Origene en France au Debut du XVI Siecle,” in Courants religieuse et humanisme a la fin du XV et au debut du XVI Siecle (Strasbourg, FR: Bibliothѐque des Centres d’Ѐtudes supѐrieures spѐcialisѐs, 1959), 101–19. Wind covers the “revival of Origen” from 1486 until Erasmus in 1536. Lossky did not speak for all Orthodox theologians: Krivocheine characterizes Origen’s mystical theology as possessing the “tender piety and fervent love for the humiliated ‘historical’ Jesus and for the Cross of the Lord constitute one of the most striking and attractive features in the spirituality of Origen” (“Holy Trinity I,” 464). 31 The following works (presented here chronologically) figure in my synchronic reading of Balthasar: Malevez, “L’Eglise dans le Christ”; Balthasar, “Patristik, Scholastik und wir”; Balthasar, “Presence et pensée: La philosophie religieuse de Gregoir de Nysse,” Bulletin d’Ancien Testament 29 (1939): 513–49; and the principal text, Presence et pensée. It is worth noting in particular that the articles 30 380 Michel René Ponchin Barnes sight is all.”32 Judged as a 1940s Francophone reading of Gregory, Presence et pensée is written with great sensitivity toward the question of Gregory’s standing vis-à-vis Greek philosophy.33 Balthasar’s introduction is a careful discussion of (then) contemporary claims of Gregory’s philosophical standing. Balthasar’s own judgment is clear: Gregory was no Platonizing or stoicizing Christian; still less was Gregory prevented from such activity “Patristik, Scholastik und wir,” and “Presence et pensée” both were published in 1939. The French article of the same title as the 1942 book became part of the book (where it likely began conceptually), appearing as “Troisieme Partie—Philosophie de l’Amour” and then “Nature humaine et Incarnation,” beginning on 101 in the 1942 French edition; Sebanc works from the 1998 French edition. Hereafter, “Presence et pensée” will refer to the 1939 article, while Presence and Thought will still refer to the Sebanc translation of the book and, as stated in note 8, and Presence et pensée will be used for any citation or translation directly from the French volume on my part. Malevez’s “L’Eglise dans le Christ” figures because Balthasar cites from him heavily in “Presence et pensée.” “Patristik, Scholastik und wir,” although written in German, is significant because it fits within the synchronous sitz treating the same subjects as the principal text, Presence et pensée. 32 I want to be clear that here I am not “as a patrologist” judging Balthasar’s historical reading of Gregory of Nyssa; that has already been done: see Brian E. Daley, “Balthasar’s reading of the Church Fathers,” The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs von Balthasar, ed. Edward T. Oakes and David Moss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 187–206. The topic in Presence et pensée that I bring to light here is one that Balthasar has in common with two other contemporary scholars who are acknowledged as “patrologists”—Daniélou and Lossky. Thus, I am revealing an instance in which Balthasar reads Gregory in the same way as two Francophone contemporaries read Gregory within the same hypothetical sitz: I read Presence et pensée for the synchronicity it displays with two contemporary French monographs on the same subject. It is the recurrence of a trope that makes Presence et pensée interesting to me. 33 Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 16. As I remarked earlier, Balthasar draws attention to the strong influence Malevez’s 1935 article had upon his writings on Gregory; however, he (strangely) never gives the title of the article—i.e., “L’Eglise dans le Christ: Etudes de théologie historique et theorique.” Reading Malevez’s article we see the following: Balthasar is conceptually dependent upon Malevez for the paradigmatic significance attached to Gregory, but not materially—Balthasar uses a different constellation of passages from Gregory’s writings to elaborate his theology; Malevez discusses the Harnackian thesis that patristic theology had been Platonized, and he rejects Harnack’s conclusions; Malevez recapitulates the received criticism of Gregory as a strong example of Platonized Christianity, and defends Gregory against those charges; a line of influence running from Karl Adams to Balthasar is made possible through Malevez’s mediation (if such a mediation were needed); and, finally, Malevez provides an interpretation of Gregory’s Christology that Balthasar finds very appealing. (explicit acknowledgement of Malevez’s authority and influence is made in the 1939 French article and preserved in its incorporation into the 1942 French volume). “Some Synchronic Moment” 381 by having a second-class mind. On the contrary, Gregory’s theology was brilliant and suffused with a mystical spirit: In the case of Gregory the mystical bent that animates all his writings produces an authentic metaphysics as well, a metaphysics marked by an irreproachable logic and an adequate expression of his interior drama.34 For Balthasar, Gregory’s philosophical language, or (better) his philosophical imagery, flowed from his mysticism; Gregory’s brilliance and significance lies in his articulating a systematic ground for religious experience.35 The “ground” for that experience which Balthasar identified in Gregory was his paradigm-changing emphasis on the difference between uncreated and created nature: adiastemic life and diastemic life. Gregory’s greatest theological virtue is that he recognized and articulated this “distance” between God and creation, Being and not-Being: this is Gregory’s doctrine of a “gap” or “interval” (diastema) between uncreated and created. The fact of the gap reveals the ineffable God who dwells “beyond all seeing and grasping, the knowledge of God’s eternal other-ness and thus of his overpowering and ever-greater darkness even in the midst of his light.”36 Presence et pensée can be read as Balthasar’s discovery in Gregory’s thought of a mystical theology of positive dislocation. Each step “toward” God dissolves into a sign of God’s distance: we are not “where” we think we are, vis-à-vis God. “Presence” is postponed indefinitely, infinitely.37 “There is a Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 16. This “systematic ground” of Gregory’s has its limitations, but its principal achievement lies in the fact that it holds back—and pushes against—Origen’s earlier corrupting “ground.” The theological illness that Origen introduced into Christian faith is treated by the physician, Gregory—until that illness can later be cured, the body of faith purified by the medicine of medieval theology. See Balthasar, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 389 ff. 36 The foundational statement at the beginning of the 1942 French Presence et pensée of God’s “otherness”—his “pure being” to our “un-being”—is already articulated, in another conceptual idiom, in the 1939 German article: there Balthasar speaks of “an authentic Christian shyness” which “works against the immediate tendency to divinize man and creation” (“The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 377). 37 It is as though for Balthasar the content of human life under the sign of diastema is roughly equivalent to the life otherwise called Geworfenheit. See, in particular, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 355: “To the extent the creature comes nearer to God and becomes more ‘similar’ to him, the dissimilarity must always appear as the more basic, as the ‘first truth.’. . . All true approaches to God, however they might be brought about . . . stand by definition in this strange 34 35 382 Michel René Ponchin Barnes sadness in the creature, who knows that it will never see God as he is for himself.”38 Gregory’s greatest theological failure was his inability to keep this insight into “God beyond ‘God’” before his mind constantly.39 This failure was due to the inescapable Platonic “participation logic” embedded in all patristic theology.40 Four other points are of interest in Balthasar’s study: the first is that he continues the characterization of Origen as a Christian thinker whose philosophy injured his Christianity. Balthasar is emphatic that Gregory’s theology succeeds (in its relationship to philosophy) where that of his predecessor had failed.41 Secondly, while Balthasar finds Gregory’s key insight into the difference between the adiastemic and diastemic primarily in his Contra Eunoparadoxical relationship, that they can be constructed only on the foundation of an ever more towering distance.” The “cleft” between our nature and God’s is so great that love across the disjunction seems impossible, and can lead us to despair (see Presence and Thought, 128). Von Balthasar thus differs from most modern Gregorian scholars, including his two synchronic peers, who view Gregory’s doctrine of “eternal progress” exclusively as a positive doctrine in the sense that we never “exhaust” God. Balthasar regards this simple conclusion regarding Gregory’s doctrine of God’s infinity as a failure to think through God’s otherness existentially as well as ontologically: the simple buoyant reception of this doctrine of Gregory represents the premature conclusion of an incomplete dialectic. On Gregory and Geworfenheit, see Douglass, Theology of the Gap, 25. 38 Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 104. 39 See Balthasar, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 377–78. When von Balthasar discusses the problematic presence of the Stoic epistemology of “grasping” he goes on to remark that “Gregory was in no way minded to set the Stoic conception of ‘grasping’ (καταληψις), another idea of intelligence, in opposition to the Platonic idea of ‘gazing’ toward the object, for example. To the contrary, Gregory stresses precisely this character of possession in the intelligence” (“The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 92). 40 On the danger of the relationship between God and the world being expressed as “participation” see “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 373 (“Created being is understood as a de-potentializing of the divine being”). 41 As noted, the 1939 “Presence et pensée” article became the first chapter of part 3 of the 1942 book. The article follows Malevez’s line of thought, which criticized the “Hellenization” thesis and the characterization of Gregory as “Platonist,” although without invoking Eunomius or treating Origen as a synecdoche. The same is true in von Balthasar’s “article”: the article lacks the hermeneutical key provided by Balthasar in the preface and introduction of his book—a key which privileges Eunomius and Origen as the vehicles of Hellenization. Insofar as these identifications do not occur in the article—which only recapitulates Malevez’s kind of critique of Hellenization—but do occur in Presence et pensée as a whole, the critique via Eunomius and Origen is clearly Balthasar’s own development. “Some Synchronic Moment” 383 mium, Balthasar never makes references to texts by Eunomius himself.42 Balthasar returns to Eunomius only in chapter 7, “Desire and Knowledge”: after he has discussed Gregory’s new teaching on God’s incomprehensibility. There the issue is the kinds of knowledge of God. Balthasar’s argument takes a brief pedagogical turn: Balthasar refers to Zeno the Stoic’s three types of knowledge—pure sensation (phantasia); judgment (sunkatathesis); and comprehension (katalēpsis).43 Balthasar dwells on comprehension (or saisie; katalēpsis), as being central to the difference between Basil’s and Gregory’s theology, on the one hand, and Eunomius’s, on the other. Neither Basil nor Gregory sought to grasp God’s being or existence, but Eunomius did. 44 (The verb for this “grasping” form of knowledge is katalēpsis.). For the Stoics and Eunomius: Intelligence is, therefore, a possession, and, for the Stoic, the degrees of thought are identical to the degrees of force and energy used in grasping the object. Eunomius had, in an analogous fashion, wished to grip God with his hand, even as he hemmed in his essence through the concept of agennesis. Just as . . . the Stoics possesses truth in sensation itself, so did Eunomius think to have a grip on the divine Truth through the idea of innascibility.45 For Gregory and Basil, the Christian experience of God is, like Moses’s, always of the “backside” of God—which is the only view we have of Christ as we follow (behind) him. Some modern theologians pass over the otherness of God and See Presence and Thought, 19, for the first expression of Balthasar’s negative judgment of Eunomius, where the latter’s mysticism is grouped, to its detriment, with Origen’s. Gregory’s work is structured as a commentary on Eunomius’s writing(s). 43 Katalēpsis—which Balthasar translates as “grasping”—is the kind of knowledge of God that Eunomius seeks and claims to “hold”: Eunomius “grasps” the essence of God; see Presence and Thought, 91–93. 44 Basil and Gregory understand that God cannot be “comprehended” (i.e., circumscribed in the act of our knowing God). Balthasar’s judgment that an extreme positivism characterizes Eunomius’s theology is the “opposite” of the judgment of contemporary scholarship which recognizes Eunomius as working within a technical (or school) theological apophaticism. See Raoul Mortley, From Word to Silence, vol. 2, The Way of Negation, Cristian and Greek (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1986), 128–91, for the philosophical content of Eunomius’s apophatic theology. 45 Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 91–92. While Gregory is commended over against Eunomius for escaping a theology centered on “grasping” God, Balthasar nonetheless criticizes Gregory for allowing a mitigated Stoic notion of epistemological “grasping” to be fused with the Platonic epistemological model of sight. 42 384 Michel René Ponchin Barnes think to grasp his existence (as Henri Bergson does, according to Balthasar).46 These features of Balthasar’s treatment of Eunomius allow us to recognize another related characteristic: in Balthasar’s study, Eunomius’s “historical” role as the fourth-century Hellenizing subordinationist thematizes his role as avatar of Origen. Balthasar links the two together in the text quoted above, and thereafter uses Origen instead of Eunomius as Gregory’s foil. Balthasar is working within the problematic I earlier attributed to Harnack. Here we find in Balthasar an account of “the Eunomian controversy” that will appear again in the works of the second and the third author I treat here: the definition of Gregory’s theology as mystical requires a similar definition of Eunomius’s theology, and yet there is no attempt to link the two doctrinal loci of théologie mystique and the Trinity. Balthasar’s lack of concern with Eunomius himself is especially intriguing after one reads his conclusions about the adiastemic life in Gregory’s theology. For Gregory there is no gap or interval (the diastema) in God, either between his essence and existence, or his intention and action, or his will and his power.47 The question of such a “gap” arises out of the historical context, for positive claim for such a “gap” is at the very heart of Eunomius’s Trinitarian theology; his explanation of the origin of the Son (and thus the nature of the Son’s relationship with God) is built upon the separation between essence and will (or energy) in God—a “gap” between the two, as it were. Gregory develops his argument (in the Contra Eunomium) against such a separation or interval in God as his rebuttal to Eunomius’s causal hierarchy of the Apologia Apologiae. Balthasar makes no mention of any of this. Many “second-generation” Gregory scholars introduced Balthasar’s discovery of diastema in Gregory’s theology into histories of Trinitarian dogma.48 These scholars were indebted to Balthasar for an insight that is The critical reference to Bergson is at Presence and Thought, 107: “The last sound yielded up by this metaphysics of becoming is a Bergson sound. The intelligence is made for grasping.” (Bergson is then adversely compared to Fichte.) On 156, Balthasar says that in Gregory’s mysticism, “[the] eternal desire of the creature is thus freed from all the distress it might have found in the (Bergsonian) opposition between ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Life.’” Whatever else may be Balthasar’s intentions, and despite his occasional impressionistic vocabulary, I suspect that his sympathy is with the neo-Kantians. (I know that Balthasar sometimes writes against Kant, but that fact only pushes our judgment back one step: does he write against the Kantians from an analogous position to Augustine writing against the Pelagians, or to Augustine writing against the Manichees?) 47 Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 28 ff. 48 When I say, “second-generation Gregory scholars” I am thinking primary of David L. Balàs’s 1966 Metousia Theou: Man’s Participation in God’s Perfection According 46 “Some Synchronic Moment” 385 now treated as one of Gregory’s greatest contribution to the development of Trinitarian doctrine. Balthasar himself understood the true content of Gregory’s adiastemic–diastemic distinction to be more than its simply securing of the non-metaphysical “God”; more to the point, with the concept Gregory articulates a metahistorical God. Balthasar says: The God “above God” (which is to say, the God who is above the God of the philosophers), the God “beyond hope” cannot be the object of a system, like Eunomius attempted in his arid, theological rationalism.49 Balthasar sees Gregory as accomplishing the demetaphysicalization (if I may be allowed such a word) of one’s knowledge of, and thus relationship with, God. In Balthasar’s original French there is an echo of Blaise Pascal which gives some depth (i.e., “le Dieu des philosophes au dela le Dieu de l’esperance”) to Balthasar locating Gregory’s philosophical language within the larger context of Gregory’s theology of a personal God in a personal relationship. In short: Harnack was wrong; Gregory is no “scientist” or rationalist, no Greek philosopher in Christian garb (as Harold Cherniss put it in 1930). However, in Balthasar’s judgment there lay a different, but deeper, problem with “Platonizing” in Gregory’s thought.50 After noting these preliminary features of Balthasar’s references to Eunomius we can begin to recognize the larger role that “the theology of Eunomius” plays in Balthasar’s reading of Gregory. Presence et pensée begins by identifying Gregory’s understanding of God: ho tē autou physei to St. Gregory of Nyssa and Ekkehard Mühlenberg’s 1966 Die Unendlichkeit Gottes bei Gregor von Nyssa: Gregors Kritik am Gottesbegriff der klassischen Metaphysik. In 1966 B. Barmann submitted a dissertation to Stanford that was later revoked by the university because it was a plagiarized redaction of Mühlenberg’s book. Recently there has developed an unfortunate fashion among British scholars for treating Barmann’s dissertation as an independent and authentic piece of scholarship. 49 Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 172 (see also 23). 50 Balthasar’s opinion is that even the conceptualizing of the Incarnation as a “taking up” in a logic of descent and ascent—which he calls a logic of “participation”—is a tragic flaw in patristic theology that needed to be “purified”; see “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 374 ff, esp. 378: “[We] must point out here that the Platonic schema is what predominated [in patristic Trinitarian theology]. This law has always hidden within itself [in its basic concept of ‘participation’].” Whatever common ground Balthasar held with Daniélou and Lossky on Eunomius, Origen, and “excessive” rationalism, the latter two stand in sharp distinction to the former on the question of “participation.” I will return to this issue. 386 Michel René Ponchin Barnes to einai echei.51 Balthasar finds that Gregory’s notion of God begins with God as being: Being [einai]. The term “being” can only be used of God. If God is the single pure being then the most fundamental (and pious) understanding of humanity—and indeed all creation—is that it is not-being, for it is not-God. God exists beyond all properties that we can conceive of God: God is above “God.” There is an epistemological wall that we reach and cannot surpass because God is precisely “beyond Being [einai].”52 Eunomius breached that epistemological and ontological wall by thinking that he could know the essence—the “how,” the “what” and the “in what way”—of God’s existence by reducing that essence/existence to the concept, to the very word, “unbegotten.”53 Balthasar’s key “inheritance” from Harnack is the judgment that (neo)Platonism became intrinsic to Christianity not just by providing vocabulary or doctrines but by becoming the logic of and in Christianity. Christian theologians thought Neoplatonically54 about God, God’s relationship to the world, how God would “come to” creation, and how creation (specifically humanity) would rise up and return to God.55 All I will refer to this understanding of God by Gregory (and/or von Balthasar) with the single term einai. 52 Balthasar’s description of God beyond being and beyond knowledge seems to be a theological statement of the Kantian understanding that there is (or may be) some being beyond all that our mind constructs for us in our perceptions, but that being is beyond the action of our reasoning faculties, and thus is totally “beyond.” Human reason’s grasp of “reality” has a limit—which is the limits of reason in itself. Balthasar’s conception of “God beyond ‘God’” is not, strictly speaking, an apophatic theology as Lossky would recognize it; rather this conception seems related to Barth’s notion of the God wholly “outside.” As is well known, Balthasar recognized the congruency of this part of his theology with Barth’s. (However, wherever one suspects “Barth” as background to a comment by Balthasar, one has to imagine the possibility of either Kierkegaard or Heidegger as well!) 53 The reader is cautioned not to take Balthasar’s irenic reminiscence of the theologies of Gregory and Eunomius as an account of the arguments articulated by Gregory and Eunomius, or as a summary of the constellation of conceptual forces at work in Greek Trinitarian theology from 325 to 383. 54 “But the inner logic of the Platonic scheme was so compelling that one could draw defensive walls, as it were, only with great effort; and then the defensive measures would often enough be forgotten the next moment—because of the hypnotic power of its inner architectonic” (Balthasar, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 374). 55 “The incarnation is consequently thought of as the most extreme point of the ‘egression’ of God from himself; the self-emptying (kenosis) appears as God’s self-alienation in the service of fetching the world back home to the Godhead. . . . In this schema the incarnation must appear as something provisional and transitional. The resurrection of the flesh, formally confessed and maintained, appears 51 “Some Synchronic Moment” 387 these doctrines Balthasar regards as constituting a doctrine of “participation,” and this judgment serves as the basis for Balthasar’s radical criticism of the theologian he otherwise admires. Within a logic of participation, Gregory develops an exciting and existential account of a never-ending ascent of love by humans into and through God’s endless fountain of love for us.56 In Balthasar’s judgment this means that Gregory’s anthropology, soteriology, and Trinitarian theologies are developed according to a “Neoplatonic logic” of descent and ascent.57 This logic constitutes Gregory’s most illustrious and most tragic failure because Gregory knew the two fundamental forces in any theology of God—and he failed to hold them together, each intact: the logic of participation won out. Gregory’s youthful excitement for a longing that is fulfilled-but-always-unfulfilled (e.g., “Romeo and Juliet”) charms and stirs us, but Gregory (and all the other Church Fathers) necessarily fail us as contemporary resources for theology: “The thought of the Greek Fathers, taken in its materiality, often offers but little support to the task of the theologian today, why there might even be a danger in wishing to rejuvenate it without a total critique. . . . Youthful fire is not meant to warm up those who are old.”58 Balthasar expressed this judgment in his earlier engagement with Greglike a disturbance of the systematic lines and usually was subtilized in one form or another” (“The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 375). 56 A distinctively Balthasarian description of this ascent-and-immersion into God would be that God is the fountain of Love within which we move and breathe—”breathing” the very “water” within which we move: “In becoming supple and flowing, the soul is assimilated to the Eternal Ocean ” (Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 127; see also 153). 57 Von Balthasar’s critique of Gregory’s logic of descent and ascent is substantial; see “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 373–75. 58 See Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 13. By contrast, Balthasar’s failure at this point is his neglect at recognizing “being” within the original Trinitarian context that Gregory gives it. The a-historical, straw-man role given Eunomius in Balthasar’s reading becomes conspicuous here. Gregory’s articulation of the Creator–creation (Being–contingency) schema is to provide the logical support for locating the Son on the “side” of Being even though he was caused (“begotten”). In the Trinitarian controversies of the early fourth century, the distinction between God and creation had been that of God and caused: whatever was caused was created. Gregory provided the conceptual basis for understanding the Son as “caused” (obviously, if “son”) but not created. In Contra Eunomium 3.8 Gregory lays out the notions of “cause” across the division of uncreated/being and created/ non-being. Recognizing such late-fourth-century Trinitarian developments falls outside Balthasar’s logic at this point; the logic of “that which is beyond reason may be spoken of as a single unity” is one reason to suspect a Kantian conceptuality at work in Balthasar’s speculations. 388 Michel René Ponchin Barnes ory (i.e., “Patristik, Scholastik und wir,”1939), when he says: That [the Church’s youth] is why this period is so marked by the immediacy to experience, why the impressions of the world enter so directly: For it is always the mark of every young era and is the reason why it can react much more openly and instinctively to new challenges than is the case of an aging mind that is hampered by all sorts of hardened concepts and practices.59 We moderns (wir) know that Gregory’s two insights—God’s otherness, God’s immanence—must be held before us with equal strength and simultaneously, but “dialectically.”60 The failure to recognize and hold the two insights together and to move through them is what constrains the thoughts of all the Greek Fathers to the limited support they can offer to the task of the theologian today: “We remember [those thoughts] as a man remembers the profound intuitions of his adolescence.”61 I will again discuss Balthasar’s hermeneutical metaphor for reading and locating the experience (and authority) the young Church in the “Synchronic View” section below.62 “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 371. See also 379: “This was the church’s first time out, so to speak, and there is something about the efforts of these early thinkers that reminds one of the attempts of any adolescent, which is precisely what gives it its charm.” At no point does Balthasar attribute any sort of authority to the patristic—or “adolescent”—Church writings; even the authority of the creeds is contained within our interpretations and our dispositions of them liturgically. 60 Balthasar never explains why a “dialectical” logic is less Greek in its origins than an emanationist logic, or a stepwise logic: he simply asserts that it is. Balthasar further posits that the antinomies—or the terms of the dialect—are post-“Greek.” 61 Sebanc’s translation of Balthasar is on Presence and Thought, 13. The French is: “La pensée des Peres Grecs, prise en sa materialite, n’offre souvent que peu de secours a la tache actuelle du théologien” (Presence et pensée, xiii). The entirety of Presence et pensée can be seen as existing in a “dislocation.” 62 The antinomies of Balthasar’s “dialectic” are succinctly elaborated in this passage from Erich Przywara: “Balthasar therefore, logically, says no to the Origen of pneumatic ascent (and to the dissolution of the earthly form of the image into pure spirit), but he says yes to the Origen of the Dionysian vitality of an earthly ‘life in fire’” (“The Scope of Analogy as a Fundamental Catholic Form,” in Analogia Entis, trans. John R. Betz and David Bentley Hart [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 2014], 348–99, at 352). In Presence and Thought Balthasar says No to “pneumatic ascent” in Origen—but also in Gregory of Nyssa. The key word in this quotation is “logically.” That “logic” is the logic of Balthasar’s (and Przywara ‘s) dialectic; the existential tonos which drives the dialectical motion is left unspecified, but it can 59 “Some Synchronic Moment” 389 Jean Daniélou Daniélou’s work on Gregory—Platonisme et théologie mystique: doctrine spirituelle de Grégoire de Nysse—comes soon after Balthasar’s. The title of the work indicates that Daniélou’s own study is clearly pointed toward uncovering any philosophical foundation to Gregory’s mystical theology, and to establishing that Gregory has a Christian mystical theology, whatever influences run through thus his mystical theology.63 What is immediately apparent is that Daniélou’s work shares two characteristics with Balthasar’s. First, on the grand scale, Daniélou’s book contains a consistent sensitivity toward the question of Gregory’s “Hellenizing”; and, secondly, detailed arguments are organized around Eunomius the “Hellenizer,” but only insofar as he is the “sign” of something (someone) greater in a crisis of mystical, and not Trinitarian, doctrine: again the real problem is Origen.64 The question of how patristic (or premodern) theology is “meaningful” to, or a resource for, modern theology is addressed and resolved positively by Daniélou in terms of the fundamental hermeneutic in premodern symbolic or allegorical reading. The question of Gregory’s non-Christian Greek sources appears quickly in Daniélou’s work: We are struck, as soon as we begin to read Gregory, by the considerable number of expressions, and even developments, he has borrowed from Platonic, Philonic and Plotinian terminology.65 be labeled as a kind of anti-Enlightenment “modernity.” Daniélou’s treatment in Platonisme et théologie mystique, 189 ff, of the term μυστηριον (mystērion) helps provide content and specificity to what is meant by théologie mystique. 64 Both Balthasar and Daniélou cite two articles by Gabriel Horn: “L’amour divin: note sur le mot ‘eros’ dans Grégoire de Nysee,” Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 6 (1925): 378–89; “Le ‘miror’, la ‘nuee’: deux manieres de voir Deu d’apres S. Grégoire de Nysse,” Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 8 (1927): 113–31. Balthasar’s reading of Gregory owes a significant debt to Malevez, “L’Eglise dans le Christ.” Malevez’s article focuses on Gregory’s Christological anthropology; Horn focuses on the non-Platonic character of Gregory’s mysticism. Daniélou’s is more influenced by Horn than by Malez. Much to my surprise, neither scholar acknowledges the existence of Amboise Gardeil’s 1927 La structure de l’ame et l’experience mystique, a contemporary of Horn’s. Gardeil, a neo-Scholastic, was influential in curriculum reforms at the Saulchoir under Marie-Dominque Chenu and Yves Congar. 65 Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique, 9. Although “Stoicism” does not appear in this list that philosophy will figure later in the book. 63 390 Michel René Ponchin Barnes Daniélou then offers two examples of Gregory’s use of Greek philosophy: his use of the concept of apatheia, which appears in Stoic writings; and his use of katharsis, which is Platonic. Daniélou shows that Gregory’s use of these two terms differs from the philosophical uses, and he concludes that, although Gregory uses Greek philosophy, his own theology is a pure Christian thought which expresses itself in the language of the times.66 In this conclusion Daniélou agrees with, as he says, E. V. Ivanka, René Arnou, and André-Jean Festugiere.67 Daniélou regularly compares Gregory’s doctrine on a given specific point to a cognate doctrine in Platonic, Philonic, Stoic, or Neoplatonic philosophy. He does not hesitate to point out similarities between Gregory’s position and pagan philosophical sources, but Daniélou does this with a strong confidence that Gregory’s assimilation of Greek philosophy is not corrupting or dissipating Christianity. This is not to say, however, that Daniélou is free from worry about the charge of Gregory Hellenizing. A good example of Daniélou’s attitude is found in his discussion of Gregory’s psychology, in particular, Gregory’s use of pathos/pathé.68 Daniélou remarks on the Platonic use of the concept, and then continues: Gregory freely uses philosophical language to express his own ideas. This passage [on pathos] shows the principle, which we have never failed to find in our study of the Fathers, of their independence from all specific philosophical systems and their ultimate appeal to Scripture. All the concepts taken from Platonism and Stoicism are modified by the religious perspective within which they placed.69 Daniélou believes that he has demonstrated in this specific case (and the others treated in the book) the independence and ultimate regard for Scripture that he has attributed to Gregory. Daniélou offers a convincing case-by-case treatment of Gregory’s relationship with philosophical parallels, for he feels the burden of the Hellenizing charge against Gregory quite acutely. His strategy for a rebuttal lies in situating the heart of Gregory’s thought in mysticism rather than dogmatics: Gregory is to be properly Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique, 200–204. Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique, 65–66. As with Balthasar, we find in Daniélou’s reading of Gregory a special interest in the latter’s use of Stoic psychology. This interest does not appear in the writings that I am considering here by Lossky. 68 Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique, 66 ff. 69 Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique, p. 71. 66 67 “Some Synchronic Moment” 391 regarded as a mystical theologian. Daniélou says: “We can say, in summary, that Gregory allegorized everything, even philosophy.” 70 This articulation of the dynamic of Gregory’s reception of Platonic philosophy—his hermeneutic—can be regarded as exemplary of this stage of ressourcement theological hermeneutic (or, perhaps, ressourcement’s theological consciousness [French sens]). Daniélou carries the claim of Gregory’s “allegorical reading” further than either Balthasar or Lossky: even philosophy has been allegorized. Daniélou’s characterization of Eunomius appears as forthrightly as his characterization of the problem of Hellenization. Eunomianism came about as a consequence of the extreme intellectualism of Origen. Just as Arianism pushed Origen’s theory of the logos to its extreme, so Eunomianism pushed the doctrine of the accessibility of God’s essence to our intelligence and identified “unbegotten” with the Father. This claim endangered all théologie mystique. Gregory’s writings firmly established that the divine ousia is inaccessible to speculate knowledge, and that the knowledge that we have of God is the fruit of His presence given to us through grace, and it is this which is the proper domain of the mystical life. 71 This thoughtful passage by Daniélou gives us a strong summary of his understanding of Gregory’s mystical theology; the latter’s theology is contextualized as a reaction to the intellectualism of Origen, which finds its most radical expression more than a hundred years later in the theology of Eunomius. Daniélou distinguishes between “dogmatic” and “mystical-gnosiological” traditions of theology, and then defines the controversy between Eunomius and Gregory as relating entirely to the mystical. In this debate Gregory’s contribution is to save mysticism (admittedly, understood in its larger sense) by arguing that the divine essence is inaccessibility to the intellect. As in the case of Balthasar’s study, there is little acknowledgment of Eunomius’s key role in late-fourth-century Trinitarian controversies: the threat Eunomius poses is due to his postulating that the essence of God— unbegottenness—can be known through reason. Among all three modern authors the (re)definition of Gregory’s theology as “mystical” requires a similar (re)definition of Eunomius’s theology solely in terms of gnoseology. However, reading Daniélou we recognize an important difference Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique, 9: “On peut dire, en somme, que Grégoire a tout allégorisé, même la philosophie.” 71 Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique, 74 (emphasis added). 70 392 Michel René Ponchin Barnes between him and Balthasar on questions of Gregory’s theological anthropology. According to Balthasar fallen human nature was experienced by Gregory as an alienation from body; for Balthasar it is properly experienced as an alienation from God—a reality that Gregory fails to appreciate properly. This judgment by Gregory is developed by Balthasar into a general critique of Gregory: modern philosophy is clear that human consciousness includes a consciousness of/within our body; it includes an awareness of ourselves as material.72 Gregory fails this modern criterion because he locates consciousness in the mind only, a mind that is alienated from and by its body or materiality. By contrast, Daniélou’s principal thesis is that for Gregory human consciousness includes an existential sense of God; this scripturally derived “image consciousness” cannot be rejected as erroneous, or as simply “Platonic.” Daniélou’s counterclaim for our consciousness vis-à-vis God may not satisfy Balthasar, but as a judgment the claim is not outside reason—it is not even outside modern reason, given the attempts of some early-twentieth-century philosophies was to disclose the trace or the trajectory of God in us (wir). Even if Balthasar rejected these efforts by contemporary philosophers he could not reject them as “not-modern,” or regard them as born simply of the confidence of a “young” Church.73 Formal and teleological senses of our Godliness may not be properly “dialectical” (in a Barthian sense) but they are, nonetheless, unequivocally a property of some modern theology qua modern.74 According to Balthasar, Gregory’s appreciation of “alienation from God” fails because (1) it is displaced onto body, and (2) it fails to be a dialectical understanding. References to the displacement on to the body are ubiquitous. See, e.g., “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 375: “In consequence of the movement of the ascending, step-by-step return of the world potencies into God, this movement proceeds unambiguously away from the material to the spiritual. Spiritualization, presented in a thousand different colorations, is the basic tendency of the patristic era.” Regarding the failure of a dialectical understanding, Balthasar returns to the concept of “spirit” which “is able to be an excellent expression of the supernatural relation between the God of grace and the engraced creature . . . but it is not able sufficiently to clarify the relationship of the two natures that lies as the basis of every act of grace” (379). 73 Thus the famous appeal of Teilhard de Chardin to de Lubac, and the perennial appeal of Irenaeus to modern theological sensibilities (ranging from, e.g., Rowan Greer to John Hicks). 74 Daniélou’s argument is built principally upon detailed considerations of Gregory’s two early anthropology works—On the Soul and Resurrection and On the Making of Mankind—and two later figurative works, On the Life of Moses and Commentary on the Song of Songs. (Balthasar also highlights Gregory’s two figurative or “mystical” writings.) In Daniélou’s judgment, Gregory experienced fallen human nature through or in the passions—which do indeed occur instrumentally in the 72 “Some Synchronic Moment” 393 My motivation for recounting the details of Daniélou’s focus on Gregory’s moral psychology is not simply that of providing an illustration of his argument, just as my motivation for recounting the details of Balthasar’s focus on Gregory’s (Stoic) epistemology was not simply for the sake of illustrating his argument. Daniélou rehearses Gregory’s moral psychology while Balthasar rehearses Gregory’s epistemology or gnoseology. Balthasar finds the root “failure” of any attempt to know God to be what the Stoics called katalēpsis (καταληψις)—a grasping at knowledge. Daniélou finds the root “failure” of any attempt to know God to be what the Platonists described as the effects of passions on the mind (or soul). Both these authors bring to the fore the question they find posed in Gregory’s mystical theology: “In what state of mind does a person approach the possibility of knowing God?.” Vladimir Lossky Lossky’s book Essai sur la théologie mystique de l’Eglise d’Orient was published in 1944, the same year as Daniélou’s Platonisme et théologie mystique.75 The lectures which eventually became the book Vision de body—but they are not corporeal events occurring in matter: they occur in our will, or, more precisely, in our soul, an event which is, strictly speaking, outside the material realm. It is possible for Gregory to conceive of a fully human, i.e., embodied, soul free from passion in this life: see Gregory’s portrait of his sister in his Life of Macrina. It may be that Gregory’s understanding of sin is conceived too much by way of “a change in our condition,” but it is not the case that he simply reduces sin to living in a material world. See my “Snowden’s Secret: Gregory of Nyssa on Passion and Death,” in A Man of the Church: Honoring the Theology, Life, and Witness of Ralph Del Colle, ed. Michel René Barnes (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 107–22. 75 The majority of Anglophone scholars who have read Lossky’s books have read only the 1955 English translation, and in consequence sometimes think of his Théologie mystique as a product of the 1950s. (Recently one notable English theologian argued that the book’s theology was a product of the “Cold War mentality prevalent in the Fifties,” thereby identifying the English 1955 translation as Lossky’s work itself !) In the United Kingdom the mid-1950s was a time of dynamic interest in mysterion and the theology of religious experience generally: the decade began coincidentally with Marcel’s “Mystery of Being” Gifford Lectures with its penultimate lecture entitled “Presence as a Mystery.” Continuing to reflect this interest we find a French academic symposium translated in 1956 as Mystery and Mysticism, and one should follow the publishing history of Maréchal’s The Psychology of the Mystics to see French-language scholarship in this area beginning to make an impact in British studies. The single most important event for Lossky was probably Florovsky’s paper to the Congress of Orthodox Theologians, Athens, 1936, on “Patristics and Modern Theology.” Lossky belongs to the “neopatristic 394 Michel René Ponchin Barnes Dieu were originally given in Paris in 1945–1956; thus Lossky’s books are contemporary to Daniélou’s and to Balthasar’s. Both of Lossky’s books are well-known as the modern foundation of the twentieth-century Neopalamite movement in the second half of the twentieth century: in its parts and as a whole Essai sur la théologie mystique argues for the legitimacy and authority of Gregory Palamas’s theology.76 To that end, Lossky begins the scholarly project of identifying Eastern Orthodox theology with Palamas’s doctrines, and of projecting that identification back in the history of doctrine.77 Lossky’s immediate precedent for recovering Palamas is Basil Krivocheine, who in 1938 published an article which rediscovered Palamas for the East after he had been, as Krivocheine makes clear, forgotten or abandoned.78 However “Palamite” Krivocheine may have been in the school” in Russian Orthodox theology. Paul Valliere aptly characterizes the neopatristic school as an Orthodox theology that “focuses on the concept of theosis (deification) and subordinates the whole gamut of anthropological values to it. In the Russian school the humanity of God is connected first of all with kenosis, the self-emptying of God in the Incarnation”; see Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov—Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000), 14. I would add that the majority of “neopatristic theologians” thought in terms of the “essence–energy” theology associated with Gregory Palamas. In short, the proper context for reading Lossky is the “white Russian” exile community in Paris of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly l’Institute Saint-Serge. 76 See: André de Halleux, “Palamisme et Scolastique.” Revue théologiques de Louvain 4 (1973): 409–42; Georges Barrois, “Palamism Revisited,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1975): 211–31. Barrois treats, among other important matters, the articles in Istina 19, no. 3 (1974). Little has been written, and less has been published, examining Lossky’s theology as a whole, and the most substantial treatment in English remains Rowan Williams’s 1973 dissertation, “The theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky: an exposition and critique.” 77 For a description of the way in which Lossky and his interpretation of Palamas have come to dominate Orthodox theology in the West see Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Divine Energies or Divine Personhood: Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on Conceiving the Transcendent and Immanent God,” Modern Theology 19, no. 3 (2003): 357–85. 78 Basil Krivocheine, “The Ascetic and Theological Teaching of Gregory Palamas,” Eastern Churches Quarterly 3 (1938): 26–33, 71–84, 138–56, 193–215. Krivocheine (Vasilij Krivosein) was a monk of St. Panteleimon, Mount Athos; he studied in Prague and in Paris, and in 1936 published his edition of Gregory Palamas. Later Krivocheine was elevated to the Russian Orthodox see of Brussells, Belgium, where he continued to have an active scholarly presence through his writings and conference attendance. Nicolas Lossky speaks of the Archbishop (“Incidences en Occident,” 555) as one of the most eminent patrologists of the twentieth century—and indeed he was. “Some Synchronic Moment” 395 1930s, his assessment of Palamas differs in one important respect from later Palamas enthusiasts such as Lossky, John Meyendorff, Georges Habra, and Christos Yannaras: Krivocheine did not hesitate to describe Palamas’s theology as being influenced by Greek philosophy. A major feature of the others’ interpretation is that Palamas’s theology is not to be understood as being Greek in any sense; in particular, it is not Neoplatonic in origin or influence. Indeed, Palamas is judged to have defeated the Hellenization of Byzantine theology.79 Thus, the problematic of Hellenization is a distinctive feature of Neopalamism;80 in this problematic Lossky (etc.) draws the interpretative proportion that as the Cappadocian were to Eunomius, so Palamas was to Barlaam of Seminara (et al.).81 I have shown elsewhere how this proportion both leads to, and is supported by, a complete misreading of the origins of the essence–energy distinction in the Eunomian controversy.82 I shall return to Lossky’s reading of Eunomius. As with Balthasar and Daniélou (and Harnack), for Lossky the primary figure of Hellenization is Origen: The heterodox doctrines with which Origen was charged had their root in a certain insensitivity towards the unknowability of God on the part of this great Christian thinker. An attitude which was not fundamentally apophatic made the Alexandrine teacher a religious Lossky may be the source of the distinguishing feature of what I call “Neopalamite” scholarship, which is characterized by the truism that Palamas’ theology was free from any philosophical influence, but it is John Meyendorff who returns again and again to this point in his Introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas. When Lossky’s Vision de Dieu (Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1962) was published in English as Vision of God, trans. Asheleigh Moorhouse (London: Faith Press, 1963), Meyendorff wrote the preface. While in Paris in the late 1920s Dmitri Staniloae studied the works of Palamas, and in 1938 published Viata Si Invitatura Sfantului Gregorie Palama, Seria Teologica. Lossky seems unaware of this work, and in any case it is Lossky who has served as the spokesman for the Neopalamites 80 By making this statement it should be clear that I am not collapsing the “problem of Scholasticism” into the “problem of Hellenization”—theologians who might be harshly critical of Scholasticism would be open to the literature of “Hellenization”: for example, Daniélou. Furthermore, Lossky’s attacks on “rationalism” cannot be reduced simply to attacks on Scholasticism: “rationalism” can include the philosophy of Bulgakov (for certain!), the influence of Kant or Hegel, or the long tentacle of Jakob Boehme. (For the last, see David V. Zdenek “The Influence of Jacob Boehme on Russian Religious Thought,” Slavic Review 21 [1962]: 43–64.) 81 Lossky, Vision of God, 62–63, 128. This proportional interpretative “key” takes on a life of its own after Lossky. 82 See my Power of God, “Eunomius of Cyzicus and Gregory of Nyssa,” and “Background and Use of Eunomius’ Causal Hierarchy.” 79 396 Michel René Ponchin Barnes philosopher rather than a mystical theologian, in the sense proper to the eastern tradition. . . . With Origen, Hellenism attempts to creep into the Church.83 Here Origen’s errors are described primarily as mystical-gnosiological ones: these errors mark Origen as a religious philosopher, if not a “rationalist.” Lossky is very close to Harnack in seeing Origen as the arch Hellenizer. Lossky’s similarity to the two French Catholic authors lies in his judgment that Gregory’s mystical theology contains whatever is good in Origen, while being free of his predecessor’s errors. For Lossky, as for Daniélou and Balthasar, Origen’s errors—indeed, his deep single error—is the introduction into Christianity of a pagan philosophical (i.e., “Hellenist”) understanding of the limits of human knowledge of God. In the debate at hand, Origen’s errors are characterized as primarily mystical-gnosiological in nature.84 In Vision de Dieu Lossky again describes Origen as the source of Eunomius’s theology; however, in the later book he says more to locate Eunomius within the Origenist-Arian trajectory of fourth-century Trinitarian controversies, though the distinctive issue still remains “le gneoseologie chretienne en general”: Origen’s intellectualism will find itself in friendly territory among the Arian’s, where subordinationism degenerates into a radical dissimilarity between the Father and the Son, identifies the divine nature with the Father and ejects the Son into the realm of created being. The extreme faction in Arianism, the Anomoeans, professed Lossky, Mystical Theology, 32. It is important to be clear that what is of interest to me is not Lossky’s statement that Arius’s or Eunomius’s Trinitarian theology owes to the “subordinationism” of Origen; what is of interest is that Lossky understands this “sourcing” to be a matter of gnoseology. Lossky, like Balthasar and Daniélou, reduces a controversy involving a complex set of Trinitarian doctrines to a comparison of the corrupting presence of Hellenistic philosophy in Eunomius with freedom from any philosophical taint in Gregory for the sake of articulating a theology of the knowledge of God. None of the three issues—Trinity, “Hellenization” or gnoseology—are trivial; it is the constellating of these three (or rather, two, since Trinity is passed over) issues in the thought of these three theologians that needs recognition. The bracketing off of a doctrine of Trinity from a doctrine of “gnoseology” is conspicuous when the historical exemplar for true gnoseology is Gregory’s engagement with Eunomius, a controversy that argued—on both sides—gnoseology via Trinitarian theology (or vice versa). 84 As I have shown above, Harnack already had emphasized this gnoseological character of Hellenization. 83 “Some Synchronic Moment” 397 a clearly defined intellectualism in the question of the knowledge of God. This is why the disputes against Eunomius (365 and 385) have had a great importance for Christian gnosiology in general and consequently also for the doctrines of the vision of God.85 In Lossky’s account, Eunomius inherited both Origen’s “intellectualism” and his subordinationist tendencies, which he developed into a kind of mystical gnosiology that was radically un-Christian. For Lossky the heart of Eunomius’s heresy is his excessive kataphatic theology and attendant theory of divine language—which Lossky calls a “gnosiological optimism.”86 Eunomius’s strong Trinitarian subordinationism is mentioned in passing, but it is not addressed. For example, in the ten pages of consideration of the Cappadocians and Eunomius in Vision de Dieu, Lossky mentions the Trinitarian consequences of the Eunomian heresy in only three sentences, and the first of these is cast in terms of the affinity between excessive rationalism and subordinationism. The pivotal term of Eunomius’s theology—aggenetos—is discussed only as a doctrine on the knowledge of God.87 While one might object in Lossky’s defense that the subject matter of Vision de Dieu precludes any general discussion of Eunomius’s theology, Lossky’s earlier treatment of the Eunomian controversy in La théologie mystique, where any interpretation should be unconstrained, only confirms the opinion gathered from Vision de Dieu. In La théologie mystique Lossky discusses the Eunomian controversy in his chapter on Lossky, Vision of God, 62. The material in Vision dates from 1945–1946, but was not published as a book until 1961. It is not clear what changes Lossky might have made in the time between. Compare Daniélou’s earlier summary of the rationalist context of Gregory’s mystical theology with Lossky’s statement here that Origen’s intellectualism will find itself in friendly territory among the Arians, where subordinationism identifies the divine nature with the Father and ejects the Son into the realm of created being, where the extreme faction, the Eunomoians, professed a clearly defined intellectualism in the question of the knowledge of God. 86 Lossky, Vision of God, 63. 87 Lossky, Vision of God, 63. Lossky has reasons for focusing on this term in Eunomius’s theology that Balthasar and Daniélou lack, for he understands Eunomius’s theory of language providing a positive description or name of God’s very essence. Lossky is more invested in identifying théologie mystique with a radical apophaticism than is either of the other authors. For the judgment that agennetos was through and through a philosophical term Lossky could rest on the opinion of Jules Lebreton, Histoire du dogme de la Trinité (1928): “This study concludes that the term agennhtos is indeed what Athanasius judged it to be, a term of philosophical origin” (Histoire du dogme de la Trinité [Paris: Beauchesne, 1928], 3:647; translation mine). 85 398 Michel René Ponchin Barnes “Divine Darkness,” and not in his chapter on “God in Trinity.” In the former chapter Lossky refers to the essence–energy distinction and says: It is the apophatic basis of all true theology which the great Cappadocians were defending in their controversy with Eunomius.88 There is no mention of any Trinitarian content to the “Eunomian controversy”: for Lossky the fundamental drama of the controversy is not the unity of divinity between Father and Son but the integrity of a truly Christian apophatic theology.89 Thus, while the Cappadocians understand Eunomius to be an “Arian,” his real significance for them—and for Lossky—is that he argues for a fully Hellenized understanding of how God is known; indeed, he argues that God can be “fully” (essentially) known. The theology of God that Origen made possible is made real by Eunomius.90 Lossky argues that Gregory of Nyssa refutes Hellenized theology by overturning a theology that is radically kataphatic. By contrast, Gregory articulates an epistemology built upon the inherent unknowability of God’s nature; he shifts the realm of human experience of God from the rational to the affect; and he replaces a Platonic doctrine of human participation in God with a theophanic doctrine of human participation in God.91 Balthasar and Daniélou agree with Lossky that Gregory’s theology contains these three fundamentals. Equally important is the agreement among Balthasar, Daniélou, and Lossky is that Eunomius was historically what he is for us now, thematically: a Christian for whom God exists within the limits of reason alone.92 Lossky, Mystical Theology, 33. Lossky, Mystical Theology, 21–22. 90 Given Lossky’s judgment that theology is a unified whole, such that one error in a theology poisons it in its entirety, Lossky likely understood there to be no clear line between Eunomius’s “gnoseological optimism” and Eunomius’s anti-Nicene Trinitarian theology. (He says as much.) However, to lay out the cascading error(s) in Eunomius’s theology would take Lossky away from the simple identification he has made between Eunomius (= Origen) and a Christianity that has abandoned its mystical, apophatic roots. The reduction of Eunomius can sympathetically be called rhetorical; what is key is that Lossky, like Balthasar and Daniélou, chooses this rhetorical identification to build théologie mystique upon. Without Eunomius, Gregory lacks a suitable protagonist against whom his rejection of the “Origen option” (as Lossky sees it) can be dramatized. 91 Balthasar and Lossky would have different judgments, however, on the significance of the theophanic divine participation in humanity—if only because they disagree on the proper “Christian” understanding of participation. 92 It is also the case that Lossky and Balthasar recognized “divine energies” (ἐνεργεια) 88 89 “Some Synchronic Moment” 399 Lossky’s slightly later writing, Vision de Dieu,93 is a more nuanced work than La théologie mystique; Lossky has consulted a greater variety of secondary sources, and—one might speculate—he writes free of the polemical burdens against Sergei Bulgakov and “Sophiology” that engaged him during the early part of the decade.94 In Vision de Dieu, he explicitly follows the conclusions of Festugiere and Daniélou. Lossky agrees with Festugiere that “the Hellenistic world enters the Church with Clement and Origen, bringing with it elements alien to the Christian tradition.”95 Lossky explicitly acknowledges Daniélou’s contribution to Gregory studies by citing his judgment that Gregory’s mysticism “marks a complete reversal of the Platonic perspective” and that, according to Gregory, in the mystical event there is “the inhabitation of the soul by the Word.”96 Daniélou’s and—now—Lossky’s judgment that Gregory’s mysticism “marks a complete reversal of the Platonic perspective” depends upon the same insight that Balthasar had already made central to Gregory’s theology: that for Gregory (and not earlier in Christianity) there is a definite line between the Uncreated and the created, and thus the mystical vision would be of God and not of the (created) forms.97 However, the mystical to be a fundamental concept in Gregory’s theology. Balthasar emphasizes their importance repeatedly in Presence et pensée. However, the two theologians have radically different understandings of what the divine “energy” is and its significance. For Lossky the energeia have a positive epistemological role: they are the object of any kataphatic theology, and through them positive statements can be made about God (though not about the essence of God). For Balthasar the energeia have a transient, self-deconstructing function: in the experience of God’s energeia the present dissolves into the absent, the “there” into the “not there.” Lossky draws a firm limit on the content of an energeia, but he affirms that qua energy it has the positive content of God’s revelation; for Balthasar the energies destabilize the experience they would otherwise seem to cause. 93 As Meyendorff relates in his preface to the translation, Vision de Dieu was based upon a series of lectures given at the Sorbonne in 1945–1946 (Lossky, Vision of God, 6). 94 Bulgakov died in Paris in 1944. He had not been active since cancer surgery in 1937 (see Valliere, Modern Russian Theology, 388–89). Lossky’s Vision de Dieu (again, published in 1962 but based in lectures originally from ca. 1946) is helpful not only for the light it may shed on his thoughts in his earlier Mystical Theology, but for what it can reveal to us about the content of Daniélou’s 1944 book that was perceived to be new insights. 95 Lossky, Vision of God, 56–57. In Théologie mystique Clement was the strongest example of a proper, un-Neoplatonic, Christian apophaticism. 96 Lossky, Vision of God, 72–74. 97 In the well-known episode from his own life that Augustine recounts in Confessions 7 it is not clear whether the vision he “fell” from is a vision of the noetic realm or of God. 400 Michel René Ponchin Barnes “interior ascent” that Lossky proceeds to describe reads remarkably close to the patristic “Platonic ascent” model that Balthasar critiqued so deeply in “Patristik, Scholastik und wir” (especially) and Presence et Pensée.98 This observation necessarily requires details. In Lossky’s account of Gregory’s mystical theology, the journey of the soul to the presence of God begins with an “interior descent” into itself from which it arrives, purified, at the interior, connatural remnant of its original state. Lossky seems to suggest that, prior to Gregory, the soul’s arrival at its “native land” and the sight of God would constitute the climax of the experience among Platonic and Christian mysticism (i.e., the soul’s entry into the presence of God in heaven). Gregory adds something more: at the summit God is no longer perceived as light but as darkness— meaning, that God cannot be comprehended: “It [the soul] recognizes the One it is seeking as the only One he does not comprehend”; “the darkness through which Moses penetrated to the summit of Sinai represents a form of communion with God.”99 The mystical experience remains that of union, but it is no longer couched in terms of sight: “St. Gregory of Nyssa In an article written less than five years after Théologie mystique, “Redemption and Deification” (Sobornost, ser. 3, no. 2 [Autumn 1947], 47–55; republished in In the Image and Likeness of God [Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir Seminary Press,1974], 97–110, with minor changes), Lossky argues for most of the doctrinal points that Balthasar had earlier rejected as characteristic of an overly-Platonized neopatristic theology. Lossky begins his article by quoting the famous passage in Irenaeus, “God made Himself man, that man might become God,” and reports that the principle appears in the theologies of Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa. Lossky then moves quickly into an account of salvation which begins with the descent of Christ, a descent which is ordered towards making possible the ascent of humanity. The human ascent is made possible through the kenotic descent of the Word. Lossky cites in passing 2 Peter 1:4, that we, by grace, should become “a partaker of the divine nature.” These Scripture texts are cited by Balthasar in his critique of the theosis theology that Balthasar rejects, one which is at the heart of Lossky’s theology. 99 Lossy, Mystical Theology, 33–35. Balthasar pauses over the “darkness” (ténebres) Moses encounters, quotes Gregory and sums up his theology: “This night is faith, in which all knowledge is reached” (Presence and Thought, 103). His exegesis of this scene is limited, and at this time Balthasar may not have known of Philo’s exegesis of the Exodus passage in De gigantibus—which is Daniélou’s opinion of Lossky’s exegesis of Moses and the dark cloud (see Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique, 209). In any case, see Martin Laird’s excellent exposition in Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 174–204. (Balthasar would not be comfortable with Laird’s “grasp[ing]” language, since that action—as an epistemology—is what he accuses the Stoics and Eunomius of trying to do.) See my comment on Balthasar’s “dialectical” faith vis-à-vis Lossky’s “apophaticism.” 98 “Some Synchronic Moment” 401 pays less attention to sight, ‘the most intellectual sense,’ as Fr. Daniélou remarks.”100 From the perspective of Balthasar’s “dialectical” theology the distinction between kataphatic and apophatic theologies is irrelevant. Whatever claims for apophatic theology Lossky may make about “not knowing God” (in his essence) the existential fact of that ignorance produces no anxiety: it is rather an ignorance born of confident faith. Even in the case of mystical “darkness” God’s presence (e.g., his love) is felt.101 Knowing this, Lossky’s strong distinction between kataphatic and apophatic theologies, as well as his attempt to distinguish Greek apophaticism from Christian apophaticism (e.g., Origen versus Gregory), collapses because for all these cases “Otherness” is due to the human incapacity to know that something: every kind of human incapacity rests upon creatureliness—whether the epistemological incapacity is explained under the rubric of the “Greek model” or “Christian model” of apophaticism(s). For Balthasar (et al.) God’s radical “Otherness” is due to our non-being (our creatureliness) versus his True Being.102 A Moment amongst Three Theologians I have offered a reading of authors who can be described not only as para Lossky, Vision of God, 73. Balthasar’s critique of “sight”—with Gregory’s doctrine of Darkness surpassing those hermeneutical errors—may be found at Presence and Thought, 123–28, where he concludes: “We find, in fact, at the end of this philosophy of image something that resembles a kind of resignation [sic] and that could only be a mitigated form of ‘despair’ and ‘sadness.’” However, it would be a mistake to understand Lossky’s, Daniélou’s, and Balthasar’s criticism of the paradigm which identifies sight or vision as the “highest sense most like reason” as no more than a criticism from within a specific trajectory in apophatic theology. A critique of the constellated concepts of sight, vision, rationalism, possession and “grasping” runs strongly through nineteenth- and twentieth-century French culture, as Martin Jay “revealed” in his 1993 Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought. The valorization of the “Dark Presence” by these three théologie mystique theologians locates them within the non-visual, non-rationalistic hermeneutical trajectory Jay describes. 101 Balthasar recognizes Gregory’s claim for the “Living Darkness” (see Presence and Thought, 103). 102 See Presence and Thought, 27 ff. However, we should consider the possibility that during the mid-twentieth century the apophatic theology of darkness may have been an O/orthodox response to the Kierkegaardian-Barthian theology of the “distant” God. It largely fails in that function, but not entirely: see Balthasar’s later, substantial response to the theology of St. John of the Cross, who, like Gregory, speaks of encountering God in a “Dark Presence”; see vol. 3 of Glory of the Lord. (Daniélou refers to St. John of the Cross in Platonisme et Théologie Mystique, 209.) 100 402 Michel René Ponchin Barnes digmatic of an era of scholarship on Gregory of Nyssa but as having had substantial influence on the way post-war Western theology developed. My reading has attempted to identify the common problematique that Balthasar, Daniélou and Lossky worked within—the most important being their common advocacy of a mystical theology—with arguments based upon their common understanding of Gregory of Nyssa’s critical response to the anti-Nicene bishop Eunomius of Cyzicus. Where my account differs from most other accounts is that I take seriously the fact that all three authors advance the positive content of Gregory’s théologie mystique by locating his theology within a polemical context. Gregory does not just offer a kind of theology; he advances it by rejecting another kind of theology. Wherever a positive account of théologie mystique might be weak among any of the three theologians, the content of that theology is strengthened through a characterization of the theology it opposes. There is a sense among the three that the kind of theology Gregory rejects—in Eunomius and in Origen—is perennial, while the kind of Gregory’s own theology needs advocation (at least within the small window of time in which all three books are written).103 As Gregory of Nyssa is distanced from and overcomes the ratiocentric faith of Eunomius, he rejects the greater evil which the latter only represented, the “Hellenized” Christianity of Origen. This is an idiosyncratic reading of Eunomius’s theology—if it may be said to be a reading of Eunomius at all. The interpretation of—the reduction of—the Eunomian controversy to a proxy conflict with Origen over the “Hellenization” of the Christian faith functions as a common axiom among the three Francophone theologians. Gregory’s victory over Eunomius has two parts: first, Gregory overturns not “just” Eunomius but the theology of Origen, whose avatar Eunomius plays; and, second, Gregory gives us an exemplary case of how a Christian properly interprets and utilizes pagan or secular philosophy. Gregory’s free faith is an experience of God— experience which supplies an entire theology of God encountered—a As I have shown, each scholar used the historical figure of Eunomius as a synecdoche to reveal a perceived greater whole—namely, Origen’s theology—though “Origen” himself was only a more saturated sign of the true whole. Origen’s thought and influence was the occasion of a trespass failure within the community of Christian faith: a viral entry into the Church body of a “faith” that was no more than a kind of logic, a set of propositions without a voice or presence—reason without presence. The scale and density of Origen’s thought allows for an investigation about which Eunomius is only the tag. For the three, Gregory of Nyssa’s refutation of Eunomius defeats any lingering modern suspicions of Gregory’s own theology being “Hellenized” (as Harnack and others before and after charged). 103 “Some Synchronic Moment” 403 théologie mystique. While Balthasar, Daniélou, and Lossky may differ over the details of what constitutes this théologie mystique, they agree on its antinome: they know it when they see it, and they recognize the emptiness of the logic that supports it (the emptiness which constitutes it). All three agree that when philosophy and Christianity encounter one another there is only one possible outcome: one of the two “transforms” the other. Either Christianity transforms and appropriates a true remnant of pagan or secular philosophy, or philosophy transforms and dissects Christian faith.104 In Gregory’s theology pagan philosophy is transformed; for the attentive reader Gregory’s Platonic or Stoic language in fact deconstructs the world(s) of Platonism or Stoicism.105 It is difficult to say with certainty whether Gregory’s mysticism functions as “proof” that he had transformed his philosophical heritage, or whether the successful accomplishment of transforming received pagan philosophy lends authority and credence to his mysticism. It would be possible to find a scholarly perspective which held those two questions separate, but the separation of the two is not at issue, or even to be desired, by these three authors. Only where these two are bound together is there a théologie mystique. Balthasar’s experiment with constructing an ideal premodern Christian philosophy as the basis of the modern engagement with faith and the culture fails on its initial terms. The theology of the epoch of the patristic Church proved inadequate as a constructive resource for doing theology “now,” and, despite whatever sympathetic traces remain in his later writings, Balthasar rejected a patristic or neopatristic foundational ideal:106 The only way to prevent one of these outcomes is for Christianity to avoid all encounter with philosophy—which allows it to “over-leap” philosophy altogether. In his Life of St Anthony, Athanasius presents the monk in exactly this way: he never studied philosophy but was able to confound the “wisdom” of the philosophers. Gregory of Nyssa, by contrast, does not present his sister Macrina (also a monk) in this way: she has encountered philosophy, has sifted out the God-given true remnant, and by appropriating it has given philosophy (a “restored philosophy”) its proper function of giving glory to God the source of Truth. See Gregory’s writings Life of Macrina and On the Soul and Resurrection. 105 See, for example, the form of Henri Crouzel’s rehabilitation of Origen: he acknowledges that the terms Origen uses (in this case, to differentiate kinds of knowledge) are taken from Plato, but he vigorously distinguishes Origen’s knowledge as a scriptural knowledge—one that is, above all, the knowledge of Christ. There is a positive relationship between the Platonic theory of knowledge and Origen’s, but—and this is Crouzel’s key point—“This is an imitation of Platonism, but by the same stroke, its antithesis” (Origene, 7; translation mine). Not all rehabilitations of Origen are equal. 106 In the present article “patristic” names reading patristic texts as Daniélou did (i.e., 104 404 Michel René Ponchin Barnes We should like rather to penetrate right to those vital wellsprings of their spirit, right to that fundamental and hidden intuition that directs every expression of their thought and that reveals to us one of the great possibilities of attitude and approach that theology has adopted in a concrete and unique situation. We shall explain . . . why the thought of the Greek Fathers, taken its materiality, offers but little support . . . why there might even be a danger in wishing to rejuvenate it without a total critique. . . . We remember it, as a man remembers the profound intuitions he had as an adolescent.”107 Balthasar found the patristic Church lacking in two fundamental ways (not counting the problem of Platonization already discussed). The first, as we read, arises out of Balthasar’s own characterization of the early Church as “young”—an adolescent.108 The distinguishing feature of the patristic authors is that they come at the beginning of Christianity and thus the era constitutes the youth in the “ages” (or aeons) of the Church. 109 The historically) and “neopatristic” names reading patristic texts as Lossky did. Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 13. (Sebanc’s translation is true to the French original.) Again see Batlhasar, “The Church Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 371, 379. The italicized vocabulary of these sentences shows Balthasar to be immersed in the quasi-phenomenology and personalist philosophy of pre-World War II modern France; fortunately, the identification of Balthasar’s “source” is beyond the methodological intention of this article. Balthasar uses expressions which were spread broadly in the French intellectual air by the time he began his Jesuit formation: interest in, e.g., intuition, vitality, and concreteness was a commonplace in French intellectual life at that time. (See Grogin, Bergsonian Controversy, 21–36.) Bergson, Maurice Blondel, Wilhem Dilthey, Edmund Husserl, Emmanuel Mounier, José Ortega y Gasset, Péguy, and others constellate notions like vitalism, élan vital, intuition, and memory in their fight against the influence of neo-Kantianism. The emphasis on vitality and intuition could owe to German romanticism. Moreover, as Baring, Converts to the Real, 211–40, and Jonathan King, “Theology Under Another Form: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Formation and Writings as a Germanist” (PhD diss., St. Louis University, 2016), 143, 188–90, make clear, Balthasar had by this time developed a keen interest in Heidegger’s philosophy. The question of influences is made more difficult by Balthasar’s explicit textual reliance on Max Scheler and Przywara, both of whom fail to appear in his bibliography. (Analogous absences apply to all the candidate “sources” I pro-offered above.) In short, the question of Balthasar’s sources is a complex and controverted subject, often answered prematurely. 108 Again, there are cognate passages on the patristic era as the “teenage era” of the Church in the 1939 “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves” (e.g., 371) that confirm and elaborate upon the thoughts Balthasar expresses in 1942. 109 It is a characteristic of Balthasar’s thought that he takes the idea of historical “epoch” or “aeon” seriously as a hermeneutical frame, unlike Daniélou, and Lossky; 107 “Some Synchronic Moment” 405 distinguishing characteristic of the young Church is that its experiences are immediate, strong, and unburdened by complexities.110 Balthasar says that modern Christians regard the early Church as an adult remembers being seventeen.111 From the Church’s adolescence we can observe a Christianity which is vital, wholehearted, and open to new experiences.112 These affective traits give us encouragement and a drama which we moderns try to experience in our own way now in the full maturity of the Church.113 see “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 352, and Presence and Thought, 89. When thinking about Balthasar’s judgment that the Church Fathers in fact occupy the place of adolescents in the life of the Church two items should be brought to mind—both having to do with the influence of Scheler on Balthasar’s thought. First, Scheler is important specifically for his positive judgment on the strong and enthusiastic popular movements of the 1920s and the 1930s among Catholic youth in Germany and France. Secondly, Scheler was very much of the opinion that the human species, qua species, developed or aged. Thus it was only to be expected that a cultural phenomenon of the ancient—”young”—world (namely, Christianity) should reflect the general youthfulness of the species as a whole at the time. On the youth movements of the time see, Zeev Sternhell’s 1995 Neither Right Nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France. On the influence of Catholic movements such as the “Quickborn” on Scheler, see Baring, Converts to the Real, 131–36. 110 Balthasar, Presence and Thought, 11, compares the theological history of the Church to a “treasure house” of memories “at the disposal of the theologian in the way that the storehouse of his lived experiences is available to the individual.” Here Balthasar uses a metaphor (storehouse) to explain another metaphor (treasure house). I shall return later to the inherent weakness of this metaphor (or analogy?) as a hermeneutical perspective for reading tradition. However, more than we, Balthasar had a notion of the profoundly undetermined effects of memory: Freud was Balthasar’s older contemporary. Balthasar speaks of the “taking up” of this or that memory in an astonishingly naive way—astonishing not only “after Freud” or “after Merleau-Ponty” but after Augustine. (A scholar in another field might offer that hearing such a metaphor proposed in this way should remind us, the intelligent reader, of the late entry into the genre of the “introspective novel” of German literature.) 111 “Of course it [youthful enthusiasm] will always carry a veneer of depth, piety and superiority over the lowlands of a ‘purely formal philosophizing’” (Balthasar, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 379). 112 Balthasar does not specify from what developmental model he learns that social organizations develop by a logic analogous to individual persons. He does not reveal what German romantic dramas display the true nature of youth as he tells it. Perhaps Sorrows of Young Werther, A Death in Venice, Tin Drum, or Siddhartha? The story of Romeo and Juliet might come to the mind of students of English literature. (Or “West Side Story”?) 113 “The difference [between ‘ourselves’ and the Fathers] lies only in this: That the Fathers did not yet understand ‘subjectivity’ as a function of the total representa- 406 Michel René Ponchin Barnes The second fundamental way that patristic theology (more precisely, all premodern theology) fails the modern theologian as a constructive resource is more incisive on Balthasar’s part but articulated less explicitly in his book.114 As I pointed out earlier, Balthasar accepts the understanding that Platonism entered Christianity not simply in terms of Platonic doctrines but as a logic which controlled and constructed the kind of thinking within which Christians recognized, defined, and defended articles of faith—and indeed the “essence” of Christianity. The dominant Platonic doctrine of the immanence of “being” in the created world was the product of the logic of participation; this doctrine and this logic came to rest in Christian minds.115 By this conceptual dynamic Platonism prevented patristic theologians from understanding correctly how creation relates to “being” as opposed to how God relates to “being.” At the very beginning of Presence et pensée Balthasar lays out the principle that God is he who possesses “being” as his nature: “Dieu est celui qui possede comme Nature l’Etre.” He quotes Gregory in Greek to this effect: τη ἀυτοu φuσει το ἐναι ἐχει.116 The first principle of creation—of humanity in particular—is that of not-being: “La premiere marque essentielle de la creature est donc negative.” As Balthasar expresses it in “Patristik, Scholastik und wir”: “This not-being-God of the creature must be maintained as the most fundamental fact of all, ranking first and foremost above all others.”117 Here Balthasar rejects any onto-theological understanding of tion [of self ]” (Balthasar, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves, 392). The previous critique of a “Platonizing” remains in place—see, e.g., “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 391. See also 394, for example, for Balthasar’s contrast between the patristic understanding of “dying to the world” and “our” own understanding. 114 The full logic of this “incisive but not fully articulated” critique deserves a substantial elaboration by me, especially since in both works here under consideration Balthasar only utilizes what I judge to be “parts” of this critique without explicitly bringing them together as a “whole.” My elaboration of that logic will occur in a future (and shorter) article devoted to the subject. 115 In his translation of “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 372, Oakes uses the English phrase “Danger Zone” to communicate von Balthasar’s sense of the threat Platonism played to Christian theology (but never to the “core of Christian faith”!). 116 Presence et pensée, 1 (Presence and Thought, 27). The Greek is from Gregory’s Life of Moses. An indispensable work of scholarship showing the anti-Eunomian context of Gregory’s Life of Moses is found in Ronald Heine’s 1975 Perfection in the Virtuous Life. 117 Balthasar, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 354 (more broadly on this, see 353–56 and 372–73). “Some Synchronic Moment” 407 God and “man”—a step he judges all patristic authors, including Gregory, to have failed to have taken: most importantly, a step he believes the patristic authors were unable to take, to even imagine, because of their intrinsic Platonism. All premodern Christian theology stands behind a wall produced by the Platonic logic of participation, a wall it cannot outflank or overcome, and a wall which renders premodern theology fundamentally “other” than modern theology (modern existentiale). The discontinuity is radical. Gregory is not the problematic Origen, but he is still as far away as a seventeen-year-old is from the least of contemporary adult “folk.”118 Thus Balthasar concludes that Gregory’s theology fails as a resource for modern theologians even when properly understood—indeed, it is the proper understanding of Gregory that confirms his limited utility in the modern situation that theology faces “now.” The entirety of Presence et pensée can perhaps be seen as existing in a “dislocation” within Balthasar’s theology overall. 119 Only with Daniélou would Platonism explicitly remain relevant to a constructive theology—albeit a “transformed Plato”—and one sees with him the scholarly “Platonist trajectory” that would soon rehabilitate Origen. “For Origen, as for most of the Church Fathers, it is obvious that it “Everywhere [in the Gospels] the stress is put on . . . the ‘simple people’ who know how to accept the harshness of existence along with the occasional joys that come their way, not making much fuss about either, experiencing and taking in a great deal, sacrificing themselves and wearing themselves out with work without taking overdue notice of it or thinking it is ‘anything special,’ keeping back in the lower ranks as simply a matter of course, and finally departing from this world without leaving any visible traces in world history, never really understanding why they, of all people, should be ‘the first’” (Balthasar, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” 358). Given the timing of the article (1939) and its language (German), Balthasar’s likening of the peon to the Volk is disturbing. (The fact that this “folk” vignette is preceded by a discussion of “community”—Gemeinschaft— does nothing to ease one’s judgment.) 119 Arguments for a fundamental, pre-1940 French influence on Balthasar strengthen his credentials as a ressourcement theologian; arguments for a fundamental, pre-1940 “Germanist” influence weaken his identity as a “Ressourcement” theologian. In my judgment von Balthasar’s disappointment expressed here in Presence et pensée—”l’homme se souvient des profondes intuitions de l’adolescent”—removes him as a candidate for “Ressourcement theologian” despite whatever happy things his Romantic attachment to the Greeks leads him to include in other writings. A related argument with the same conclusion could be developed by contrasting von Balthasar’s emphasis in Presence et pensée, Chapter One, on the radical dissimilarity between God (“Being”) and creation, including humans, with the strong emphasis on participation, image, and “sur-natural” one finds in Daniélou and Lossky, as well as well-recognized “Ressourcement” theologians like de Lubac. 118 408 Michel René Ponchin Barnes is Plato who provides the framework for theological discourse”120 However, it needs to be recognized and stressed that one tragic effect of the strong rehabilitation of Origen by Henri de Lubac and others was to produce a major divide between Catholic ressourcement and Orthodox Neopalamite scholarships—the latter of which has still not accepted Origen into any orthodox discourse. There are a variety of ways to read and “appropriate” patristic theology—not only one, and, more importantly, not only two. “Two” tends to lock the reader into a binary or oppositional hermeneutics, where “this reading” is opposed to “that reading”—which is what we see in Balthasar’s “either/or” dialectical model. There was a binary hermeneutic also at work in Lossky’s neopatristic reading which came into existence over against the “renewalist” party (or “Russian School”) of Bulgakov. Just as the twentieth-century “turn to” Gregory misleadingly now seems natural and inevitable, so too the exclusive turn to patristic sources by twentieth-century Russian Orthodoxy—the neopatristic movement—misleadingly now seems as natural and inevitable: a virtual cliché. The judgment that Russian Orthodox theology should be based exclusively on patristic sources is the consequence of a conflict over ecclesiastical identity that dominated the Russian church in the post-Revolution period. Lossky took an active role in establishing “neopatristic” theology as the dominant Russian Orthodox theology—indeed, apparently the only “orthodox” Orthodox theology. His reading of Gregory and of all the Fathers is a foundational act for the canon and context of the majority of Russian theology now—and a polemical act against any orthodoxy that engaged modern philosophy.121 One can deduce from Balthasar’s critique of patristic theology—especially the charge of its cohabitation with Platonism—that Lossky’s “neopatristic” theology would have little appeal to him. It seems more likely instead Jean-Fabrice Delbecq, O.C.D, “La transposition christologique de Henri de Lubac,” Teresianum 61 (2010): 267–94, at 274 (translation mine). There is one more point to be derived from my reading: with these authors the question of “what about Plato?” is taken to be a defining Christian question. There is a Christian engagement with Plato (and Platonisms) that does not reduce simply to “Plato—how much is useful and safe?” The working sensibility among all these authors is much closer to “how is Plato as revelation?” To talk about “Plato transformed” is one way of expressing this dynamic relationship within Christianity—especially when one realizes that Christian exegesis is itself “the literal transformed”: the literal is not excluded before it is exegeted/spiritualized. 121 For two very different (binary?) perspectives on the neopatristic movement, see Valliere’s Modern Russian Theology and Paul Gavrilyuk’s 2015 George Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance. 120 “Some Synchronic Moment” 409 that Balthasar would be at home amongst those whom Lossky counted as foes, and those Russians who would themselves have little to no sympathy for neopatristic Christian theology. One thinks particularly of Bulgakov, Aleksandr Bukharev, and Vladimir Soloviev as logical Russian Orthodox (or at least Russian) resources for Balthasar’s theology as he conceived it.122 This much is clear from a close reading of his 1939–1942 writings.123 With Lossky the boundaries of ideal Christianity were constructed as much “over against” as they were intrinsic. For Lossky (unlike, e.g., with Krivocheine) the ideal Christian philosophy seems unified across a diachronic front. Eventually Lossky identified an “ideal Christianity” which he could engage within the only philosophy and culture that came to matter—the Russian and Slavic culture(s). Conclusion This article has examined the appearance of a theological trope in Francophone texts written by three scholars at approximately the same time: Hans Urs von Balthasar (1942), Jean Daniélou (1944), and Vladimir Lossky (1944). The trope is that Gregory of Nyssa’s polemic against Eunomius of Cyzicus represents Gregory’s rejection of Origen’s hermeneutic for Christian philosophy. Each author constructs an antinomy between Gregory and “Eunomius” (who equates to “Origen”); each author understands Gregory’s opponent “Eunomius/Origen” to be the personification of rationalism, evacuating Christian theology of its distinct religious content; each author implicitly brackets off the Trinitarian component of the controversy between Gregory and Eunomius, leaving only the “mystical”; each author takes Gregory’s relationship to philosophy to represent an exemplary Christian doctrinal and hermeneutical engagement with philosophy. Details in each scholar’s understanding of Gregory’s significance emerge through the focused examination of three expressions of a common value assigned at that time to Gregory of Nyssa’s theology. My perspective has been that there is a common sitz that brings these three theologians—and their theologies—together, even if briefly. Reading each author separately from the others would not reveal their common Here we pause to acknowledge that Balthasar’s reading of Gregory of Nyssa was— especially in “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves”—no less polemical in intent than Lossky’s. Balthasar writes against those who would appropriate and apply patristic theology “too simply” and “undialectically,” lifting the Fathers out of their Platonic context and placing them, purified, in a post-Platonic horizon. 123 This hypothesis is confirmed in Jennifer Newsome Martin’s 2016 Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Critical Appropriation of Russian Religious Thought and King, “Theology Under a Different Form,” 145 and 178. 122 410 Michel René Ponchin Barnes moment and response. In only a few years, through these three books, these authors take a standing culture-wide phenomenon—the spiritual malaise of rationalism—and internalize it: they articulate the modern French rationalist crisis in specifically Christian terms.124 Their map is a Christian map, elaborated with Christian landmarks and Christian paths taken: Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Eunomius. Each of these authors shows that the old Harnackian problematique of “the Hellenization of Christianity” is inadequate for capturing the crisis modern post-idealist epistemology poses to the Christian faith.125 Reading these texts in the way I have just suggested makes the authors, their language and sensibilities, and their common ground transparent to the over-arching cultural problem in France (and all of Europe) operative since the late nineteenth century in a way which the standard “Vatican I versus Modernism” narrative does not.126 The purpose of this article was not to locate the three books under discussion to any other writings, anterior or posterior, by each author; nor did I set out to uncover continuities or discontinuities in the thought of each author when considered diachronically. The subject of this article is the synchronicity of a very specific argument in these three, roughly contemporary, Francophone monographs. An argument invoking Eunomius, in the way that I have shown, is a trope among the three authors despite their substantially different theological conceptual fields.127 As my detailed reading of the three monographs has shown, the existence of a synchronic argument is undeniable—even if one doubts its significance Schloesser’s Jazz Age Catholicism is now a fundamental resource for understanding the presence of this malaise in pre–World War II modern France. 125 The widely circulated origin story of “ressourcement contra Scholasticism” limits the malaise of rationalism to one specific institutional cause—Scholasticism or “manualism”—but my “Hellenization” model reflects what these authors actually say (shared across different ecclesiastical traditions). 126 A collection such as Romance and the Rock: Nineteenth-Century Catholics on Faith and Reason, ed. by Joseph Fitzer (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress,1989), can be read as though the rationalist crisis was a uniquely Catholic event—indeed, an intra-ecclesiastical conflict of “reason” versus “faith” in a world in which the relationship of these two had otherwise been settled. It was not. In addition to Schloesser’s (oft-cited) Jazz Catholicism, see Grogin’s Bergsonian Controversy, Cohen’s Piety and Politics, and Hastings’s Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism. 127 Unlike Gregory the authors will decline to link their theology of “knowing God” (their théologie mystique) with their Trinitarian theology. (The most important exception to this is Daniélou’s Christocentric reading of Gregory’s “mystical assimilation” to the Trinity through Christ.) The Christological and Trinitarian “logics” of all ressourcement authors needs to be investigated. 124 “Some Synchronic Moment” 411 (e.g., its “place” in an author’s work). However, if the reader discovers common ground among any of the authors where before none was imagined, then so much the better.128 N&V In this article ressourcement is a broader collection of theologians than just that cadre of Catholic theologians associated with Nouvelle Théologie. The term legitimately applies to a movement among theologians in France (principally in Paris)—Catholic, Russian Orthodox, and Protestant—who were motivated to retrieve the literature and theology of the Church Fathers as a means of fostering renewal in spirituality and theology. This motivation found social expression in the private seminars Nikolai Berdyaev sponsored from 1927 until the early thirties. Catholic members of this seminar include Jacques Maritain, Gabriel Marcel, Charles du Bos, Lucien Laberthonniere, Jules Lebreton, Étienne Gilson, and Edouard Leroy; Orthodox theologians include Berdyaev himself, Georges Florovsky, Sergei Bulgakov, Myrrha Lot-Borodine, and Vasily Zenkovsky. Among the Francophone ressourcement members we may also include earlier Orthodox precursors Dumitry Staniloae and Basil Krivocheine. Marcel had influence in both the Catholic and Orthodox “French ressourcement” theologians; Lot-Borodine had a strong influence on Jean Daniélou and Vladimir Lossky—both of the next generation after hers. See Andrew Louth, “French Ressourcement Theology and Orthodoxy: A Living Mutual Relationship,” in Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology, ed. Gabriel Flynn and Paul D. Murray (Oxford: Oxford University Press Online, 2011); and Nicolas Lossky, “Incidences en Occident (Et en Russie) du renouveau théologique russe au XXe siècle Authors,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 29, no. 3/4 (1988): 553–59. A book such as Jurgen Mettepenningten’s 2010 Nouvelle Théology treats superfluously the important intersection of all these theologians working in France over a twenty-five-year period and ignores the broad cultural (French) context. The fundamental historical accounts of this period in French theology is Étienne Fouilloux’s 1997 Les chrétiens francais entre crise et libération 1937–1947, followed by Edward Baring, Converts to the Real: Catholicism and the Making of Continental Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019). 128 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 413–441 413 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theology of Creation1 Gerald P. Boersma Ave Maria University Ave Maria, FL My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:15–17; KJV) The Challenge of Creatio ex nihilo The classical Judeo-Christian account of creation, creatio ex nihilo, serves to cement the Creator–creature distinction. God creates something that is not God, something wholly other than himself: being that is finite, tending towards non-being, lacking stability and simplicity, in a word, that which is contingent. The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, then, establishes a fundamental line of demarcation between the creature and the Creator.2 On the other hand, any account of creation must propose some account of the relation between Creator and creature. How to parse this relation? What is the character of divine action in creation? The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is a stark rejection of the (only) two other ways of navigating the Creator–creature relation in creation: (1) God involves himself in time, in a realm of becoming and flux, such that he too is subject to the vicissitudes of becoming. (One variant of this position is the rather flatfooted “process theology” of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.) (2) I am grateful for the advice and suggestions of Fr. Guy Mansini, Hans Boersma, and the anonymous peer reviewers on an earlier draft of this essay. 2 See Creation and the God of Abraham, ed. David Burrell, Carlo Cogliati, Janet Soskice, and William Stoeger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 1 414 Gerald P. Boersma Creation is taken up into divine eternity, such that it is understood to be co-eternal. Here creation is an extension or profusion of the divine. This was the philosophically astute position of ancient cosmogonies, which understood finite being as an emanation and diminution of eternal being. Here one could point to a host of ancient philosophers (most famously Plotinus) and Christian theologians (most famously Origen) who understood God as a “benevolent and creative energy” who from eternity “fathers-forth whose beauty is past change.”3 Augustine was acutely aware of the theological landmines lurking in the doctrine of creation. How to account for God’s creative action in a way that avoids the Scylla of compromising divine transcendence and the Charybdis of divinizing creation? I propose that Augustine’s theology of the rationes seminales articulated in De Genesi ad litteram allows him to avoid these two doctrinal pitfalls. Augustine carefully distinguishes between the rationes aeternae, the eternal ideas of all things that exist in the divine Word, and the rationes seminales. These latter rationes are the primordial “seeds” implanted in creation at the beginning of time. It is on account of the rationes seminales that the earth receives a certain “power” (virtutem) to produce and reproduce subsequent life. My contention is that Augustine’s theology of the rationes seminales allows him to affirm with Genesis that creation was complete when God rested from his work. The payoff of this claim is that it avoids the first pitfall in the doctrine of creation, namely that God is immanent in his own creation. Augustine insists that God creates all things in an instantaneous moment when he implants the rationes seminales. This precludes an understanding of God creating (as a process), which would subject him to the time he creates. However, the rationes seminales also allow Augustine to affirm God’s sustaining providential governance of his creation. God does not withdraw from his creation; through the rationes seminales he remains present, imbuing creation with his own life and being. After an exposition of Augustine’s theology of the divine ideas (the rationes aeternae), I will argue that his conception of the rationes seminales allows him to articulate the expression of the divine ideas in time and space in a manner that neither compromises divine transcendence nor conceives of creation as a divine profusion. The rationes seminales express the divine teleological Plotinus, Enneads 5.1.6; Origen, Peri Archon 1.4.3: “Hic est bonus Deus et benignus omnium pater, simul et εὐεργετικὴ δύναμις et δημιουργική” (Origene: Traité des Principes, 2 vols. [books 1–2], ed. Henri Crouzel and M. Simonetti, Sources Chrétiennes 252–53 [Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1978], 1:169). With apologies to Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty.” 3 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 415 governance of creation according to measure, number, and weight as well as the manner by which the creature participates in the eternal mensura, numerus, and pondus of God himself. In response to a theology of creation that would threaten to compromise divine transcendence, Augustine was categorical that in choosing to create, God does not involve himself in a temporal process. God creates time and space as wholly distinct from himself. Augustine insisted creation is not a series of actions, a construction project according to which we could imagine God daily adding to his work. God did not decide a few days into creation to include landscaping (“Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind”). Nor did God, at the end of day, lean on his shovel, look at his seedlings and declare them good. Augustine’s commitment to divine simplicity and eternity could not countenance a conception of the divine action of creation as the unfolding of a temporal process. Rather, as I seek to explain below, Augustine understood creation to be an instantaneous and simultaneous movement from non-being to being. The second theological pitfall—the divinization of creation—precludes Augustine from resorting to the standard Hellenic understanding of the relation between Creator and creature, namely, that creation is eternal; that it is a spark of the divine, a necessary profusion from God, which, like rays of light, continually issues forth from its primordial source. Involuntary emanation fails to do justice to the free prerogative of God to create and to create something other than God. Augustine’s commitment to the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo requires avoiding these two doctrinal hazards, so as neither to immanentize God in time and space nor to endow creation with divine substance. And yet, to warn of two perennial hazards for a theology of creation is not yet to give a coherent account of creation. The challenge latent in any theology of creation is to account for the relation between Creator and creature. As Etienne Gilson points out, “Where we fail is in our attempt to get a clear picture of the link between time and eternity. In this case it means comparing two modes of heterogeneous duration founded on two modes of heterogeneous being, and we must add that one of these, namely that of God, escapes us almost entirely.”4 Theologians, after all, do not have the artistic license of Michelangelo. The iconic image of the Renaissance creation fresco in the Sistine Chapel depicts two sinuous index fingers, that of God and that of Adam, reaching out to one another. In the impending Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine, trans. L. E. M. Lynch (New York: Random House, 1967), 191. 4 416 Gerald P. Boersma touch of the infinite and the finite, God vivifies humanity. Evidently, the artist is not constrained in the manner of the theologian, who must always be mindful that God is not on the same canvas. The “heterogeneous being” that demarks Creator and creature runs all the way down. The challenge of the doctrine of creation is to provide a coherent account of how the eternal relates to the temporal and how the immutable touches the mutable in a way that does not suggest God is subject to time and space. My contention is that Augustine’s account of the rationes seminales worked out in De Genesi ad litteram allowed him to affirm the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo in a way that avoids both immanentism and emanationism.5 The Divine Ideas in De ideis A consistent feature of Augustine’s theology is that all things pre-exist in the divine mind according to their eternal forms. We are fortunate to have a succinct treatise, De ideis—question 46 in De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus—in which Augustine lays out with precision his theory of the forms.6 It is fruitful first to attend to this synopsis.7 In De ideis Augustine presents (1) some historical and terminological aspects of the doctrine of the forms; (2) ontological and cosmological arguments for the forms as In arguing that Augustine’s theology of creation avoids the twin errors of immanentism and emanationism, I do not mean to suggest that a carefully calibrated articulation of “emanation” is irreconcilable with Augustine. See the discussion on emanation in Augustine’s theology of creation in Gerald Boersma, Augustine’s Early Theology of Image (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 153–59. 6 Dating De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus with precision is impossible. It is written after Augustine’s baptism and deals with questions considered at Cassiciacum and possibly by Augustine’s monastic community at Thagaste. It was certainly complete before Augustine was elected bishop in 395. Treatment of question 46, De ideis, is offered by: Hans Meyerhoff, “On the Platonism of St. Augustine’s Quaestio de Ideis,” New Scholasticism 16 (1942): 16–45; Aimé Solignac, “Analyse et sources de la question ‘De Ideis,’” in Augustinus Magister, vol. 1 (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1954), 307–15; Stephen Gersh, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition, vol. 1 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 408–13 (“Excursus C”); Jean Pépin, “Saint Augustine and the Indwelling of the Ideas in God,” in Eriugena, Berkeley, and the Idealist Tradition, ed. Stephen Gersh and Moran Dermot (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 105–22. 7 Three English translations of De ideis are available in: David Mosher (trans), St. Eighty-Three different Questions, trans. David Mosher, Fathers of the Church 70 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982); Gersh, Middle Platonism, 403–7; Boniface Ramsey, Responses to Miscellaneous Questions, Works of Saint Augustine [WSA] I/12 (New York: New City, 2008). I follow the translation offered by Gersh. (The Latin of De ideis can be found in PL 40.) 5 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 417 exemplary causes of contingent being; and (3) epistemological considerations regarding how the mind apprehends the forms and how the forms illumine the soul.8 Terminology of the Forms It is Plato, explains Augustine, who first introduced the term “ideas.”9 The Latin words formae and species are literal translations of Plato’s ideai; however, it is justifiable also to translate ideai as rationes. Admittedly, this would not be a literal translation (because the Greek word for rationes is not ideai, but logoi); nevertheless, the term rationes, explains Augustine, expresses well the reality itself (a re ipsa) to which the term ideai refers.10 Enough about names, states Augustine abruptly, let us turn to the reality.11 Ontology and the Forms Augustine proceeds to delineate the ontological and cosmological character of the rationes: For Ideas are certain primary forms [principales formae] or reasons of things [rationes rerum], stable and immutable, which are themselves not formed and therefore eternal and always self-identical, and contained in the divine intellect [divina intellegentia continentur]. And whereas they themselves do not come into being or perish, everything which can come into being and perish and everything which does come into being and perish is See Gersh, Middle Platonism, 408–9. Augustine, De ideis 1: “Ideas Plato primus appellasse perhibetur.” In a delightfully anti-historicist (but perhaps slightly tautological) line of reasoning, Augustine remarks that while the word “idea” can be traced to Plato, “ideas” themselves existed long before Plato, because they are eternal. As such, others before Plato certainly knew about the “ideas,” but ascribed different names to them. This had to be the case because wise men existed before Plato, and there is no wisdom apart from participation in these “ideas.” 10 Augustine, De ideis 2: “We can therefore call the Ideas ‘forms’ or ‘species’ in Latin so that we may appear to translate the term literally. If we should call them ‘reasons,’ we deviate from exactitude of translation, for reasons are termed λόγοι and not Ideas in Greek. However, if anyone should wish to use that word, he will not veer from the thing itself.” 11 Augustine, De ideis1: “Sed de nomine hactenus dictum sit. Rem videamus.” Similarly, in the last line of De ideis, Augustine writes, “These reasons may be called Ideas, forms, or species or reasons, it being granted to the many to call them whatever they wish, but to the very few to see what is the truth.” 8 9 418 Gerald P. Boersma said to be formed in accordance with them.12 The foundational Platonic demarcation between the sensible and the intelligible is the starting point of this explanation.13 The immaterial and intelligible is the cause of the sensible and material. The former is eternal and unchanging (stabiles atque incommutabiles), while the latter is marked by birth and death (omen quod oritur et interit). Jean Pépin points to the Ciceronian provenance of Augustine’s contention (common to Middle Platonism) that the eternal rationes are “contained in the divine intellect.”14 Drawing on multiple attestations in Cicero’s corpus, Pépin demonstrates that the verb contineri has greater specificity than simply the meaning of “being contained in.” The verb implies “dependence on” something: “The content is not necessarily in the container, but rather is somehow consequent, conditioned or produced by the latter: in short, in some manner or other subordinate to it, and vice versa.”15 As such, Augustine’s use of the phrase divina intellegentia continentur does not so much describe the locus of the eternal rationes, as it expresses the condition within which the forms cohere in a unity.16 Augustine, De ideis 2: “Sunt namque ideae principales quaedam formae vel rationes rerum stabiles atque incommutabiles, quae ipsae formatae non sunt ac per hoc aeternae ac semper eodem modo sese habentes, quae divina intellegentia continentur. Et cum ipsae neque oriantur neque intereant, secundum eas tamen formari dicitur omne quod oriri et interire potest et omne quod oritur et interit.” 13 See Phaedo 78c. The immediate Vorlage is unlikely Plato and more likely Cicero. Pépin argues persuasively that Cicero’s Orator 2.9–3.10 is the literary antecedent of Augustine’s De ideis. Cicero describes how the sculptor, Phidias, would advert to an immaterial and eternal model in his mind as he set out to sculpt. Pépin points to the many instances of exact linguistic correspondence between Orator 2.9–3.10 and De ideis and concludes: “The central fact remains that the reading of the Orator furnished Augustine, author of De ideis, with his most definitive inspiration. The identity of certain linguistic formulations cannot be a matter of chance” (“Augustine and the Indwelling of the Ideas,” 113). See also Maurice Testard, Saint Augustin et Cicéron (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1958), 2:18–22. 14 Augustine, De ideis 2. 15 Pépin, “Augustine and the Indwelling of the Ideas,” 113–14. 16 Pépin writes: “Augustine intended in writing that the ideas divina intellegentia continentur . . . that their cohesion is guaranteed by the divine intelligence” (“Augustine and the Indwelling of the Ideas,” 115). On Augustine’s account, the multiplicity of forms in the eternal Word does not compromise divine simplicity. Already within Middle Platonism (in Albinus, for example) the doctrine of the forms was no longer conceived as an autonomous and eternal “realm” containing a host of discrete forms, but rather as “ideas” that exist in the simplicity of the divine mind. The formae are thus the thoughts of God. One can readily see how this 12 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 419 It is precisely because the rationes are coterminous with divine wisdom that the person who cannot yet directly contemplate the divine ideas, but is nonetheless imbued with vera religio, can perceive that the order, structure, and intelligibility of contingent being is dependent on such rationes: What man who has religion and is imbued with the true religion would dare deny, indeed would not confess, even if not yet capable of contemplating such things, that everything which exists—that is everything which is contained in its genus by a specific nature [in suo genere propria quadam natura continentur] in order that it should exist—was made by God the creator; that through his agency everything which lives has life; and that the universal preservation of things and the order itself by which that which is subject to change maintains its temporal course in a definite measure are contained and controlled [contineri et gubernari] by the laws of the highest God?17 The eternal rationes may be understood as an objective blueprint for all reality. They account for the particular “nature” of each discrete creature. The propria natura of each creature and the predictable cycles of ordered movement proper to the specific nature of each contingent creature lie within (continentur) the eternal rationes or leges of God. God does not create irrationally, insists Augustine.18 Rather, he establishes all things according to their eternal rationes: “restat ut omnia ratione sint condita.” The structured conditions of creaturely existence testify to their anchor in stable reality: a horse has its rationes and a man has his rationes. Each individual thing, concludes Augustine, manifests its own specific revised exposition of the doctrine of the forms would be amenable to Christian dress. Take, for example, the words of Hans Urs von Balthasar: “The world of the Ideas is absorbed in the unity of Christ. Their multiplicity is transformed into the wealth of the aspects of concrete Unity [which is Christ]” (Parole et Mystère chez Origène [Paris: Cerf, 1957], 122n26 [translation mine]). 17 Augustine, De ideis 2: “Quis autem religiosus et vera religione imbutus, quamvis nondum haec possit intueri, negare tamen audeat, immo non etiam profiteatur, omnia quae sunt, id est, quaecumque in suo genere propria quadam natura continentur ut sint, auctore Deo esse procreata, eoque auctore omnia quae vivunt vivere, atque universalem rerum incolumitatem ordinemque ipsum, quo ea quae mutantur suos temporales cursus certo moderamine celebrant, summi Dei legibus contineri et gubernari?” 18 Augustine, De ideis 2: “Quis audeat dicere Deum irrationabiliter omnia condidisse?” 420 Gerald P. Boersma (propria) ratio according to which it is fashioned.19 Augustine asks where (ubi) the eternal rationes exist, if not in the mind of the Creator (nisi in ipsa mente Creatoris). God does not look around for a model after which to create but creates by looking within himself.20 We will see that in book 5 of De Genesi ad litteram, Augustine gives more specificity to this locution, by positing that the Word (there identified as dei sapientia) knows all things in himself prior to fashioning them in time and space.21 Here, in De ideis, Augustine laconically summarizes: Thus, if these reasons of all things to be created or already created are contained in the divine mind [divina mente continentur], and if nothing can exist in the divine mind which is not eternal and immutable, and if Plato called these primary reasons [rerum principales] of things Ideas; then not only do the Ideas exist, but they exist truly [ipsae verae sunt] because they are eternal and remain self-identical and immutable, while it comes about by participation in them that everything which has existence exists whatever its precise nature may be.22 Augustine, De ideis 2: “Singula igitur propriis sunt creata rationibus.” Again, the remote source is Plato’s rendering of how the demiurge fashions the world according to the immaterial and intelligible model in his mind (see Timaeus 29d–31b). Nevertheless, as Gersh demonstrates in his analysis of De ideis, the more immediate tributaries for Augustine’s treatment are Cicero, various doxographic writers, and Plotinus (Middle Platonism, 411–13). 21 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram [hereafter, Gn. litt.] 5.13.29: “So then, as regards those unchangeable and eternal divine formulae (divinis incommutabilibus aeternisque rationibus), this is how scripture gives us the evidence that the very Wisdom of God knew before they were made all the things that were made through her: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God is what the Word was. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing ( John 1:1–3)” (all translations from De Genesi ad litteram are from On Genesis, trans. Edmund Hill, WSA I/13 [Hyde Park, NY: New City, 2002]). Similarly, see Augustine’s later work (415) Ad Orosium Contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas 8.9.224–27. 22 Augustine, De ideis 2: “Quod si hae rerum omnium creandarum creatarumve rationes divina mente continentur, neque in divina mente quidquam nisi aeternum atque incommutabile potest esse, atque has rationes rerum principales appellat ideas Plato, non solum sunt ideae, sed ipsae verae sunt, quia aeternae sunt et eiusdem modi atque incommutabiles manent. Quarum participatione fit ut sit quidquid est, quoquo modo est.” 19 20 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 421 The same foundational Platonic demarcation between the sensible and the intelligible is recapitulated: the most true existents—that which is true in itself—are the ideas contained in the divine mind. Here the accent falls on the participatory ontology evinced. Augustine evokes the language of “participation” to explain how eternal ideas find expression according to their particular mode of being in time and space. Of course, this raises more questions than it answers. What is the precise character of this “participation”? How does that which is finite and temporal share in that which is infinite and eternal? A one-word appeal to “participation” in the divine ideas is insufficient. The challenge with which we began this study—the challenge lurking in any theology of creation—is still very much present. How to understand the divine action of creation in a way that neither subsumes God within the immanent structures of his own creation (of time, movement, and matter), nor so elevates creation that it is understood as a natural extension or profusion of the divine life? How do we affirm that finite existence participates in the divine ideas while avoiding the pitfalls of divine immanentism and creaturely apotheosis? It will await Augustine’s mature theology in De Genesi ad litteram for these questions to be addressed in a more full-orbed manner. Epistemology and the Forms Unique to rational souls is the capacity for contemplation of the eternal rationes. However, only the mind that purifies itself is, in fact, able to do so. Only the soul that has become holy, pure, and fit for the vision of the forms can see this immaterial sight. In this respect, De ideis contains unmistakable echoes of the spirituality of Plotinus. Interior askesis, the purification of the inner eye (what Augustine calls “the intelligible face or eye”), is necessary to see the intelligible forms, for like is seen only by like.23 Augustine writes, But the rational soul, among those things which were made by God, is superior to everything else. It is closest to God [Deo proxima est] when it is pure, and as much as it adheres to him in charity [caritate cohaeserit] so much is it suffused in a certain way by him with Augustine, De ideis 2: “Et ea quidem ipsa rationalis anima non omnis et quaelibet, sed quae sancta et pura fuerit, haec asseritur illi visioni esse idonea, id est, quae illum ipsum oculum, quo videntur ista, sanum et sincerum et serenum et similem his rebus, quas videre intendit, habuerit.” (“Even as far as the rational soul itself is concerned, it will not be each and every one but only that which has become holy and pure that is described as suitable for this vision, in other words that which holds that very eye by which those things are seen healthy, whole, serene, and similar to the things which it aspires to behold”). 23 422 Gerald P. Boersma that intelligible light and having been illuminated perceives those reasons not through corporeal eyes but through that ruling part of itself by which it excels—that is through its intellect—and becomes most blessed in the vision of them.24 Augustine’s theology is marked by the relentless quest to know God and the soul. And, while these two are distinct, they are not separate. The presence of God is uniquely experienced in the rational soul. Caritas is the manner in which the pure soul fuses itself to God. While the rationes aeternae of all existents are logically prior to their finite iteration, the rational creature is unique in his ability to contemplate this relation. For Cicero and Plotinus, as well as for the Latin Middle Platonists on which Augustine drew, the locus of kinship between the divine and human spirit is the divine ideas.25 The origin and nature of the soul is “contained” in these divine ideas. However, the divine ideas are not to be sought in some far off, transcendent “place”; rather, they are discovered in the depths of the human soul, because nothing is more proximate to God than the soul, which shares in God’s own intelligible light. It is in contemplation of the divine ideas in the superior parts of the soul that the soul can come to share once again in this divine life. Platonic interiority (masterfully adopted and transposed in the Christian cadence of the Confessions) assumes a bond (sungeneia) between God and the human soul. The truism of Platonic spirituality, that the depths of interiority is also the site of the highest transcendence, equally holds true for Augustine.26 It is in seeing God’s own ideas and participating in his light that the rational soul understands and is illumined. By turning within itself the soul comes to the visio beatissima of the divine ideas.27 Augustine, De ideis 2: “Sed anima rationalis inter eas res, quae sunt a Deo conditae, omnia superat et Deo proxima est, quando pura est; eique in quantum caritate cohaeserit, in tantum ab eo lumine illo intellegibili perfusa quodammodo et illustrata cernit non per corporeos oculos, sed per ipsius sui principale quo excellit, id est, per intellegentiam suam, istas rationes, quarum visione fit beatissima.” 25 Of course, this idea is hardly antithetical to Christian convictions. Paul could affirm with the Stoic poet, Aratos, “Τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν” (Acts 17:28). 26 Cf. Confessions 3.6.11: “Tu autem eras interior intimo meo et superior summo meo” (“But you were more inward than my most inward part and higher than the highest element within me”). 27 See Pépin, 111: “In the eyes of Cicero—very probably a practitioner of the Middle Platonic ideology taken from Antiochus of Ascalon—conceiving the ideas as the thoughts of God does not exclude interiorizing them. In other words, when he wrote in the Orator that Phidias reproduced in his art an interior model, he clearly signifies that Phidias participated in the divine intelligence. It is also very probable 24 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 423 The Divine Ideas in De Genesi ad Litteram In De Genesi ad Litteram Augustine’s immediate appeal is to Scripture rather than to Plato. His principal proof texts for the divine ideas are: Psalm 104:24 (“In wisdom you have made them all”); Colossians 1:16 (“In him are fashioned all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible”); and John 1:3 (“What was made in him is life”).28 For Augustine, such texts evince a participatory ontology that roots contingent being in God’s own being. Again, the eternal rationes are not discrete autonomous entities such that a host of “ideas” can be said to exist in the divine mind that correspond to distinct creatures. Rather, the eternal rationes are united in the simplicity of the Word as life, life that is to be realized in time and space.29 All things are established eternally in the Word of God, explains Augustine, “in whom are the eternal ideas [aeternae rationes] even of things which were made in time, as in the one through whom all things were made ( John 1:3).”30 Creatures do not have primordial life in themselves, in their own nature, but “what is made in him is life.” Augustine explains: All these were in the knowledge of the maker before they were made, and of course were better [meliora] there, where they were truer [veriora], where they are eternal and unchangeable. All this should be enough for anyone to know, or at least to believe unshakably, that God made all these things; and I do not imagine anyone could be so witless as to suppose that God made anything he did not know. Accordingly if he knew them before he made them, it that the two points of view are inseparable: that perhaps our access to the intelligible content of the divine intelligence is nothing if not interiorization.” 28 See Gn. litt. 5.14.31. 29 See Gn. litt. 2.6.12: “The things that have been made through him, because he governs them and holds them together, are in him in one way, while the things which he himself is are in him in another. He, after all, is life, which is in him in such a way that it is he himself, since he, the life, is the light of men. So then, nothing could be created, whether before time (which does not mean co-eternal with the creator), or from the start of time, or in any particular time, of which the creation formula—if it can rightly be called a formula—was not alive with co-eternal life in the Word of God co-eternal with the Father; and that is why Scripture, before introducing each element of creation in the order in which it says it was established, looks back to the Word of God, and first puts, ‘God said, Let that thing be made.’ It could not, you see, find any reason for creating a thing, about which it had not found in the Word of God that it ought to be created.” 30 Gn. litt. 4.24.41: “. . . in qua ipsi sunt principaliter conditi, in ipso Verbo Dei prius noverunt, in quo sunt omnium, etiam quae temporaliter facta sunt, aeternae rationes, tamquam in eo per quod facta sunt omnia.” 424 Gerald P. Boersma follows that before they were made they were known “with him” [apud illum erant eo modo nota] in such a way as to be eternally and unchangeably alive and to be life, while once made they existed in the way all creatures do, each according to its kind.31 This digest of the doctrine of the divine ideas does not add anything substantially new to the short treatise De ideis, written at least ten years earlier. Augustine simply reiterates that the forms pre-exist (or better, eternally exist) in the divine mind in a manner that is ontologically more stable, “better,” and “truer” than we experience reality on the flickering screen of becoming, on which we see creatures come in and out of existence. It is up there (ibi) that being really exists (“sempiterne atque incommutabiliter vivunt, et vita sunt”). Again, we see the Platonic antithesis between the intelligible and the sensible as well as an affirmation of the participatory link between these realms: the intelligible causes the sensible. Nevertheless, Augustine allows the verbal refrain of Genesis to guide his questions. The repeated description of each creature being made “according to its kind” suggests to Augustine that “they were already in existence beforehand, though the account of their creation is only now being given.”32 The reference to “their kind” expresses the higher, spiritual ideas (superiores rationes) according to which they were fashioned.33 God alone is eternal and unchanging; he has “to be” within himself (“habens in se ut sit”), insists Augustine with an appeal to Exodus Gn. litt. 5.15.33: “omnia, priusquam fierent, erant in notitia facientis. Et utique ibi meliora, ubi veriora, ubi aeterna et incommutabilia. Quamquam sufficere debeat ut quisque noverit, vel inconcusse credat quod Deus haec omnia fecerit; non opinor eum esse tam excordem, ut Deum quae non noverat fecisse arbitretur. Porro, si noverat ea, priusquam faceret ea; profecto priusquam fierent, apud illum erant eo modo nota, quo sempiterne atque incommutabiliter vivunt, et vita sunt: facta autem eo modo, quo unaquaeque creatura in genere suo est.” 32 Gn. litt. 3.12.18. 33 Gn. litt. 3.12.18: “Non frustra etiam lectorem movet utrumne passim et quasi fortuito an aliqua ratione dicatur, secundum genus, tamquam fuerint et antea, cum primo creata narrentur: an genus eorum in superioribus rationibus intellegendum est, utique spiritalibus, secundum quas creantur inferius” (“The reader may also wonder, and not without justification, whether the phrase according to kind comes up again and again just by chance, as it were, or whether there is some meaning in it, as though they were already in existence beforehand, though the account of their creation is only now being given. Or can it be that ‘their kind’ is to be understood as being in the higher, that is of course the spiritual, ideas according to which they are created lower down the scale?”). 31 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 425 3:14.34 God does not have new thoughts; the stability of his eternal and unchangeable nature entails that all things first exist most fully in his simplicity and stability: Only that, you see, really and truly and primordially is, which always is the same way, and not only never changes but is absolutely incapable of changing. So without bringing into existence yet any of the things which he has made, he has all things primordially in himself in the same manner as he is [sicut ipse est]. After all, he would not make them unless he knew them before he made them; nor would he know them unless he saw them; nor would he see them unless he had them with him; and he would not have with him things that had not yet been made except in the manner in which he himself is not made.35 The divine ideas, then, exist in the divine mind as God himself exists (“sicut ipse est”)—simply, stably, and immutably.36 Augustine’s conception of divine simplicity precludes an account of God as antecedent to the divine ideas, as we are distinct and prior to our thoughts. Rather, the divine ideas exist in the manner that God himself exists: they share in the unity and simplicity of the divine nature. They are not called into being (non factus), but have their being as eternally begotten “in the manner in which [God] himself is not made.”37 Written into the fabric of existence, then, is a proximity, an immanence, between God and the creature that is radical (in the literal sense of the word). Although the divine substance is inexpressible, admits Augustine, it is “nearer to us than the many things which he made. For in him we live and move and are (Acts 17:28).”38 If creatures exist, not only in time and space, but more truly in God (apud Deum) (“He has all Gn. litt. 5.16.34. Gn. litt. 5.16.34: “Quoniam illud vere ac primitus est, quod eodem modo semper est, nec solum non commutatur, sed commutari omnino non potest; nihil horum quae fecit existens, et omnia primitus habens, sicut ipse est: neque enim ea faceret, nisi ea nosset antequam faceret; nec nosset, nisi videret; nec videret, nisi haberet; nec haberet ea quae nondum facta erant, nisi quemadmodum est ipse non factus.” 36 Augustine also calls the divine ideas rationes incommutabiles (Gn. litt.5.12.28) and divinae incommutabiles aeternaeque rationes (Gn. litt. 5.13.29). 37 Gn. litt. 5.16.34: “nec haberet ea quae nondum facta erant, nisi quemadmodum est ipse non factus” (“He would not have with him things that had not yet been made except in the manner in which he himself is not made.”). Cf. Gn. litt. 2.8.16: “illic non facta, sed genita” (“It was not made but begotten”). 38 Gn. litt. 5.16.34: “. . . tamen propinquior nobis est qui fecit, quam multa quae facta sunt. In illo enim vivimus, et movemur, et sumus.” 34 35 426 Gerald P. Boersma things primordially in himself in the same manner as he is”), then, concludes Augustine, God is nearer to his creatures than they can even be to each other. Augustine understands the notion of the divine ideas to underwrite the sungeneia between Creator and creature to which the Apostle Paul refers when he quotes the Greek poet, Aratos, “Τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν” (Acts 17:28). All things exist both in God as eternal ideas and in the fluid time-space continuum that their contingent nature occupies.39 Creation, for Augustine, lies precisely in this movement from the eternal rationes to the existence of mutable reality as we experience it. But here we put our finger on the nub of the problem, namely, the process or movement from the immutability of the divine ideas to the mutability of contingent being. How are the divine ideas iterated in time and space in a way that does not challenge the fact that God is “absolutely incapable of changing” (commutari omnino non potest)?40 The very language of “processes” and “movement” suggests a problem. It implies that the divine action of creation is sequential, an operation that has God involved in the distention of time. Recall that this is precisely what the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo sets up to avoid. God is not part of his creation; he is not part of the time-space continuum. God is not a builder who advances on his earlier work. It is incoherent to speak of an immutable God literally working for six days, as if he were part of the time he created. Rationes Seminales Augustine’s first line of response is to insist that creation is not a process or movement on God’s part.41 Creation occurs at once, simultaneously, in Cf. Evangelium Ioannem tractatus 1.17; De vera religione 22.42; De Genesi adversus Manichaeos 1.8.13; Epistle 14, no. 4; Gn. litt. 5.15.33; De Trinitate 4.1.3. In contrast to De ideis, Gn. litt. evinces little optimism about the human capacity to contemplate (and thereby ascend to) the divine ideas: “Nor is our human mind capable of seeing them where they are with God [apud Deum], in the archetypes [rationibus] according to which they were made, so that in this way we might know how many, how great and of what sort they are, even though we do not see them with the senses of the body. The fact is they are remote from our bodily sense, being so far way, or cut off from our observation and activity by the interposition of other bodies” (Gn. litt. 5.16.34: “Nec idonea est ipsa mens nostra, in ipsis rationibus quibus facta sunt, ea videre apud Deum, ut per hoc sciamus quot et quanta qualiaque sint, etiamsi non ea videamus per corporis sensus. Remota quippe sunt a sensibus corporis nostri, quoniam longe sunt, vel interpositis aut oppositis aliis a nostro contuitu actuque separantur”). 40 Gn. litt. 5.16.34. 41 Elsewhere, Augustine warns against crass, childish understandings of the creation narrative: “We are not to understand this [divine creation and rest] in a childish 39 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 427 an instantaneous and complete moment, in what Augustine terms an ictus (a sudden blow).42 This is essential to Augustine’s conception of the divine act in creation, and the recurring proof text in this regard is Sirach 18:1: “creavit omnia simul.”43 Nevertheless, in creating simultaneously God creates a world subject to constant change, diminution, and growth.44 At this point Augustine distinguishes between the rationes aeternae that I have discussed thus far as eternal ideas and the rationes seminales, which serve as the means of navigating the ontological aperture between the eternal rationes in the mind of God and creaturely existence that flows in and out of being. Creation is the finite expression of the divine ideas—rationes aeternae—that are themselves not made but are begotten in the eternity of the Word of God.45 Scripture delineates the simultaneous and instantaneous moment of creation by calling it a “day.” At the moment (“day”) of creation God implants creatures with their particular rationes seminales. Six times in the first chapter of Genesis this locution describing the action of creation (“day”) is repeated as an accommodation of Scripture to the simple-minded.46 God does not create in periods of time. The “days” of sense as though God labored at His task. For he ‘spake and it was done,’ with a word which was not audible and transient, but intelligible and eternal” (De civitate Dei 11.8, in The City of God Against the Pagans, trans. R. W. Dyson, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998]). 42 Augustine describes the creative act taking place in an ictus: “in ictu condendi” (Gn. litt. 4.33.51). Ictus has particular valence in Augustine’s theology. His enraptured moments of spiritual contemplation described in Confessions are similarly described as instantaneous and striking (ictus); see Confessions 7.1.1, 7.17.23, and 9.8.18. 43 Sirach 18:1 is quoted nineteen times in Gn. litt. The Septuagint reads, ἔκτισεν τὰ πάντα κοινῇ. 44 Augustine also demonstrates acute awareness of this tension elsewhere. In Confessions he states the problem succinctly: “And so in the Word that is coeternal with yourself, you say all that you say in simultaneity and eternity. . . . Yet, not all that you cause to exit by speaking is made in simultaneity and eternity” (Confessions 11.7.9; all English from Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991]). 45 See Gn. litt. 2.8.16. And yet, the rationes aeternae and the rationes seminales are related. Simon Oliver writes: “The eternal reasons that lie complete in the Word become the rationes seminales that are implanted in creation to unfold in due time according to the providential will of God” (“Augustine on Creation, Providence and Motion,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 18 [2016]: 390). Oliver later notes: “The rationes seminales are created expressions of the eternal reasons that lie in the Word or God’s Wisdom”(392). 46 Gn. litt. 4.33.52: “The one who made all things simultaneously together also made simultaneously these six or seven days, or together this one day six or seven times 428 Gerald P. Boersma creation refer to a mystical number and not to the circuit of the sun.47 Augustine distinguishes between two types of creatures made in the ictus of creation: the mutable and the immutable. Some creatures spoken into existence on that “day” share intimately in the Creator’s stability and immutability (like angels,48 the day itself,49 the firmament, the four elements, the stars, and the human soul50).51 Other creatures are manifestly unstable and mutable, namely, perceptible creation experienced all around us, which is born, develops, and then diminishes and dies. Mutable creation presents a challenge. How to account for the fact that Genesis describes God as finishing his creative work and as resting from all his labor, and the fact that new creatures are always coming in and out of being? Augustine explains that mutable creatures subject to the cycles of life are, like the immutable creation, fashioned simultaneously and instantaneously on that first moment (ictus/“day”) of creation. However, they are created in a mode that allows for their subsequent unfolding. At the moment of creation, those creatures that grow, mature, and die are implanted with their primordial seeds, which Augustine calls rationes causales or rationes seminales.52 These primordial causes are implanted like repeated. So then, what need was there for the six days to be recounted so distinctly and methodically? It was for the sake of those who cannot arrive at an understanding of the text, ‘he created all things together simultaneously’ [Sir 18:1,] unless Scripture accompanies them more slowly, step by step, to the goal to which it is leading them.” 47 Gn. litt. 4.26.43. 48 Gn. litt. 1.9.15; 2.8.16; cf. De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber 3. 6–10. 49 Gn. litt. 6.1.2. 50 Gn. litt. 7.24.35. 51 Cf.: De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber 3.6–9; Gn. litt. 1.9.15; 2.8.16–19; 6.1.2. 52 The rationes seminales are an important feature of Stoic and Neoplatonic cosmogony. Marcia Colish suggests the Neoplatonic background to Augustine’s treatment is overplayed and that in Augustine “this notion is fully Stoic”; see The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, vol 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 204. However, it is hard to miss the clear resonances with Plotinus, such as Ennead 2.3.16; 2.3.18; 2.7.3; 4.3.10; 4.3.13; 4.9.5; 5.1.5; 5.9.3; 5.9.6. Aimé Solignac seems correct in noting, “Augustine uses the Plotinian categories as technical instruments which allow him to construct and formulate his own metaphysics” (“Le Double moment de la création et les ‘raisons causale,’” Bibliothèque Augustinienne 48 [1972]: 664; translation mine). For the philosophical background to Augustine’s treatment of the rationes seminales see: Michel John McKeough, “The Meaning of the Rationes Seminales in Augustine” (PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 1926); Charles Boyer, “La théorie augustinienne des raisons séminales,” Miscellanea Agostiniana 28 (1931): 795–819; F. J. Thonnard, “Les raisons séminales selon The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 429 seeds that germinate later in time, moving the creature towards the particular end for which it was created. Augustine explains: The whole course of nature that we are so familiar with has certain natural laws of its own [naturales leges suas], according to which both the spirit of life which is a creature has drives and urges [appetitus] that are somehow predetermined [determinatos] and which even a bad will cannot bypass, and also the elements of this material world have their distinct energies and qualities [vim qualitatemque suam], which determine what each is or is not capable of, what can or cannot be made from which. It is from these base-lines of things, so to say, that whatever comes to be takes in its own particular time span, its risings and continued progress, its ends and its settings, according to the kind of thing [generis] it is. Hence the fact that beans are not produced from grains of wheat or wheat from beans, nor human being from cattle or cattle from human beings.53 Saint Augustin,” Proceedings of the XIth International Congress of Philosophy, Brussels, August 20–26, 1953 (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing, 1953), 12:146–52; Thonnard, “Razones seminales y formas substanciales: Augustismo y tomismo,” Sapientia 6 (1951): 262–72; Jules M. Brady, “St. Augustine’s Theory of Seminal Reasons,” New Scholasticism 38 (1964): 141–58. 53 Gn. litt. 9.17.32: “Omnis iste naturae usitatissimus cursus habet quasdam naturales leges suas, secundum quas et spiritus vitae, qui creatura est, habet quosdam appetitus suos determinatos quodammodo, quos etiam mala voluntas non possit excedere. Et elementa mundi huius corporei habent definitam vim qualitatemque suam, quid unumquodque valeat vel non valeat, quid de quo fieri possit vel non possit. Ex his velut primordiis rerum, omnia quae gignuntur, suo quoque tempore exortus processusque sumunt, finesque et decessiones sui cuiusque generis. Unde fit ut de grano tritici non nascatur faba, vel de faba triticum, vel de pecore homo, vel de homine pecus.” He continues here: “Super hunc autem motum cursumque rerum naturalem, potestas Creatoris habet apud se posse de his omnibus facere aliud, quam eorum quasi seminales rationes habent, non tamen id quod non in eis posuit ut de his fieri vel ab ipso possit. Neque enim potentia temeraria, sed sapientiae virtute omnipotens est; et hoc de unaquaque re in tempore suo facit, quod ante in ea fecit ut possit. Alius ergo est rerum modus quo illa herba sic germinat, illa sic; illa aetas parit, illa non parit; homo loqui potest, pecus non potest” (“But over and above this natural course and operation of things, the power of the creator has in itself the capacity to make from all these things something other than what their seminal formulae, so to say, prescribe—not however anything with which he did not so program them that it could be made from them at least by him. He is almighty, for sure, but with the strength of wisdom, not unprincipled might; and he makes from each thing in his own time what he first inscribed in it that he could make from it. So then there is one standard for things according to which this plant germinates in 430 Gerald P. Boersma Augustine describes the innate structures or “natural laws” woven deeply into the fabric of creaturely existence. One could look at these “laws” as “deterministic,” but they are simply expressive of the constitutive dimensions of a particular creature’s mode of existence. It is according to this instinctive and determinate “programming” that a fledgling takes up its wings or that a caterpillar blossoms into a butterfly. Simon Oliver expresses Augustine’s thesis on the rationes well: The rationes seminales establish the general direction of a creature’s motion towards a particular goal or purpose; by means of its rationes seminales, an acorn is set in motion towards the oak tree, the chick towards flight, the child towards learning and knowledge, and so on. Because these seeds are a creature’s principle and contain in potential form its telos, they are also the basis of creation’s intelligible motion in time because they establish a beginning and end. The potentialities within creatures are always defined by their orientation towards an actuality that is eternally established in the Word.54 The implantation of the ratio seminales in creaturely beings is distinct from the origin of the eternal rationes in the divine mind.55 Unlike the divine ideas, the rationes seminales are definitively creatures, distinct from the Creator. They allow for the unfolding of contingent being according to its nature and teleology. The rationes seminales give specificity to the mode of God’s sustaining providence, his ordered governance of creation: But these things too carry within them a repetition, so to say, of their very selves, invisible in some hidden power of reproduction, derived from those primordial causes of theirs, in which they were this way, that one in that, this age gives birth, that one does not, a human being can speak, an animal cannot”). 54 Oliver, “Augustine on Creation,” 387–88. 55 See Cornelius Mayer, “Creatio, creator, creatura,” in Augustinus-Lexikon, ed. Cornelius Mayer et al., 5 vols. (Basel: Schwabe, 1986–), 2:88: “Among the terms used by Augustine, ratio with the attribute causalis is the most appropriate, because it already indicates the conceptual proximity of the primeval seeds or the primordial seeds to the transcendent rationes aeternae, which in this way work into the world. The rationes causales are thus the objective correlates of the unchangeable ideas immersed in matter in the manner of shadowing (umbra), which, as created forces and energies, drive the development of organisms according to the programs inherent in them” (translation mine). The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 431 inserted into the world that was created “when the day was made,” before they ever burgeoned into the visible manifestations of their specific nature.56 Creation is good, but unfinished.57 The rationes seminales, then, are the principles by which God’s animating presence (or creatio continua) directs each element of creation, “from within,” towards its particular and proper end.58 As such, the rationes seminales are not material realities. They are not physical seeds implanted in an organism. Rather, they are intelligible causes responsible for the structural laws evident in creation. The rationes seminales explain the diversity, integrity, and intelligibility of all creation, which moves in predictable, orderly patterns of spatial and temporal development.59 Augustine is intent on eradicating any material conception of the rationes seminales. He admits that it is hard to conceptualize creation as first established invisibly in the rationes seminales and later visibly expressing itself as it unfurls in its particular created manner. The rationes seminales are in important ways different from a fetus or a seed: they are not any sort of physical datum, but an immaterial explans of causality: “Seeds do provide some sort of comparison [similitudo] with this, on account of the growth to come that are bound up with them; before all seeds, nonetheless are those causes.”60 Fundamentally, the ratio Gn. litt. 6.10.17: “Sed etiam ista secum gerunt tamquam iterum seipsa invisibiliter in occulta quadam vi generandi, quam extraxerunt de illis primordiis causarum suarum, in quibus creato mundo cum factus est dies, antequam in manifestam speciem sui generis exorerentur, inserta sunt.” 57 Rowan Williams writes, “Creation is the constant process of realizing potential goods” (“‘Good For Nothing’? Augustine on Creation,” Augustinian Studies 25 (1994):18. 58 The rationes seminales allow Augustine to affirm that God does not create the world as a “place” outside of himself. They are the means of the divine creatio continua, of God’s ongoing creative work: “Some people think of God as if he were a human being or a power immanent in a vast mass which, by some new and sudden decision external to itself, as if located in remote places, made heaven and earth” (Confessions 12.27.37). But God does not create the world as “external” to himself. Unlike a human carpenter, explains Augustine, who fashions a chest external to himself, God creates the world from within: “God is present in the world he is fashioning, he does not stand aside from it and handle the matter he is working on, so that say, from the outside. He makes what he makes by the presence of his majesty; by his presence he governs what he has made” (Evangelium Ioannem tractatus 2.10, in Homilies on the Gospel of John 1–40, trans. Edmund Hill, WSA I/40 (New York: New City, 2009). 59 See Mayer, “Creatio, creator, creatura,” 2:86. 60 Gn. litt. 6.6.11: “Neque enim vel tale aliquid homo iam erat, cum in prima illa sex 56 432 Gerald P. Boersma nes seminales are immaterial and, as such, invisible.61 To recapitulate, Augustine understands mutable creation—the expression of the divine ideas (or the rationes aeternae) in time and space—to be a two-step process (not temporally, but logically). On the “day” of creation, God fashions creatures in their rationes seminales, the primordial causal potencies of all things, so that mutable creatures are first established by God “from within,” according to their rationes seminales, “invisibly, potentially, in their causes, in the way things are made when they have not yet been made in actual fact.”62 Second, God providentially governs, “from without,” the unfolding of times and seasons by which we experience the created order: All species, whether animals or grasses or trees, take their rise, to run through their time-governed measures and numbers [agant temporales numeros] as allotted to their particular natures [naturis propriis]. All the primordial seeds, I mean to say, from which every kind of flesh or fruit is born, are moist and grow and develop out of dierum conditione factus erat. Datur quidem de seminibus ad hanc rem nonnulla similitudo, propter illa quae in eis futura conserta sunt; verumtamen ante omnia visibilia semina sunt illae causae.” The comparison (similitudo) of a seed and its germination is something to which Augustine often resorts: “Now just as all these elements, which in the course of time and in due order would constitute a tree, were all invisibly and simultaneously present [invisibiliter erant omnia simul] in that grain, so too that is how, when God created all things simultaneously [simul omnia creavit], the actual cosmos is to be thought of as having had simultaneously all the things that were made in it and with it when the day was made (Gen 2:4). This does not only mean the sky, with the sun and the moon and the stars . . . and the earth and the deeps of the abyss. . . . It also includes those things that water and earth produced potentially in their causes [produxit potentialiter atque causaliter], before they could evolve (exorerentur) through intervals of time, as they are now known to us in the works on which God is continuing to work until now ( John 5:17)” (Gn. litt. 5.23.45). 61 Cf. Mayer, “Creatio, creator, creatura,” 2:88. Augustine describes the rationes seminales as “absconditae causales rationes omnium rerum naturaliter oriturarum” (“The causal formulae of all things that are going to take their rise in a natural way are hidden”; Gn. litt. 9.18.34). He writes: “In quibus omnibus ea iam facta modos et actus sui temporis acceperunt, quae ex occultis atque invisibilibus rationibus, quae in creatura causaliter latent” (“In all these cases things already made received the characteristic activities of their own proper time, which came forth in manifest forms and natures from the secret formulae that are causally latent in creation”; Gn. litt. 6.10.17). 62 Gn. litt. 6.6.10: “. . . invisibiliter, potentialiter, causaliter, quomodo fiunt futura non facta.” The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 433 moisture. But they have within them the most efficacious numbers, which bring along with them potentialities consequent upon those perfect works of God, from which he rested on the seventh day.63 There is a “being made” that continues after the initial, invisible, simultaneous establishment of all creatures. This creatio continua is the unfolding of creatures according to their rationes seminales. The two distinct creation narratives of the first two chapters of Genesis invite this account of the two-step process of creation through the unfolding of the rationes seminales. The drumbeat of the first narrative (Gen 1:1–2:3) with its tripartite formula (“And God said, ‘Let it be made’”; “And thus it was made”; “And God saw it was good”) refers to the simultaneous and instantaneous creation of that “day.”64 The second narrative, which begins when “no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up” (Gen 2:5), relates the burgeoning of the rationes seminales in their particular mode of existence coming “out of the ground” (Gen 2:7; 2:9; 2:19).65 Throughout De Genesi ad Litteram Augustine pairs two seemingly opposed texts: first, that “heaven and earth and all their arrangements were finished. . . . And God rested from all his works” (Gen 2:1–3) and, second, that God “is working until now” (John 5:17). The rationes seminales allow Augustine to affirm both sides of this equation: God completed his work of creation and continues to create by the providential unfolding of the original works of creation. He writes, God worked in one way with all creatures at their first establishment [prima conditione], works from which he rested on the seventh day, and in another at their management and regulation [administrationem] at which he is working until now (John 5:17), that is, that he then worked at making all things simultaneously [simul)], without any intervals or periods of time between, while now he works through periods of time.66 Gn. litt. 5.7.20: “Et recte ab eo coepit elemento, ex quo cuncta genera nascuntur vel animalium, vel herbarum atque lignorum, ut agant temporales numeros suos naturis propriis distributos. Omnia quippe primordia seminum, sive unde omnis caro, sive unde omnia fruteta gignuntur, humida sunt, et ex humore concrescunt. Insunt autem illis efficacissimi numeri, trahentes secum sequaces potentias ex illis perfectis operibus Dei, a quibus in die septimo requievit.” 64 See Gn. litt. 2.6.11–12. 65 See Gn. litt. 5.4.7–11. 66 Gn. litt. 5.11.27: “Aliter operatum Deum omnes creaturas prima conditione, a 63 434 Gerald P. Boersma At the first moment of time, God implanted the rationes seminales, the “power” (virtutem) by which life is generated and reproduced according its kind: “Things which were going to be realized in the course of time had already been made, if I may so put it, in the roots of time.”67 Mutable creation, which is subject to time, is rooted in seminales “before” time. Thus, in that “day” when creation was fashioned simultaneously it was, in one sense, complete (“he set up no new kind of nature”), but also still needing completion (“directing the ones which he had already set in place”), in that it was only just set in its course of motion.68 Augustine writes: Completely finished [consummate], indeed, because they have nothing in their natural manner of running their courses in time which was not made causally in that primordial creation; started off [inchoata], however, since they were seeds in a sense of future realities [quasi semina futurorum] determined to germinate in the suitable places from hidden obscurity into the manifest light of day through the course of the ages.69 In short, the very same works of God were both finished and started on that “day.”70 Augustine can conclude that it is true both that God rested on the seventh day from work he completed—there was nothing further to create—and started his work of creation by implanting the causes to be unfolded.71 quibus operibus in die septimo requievit; aliter ista eorum administrationem, qua usque nunc operatur: id est, tunc omnia simul sine ullis temporalium morarum intervallis; nunc autem per temporum moras.” Cf. Gn. litt. 4.12.23; 5.4.11: “But he creates these things now from those that are already there, while then things were created by him when they had been absolutely non-existent, when that day was made which had also itself been absolutely non-existent, namely the spiritual and intellectual creation.” 67 Gn. litt. 5.4.11: “In ea quippe iam tamquam in radicibus, ut ita dixerim, temporum facta erant, quae per tempora futura erant.” 68 Gn. litt. 4.12.23. 69 Gn. litt. 6.11.18: “Consummata quidem quia nihil habent illa in naturis propriis, quibus suorum temporum cursus agunt, quod non in istis causaliter factum sit; inchoata vero, quoniam quaedam erant quasi semina futurorum, per saeculi tractum ex occulto in manifestum locis congruis exserenda.” 70 Gn. litt. 6.11.18: “Nam et consummata ea dicit et inchoate.” 71 Gn. litt. 6.11.19. The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 435 The Rationes Seminales: Expressions of Measure and Number and Weight Wisdom 11:20 is the axial text for Augustine’s account of the rationes seminales: “You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight.”72 However, the relation between the rationes seminales and Wisdom 11:20 has received little scholarly attention. Mensura, numerus, and pondus function as the register of the rationes seminales, expressing the particular mode of each form of creaturely existence. Measure gives a species its limit; it delineates the boundaries of a particular nature, establishing its mode of being in the world. Mensura is thus what determines a chickadee as a chickadee. The “measure” inscribed in the rationes seminales precludes the scene imagined by Dr. Seuss in which the elephant Horton faithfully broods on an abandoned egg. Horton is shocked to discover that he has hatched an elephant-bird!73 Rather, mensura ensures continuity of species within the changes of time: cows give birth to cows, dogs to dogs, and orangutans to orangutans. Mensura proper to the rationes seminales is analogous (but in an immaterial mode) to the shared DNA of a species: it is “the secret formulae that are causally latent in creation.”74 “Number” refers to the harmonious order and proportion of a creature. It suggests a deep-seated coherence, a fundamental congruency of the creature’s parts in relation to the whole. Numerus is the predictable, patterned character of creaturely existence, providing order to creation and allowing for both scientific investigation and aesthetic admiration.75 Finally, “weight” is the pull of all things to their proper end. Pondus refers to the teleological character of creaturely existence, that is, the innate desire of each thing to seek “rest” See: Gn. litt. 2.1.1; 4.3.7–4.5.11; 9.15.24. See the following discussion: W. J. Roche, “Measure, Number and Weight in St. Augustine,” New Scholasticism 15 (1941): 350–76; Rowan Williams, “Good for Nothing”; Carol Harrison, Beauty and Revelation in the Thought of St. Augustine (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 101–10; Scott Dunham, The Trinity and Creation in Augustine (New York: State University of New York Press, 2008), 92–99. 73 See Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches the Egg (New York: Random House, 1940). 74 Gn. litt. 6.10.17: “. . . quae ex occultis atque invisibilibus rationibus, quae in creatura causaliter latent.” 75 See Gn. litt. 5.5.14: On the third day of creation vegetation is established “by receiving in itself all their numbers, which it would extrude through the periods of time proper to each kind of plant.” So too, the animals that swim and fly, mentioned on the fifth day, were established “potentially in their numbers, which were to be extruded through suitable timed moments.” Finally, the land animals were called forth, “but still nonetheless potentially, for their numbers to be visibly unfolded by time later on.” 72 436 Gerald P. Boersma or stability in its end.76 For rational creatures, Augustine famously notes, pondus is amor; love is the weight by which we are pulled to whatever we desire. The will seeks rest, peace, and stability in that which it loves.77 In De Trinitate 3.16 Augustine provides a rich summation of his understanding of the place of rationes seminales in the work of creation: It is one thing, after all, to establish and administer creation from the inmost and supreme pivot of all causes [intimo ac summo causarum], and the one who does that is God the sole creator; it is another matter to apply activity from outside, in virtue of power and capacities distributed by him, so that the thing being created turns out like this or like that. All things around us have been seminally and primordially created in the very fabric, as it were, or texture of the elements; but they require the right occasion actually to emerge into being. For the world itself, like mothers heavy with young, is heavy with the causes of things that are coming to birth; but these things are only created in it by that supreme being in which nothing is born or dies, nothing begins or ceases to be. But to apply secondary causes to things from outside, which even if they are not natural are applied all the same according to nature, and so to make things which lie hidden and secreted in nature’s bosom burst forth and be created openly, by unfolding the measures and numbers and weights—which have been secretly assigned to them by him who has arranged all things in measure and number and weight (Wis 11:20)—this is something which bad men can do no less than bad angels, as I have showed above in the case of agriculture.78 Pondus attests to Aristotle’s claim that all things “must be for the sake of something” (Phys. 198b32–199a8). Simon Oliver writes, “The ‘weight’ of creatures is their desire for the fulfilment of their formal natures; that ‘weight’ carries them to particular ends. Through form, they constantly seek stability, order and rest within the complex negotiations of creaturely motions within the cosmic order.” Oliver, “Augustine on Creation,” 396. 77 Cf. Gn. litt. 4.3.8 and Confessions 13.9.10. 78 De Trinitate 3.16: 16: “Aliud est enim ex intimo ac summo causarum cardine condere atque administrare creaturam, quod qui facit solus Creator est Deus; aliud autem pro distributis ab illo viribus et facultatibus aliquam operationem forinsecus admovere ut tunc vel tunc sic vel sic exeat quod creatur. Ista quippe originaliter ac primordialiter in quadam textura elementorum cuncta iam creata sunt sed acceptis opportunitatibus prodeunt. Nam sicut matres gravidae sunt fetibus, sic ipse mundus gravidus est causis nascentium quae in illo non creantur nisi ab illa summa essentia ubi nec oritur nec moritur aliquid nec incipit esse nec desinit. Adhibere autem forinsecus accedentes causas quae tametsi non sunt naturales 76 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 437 As in De Genesi ad litteram (but with more specificity), Augustine distinguishes here between the initial establishment of all things at the moment of creation and their subsequent unfolding according to their rationes seminales. In De Trinitate 3.16 we see Augustine distinguish two modes of divine causality. God creates “from within,” so to speak, at the instantaneous and simultaneous moment of creation. However, by endowing creation in their rationes seminales with certain powers and capacities (viribus et facultatibus), rational creatures are able to perceive the nature, order, and purpose of creation and “from without” (forinsecus) use and apply each creature’s divinely ordained measure, number, and weight.79 By discovering and harnessing these innate “powers and capacities” in nature, humanity can work towards “the relief of man’s estate.” The world “is heavy with the causes of things,” notes Augustine. These “causes” are the innate intelligibility, order, and purpose latent in the very “fabric” of the elements, which allows human beings to use, produce, and work with that which nature provides. (Augustine gives the example of agriculture.) The rationes causales, latent in creation, can be discovered and used (for good or ill) to serve human ends (e.g., the tamen secundum naturam adhibentur ut ea quae secreto naturae sinu abdita continentur erumpant quodam modo et foris creentur explicando mensuras et numeros et pondera sua quae in occulto acceperunt ab illo qui omnia in mensura et numero et pondere disposuit, non solum mali angeli sed etiam mali homines possunt sicut exemplo agriculturae supra docui” (Latin from Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 50; English from The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill, WSA I/5 [Hyde Park, NY: New City, 1991]). 79 See Gn. litt. 8.26.48, where Augustine similarly explains that the immutable and eternal God creates internally outside of time that which he moves externally within time: “By such movement he administers outwardly the natures which he set in place inwardly” (“ut eo motu naturas quas intrinsecus substituit, etiam extrinsecus administret”). Creation is providentially governed in time and space according to rationes aeternae outside of time and space in God’s eternity (“eo tempore ac loco cuius ratio in ipso Deo vita est sine tempore ac loco”). Augustine continues: “But we should realize that in the operation of divine providence these things do not happen in the operation by which he creates natures, but in the one by which he also administers externally the natures he has created internally. This is because by his immutable and surpassing power, not in any local or spatial sense, he is both interior to every single thing, because in him are all things (Rom 11:36), and exterior to every single thing because he is above all things” (“sed in opere divinae providentiae ista cognoscere; non in illo opere quo naturas creat, sed in illo quo intrinsecus creatas etiam extrinsecus administrat, cum sit ipse, nullo locorum vel intervallo vel spatio, incommutabili excellentique potentia et interior omni re, quia in ipso sunt omnia, et exterior omni re, quia ipse est super omnia”). 438 Gerald P. Boersma internal-combustion engine, the electric grid, the bicycle, etc.).80 Augustine’s account of causality extends far beyond the simple recognition that God sets the world in motion; rather, God implants and then sustains such motio in an ordered teleological manner (in measure, number, and weight). The language of motion is critical. In De Genesi ad litteram 5.20.41 Augustine describes the rationes seminales as the “hidden power” by which God “sets the whole of creation in motion.”81 Constellations circle, winds blow, water is stirred, greenage grows, animals reproduce. All manner of creaturely existence is “whirled around with that movement”; but whirled in an ordered, purposeful, and intelligible manner according to the measure, number, and weight implanted in their rationes seminales.82 The rationes seminales provide the teleological ordering of movement along what Augustine describes as “tracks” (cursus) by which God “unwinds the ages which he has as it were folded into the universe when it was first set up.”83 Augustine, like Francis Bacon, speaks of accessing nature’s secrets. The inherent intelligibility (numerus) of the created order awaits discovery, which can be harnessed to serve human ends. For Bacon, such knowledge is equivalent with power: the novum organum (the “new instrument”) is the scientific method that will at last realize humanity’s totalizing control over nature. Bacon intends the novum organum to replace the cumbersome metaphysical and teleological scientific method inherited from Aristotle. Bacon (in-)famously describes this method as putting nature on the rack to force out her secrets. Augustine also describes nature containing secrets hid in her womb, which, when uncovered, burst forth with utility. However, unlike Bacon, Augustine retains a richly textured metaphysical and teleological substructure in his account of nature. The novum organum only takes efficient causality within its purview. By contrast, Augustine’s theology of creation not only recognizes the utility of nature’s intelligible structures (i.e., numerus), but also attends to nature’s formal cause (i.e., mensura), which gives expression to its particular nature and its final cause (i.e., pondus), whereby nature expresses its telos. Further, Augustine’s participatory ontology remains cognizant of the fact that creaturely causality is dependent on (and answerable to) God’s creative causality. Creaturely measure, number, and weight is the mode of participation in the eternal measure, number, and weight that is the Holy Trinity. In short, while both Augustine and Bacon speak of discovering and using nature’s secrets, Augustine’s understanding of the place of the rationes seminales in creation entails a richer account of causality and an account of created nature that is less mechanistic and better metaphysically informed than that of Bacon. 81 Gn. litt. 5.20.41. 82 Gn. litt. 5.20.41. 83 Gn. litt. 5.20.41: “And so by his hidden power [occulta potentia] he sets the whole of his creation in motion, and while it is whirled around with that movement, while angels carry out his orders, while the constellations circle round their courses, while the winds change, while the abyss of waters is stirred by tides and 80 The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 439 The Rationes Seminales and Participation I noted at the outset that the challenge for any traditional account of creation is how to parse the Creator–creature relation in a way that neither results in subsuming God into his creation (immanentism) nor divinizes creation such that it is understood to be an extension of the divine life (emanation). Augustine navigates this impasse through an account of participation to which the rationes seminales offer precision: the rationes seminales, inscribed at the moment of creation, express the measure, number, and weight of the creature, whereby it shares in the measure, number, and weight of God himself. In this respect, Augustine’s account of created ontology goes beyond a simple appeal to “participation.” Augustine gives Trinitarian specificity to how the rationes seminales participate in and express the rationes aeternae of the divine mind. Augustine made this connection very early in his thinking on Genesis. Already in De Genesi contra Manichaeos (388) Augustine points to unattractive creatures (mice, frogs, flies, and worms) and insists that they too disclose and participate in divine structure, intelligibility, and finality: “There is not a single living creature, after all, in whose body I will not find, when I reflect upon it, that its measures and numbers and order are geared to a harmonious unity. Where these should all come from I cannot conceive, unless it be from the supreme measure and number and order which are identical with the unchanging and eternal sublimity of God himself.”84 Creaturely coherence, agitated by cyclones and waterspouts even through the air, while green things pullulate and evolve their own seeds, while animals are produced and lead their various lives, each kind according to its bent, while the wicked are permitted to vex the just, he unwinds the ages which he had as it were folded into the universe when it was first set up. These, however, would not go on being unwound along their tracks [cursus], if the one who set them going stopped moving them on by his provident regulation.” 84 De Genesi adversus Manichaeos 1.16.26: “Non enim animalis alicuius corpus et membra considero, ubi non mensuras et numeros et ordinem inveniam ad unitatem concordiae pertinere. Quae omnia unde veniant non intellego, nisi a summa mensura et numero et ordine, quae in ipsa Dei sublimitate incommutabili atque aeterna consistunt.” (trans. Edmund Hill in WSA I/13). Towards the end of the same paragraph Augustine repeats this formula: “In all of them, though, when you observe their measures and numbers and order, look for the craftsman; and you won’t find any other but the one with whom the supreme measure and supreme number and supreme order is to be found, and that is God, about whom it says what is so absolutely true, that he has arranged all things in measure and number and weight (Wis 11:20)” (“Non enim animalis alicuius corpus et membra considero, ubi non mensuras et numeros et ordinem inveniam ad unitatem concordiae pertinere. Quae omnia unde veniant non intellego, nisi a summa mensura 440 Gerald P. Boersma intelligibility, and finality are causally predicated—they are reflective of the divine life in which they participate. In Augustine’s thought, each of the divine persons is identified with measure, number, or weight.85 The Father is the origin and end of all things; he is identified with measure. The Son, as the eternal Word in whom all things are created, is identified with number. The harmonious proportion, structure, and intelligibility of creation are the finite expression of the divine ideas eternally “numbered” in the Word. Finally, the Holy Spirit, as the presence of God animating and directing creation, is the “weight” guiding each creature to the ends for which it is made. For rational creation, love is the pondus by which the Holy Spirit draws the creature to rest in God. This is, of course, not to suggest that both God and the creature “have” measure, number, and weight: God is the measure, number, and weight that the creature has or (better) in which he participates. God endows his creatures, through the rationes seminales, with a participation in the measure, number, and weight that is the divine life itself. Thus, while creation is divinely arranged according to measure, number, and weight, originally these three are themselves not arranged (disposita).86 They are not qualities God “has.” Rather, God is the mensura, numerus, and pondus, which defines, forms, and directs all things: Insofar as measure sets a limit to everything, and number gives everything its specific form, and weight draws everything to rest and stability, he is the original, true and unique measure which defines for all things their bounds, the number which forms all things, the weight which guides all things.87 et numero et ordine, quae in ipsa Dei sublimitate incommutabili atque aeterna consistunt”). 85 See: Oliver, “Augustine on Creation,” 395; Dunham, Trinity and Creation, 95–99; Harrison, Beauty and Revelation, 109, and Olivier du Roy, L’Intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon Saint Augustin (Paris: Etudes Augustiniènnes, 1966). 86 Gn. litt. 4.4.10: “Non itaque dubitandum est illa esse extra ea quae disposita sunt, in quibus omnia disposita sunt” (“So then there can be no doubt that these three in which all things were arranged were not themselves among the things that were arranged”). 87 Gn. litt. 4.3.7: “Secundum id vero quod mensura omni rei modum praefigit, et numerus omni rei speciem praebet, et pondus omnem rem ad quietem ac stabilitatem trahit, ille primitus et veraciter et singulariter ista est, qui terminat omnia et format omnia, et ordinat omnia.” The Rationes Seminales in Augustine’s Theolog y of Creation 441 The relation between creaturely measure, number and weight and the mensura, numerus, and pondus that is God himself is a causal relation: But the measure without measure is the standard for what derives from it, while it does not itself derive from anything else; the number without number, by which all things are formed, is not formed itself; the weight without weight to which are drawn, in order to rest there, those whose rest is pure joy is not itself drawn to anything else beyond it.88 To say that the relation proper to the act of creation is “causal” entails a necessary degree of likeness within a much greater degree of unlikeness. It is Augustine’s account of participation—more particularly, creaturely participation through the rationes seminales in the divine mensura, numerus, and pondus—that affirms creaturely likeness within an infinitely greater unlikeness and thereby avoids both immanentism and emanation. God is not in the same “system” as his creatures; the ontological gulf between Creator and creature is infinite. Nevertheless, the measured, numbered, and weighed character of creation is a derived reflection of measure, number, and weight itself. God and the creature do not share essential features. Nevertheless, the language of cause and effect invites a discourse (subsequently termed “analogy”) that takes the intelligible and purposeful character of creation as disclosing something truthful about the divine nature and the divine act of creation. Augustine’s account of the rationes seminales enable him to affirm both the underlying principle of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, namely, that the Creator and the creature do not share a univocal predication of being, and the fact that God is intimately present to his creatures. In Augustine’s phrasing God’s creative N&V presence is interior intimo meo et superior summo meo.89 Gn. litt. 4.4.8: “Mensura autem sine mensura est, cui aequatur quod de illa est, nec aliunde ipsa est: numerus sine numero est, quo formantur omnia, nec formatur ipse: pondus sine pondere est, quo referuntur ut quiescant, quorum quies purum gaudium est, nec illud iam refertur ad aliud.” 89 Augustine, Confessions 3.6.11. 88 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 443–459 443 Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode1 Emmanuel Durand, O.P. Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Rome It seems futile to seek to formalize, under one integrating concept or another, the way in which divine revelation operates. The biblical testimony of revelation is so diverse and multi-faceted that it would be illusory to define the mode of Revelation by one, univocal, theoretical model. Although revelation does not identify strictly with biblical texts alone, the diversity of literary genres in the Bible shows the schema of the transmission of revelation, as well as the diversity and “thickness” of the literary mediations used by God and the sacred authors.2 Why should we force the fragmented and colourful variations of the word of God—transmitted by way of myths, narratives, laws and prohibitions, prophetic oracles, chronicles, songs and psalms, tales, proverbs, speeches of wisdom, and so on—into a single mode of operation? Nonetheless, it seems possible to describe a certain mode par excellence of revelation’s operation as found in its Christological fulfillment. This is the perfected mode of revelation, in the expectation of the eschatological revelation. If such a mode exists, it should be characterized as having a high degree of harmony with previous stages of revelation. Identifying such a mode could invite us to link the different genres of revelation together which, in the earlier stages, seemed isolated or estranged from one another. This perfected mode, in light of Dei Verbum, appears to be sacramental in nature. Translation by Michael Culhane of ”Concevoir la Révélation sous un mode sacramental,” Science et Esprit, 68/2–3 (2016) 191–205. 2 See Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, §§11–12. 1 444 Emmanuel Durand, O.P. We will first define such a mode, and then we will proceed to two relevant New Testament illustrations, one from Mark and one from John, before demonstrating that they allow for bypassing two formal dichotomies taken from theologies of revelation. Our purpose here is not to work out the genesis of Dei Verbum (except perhaps incidentally) by comparing the novelty of its concept of revelation to those which preceded it (notably in the First Vatican Council’s constitution Dei Filius or in the encyclical Humani Generis of Pius XII). This is today largely known and investigated elsewhere.3 Our objective is rather to promote an act of reception and synthesizing in the field of fundamental theology. We are seeking to draw out a concept of revelation as expressed in Dei Verbum, in keeping its formulation more explicitly homogenous with the testimonies of literary forms in the Gospels. Revelation as Sacramentality: Attempting a Definition The study of Dei Verbum [DV] divulges a characteristic feature of revelation that we can call “sacramental structure.” In the first instance, such a structure is based on the close interaction between the words and the actions of God in revelation, by analogy with the close connection of the words and the human actions of the sacraments of the Christian faith, such as baptism, the Eucharist, and so on. However, the analogy goes further: in the same way that the sacramental words and signs confer the grace they signify, the revealing words and actions communicate the mystery they designate. It is possible to show this from Dei Verbum. The combination of words with actions, deeds or signs, is found in four meaningful places in Dei Verbum. It occurs from the outset as a constant in the economy of revelation (DV §2). It then comes back to qualify the fulfillment of revelation by Christ (DV §4). The pattern then returns again on two more occasions: first, with respect to God’s revelation in the Old Testament (DV §14), and second, in Christ’s manifestation of the Father and of himself, as demonstrated in the New Testament (DV §17). The occurrences of the association between verba and gesta (plus opera and facta) are thus distributed in a significant and consistent way, as seen in this table with terms of mediation in italics and terms of referents in bold. See Christoph Theobald, “L’Église sous la Parole de Dieu,” in Histoire du concile Vatican II (1959–1965), vol. 5, Concile de transition, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo (Paris: Cerf; Louvain: Peeters, 2005), 337–437. 3 Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode Latin 4 445 English4 Haec Revelationis oeconomia fit gestis verbisque intrinsece inter se connexis, ita ut opera, in historia salutis a Deo DV §2 (Law of ) patrata, doctrinam et res Economy verbis significatas manifestent ac corroborent, verba autem opera proclament et mysterium in eis contentum elucident. This economy of Revelation is realized by deeds and words, which are intrinsically bound up with each other. As a result, the works performed by God in the history of salvation show forth and bear out the doctrine and realities signified by the words; the words, for their part, proclaim the works, and bring to light the mystery they contain. Quapropter Ipse, quem qui videt, videt et Patrem (cf. Io 14,9), tota Suiipsius praesentia ac manifestatione, verbis et operibus, signis et miraculis, praesertim autem morte sua et gloriosa ex mortuis DV §4 resurrectione, misso (Revelation Made tandem Spiritu veritatis, by Christ) Revelationem complendo perficit ac testimonio divino confirmat, Deus nempe nobiscum esse ad nos ex peccati mortisque tenebris liberandos et in aeternam vitam resuscitandos. As a result, he [ Jesus] himself— to see whom is to see the Father (cf. Jn 14:9)—completed and perfected Revelation and confirmed it with divine guarantees. He did this by the total fact of his presence and self-manifestation—by words and works, signs and miracles, but above all by his death and glorious resurrection from the dead, and finally by sending the Spirit of truth. He revealed that God was with us, to deliver us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to eternal life. Unless otherwise noted, translations of Dei Verbum are drawn from Vatican Council II, vol. 1, The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery (Northport, NY: Costello, 1998). 446 Emmanuel Durand, O.P. DV §14 (OT) Foedere enim cum Abraham (cf. Gen 15.18) and cum plebs Israel per Moysen (cf. Ex 24.8) inito, populo sibi acquisito console. ita Se tamquam unicum Deum verum et vium verbis ac gestis revelavit, ut Israel, quae divinae essent cum hominibus viae experiretur, easque, ipso Deo per os Prophetarum loquente, penitius et clarius in dies intelligeret atque latius in gentes exhiberet. By his covenant with Abraham (cf. Gn 15:18) and, through Moses, with the race of Israel (cf. Ex 24:8), he did acquire a people for himself, and to them he revealed himself in words and deeds as the one, true, living God, so that Israel might experience the ways of God with men. Moreover, by listening to the voice of God speaking to them through the prophets, they had daily to understand his ways more fully and more clearly, and make them more widely known among the nations. DV §17 (NT) Christus Regnum Dei in terris instauravit, factis et verbis Patrem suum ac Seipsum manifestavit, atque morte, ressurrectione et gloriosa ascensione missioneque Spiritus Sancti opus suum complevit. Christ established on earth the kingdom of God, revealed his Father and himself by deeds and words; and by his death, resurrection and glorious ascension, as well by the sending of the Holy Spirit, completed his work. In each of these paragraphs, it is possible to distinguish between two levels: mediations referents. By “mediation,” I mean that which belongs to the order of the economy and of the manifestation; by “referent,” that to which the economy gives access or that which is made present through manifestation. A snapshot of the interplay between the mediations and their referents is shown in the following table. Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode Mediations DV §2 (Law of economy) deeds & words works → words words → works 447 Referents → doctrine & realities . . . signified (by the words) → mystery . . . contained (in the works) DV §4 (Revelation made by Christ) presence & selfmanifestation ← Jesus Christ himself words & works signs & miracles death & resurrection sending of the Holy Spirit → Revelation . . . completed God is with us . . . confirmed DV §14 (OT) words & deeds DV §17 (NT) deeds & words → the Father and Christ himself death, resurrection, ascension sending of the Holy Spirit → the work [of salvation] of Christ [God very loving] → the one, true, living, God Let us explain our analysis. The law of economy expressed in DV §2 is the most elaborate with respect to the sacramental mode of revelation.5 We The sentence starting with haec revelationis oeconomia comes in with the second version of the schema of divina Revelatione (1964), and remains almost stable, with the exception of the word res, which will be changed from the singular (rem) to the plural (res); see Acta Synodalia: Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II [AS], 3/3:71. For a synopsis of the four stages of the schema, see Concilii Vaticani II Synopsis: Constitutio Apostolica de dogmatica of Divina Revelatione Dei Verbum, ed, Francisco G. Hellìn (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993), 18–21. On the reception of DV §2, see: Helmut Hoping, “Theologischer Kommentar zur dogmatischen Konstitution über die göttliche Offenbarung Dei Verbum,” in Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, ed. Peter Hünermann & Bernd J. Hilberath, vol. 3 (Freiburg: Herder, 2005), 696–831; Javier Prades López, “La formula ‘gestis verbisque intrinsece inter se connexis’ y su recepción a los 40 años of Dei Verbum,” Revista Española de Teologia 66, no. 4 (2006): 489–513; Christoph Theobald, Dans le traces de la constitution Dei Verbum du concile Vatican II: Bible, théologie et pratiques de lecture, Cogitatio Fidei 5 448 Emmanuel Durand, O.P. could have expected a simple qualification for the connection between words and actions: the words deliver the meaning of the actions, and the actions attest to the reliability of the words. In the evocation or the reception of the phrase gestis verbisque in DV §2, the complementarity between actions and words is often brought up, without highlighting the background: doctrina, res, mysterium.6 However, the model advanced by DV §2 is much richer. Actions and words do not solely form a double interaction. The synergy between actions and words is presented as the double mediation of the economy of revelation, but it is immediately translated in terms of consequences of two intermeshing lines, one which starts with works and the other which starts with words. In summary, let us break down the two proposals of the text: the works . . . show forth and bear out the doctrines and realities signified by the words the words . . . proclaim the works, and bring to light the mystery they contain In the first line, the deeds and the words cooperate in the designation of the teaching and the realities. This is the doctrine of salvation and salvific realities. In the second line, the words designate the works (deeds) and, through them, the mystery they contain. In the two sequences, to go back to the initial terminology, actions and words do not simply refer to one another in a simple schema, namely that of manifestation and signification. Rather, actions and words provide access to another level: that of the doctrine of salvation, salvific realities and the mystery. We can, therefore, move forward in our definition of the sacramental structure of revelation: (1) Words and actions (or deeds, or signs) are paired together and operate in synergy. (2) Words and actions make the mystery 270 (Paris: Cerf, 2009). The brief relatio connected with §2 in the schema of 1964 was already moving in this direction, without mentioning the depth (AS, 3/3:75). The complete relatio delivered by Cardinal Florit affixed qualifiers specifically to revelation by works (opera) and by words (verba); it is historica and sacramentalis (AS, 3/3:134). We propose here a more comprehensive understanding, and not less accurate, of the “sacramental” mode of revelation, meaning not only the interaction of gesta and verba but also the depth of access to the mysterium. The importance of the second plan has been perceived by Henri de Lubac, “Commentaire du préambule et du chapitre I,” in Vatican II: La révélation divine, vol. 1, ed. Bernard-D. Dupuy, Unam Sanctam 70a (Paris: Cerf, 1968), 188–93. 6 Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode 449 accessible and communicate it effectively. (3) The mystery can thus be actually anticipated in the here and now of revelation. The sacramental mode of revelation follows a dynamic contained in three different “moments”: the interaction between words and actions, the depth of the mystery in the background, and its anticipation or its advent. In terms of the third moment, real anticipation, DV §4 is particularly suggestive because the first description of revelation in Christ is composed of his “making himself present and manifesting himself.” As indicated by Henri de Lubac, the Latin terms presentia and manifestatio contain a hint at the Greeks terms parousia and epiphania.7 When it comes to Christological revelation, mediations are already full of presence. This confirms that the dynamics of revelation are completed by a making present of the communicated mystery. Moreover, §4 makes it clear that the Paschal sequence (Passion through resurrection and Pentecost) is the fulfillment of revelation. This entails a fourth feature of the sacramental structure of revelation: (4) The pascal sequence is, par excellence, the revelation-communication of the mystery. Let us take a closer look at the mystery in question. In most of the Western translations found on the official website of the Vatican, the term “mystery” is repeated twice identically in DV §2. This is the case in Italian, French, German, and Spanish, but not in English. Rather, the English translation at the Vatican site first employs the term “hidden purpose” and then uses “mystery,” while the translation edited by Austin Flannery (cited note 3 above) repeats “mystery” twice. The Latin text actually uses two different terms: first sacramentum, then mysterium: sacramentum / mysterium in DV §2 (ed. Flannery). Placuit Deo in sua bonitate et sapientia Seipsum revelare et notum facere sacramentum voluntatis suae (cf. Eph 1,9), quo homines per Christum, Verbum carnem factum, in Spiritu Sancto accessum habent ad Patrem et divinae naturae consortes efficiuntur (cf. Eph 2,18; 2 Petr 1,4). . . . It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will (cf. Eph. 1:9). His will was that men should have access to the Father, through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature (cf. Eph. 2:18; 2 Pet. 1:4). . . . See de Lubac, “Commentaire,” 118. 7 450 Emmanuel Durand, O.P. Haec revelationis oeconomia fit gestis verbisque intrinsece inter se connexis, ita ut opera, in historia salutis a Deo patrata, doctrinam et res verbis significatas manifestent ac corroborent, verba autem opera proclament et mysterium in eis contentum elucident. This economy of Revelation is realized by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other. As a result, the works performed by God in the history of salvation show forth and bear out the doctrine and realities signified by the words; the words, for their part, proclaim the works, and bring to light the mystery they contain. The sacramentum voluntatis suae is a literal borrowing of Ephesians 1:9 from the Vulgate translation, whereas mysterium occurs without reference to the New Testament. As a consequence of using translations, it is common to equate the mysterium involved in revelationis oeconomia with the logic of notum facere sacramentum of Ephesians 1. That, however, seems to be hastily done and overly simplistic if one takes into account the two successive frames: first the eternal purpose of God, and second, the economy carried out. By being attentive to the economy as it is described in the sentence starting with haec revelationis oeconomia, I propose to understand mysterium in conjunction with Mark 4:11 when Jesus said to the Twelve who asked him about the parable of the sower: Vobis datum est nosse mysterium regni Dei (Vulgate). No scriptural reference is associated with mysterium in the text of DV §2. Therefore, the approximation with Mark 4:11 remains hypothetical and it must be assessed according to its usefulness. First Verification Regarding the Kingdom of God according to Mark The ministry of Jesus in Galilee is opened by the following proclamation of the Gospel of God: “The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is near: repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). The proclamation of the Gospel of God by Jesus is like a prologue which contains the full sketch of his ministry. The good news regarding this announcement deals with a new effectiveness of the sovereignty of God. It is the inauguration of the reign of God in an active sense. The reign in this active sense has priority over the kingdom understood as a space. Such an announcement is accompanied by the call to a full human response. It is a formal notice. The kingdom of God is in the process of happening. It is coming. Time is fulfilled. What remains suspended or unfulfilled is not on God’s side, as Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode 451 he is thoroughly acting, but on Israel’s side, whose response is still awaited.8 The advent of the reign is objectively engaged by the action of God through Jesus. In order that the reign extends itself fully to all people, Israel should now convert through a reception of Jesus’s ministry. Even though the subject of the reign is not as dominant in Mark as it is in Matthew, the kingdom is the central reality of the ministry of Jesus’s revelation. How is such a revelation actualized? The following pericopes of Mark shed light on the answer to this question. The proclamation of the reign in Mark 1:14–15 employs a spiral of words and actions which are partly repeated and amplified: • Jesus calls his first four disciples to follow him (1:16–20) • Teaching at the synagogue with an unprecedented authority (1:21–22) • An exorcism where Jesus drives out an unclean spirit (1:23–28) • The healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (1:29–31) • Many healings or exorcisms collected in a synopsis form (1:32–34) • Initiation of disciples to the itinerant preaching (1:35–39) • Teaching and exorcisms performed throughout all of Galilee (1:39) • The healing of a leper, deemed unclean, by the touch and the words of Jesus (1:40–45) • The healing of the paralytic, including the revelation of the forgiveness of sins (2:1–12) • The call of the tax collector, Levi, and the sharing of table with sinners (2:13–17) The proclamation of the reign unfolds through an “economy” of words and actions by Jesus. The authority of his teaching is confirmed by his healings and exorcisms. The words and gestures express in synergy the advent of the reign of God. The acts of liberation include a teaching, particularly with respect to the leper and the paralytic: the overcoming of impurity and the possibility of the remission of sins. The word of Jesus is not only given in the context of the synagogue; it also reaches to the outside world. The word is not only a teaching; it is also an act of liberation in virtue of the same authority. In short, the interaction of words and deeds is used to the fullest extent in the ministry of Jesus. All this comes as the first attestation of the reign which is in the process of happening. God establishes See Gerhard Lohfink, Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 24–38. 8 452 Emmanuel Durand, O.P. it through the ministry of Jesus and thus puts it within the reach of faith for Israel. To this first testimony will be soon added a series of parables, first centered on the Word, and then on the reign. Between the parable of the sower and its explanation is the insertion of a brief dialogue between Jesus and those around him: And when he was alone, those present along with the Twelve questioned him about the parables. 11He answered them, “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables, 12so that ‘they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.’” (Mark 4:10–12; NAB) 10 The expression “the mystery of the kingdom of God” in the singular is a hapax legomenon. It is surprising that “the mystery of the kingdom” is said to “have been given” rather than hidden or revealed. In parallel verses, Matthew and Luke have interpreted this declaration of Jesus through an adjustment, which makes it less disconcerting: “Knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God has been granted to you” (Matt 13:11; Luke 8:10; NAB). The interpretation of the gift in terms of “knowledge” and the transition to the plural of “mysteries” make the declaration of Jesus less abrupt, while making it more homogeneous in its relative context to the many parables. According to Mark, the communicated mystery belongs to an accomplished event rather than to objective knowledge. As emphasized by Camille Focant, it is strange that the gift of the mystery applies specifically to those who question Jesus because they do not understand the parables.9 The listeners who interact in confidence with Jesus, have, however, already received the reality of the reign, since his mystery “has been given” to them, but they do not understand the secret message of the parables. They perceive its attractiveness, since they question Jesus, but they cannot decrypt the parabolic revelation of the mystery. Hence the term-by-term explanation of the parable of the sower, centered on the Word, and then the two comparisons of the wheat grain and mustard seed, expressing the mysterious maturation and growth of the reign, which are presented through the humility of a simple seed (Mark 4:26–32). See Camille Focant, L’évangile selon Marc, Commentaire biblique: Nouveau Testament 2 (Paris: Cerf, 2004), 162–67. 9 Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode 453 In Jesus’s proclamation of the reign of God, we discover an evangelical dynamic which serves well to ground and illustrate the sacramental structure of revelation, drawn from Dei Verbum. The synergistic connection between the actions and words of Jesus have brought the mystery of God’s reign very close to the audience. The listeners are moved by the novelty of his words and actions. While remaining close enough to question him about the parables. Revelation as demonstrated here possesses both the properties of dialogue and of gift. The economy of his words and actions open the listeners to Jesus and to the fullest and definitive divine action of all: the perfection of the fulfilled gift of the mystery. The reign of God is not simply proclaimed, attested in words and in deeds, but it is also communicated in its reality. The dimension of anticipation of the reign is shown in the admitted incomprehension of the disciples. The Second Verification Surrounding the Bread of Life according to John John 6 offers a beautiful testimony of the sacramental mode of revelation, which is much more elaborated upon than what is found in the Synoptics. John 6 contains two successive actions, a long speech, and then an epilogue in the form of a test: Jesus multiplying the five loaves and the two fishes for the crowd ( John 6:1–15), Jesus joining his disciples at night on the sea ( John 6:16–21), Jesus teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum ( John 6:22–59), and then having a tense dialogue among the disciples, among whom some leave and others believe ( John 6:60–71). Consider here the relationship between the multiplication of the loaves and the discourse on the bread of God. The distribution, the multiplication and the superabundance of the loaves and the fishes all function as a sign (John 6:14). Their goal is not just to satiate the crowd, but to provide something additional. The initial mentioning of Passover functions as a sign beyond solely that of immediate hunger, even though this hunger is not neglected as such. To start with, Jesus’s action ends on a quid pro quo which confirms a profound misunderstanding.10 The people recognize Jesus as the long-awaited prophet and they want to immediately appropriate him as a king, a petty king or despot of an uncertain crowd. Once established, the sign is ambiguously received and it is the subject of an immediate hijacking. The crowd’s reunion with Jesus the next day, at Capernaum, begins On the inability of the crowd to recognize the miracle as a sign, see Jean Zumstein, L’évangile selon saint Jean (1–12), Commentaire du Nouveau Testament 4/2 (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2014), 213–14, 221–23. 10 454 Emmanuel Durand, O.P. with a serious clarification by Jesus. In the multiplication of the loaves, the crowd did not even view the sign as a sign, but had stopped in the mere excitement of being satiated (John 6:26). This is confirmed shortly afterwards by the question posed disconcertingly by the crowd: “So they asked him, ‘What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?’” (John 6:30). The plurality of signs had not been lacking (John 6:26). From Jesus’s perspective, the sign is for faith. In reality, the food multiplied and distributed in abundance the previous evening should be perceived as a sign of another food, one that is still to be desired and to be received, which resides in eternal life (John 6:27). Jesus’s speech describes a flow of gifts/donations. Exceeding the gift of manna, Jesus refers to himself as the true bread that comes down from heaven, given by the Father. The Father gives true bread, the one who gives life to the world. It is the Johannine logic of the Incarnation for the life of abundance. However, this first double gift continues in another, of which Jesus is the personal subject: “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51c). Now it is a matter of the flesh delivered, in anticipation of the Passover of Jesus. Finally, Jesus shows the requirement to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to participate in the eternal life that he brings. The meaning of the bread has become very highly concrete. Eat the flesh given up and drink the blood that was shed, it is communion at the Passover of Jesus under a sacramental mode of faith.11 The speech thus follows a bird’s-eye perspective describing the Incarnation, the Passover, and the Eucharist. In the eyes of Jesus, all this was already contained in the sign of the bread multiplied and distributed in the superabundance at the coming of Passover. We find here what we have called the sacramental structure of revelation. The actions and the words fall in full synergy. The act is a potential sign. Without faith, the act remains in vain and the sign is quickly diverted. In contrast, illuminated by the words of Jesus, the sign opens access to a reality of salvation yet unexpected: the mystery of the bread of life, described following the logic of the gift for life in abundance. Without the speech, it would be impossible to access the depth of the sign. But the act attests to the vital nature and concreteness of the true bread which it signifies. Through the interaction between act and speech, it is Jesus himself, the Bread of God, who is within the reach of the faith of his followers. Some See Zumstein, L’évangile selon saint Jean (1–12), 232–38, on the enlargement of the initial perspective (of the Incarnation to the Eucharist by the Cross) and the post-Paschal footprint of the appropriation (sacramental and believing) of salvation. 11 Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode 455 believe, even though they are overwhelmed: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Other refused to believe because they are overwhelmed: “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” (John 6:60). Through the economy of action and speech, the bread of life is not only revealed, but it is also communicated. This is shown by the simple fact that it is believed by some of the disciples. He is already in the process of giving life in abundance, while the greatest gift is being announced and anticipated: the Passover. The sacramental mode of revelation is particularly well attested in the Gospel of John. This concurs with what Michel Gourgues has highlighted in a detailed manner in the Fourth Gospel: the memory and the depth.12 On one level, the gospel recounts the words and events in which Jesus was the actor and/or the subject. There are a few points of contact with the Synoptic Gospels. John seems however more accurate from a chronological and geographical perspective. But in John, the way of recounting events gives access to a new depth. In the first twelve chapters, the reference follows the logic of the signs whose ultimate meaning can only be understood by believers. In the story of the Passion, the depth is opened by the logic of fulfillment, stamped by scriptural quotations. Other literary processes also support the passage of the memory to depth: ambiguity, double-meaning, symbolism, commentary, and irony. In his gospel, the evangelist conveys particularly well what we have called the sacramental mode: words and actions provide access to what the mystery really communicates, in anticipation or in its coming. Avoiding the Usual Dichotomies A sacramental conception of revelation allows us to avoid two unfavorable dichotomies in fundamental theology, one in terms of actual mediations of revelation itself, and the other in terms of theorizing the truth of revelation. First, in terms of the operating mode of revelation, the sacramental See Michel Gourgues, En Esprit et en vérité: Pistes d’exploration de l’évangile de Jean (Montréal: Médiaspaul, 2002), 11–91. From a theoretical point of view, some people consider that the correlation between the literal meaning and the divine meaning is symbolic. This seems to be quite reductive compared to the variety of methods used by hagiographers to give access to the ultimate meaning. See Reimund Bieringer, “Biblical Revelation and Exegetical Interpretation according to Dei Verbum 12,” in Vatican II and Its Legacy, ed. Mathijs Lamberigt, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 166 (Leuven, BE: Peeters, 2002), 25–58, esp. 33 and 36. 12 456 Emmanuel Durand, O.P. conception of revelation cannot situate revelation in God’s words alone and not in his deeds, or vice versa. Revelation operates in an inseparable way in the salvific words and deeds.13 It is not possible to reduce revelation to a history of salvation where the events would be free of all ambiguities. Moreover, it would be entirely illusory to separate the words and the events within the Biblical testimony of revelation. When God speaks, it is an event, even when, for example, it is done under the garb of ordinary wisdom.14 When God acts, the words of the prophets or of witnesses are required to qualify and enlighten his action. Words and events are intrinsically linked and function synergistically in revelation. Then, in terms of the theory of revealed truth, the sacramental understanding of revelation, instead of opposing a propositional theory against a symbolic theory, allows for their integration, not in a higher model, but under a simpler mode pertaining to a lower level, closer in my own view to the “phenomenal” reality of revelation. If we situate the mystery as the ultimate reference to revelation, there are two possible reductions. For some, following the propositional model, the mystery is demonstrated analogically and objectively by doctrinal statements.15 The propositions of the faith have a clear and conceptually inexhaustible content. The language of faith remains a human language, which makes reference to everyday understandings. In the first instance, to reach the significance of doctrinal statements would be sufficient with respect to knowledge, so that the subject can adhere to divine revelation by faith. Through and beyond these utterances, it is the reality of salvation that is reached by faith. The symbols and metaphors are useful; they fall within a pedagogical strategy. When employed properly, their content of meaning may be translated in a conceptual and propositional way. Such a conception of the doctrine of the faith prevails quite clearly in the theology and Catholic magisterium of 1850–1950. 16 Today, incidentally, it is found in the writings of analytic See de Lubac, “Commentaire,” 66–71. As claimed by Cardinal Florit in the complete relatio of schema De divina revelatione of 1964, quoted above (note 5): “. . . per locutionem Dei (quae et ipsa est historicus eventus) [. . . by the Word of God (which is also itself a historical event)]” (AS, 3/3:134; translation mine). See also Emmanuel Durand, Évangile et Providence: Une théologie de l’action de Dieu (Paris: Cerf, 2014), 13–89. 15 For a good description of the propositional model, see Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 36–52. 16 See: Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Humani Generis (1950), §12; Josef Ratzinger, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler, vol. 3 (New York: Herder, 1968), 196–97. 13 14 Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode 457 philosophers who have a vested interest in the status of beliefs/doctrines.17 For others, promoting a symbolic model, the mystery is indicated by words and realities, signs and practices, according to a symbolic relationship. The symbol is a sign with a singular power of evocation. The symbol mobilizes experiences, impressions, memories, and affections, which are more or less shared in a certain cultural milieu. It is a sign which is not univocal, but rich and powerful, the scope of which is perceived by attention and resonance, as witnessed in poetry. In the Old and New Testaments, the pattern of the “reign/kingdom of God” is, according to John Meier, an excellent example of a “symbol of high potential.”18 In comparison with concepts and statements, an expression or symbolic communication bears many more meaning valences, thereby grasping more extensively onto the manifold aspects of reality. Rites, singing, and preaching are the means of transmission where the truth of revelation finds its full symbolic expression. Such a conception of revelation was reasonable to John Henry Newman, without however being fully thought out in a systematic form.19 In recent years, the symbolic model of revelation has been promoted by Avery Dulles. Ultimately, he considers that the symbols of Christian revelation are the backdrop without which the doctrinal propositions of faith would remain relatively poor in meaning and powerless to describe the mystery.20 If we return to the triad of referents that are at the background of See Roger Pouivet, Épistémologie des croyances religieuses (Paris: Cerf, 2013), 95–121. Pouivet unequivocally reduced Dei Verbum to a propositional model (p. 95–96) and vigorously supports the latter against a hermeneutic conception of revelation (p. 113–16), gathering support from Anna Wierzbicka, What Did Jesus Mean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 18 See John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, Mentor, Message, and Miracles (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 240–43. 19 See John Henry Newman, “Milman’s View of Christianity” (1841), in Essays Critical and Historical, vol. 2 (London: Longmans, 1890), 192. While attaching great importance to the symbolism of revelation, Newman retains a propositional conception of the material object of the faith, as evidenced by A Grammar of Assent (London: Longmans, 1898), 98–100, 122–53. 20 See Dulles, Models of Revelation, 131–45. In his plea for the symbolic model, Dulles strives to integrate the strengths of the propositional model. When he criticizes the theories of revelation as history (e.g., Oscar Cullmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg), he suggests a rebalancing drawn from DV §2, and then mentions a “sacramental structure” of revelation (210–11). Later, after having mentioned Christ as the “first sacrament” (in the line of thought of Karl Barth, Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, and Edward Schillebeeckx), Dulles nevertheless considers that “for the communication of Revelation, the term ‘symbol’ should perhaps be better than that of “sacrament” (360). 17 458 Emmanuel Durand, O.P. mediations—doctrina, res and mysterium—we could say, in broad strokes, the propositional model focuses primarily on the doctrinal translation of revelation, giving access to the mystery, while the symbolic model rather reflects the non-thematic effective salvific reality and mystery. The ideal would be to not disconnect the three referents (doctrina, res, mysterium). It would be tempting to oppose these two models as alternatives, but a sacramental understanding of revelation integrates their respective virtues at a more fundamental level of “description.” The words and actions reveal a close synergy, combining their load of symbolization, effectuation, and communication to make present this mystery. Conclusion: A Mode and Not a Model Ultimately, the current models regarding a theology of revelation (propositional, event, symbolic, experiential, etc.) seem largely amiss because of the unfortunate effect of unilateral reduction. It is always possible to carry out a hybridization of models, but is it not better to simply do without them? I do not think that the sacramental understanding of revelation that I have attempted to define, establish, and illustrate should be seen as a model. It is simply a highlighting of some of the salient features of the operating mode of revelation, objectively stemming from Christological revelation. The difference between a model and a mode could be stated as follows: a model is a form that is extrinsic to the phenomenon being considered, of which the explanatory benefits, however enlightening they may be, are proportionate to the effects of abstraction and reduction. A mode, on the other hand, comes directly from the concrete form of the occurrence of the phenomenon, just as it appears from the phenomenon itself. The sacramental mode of revelation is situated at a lower level of abstraction than the theoretical models. Decreasing the degrees of abstraction is consistent with the objective of a refocusing on the confession of faith, to be honored below the debates of schools or of the spirit of controversy. In the Second Vatican Council, such a concern was apparent with respect to the rejection of the preparatory schema on the two sources (Scriptures and Tradition) of revelation by a large number of Fathers.21 Understanding revelation under a sacramental mode includes a limitation however: the word “sacramental” often remains obscure outside ecclesial theology. The Christian understanding of revelation should be intelligible to those outside of the faith, in dialogue with other schools of thought. However, it is sufficient to explain the three characteristics of This is notably told by Ratzinger, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation,” 159–66. 21 Understanding Revelation according to a Sacramental Mode 459 divine revelation: the synergy between actions and words, the access to the depths of the mystery, and the anticipation of the mystery made present. This can be clarified without resorting to the word “sacramental,” whose use is typically Christian. In addition, it must never be forgotten that revelation is given not only under the mode of objectivity. Otherwise, the mere presence and manifestation of Christ would lead inevitably to faith. In synergy with the sacramental mode of revelation, the inner inspiration of the act of faith is indispensable for the revealed words and actions to actually reach their goal. As expressed in the Gospel of John: “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31). The signs are always waiting for a new and full response of faith. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 461–503 461 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality Paul Gondreau Providence College Providence, RI We live in a weirdly schizophrenic culture when it comes to sex and marriage. Recently, I witnessed a wedding celebration of a second-generation Chinese American man and a first-generation German American woman. They opted for a dual-styled wedding ceremony, the one “Western” and the other traditional Chinese. The Western-styled ceremony, held in a hotel-like ballroom, was first. Utterly secular with no mention of God and no appeal whatsoever to religious imagery, this ceremony blurred boundaries by offering moments of inappropriate humor (the groom, for instance, entered to the theme song of 2001 Space Odyssey playing on the speaker system) and by having a martial arts instructor act as the officiator. In a word, the Western ceremony bore little resemblance to anything approaching what one could term “traditional.” Indeed, it openly flouted tradition. Instead of bridesmaids and groomsmen, for instance, there were “bridespeople” and “groomspeople,” as both wedding parties were composed of men and women alike. And why not? I asked myself. Declaring the male and female roles in a marriage to be interchangeable, and therefore meaningless, with biological sex having no essential bearing on the role of bride and bridegroom, our secular culture as a result has blown up all the rich and ancient nuptial symbolism that is expressive of the sexual complementarity of the spouses. Traditionally, of course, a wedding would mark the celebration of a man and a woman who stood before God and society to vow a life of love and fidelity to each other, a newly conjoined life with profound bearing on their lives, on all who know them, and on society as a whole, not least 462 Paul Gondreau of which because of the offspring their union was naturally designed to produce. The role of the wedding parties, whereby male groomsmen would flank the male bridegroom, while female bridesmaids would stand alongside the female bride, serves to magnify and enrich the symbolic significance of the complementary joining of man and woman. Today, however, such symbolic significance must be deemed retrograde, a binary straitjacket that unfairly excludes alternative forms of sexual union and sexual identity. Bridesmaids must thus give way to bridespeople, and groomsmen to groomspeople. In the particular instance of this wedding, one of the “groomspeople” was a woman, dressed in a tuxedo, who was herself in a lesbian “marriage.” It would not have been a shock, at least to me, if Rod Sterling had suddenly appeared as the officiator, announcing that we had entered the nuptial Twilight Zone, or, short of that, the world of nuptial nominalism. The Chinese ceremony, on the other hand, offered an abrupt aboutface. This latter was a lesson in how to observe tradition down to the finest ceremonial detail and with due regard for the most symbolic and venerable of rituals. The centerpiece was the tea ceremony, which consists of the bride and bridegroom, dressed in traditional Chinese attire, serving tea to the elders in their family. They serve the tea on their knees, except to the elders who are younger than the parents of the bride and/or bridegroom, in which case they serve the tea standing up. According to Chinese custom, the couple is not considered married until this tea ceremony is completed. I found myself moved at how powerfully this tea ceremony ritual testifies to the hierarchical structure of the family, and to the fact that marriage, because ordered to the continuation of the family line, marks the direct concern of generations past and generations present and future. As Western secular society adopts evermore a view of marriage as exclusively for the mutual benefit of the spouses, Chinese custom testifies to the larger truth: marriage marks a union that is much larger than the spouses themselves, since it is also for the benefit of children, of progeny. Ordered not simply to the private good of the partners, marriage is ordered ultimately to the good of human society itself. So much so that Chinese culture sees not the exchange of vows as the moment in which the nuptial union is realized, but a touching ceremonial gesture of a nascent generation, in the persons of the bride and bridegroom, paying its honor and respects to the older venerable and foundational generation, the generation of fathers and mothers, of grandfathers and grandmothers, of uncles and aunts. The difference between the two juxtaposed ceremonies—the dismissive disregard for tradition in the one, the careful observation and veneration of ancient, cultural tradition in the other—was striking. I snickered to Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 463 myself as I considered the irony of how fashionable it is to respect and heed with utmost care Chinese traditions that are expressive of a strictly binary view of marriage, yet at the same time to scorn and spurn an institution like the Catholic Church (the bride was raised Catholic) for holding to traditions and symbolic rituals that are expressive of the same binary, hetero-normative view of marriage. What accounts for such a double standard? I wondered. Simply that the one is “non-Western,” and therefore in line with the orthodoxy of political correctness, an orthodoxy that champions the virtues of so-called cultural “diversity” (read: anything deemed non-Western)? Still further questions arise, deeper questions that drive us closer to the purpose of this essay. What does God think of all this? Does a wedding ceremony belong in a church or at least in some kind of sacred space, or is it acceptable to reduce a wedding ceremony to an utterly secular event by removing all references to God? Does God favor the effort at throwing off the shackles of hetero-normative traditions and rituals in our wedding ceremonies, all in the name of equality, acceptance, and inclusion? Continuing in this line of inquiry, we might ask whether God would agree with something like the LGBTQ hashtags #loveislove or #lovewins (the latter used to celebrate victories on the same-sex marriage front), as many LGBTQ proponents, appealing to the tenet that God is love, suppose he would. And what does God think of the ever-growing number of confessional communities, many of whom invoke the God of the Bible or who call themselves Christian, that bless same-sex unions, even at times considering them marriage? The recent wave in clerical sex-abuse scandals to hit the Catholic Church has only intensified the pressing nature of these questions. Indeed, that the fact that news of these scandals broke at the very time the Church was honoring the fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae has placed in relief the controversial nature of Catholic moral teaching on the meaning and direction of human sexuality. Disobedient practice against Humanae Vitae, now laid bare for the whole world to see, has seeped into all levels of the Church, not merely in the laity but in the clergy as well. Little wonder countless priests and bishops, oftentimes insisting that the Church should “stay out of the bedroom,” looked the other way as Humanae Vitae was derided, mocked, transgressed, cast aside. To search for the answer to the question of what God thinks of sex, I propose in this essay to take another look at the Bible. God, it so turns out, has, through the words of the Sacred Page, discharged his mind and will on the meaning and purpose of human sexuality. The God of the Bible does very much insert himself “in the bedroom.” God’s will for human 464 Paul Gondreau sexuality is also known through the natural law, of course, that is, through the objective moral law that is inscribed in the very fabric of our humanity, as the Church’s common tradition has long held (see Humanae Vitae for one example). But as I have written on that topic elsewhere, I shall restrict myself in this essay to the biblical witness, and in particular to the teaching of the New Testament.1 To this end, this essay complements, albeit to a quite modest degree, the work of Pope St. John Paul II, whose celebrated “theology of the body” also sought to place in relief the biblical vision of human sexuality, though by focusing nearly exclusively on the Genesis creation narrative.2 In sum, the New Testament provides us with two principal, integrally related lines of response to the question of what God intends for our sexuality, the one from Jesus the Lord himself, and the other from St. Paul. In the first, we find Jesus employing foundational principles in his addressing the issue of divorce and remarriage and of lustful desires (“adultery of the heart”). In the second, we find Paul building upon these principles in order to provide a fuller vision of human sexuality. The two lines of response thus form one continuous, organic whole. In what follows, I shall look first at the teaching of Jesus, and then pass to Paul, who shall receive the bulk of our attention. Jesus’s Teaching on Divorce and Remarriage Pressed by his enemies to pronounce on the Torah’s permission for divorce, Jesus famously responds: See my two essays, “The ‘Inseparable Connection’ between Procreation and Unitive Love (Humanae Vitae, §12) and Thomistic Hylemorphic Anthropology,” Nova et Vetera (English) 6, no. 4 (2008): 731–64, and “The Natural Law Ordering of Human Sexuality to (Heterosexual) Marriage: Towards a Thomistic Philosophy of the Body,” Nova et Vetera (English) 8, no. 3 (2010): 553–92. See also my “Defending the Truth of the Human Person: Humanae Vitae on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality,” in Inseparable: Five Perspectives on Sex, Life, and Love in Defense of Humanae Vitae (San Diego, CA: Catholic Answers Press, 2018), and “The Natural Ordering to Marriage as Foundation and Norm for Sacramental Marriage,” The Thomist 77 (2013): 41–69. 2 See John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. and ed. Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books, 2006). This work, of course, compiles just over five years of weekly catechetical addresses on the meaning and purpose of human sexuality as the Genesis creation account presents it, beginning on September 5, 1979, and ending on November 28, 1984. For a penetrating analysis of the Thomistic foundation of this “theology of the body,” see Thomas Petri, O.P., Aquinas and the Theology of the Body: The Thomistic Foundations of John Paul II’s Anthropology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2016). 1 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 465 For your hardness of heart he [Moses] wrote you this commandment [permitting divorce]. But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female” [Gen 1:27]. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one” [Gen 2:24]. So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” (Mark 10:4–12; see also Matt 5:31–32 and 19:4–6) Packing considerable meaning, this teaching admits of several foundational principles relating to the meaning and purpose of human sexuality. I shall enumerate four. Intended Order of God’s Creation and the Nuptial Meaning of Our Sexuality First, Jesus recapitulates the teaching of Genesis (which the law of Moses had compromised, to some degree at least), and thereby endorses its enduring validity. And little surprise, given that in Genesis we learn of the meaning of our sexuality as it issues from the creative handiwork of God. When asked about marriage, Jesus defers to the Genesis account of the intended order of nature. Put more directly, Jesus here unmistakably, if implicitly, appeals to a law that precedes the Torah and which holds authority over the Torah. This law, because it traces back to our first parents, originates with and remains imbedded in human nature itself. It is, of course, the objective moral law (natural law). We shall say more of “biblical” natural law shortly below when we get to St. Paul. As for the enduring meaning of our sexuality that the Genesis creation account offers and which Jesus endorses, we can offer the following compendious sketch. According to the first creation account, our sexuality has by God’s design a male–female (dimorphic) structure, with procreation as its intended end: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth’” (Gen 1:28). Then, in the second creation account, we find that God, seeing that it is “not good that the man should be alone,” fashions the woman to serve as someone the man can “cleave to” and “become one flesh” with (Gen 2:18–25). In other words, in addition to its procreative ordering, human sexuality enjoys a per se ordering to a complementary, love-making 466 Paul Gondreau union, a union of companionship. Because this latter ordering is proper to us as rational beings, as persons, we call it “personalist” or “unitive.” Further, as the pivotal terms “man” and “woman,” correlating with “male” and “female” in Gen 1:27, unmistakably intimate, the personalist or unitive ordering is as equally owing to our sexually dimorphic design as to the procreative, since we are persons constituted not by free-floating disembodied spirits, but by spirits (or souls) substantially joined to bodies. Without sexual complementarity, without the male–female structure of our sexuality, there is no true oneness of flesh. Oneness of flesh signifies, in other words, oneness of the whole person, body and soul. Unitive love, as Genesis presents it, cannot be abstracted from the bodily complementarity of “male” and “female.” Based on the two creation accounts, then, the biblical witness presents human sexuality as a gift from God to provide us with a means both for propagating the human race and for attaining oneness in the deepest bonds of human love or friendship (companionship). God thus endowed us with a sexed nature for the express purpose of marriage (the union of man and woman), since only marriage unites the joint goods of procreation and unitive love. Sex, in the biblical view, is inherently nuptial in meaning. As John Paul II observes, the biblical creation narratives lead to “the discovery of the ‘spousal’ meaning of the body in the mystery of creation.’”3 So, yes, Genesis affirms a hetero-normative view of human sexuality, insofar as it establishes marriage as the normative good of our sexuality.4 To put this negatively, the body is meant for no other form of sexual intimacy than that between husband and wife, in an embrace of procreative-unitive love. If sex outside of marriage was everywhere to be found in the ancient pagan world, the Hebrew Scriptures, in its very opening pages, holds otherwise. On its account, God created our sexuality in view of a union that is both procreative and unitive in nature. (The Torah, especially Lev 18–20, and the prophetic writings make explicit the condemnation of sex outside marriage in all its forms, both natural and unnatural.) By deferring to Genesis 1–2 in his pronouncing on divorce, Jesus upholds all of this. Jesus holds to the morality of conjugal love that is John Paul II, General Audience of January 9, 1980 (Man and Woman He Created Them, 184). 4 The German biblical scholar Rudolf Schnackenburg puts it this way: “The early Church took its stand, as Jesus had done, on the account of creation, in which it saw the primordial will of God. The text of Gen. 2:24 ‘they will be two in one flesh’ was the foundation of the early Christian ethics of marriage” (The Moral Teaching of the New Testament, trans. J. Holland-Smith and W. J. O’Hara [New York: Herder and Herder, 1965], 249). 3 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 467 embedded in the Genesis creation account. It is reasonable to assume, then, that in his mind, what renders a sexual act good and holy is the measure by which it respects the unitive and procreative orderings of the marital act. Any sexual act falling short of this will fail to attain what God intends for human sexual practice. The Indissoluble Nature of Marriage The second foundational principle of this teaching, bold for a culture that prized divorce (whether Jewish or pagan), is the indissoluble nature of marriage. The permanence of the marriage bond expressly precludes the possibility of remarriage after divorce: “He said to them, ‘For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery’” (Matt 19:8–9). If this teaching is “enough to elevate the early Christian ethics of marriage far above the level of those of Judaism and paganism,” as the biblical scholar Rudolf Schnackenburg puts it, it at the same time allies closely with a teaching that the prophetic tradition and Second Temple Judaism had increasingly sounded: “‘For I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel’” (Mal 2:16).5 To say that marriage is indissoluble means we cannot pretend something that is truly one is in fact two. To acknowledge the permissibility of divorce is to acknowledge the fracturing of a merely apparent—but not real—union. Indeed, it is deeply telling how nuptial vows today, even in the purely civil arena, promise permanence (“until death do us part”) and do not admit of “back-out” clauses (along the lines, say, and to put it in terms of contemporary idiom, of “I promise to be true to you, until things don’t work out,” or “until things get difficult,” or “until my feelings change,” and the list goes on). As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) put it: “[Marriage] is not an experiment. [It] is not a commercial contract, but a surrender of myself to another person [i.e., a covenant]. Only in the form of a love that is entire and unreserved is the self-giving of one person to another commensurate with the essence of man.”6 “The fact of indissolubility alone was enough to elevate the early Christian ethics of marriage far above the level of those of Judaism and paganism” (Schnackenburg, Moral Teaching, 250). 6 Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time, a Conversation with Peter Seewald, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002). 5 468 Paul Gondreau Marriage Is a Sacred and Holy Institution Third, if Genesis makes clear that marriage marks a sacred, divinely sanctioned institution, Jesus drives this further when he asserts: “What God has joined together . . .” Jesus expressly favors, in other words, a most elevated understanding of marriage, a view of marriage as a sacred and holy union, and not merely a natural one. Going beyond the natural law, Jesus’s view of marriage attains to the divine. St. Paul, as we shall see, will take this one step further and affirm that marriage marks a sacrament (see Eph 5:32). So whereas the Old Testament hints at the holiness of marriage and of its defining act (as when, for instance, it speaks of the husband’s “going into” his wife [see Deut 22:13] in terms that call to mind the High Priest’s “going into” God’s “holy place” [see Ex 28:29]), the New Testament, through the words of Jesus (and Paul), makes this unambiguous. The Fundamental Equality of Husband and Wife Fourth, since the Mosaic permission for divorce was tantamount to the Jewish male right to divorce, by revoking this right Jesus was affirming the fundamental equality of husband and wife in the marriage covenant. Generally speaking, only Jewish men had the right to divorce. Basing itself on Deuteronomy 24:1–2, the Talmud, for instance, states that only the husband can initiate a divorce, and that this can be for any reason, including the spoiling of his dinner, or for no reason—an ancient form of “no-fault” divorce. Jewish law thus relegated women to secondary status, namely, to the property of their husbands. In rescinding this male right, Jesus makes clear that women are not to be so regarded or treated. Not at the disposal of their husbands’ mere whim or wish, wives enjoy the security of full rights and responsibilities that come with any true partnership. In brief, marriage implies equality between husband and wife. The Genesis creation account, of course, unmistakably signals as much when Adam declares Eve to be “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23). In Jesus’s mind, then, recovering “the beginning of creation” means not only affirming the indissoluble nature of marriage (“and the two shall become one”), but also the fundamental equality of the marriage partners (“bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”). The equality of the spouses means marriage signifies friendship (an equivalent term for unitive love), since friendship always presupposes equality, as the pagan philosopher Aristotle well observed.7 For St. Thomas Aquinas, marriage sits at the very summit of human friendship, in that See, for instance, Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics 8.8. 1159b. 7 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 469 marital love holds the rank not only of aequalis amicitia, “friendship of equality,” but of maxima amicitia, “highest friendship.”8 Only a biblically-minded theologian, noting that God’s first response to Adam’s social nature and need for friendship is to create not another man but a woman, could call marriage maxima amicitia. Nothing satisfies the human need for friendship more than the love of man and woman in marriage. To sum up, then, we can say that, consonant with the witness of Genesis, Jesus presents a high—extremely high—estimation of marriage. He sees marriage as marking a beautiful reality that God himself has directly fashioned in view of human happiness—the happiness that comes with the life-long loving and exclusive union of one man and one woman (the sole form of marriage). Jesus on Adultery of the Heart Jesus delivers his other pronouncement on the moral meaning and direction of human sexuality when he addresses the issue of lustful desires, in quite arresting terms: You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matt 5:27–28) Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles [SCG] III, ch. 123. In this passage, Aquinas makes clear that marriage implies aequalis amicitia and maxima amicitia because it constitutes an “indivisible union of souls” (indivisibili coniunctione animorum), or a “domestic society of loving personal communion” (domesticae conversationis consortium), which enjoys the “sweet bond” (suavem societatem) of sexual procreative union. In other words, marriage attains to the level of maxima amicitia because it unites the two essential dimensions of human sexuality, procreative and unitive. Aquinas’s qualification of marriage as aequalis amicitia and maxima amicitia is all the more significant in light of the fact that, as Charles J. Reid observes, canonists and lawyers since the twelfth century had stressed “the sense of obligation [debitum; rather than friendship] that bound [married] parties together” (Power over the Body, Equality in the Family: Rights and Domestic Relations in Medieval Canon Law [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004], 105). At the same time, Reid does explain how “women and men were recognized [in twelfthand thirteenth-century theology] as spiritual equals, who benefited equally from Christ’s salvific acts. Men and women alike and in equal measure have gained eternal life through Christ’s death and resurrection” (99). For more on male and female equality in Aquinas, see Michael Nolan, “The Aristotelian Background to Aquinas’s Denial that ‘Woman is a Defective Male,’” The Thomist 64 (2000): 21–69. 8 470 Paul Gondreau As with his teaching on remarriage after divorce, this teaching contains core moral principles that bear significantly on the moral meaning and purpose of human sexuality. I shall enumerate four. Jesus Is the Center of the Moral Life First, by amending the sixth commandment (“You shall not commit adultery”) on his own authority (“But I say to you”), Jesus shows that he “understands himself to be the Torah” (represented in this case by the sixth commandment), to quote Pope Benedict XVI.9 That this occurs in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7)—“the magna carta of Gospel morality,” as John Paul II calls the Sermon (here he follows the opinion of many Fathers and Doctors of the Church, most notably Augustine and Thomas Aquinas)—only amplifies this message.10 Other statements from Jesus that imply the same would include his proclaiming himself to be “lord of the Sabbath” (Matt 12:8), whereby Jesus places himself above the third commandment (“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”). (An equivalent way of rendering “lord of the Sabbath” would be “lord of the Torah.”) Or when he asserts, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt 10:37), whereby Jesus ranks himself above the fourth commandment (“Honor your father and mother”). By anchoring his moral teaching in his own Person, and this before a Jewish audience that viewed moral action as anchored principally in God’s Torah, Jesus places himself at the center of the moral life. Followers of Jesus must adhere to him in the way Jews adhere to the Torah, or, as Benedict puts it, that they form “a new community of disciples founded entirely on him [Jesus].”11 That he telegraphs this message via his condemnation of lustful desires highlights its particular significance in the sexual arena of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker (New York: Image, 2007), 110. For support of Benedict’s assertion from the perspective of a Jewish rabbi, whom Benedict cites, see Jacob Neusner, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), 87. 10 See John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor, §15. For Augustine, the Sermon on the Mount marks the “perfect standard of the Christian life . . . [as it offers] all the precepts by which the Christian life is molded.” (De Sermone Domini in Monte secundum Matthaeum [The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount according to Matthew] 1.1; trans. Denis Cavanagh, in The Fathers of the Church, vol. 11 [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1951]). Referring to this passage, Thomas Aquinas adds in Summa theologiae [ST] I-II, q. 108, a. 3: “the Sermon contains the whole process of forming the life of a Christian, whereby man’s interior movements are ordered.” 11 Ratzinger (Benedict), Jesus of Nazareth, 1:115. 9 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 471 human life. Jesus himself, in his own Person, is the anchor of the moral life, inclusive of our sexuality. The upshot is clear: living in right relationship with Christ requires morally upright sexual practice. In brief, the moral teaching of the New Testament turns on the very Person of Christ and on the way we live in relationship with him. We shall examine this principle in greater depth below when we consider how St. Paul makes it the cornerstone of his own moral teaching. Chastity Safeguards the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality That Jesus’s condemnation of lustful desires appears in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, which again offers what Benedict XVI calls “a comprehensive portrait of the right way to live,” signals a second foundational principle for the moral meaning and purpose of human sexuality.12 Following a pivotal insight provided by St. Paul in Galatians 3:24–25, Thomas Aquinas tags perfection as the defining feature of the Sermon, and thus of New Testament morality, the perfection that comes with attaining the holiness of God: “‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’” (Matt 5:48). Commenting on the Galatians text, Aquinas explains: Now things may be distinguished . . . as between perfect and imperfect in the same species, for example, a boy and a man, and in this way the divine law is divided into Old and New. Hence the Apostle [in Gal 3:24–25] compares the state of man under the Old Law [or under the Old Testament standard of morality] to that of a child “under a pedagogue,” but the state under the New Law [or under the New Testament standard of morality] to that of a full-grown man, who is “no longer under a pedagogue.”13 Note that some English translations render the Greek term paidagōgos— pedagogus in the Latin Vulgate that the medieval Scholastics used—not as “pedagogue,” but as “disciplinarian,” as in the New American Bible, or as “custodian,” as in the RSV. Likening this role of “pedagogue” or “disci Ratzinger (Benedict), Jesus of Nazareth, 1:128. ST I-II, q. 91, a. 5. Aquinas goes on in the corpus to delineate the various ways by which we should understand this “perfection and imperfection.” For Aquinas’s view on law as ordering us to the moral good (our end) by way of instruction, see his prologue to the treatise on law in the Summa theologiae (ST I-II, q. 90, prol.). Legislation for the purpose of instruction about the true human good sums up the Thomist doctrine of law. 12 13 472 Paul Gondreau plinarian” to that of a father issuing commands or “house rules” to his children in echo of Deuteronomy 8:5 (“as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord God disciplines you”), Aquinas continues: As the father of a family issues different commands to the children and to the adults, so also does the one King, God, in his one kingdom give one law [or moral instruction] to men while they were yet imperfect, and another more perfect law [moral instruction] when, by the preceding law, they had been led to a greater capacity for divine things.14 Contrary, then, to a Marcion-styled read that would drive a wedge between the Old and New Testaments, Aquinas the Pauline theologian shows how the moral teaching of the two Testaments is fitted to two organically unified stages of moral development, the first to a more childor adolescent-like (imperfect) stage, and the second to a proper adult-like (perfect) stage. Put simply, salvation history involves a process of moral and spiritual reform. This permits us to look upon the moral teaching of the Old Testament as something suited, say, to those in what we might call “reform school” (and why there is a developing morality even within the Old Testament). The moral teaching of the New Testament is instead suited to those already “reformed” (principally by the grace of Christ, in which, on Aquinas’s account, the New Law of the Gospel consists chiefly).15 As we hold children to one standard of conduct and adults to another higher standard, so Old Testament morality permits things like polygamy and divorce, whereas New Testament morality does not. Indeed, in his condemnation of lustful desires, Jesus highlights that in which “perfection” or God-like holiness in sexual practice consists. More than simply adhering to an external list of “dos and don’ts”—do respect the fact that God has ordained sex for marriage as a procreative-unitive institution, do not act contrary to this—moral perfection means gaining self-mastery over one’s interior life (thoughts and desires), the source of outward action.16 The person animated by grace strives for mature, interior self-mastery, specifically as regards one’s sexual thoughts and desires. Appropriating the language of virtue developed in ancient Greek ST I-II, q. 91, a. 5, ad 1; for a fuller treatment of this, see q. 107, a. 1, ad 2. “The New Law is chiefly the grace itself of the Holy Spirit, which is given to those who believe in Christ” (ST I-II, q. 106, a. 1 [see also a. 2]). 16 For support, see Jacques Dupont, Mariage et divorce dans l’Évangile (Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1959), 172 and 190. 14 15 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 473 culture, the Church’s common tradition has assigned the term “chastity” to this exercise of self-mastery and balanced regulation of one’s sexual urges. If Aquinas is right, as I think he is, in arguing that the Decalogue’s proscription of adultery and lust (the sixth and ninth commandments) prompt us to the practice of chastity, then it is especially the case that Jesus enjoins the same in his condemnation of lustful desires (lust is the chief vice opposed to chastity).17 We can put this more strongly. Since it is one thing to use the language of “covet[ing] your neighbor’s wife” (Deut 5:21) to warn against lust, but quite another to resort to the rather jolting language of “adultery of the heart” to accomplish the same, Jesus undeniably seeks to raise the bar. For Aquinas, expressions like this from Jesus, as well as sayings like, “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles a man” (Matt 15:18), signal how the focus of Gospel morality centers on internal acts, the source of moral action, unlike the Mosaic Law, which tends to focus on external action: “Hence the saying that ‘the Old Law restrains the hand, but the New Law controls the mind,’” writes Aquinas, citing Peter Lombard.18 Further, the purity in heart extolled in the sixth beatitude (“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” [Matt 5:8]) has traditionally been closely (though not exclusively) associated with sexual purity, that is, with the virtue of chastity, where external sexual practices flow from an interior rectitude, from a “clean heart” (Ps 51:10). Here sensual pleasure is pursued as a means to a higher end. The moral regulation of our sexuality is as much an internal affair as an external one. The second, and chief, foundational principle embedded in Jesus’s condemnation of lustful desires, then, we could put as follows: chastity is the virtue that serves and safeguards the meaning and purpose of human sexuality. By this virtue true sexual freedom is exercised and genuine flourishing in the sexual arena is attained. Joining this with the first principle, See ST I-II, q. 100, a. 11, obj. and ad 3; see also q. 108, a. 3, ad 3, where Aquinas explains: “The moral precepts [of the Old Law] necessarily retained their force under the New Law, because they are of themselves essential to virtue.” 18 “The New Law surpasses the Old Law, since the New Law directs our internal acts. . . . Hence the saying [by Peter Lombard, Sentences III, d. 40] that ‘the Old Law restrains the hand, but the New Law controls the mind’” (ST I-II, q. 91, a. 5). Later, Aquinas adds: “In His doctrine Christ fulfilled the precepts of the (Old) Law . . . by explaining the true sense of the Law. This is clear in the case of murder and adultery, the prohibition of which the Scribes and Pharisees thought referred only to the exterior act: wherefore Our Lord fulfilled the Law by showing that the prohibition extends also to the interior acts of sins.” (ST I-II, q. 107, a. 2; see also q. 108, a. 3). 17 474 Paul Gondreau we could say that, as regards sexual practice, to live chastely is to live in right relationship with Christ. Some see in Jesus’s stress on internal action the inculcating of a “psychological chastity” or “chastity of soul.”19 But perhaps a better name would be “integrated chastity.” By enjoining us to discipline our internal sexual urges and to cease looking upon persons as objects of sexual self-satisfaction, Jesus advances a chastity that pervades or integrates our entire being, a chastity that moves from the inside out, from internal thoughts and desires to external bodily action. Focus on the external act or on legal obligation is insufficient for good moral living.20 The complete shaping of one’s moral character requires more. Only by loving the good as befitting the mature adult who does the good for its own sake, in this instance, loving the virtue of chastity for its own sake, will one attain human flourishing in sexual practice.21 Marriage as the Normative Good of Human Sexuality Third, that Jesus tags lustful desires as tantamount to adultery—that “of the heart”—shows that, for him, and over and above the “shock value” that his jolting language may have been meant primarily to convey, nuptiality indeed marks the core meaning of human sexuality. Otherwise, why cast lust as a type of sin against marriage, namely, as a type of adultery? Because human sexuality is ordained for marriage (as a procreative-unitive institution) as to its normative good, all sexual sins, Jesus’s teaching here signals, mark an offense against marriage. Sexual sins of whatever sort (lust, remarriage after divorce, contraceptive sex, homoerotic acts, etc.) spurn See, for instance, Ronald Lawler et al., Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation, and Defense (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1985), 26–27. 20 “The [New Testament] . . . follows to a large degree the judgment of [Old Testament] and Israelite preaching and transcends the legalistic practice of later Judaism, which is shown to be inadequate by the word of Jesus”; see Friedrich Hauck and S. Schulz, “πόρνη,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Friedrich, trans. G. W. Bromiley, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1968), 579–95, at 590. See also Servais Pinckaers, The Pursuit of Happiness—God’s Way: Living the Beatitudes, trans. Mary Thomas Noble (New York: Society of St. Paul, 1998), 99–100, and 193. 21 “The imperfect, who as yet do not possess the habit [habitus] of virtue, are directed to perform virtuous acts . . . through the threat of punishment, or the promise of extrinsic rewards, such as honor, riches, and the like. Hence the Old Law, which was given to men who were imperfect, is called the ‘law of fear,’ since it induces men to observe its commandments by threatening them with penalties. . . . On the other hand, those who possess the habit of virtue are inclined to do virtuous deeds through the love of virtue” (ST I-II, q. 107, a. 1, ad 2). 19 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 475 the nuptial meaning of our sexuality. Given Jesus’s endorsement of the Old Testament’s morality of conjugal love via his appeal to the Genesis creation account, this should not surprise us. Human Happiness Does Not Circumvent a Life of Moral Rigor Finally, sounding a strict and harsh tone (more so even than his teaching on remarriage after divorce), this passage highlights a side of Jesus’s teaching that currently gets little airplay. Today, the image of Jesus as “non-judgmental” and as a “genial” kind of fellow who soft-pedals on moral choices and lifestyles is dominant. Yet Jesus does not fit so easily into a box. Hardly soft-pedaling on the morality of sexual practices, Jesus not only upholds the moral rigor of the Mosaic Law (itself without parallel in the ancient world); he intensifies and elevates it. He does this both by rescinding the permission for divorce (a concession due to sin) and by extending said rigor to include our internal thoughts and desires. So while Jesus will enjoin his followers in the selfsame Sermon on the Mount to “judge not, so that you may not be judged” (Matt 7:1), this comes just after he has insisted that they not fall into either adultery by remarrying after divorce (Matt 5:32) or adultery of the heart by harboring lustful desires (Matt 5:28). The one who insists that we “judge not” in the very same breath judges certain acts to be evil. Drawing the capital distinction between persons and moral behavior will help clarify this seeming inconsistency. To condemn or judge the latter does not equate with a condemnation of the former. To be sure, if the harsh-sounding elements of Jesus’s moral teaching in the Sermon on the Mount beg for this distinction, we find another episode, this time in John’s Gospel, where Jesus resorts to the distinction in even clearer fashion. Asked to pass judgment on a woman caught in adultery, Jesus refuses to condemn the woman, while at the same time instructing her to “sin no more” (John 8:11). In this way, he makes clear his stance on the act itself of adultery. God, in the Person of Jesus, is not indifferent to what we do in our sexual practices, even if he continues to love us unconditionally and to extend his mercy to us as persons. Put more strongly, God desires our happiness, as the Beatitudes make plain (“Blessed, happy, are those who…”), but only as consequent upon a morally upright way of life. The final principle embedded in Jesus’s condemnation of lustful desires, then, is that genuine human happiness ensues upon a life of moral rigor; it does not circumvent it. 476 Paul Gondreau St. Paul’s Vision of the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality We come to St. Paul. By alerting us to that pivotal Pauline passage which concerns the way the moral teaching of the Old Testament (Old Law) relates to that of the New Testament (New Law), Thomas Aquinas, as we have just seen, opens for us the interpretive key to unlocking the moral teaching not simply of Paul, but of the entire New Testament. More focally, it also unlocks Paul’s teaching on the meaning and purpose of human sexuality. What leads St. Paul to the insight that Christians are called no longer to live like children “under guardians and stewards” (Gal 4:2), but like fully “reformed” mature adults is the centrality of the Person of Christ in the moral life. The Apostle, if we can so put it, puts the thrust of “being holy as God the Father is holy” (see Matt 5:48) in properly relational terms, as Jesus’s own teaching implies. St. Paul would have us understand that the baptized believer lives not according to an abstract moral theory or set of ideas, nor to a set of moral imperatives as stipulated by the Torah. Rather, the baptized believer first and foremost lives in a relationship with the Person of Jesus Christ, that is, with God’s incarnate Son. By identifying the role of the Torah in the moral life with his own Person (as we saw above) and by proclaiming himself to be “the way” (John 14:6) and “the door” (John 10:9), and by calling us “no longer servants but friends” (John 15:15), Jesus himself invites this relational (Christocentric) approach to the moral life.22 St. Paul identifies the Person of Christ as the new source of moral action when noting the difference between Christian moral teaching on the one side and Jewish and Greek moral teaching on the other. If Jewish moral teaching places the emphasis on adherence to God’s Torah, Greek moral teaching holds up human reason, or natural wisdom, as the principal source of moral action.23 That the Person of Christ was found guilty by This was a central theme in the pontificate of Benedict XVI, as we see in his public statements: “The happiness you seek, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face—Jesus of Nazareth” (Address Welcoming the Young People, World Youth Day, August 18, 2005, Cologne; http://www.vatican.va/content/ benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2005/august/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20050818_ youth-celebration.html); “God [who] has spoken to us [is] not an abstract or hypothetical God, but a real God, a God who exists, who entered history and remains present in history” (General Audience of November 28, 2012, at Vatican Information Service, visnews-en.blogspot.com/2012/11/speaking-about-god-inour-times.html). 23 This point is crucial to the sustained argument of Servais Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View, trans. Michael Sherwin (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001), 11–17. 22 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 477 and accursed under Jewish law and had the most gruesome and tortuous of Roman executions imposed upon him explains why, in 1 Corinthians 1:23, Paul understands how “scandalous” (to Jews) and “foolish” (to Greeks) it is at first sight to propose such a man as the new center of gravity in the moral life. On Paul’s account, the implications of this Christocentric relational way of conceiving the moral life are put in the following terms: we must “live to” the Person of Christ (Rom 14:8), “belong to” him (Gal 5:24), and even “put on” this Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, while “mak[ing] no provisions for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom 13:14). Our relationship with the Person of Christ implies a transformation of our moral comportment, inclusive of our sexual practices, in a way that suits the moral maturity of a “reformed” person who acts “no longer as under a pedagogue.” We shall see in a moment the ample Pauline exhortations making clear what this transformative relationship, this “putting on” of Christ, implies in the sexual arena. But for the moment, we can cite the New Testament scholar N. T. Wright, who, commenting on Paul’s teaching, writes: “Sexual holiness is mandatory, not optional, for followers of Jesus. . . . Sexual holiness isn’t just a ‘rule,’ an arbitrary commandment. It is part of what it means to turn from idols and serve the true and living God. It is part of being a genuine, image-bearing human being . . . [and is] to be built into the Christian DNA from the start.”24 Natural Law in the Moral Teaching of St. Paul (and in the Bible) Before getting to the key texts, we should point out that St. Paul’s endeavor to center the moral life, inclusive of our sexuality, on our relationship with the Person of Christ does not at the same time reject or downplay human reason as a veritable source of moral action (as the Greek philosophical tradition so honors). On the contrary, reason plays an integral role in the “putting on” of Christ. It does this principally through the natural law. The Apostle makes this clear at the outset of the Letter to the Romans, where he affirms that the Gentiles, by virtue of “the law . . . written on their hearts,” were able to observe “by nature what the law [of Moses] requires” (Rom 2:14–15). That St. Paul should affirm later in the same epistle that obedience to the moral law, known through the human conscience, does not oppose the effort at “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14) bespeaks the harmony N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 2018), 217–18. Wright even insists that the moral meaning of sex marks one of the top three items that St. Paul is most “eager” to expound upon. 24 478 Paul Gondreau between the duty to follow nature and the duty to follow Christ. According to the moral theologian Servais Pinckaers, the Person of Christ and the natural law mark “the two major poles of the moral teaching of St. Paul.”25 The French biblical scholar Ceslas Spicq observes how the role of natural law in St. Paul’s moral teaching is consistent with the New Testament as a whole: “The entire New Testament,” Spicq tells us, “makes use of and presupposes as incontrovertible (the natural law’s) first given; namely, that good is distinct from evil, and that we should do good and avoid evil.”26 For a passage in Jesus, he points to Mark 3:4 (“And he said to them, ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill’”). One could also point to Matthew 12:35 (“‘The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil’”), or to Jesus’s appeal to reason and common sense in moral matters, as in Luke 12:57 (“‘And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?’”). For references in St. Paul, Spicq cites Romans 2:9–10 (“There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil . . . but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good”), Romans 16:19 (“I would have you wise as to what is good and guileless as to what is evil”), and Galatians 6:10 (“let us do good to all men”). “In a sense, nothing is more human,” Spicq concludes, “than New Testament morality. It denounces the same vices and prescribes the same virtues as the Jewish, Greek and Roman moral codes.”27 The biblical scholar Amos N. Wilder extends this further: “We have every right to recognize the equivalent of natural law in the [entire] Bible.”28 Among the many passages he points to for evidence, Genesis Pinckaers, Morality, 16. Ceslas Spicq, “La loi naturelle dans Le Nouveau Testament” (appendix 2), in Théologie morale du Nouveau Testament, 2 vols. (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1965), 1:394–406, at 401 (translation mine). See also his much later Connaissance et Morale dans la Bible (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1985), 50–67 (“La connaissance de la volonté de Dieu par la Loi naturelle, la Tôrâh et la loi positive”), at 56; here Spicq observes (noting an important caveat): “As with any ‘human’ morality, the New Testament reaffirms the first principle of the natural law: do good and avoid evil, though the revulsion of evil and the attachment to good will be made possible only by charity” (translation mine). 27 Spicq, Théologie morale du Nouveau Testament, 1:404 (translation mine). For agreement, see C. H. Dodd, “Natural Law in the New Testament,” in New Testament Studies (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1953), 129–42, at 139. 28 Amos N. Wilder, “Equivalents of Natural Law in the Teaching of Jesus,” Journal of Religion 26, no. 2 (1945): 125–35, at 129. See also: Matthew Levering, “God and Natural Law: Reflections on Genesis 22,” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (2008): 25 26 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 479 1–2 figure prominently. As the scholar Jean-Baptiste Edart confirms, the Genesis creation account “presents a clear vision of the man-woman structure in the act of creation . . . and this divine will or divine law is inscribed in nature.”29 And recall, as seen above, how Jesus himself appeals to Genesis 1–2 in his moral teaching on marriage, and that in so doing he makes an unmistakable, albeit implicit, appeal to the law of nature, to the law that precedes the Torah and which holds authority over the Torah.30 Taking this argument further, Matthew Levering, in his work Biblical Natural Law, points out that what we find not only in Genesis but in the entire biblical revelation is a theocentric and teleological account of creation and providence, of God’s ordering wisdom. And to say providential governance or teleological ordering to predetermined ends, particularly in reference to the human being, is to say natural law. We see this when God fashions the human being in view of what Levering terms “goods constitutive of true human flourishing” (such as the union of man and woman in marriage): The early chapters of Genesis, within a profoundly theocentric context, reveal human beings to be intrinsically teleological, ordered to certain goods constitutive of a flourishing proper to human beings. This aspect of Genesis 1–2 can be overlooked when one views God’s commands as extrinsic rather than intrinsic to the human person. Yet in appealing, with regard to marriage, to “the beginning” (Matt. 19:4, 8), Jesus himself emphasizes the teleological dimension of Genesis 1–2. In Genesis 1–2 God’s commands and actions do not set up extrinsic norms, but rather indicate, in 151–77; Levering, “Knowing What is ‘Natural’: Thomas Aquinas and Luke Timothy Johnson on Romans 1–2,” Logos 12, no. 1 (2009): 117–42; Anver M. Emon, Matthew Levering, and David Novak, Natural Law: A Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Trialogue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Dodd, “Natural Law in the New Testament,” 135–6; and Cajetan Cuddy, “Thomas Aquinas on the Bible and Morality: The Sacred Scriptures, the Natural Law, and the Hermeneutic of Continuity,” in Towards a Biblical Thomism: Thomas Aquinas and the Renewal of Biblical Theology (Pamplona, ES: Eunsa Press, 2018), 173–97. 29 Innocent Himbaza, Adrien Schenker, and Jean-Baptiste Edart, The Bible on the Question of Homosexuality, trans. Benedict Guevin (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 98 (emphasis mine). For agreement, see Dupont, Mariage et divorce, 34: “[Divorce] ignores a fundamental law of nature, expressive of the will of the Creator” (translation mine). 30 For support, besides Wilder’s “Equivalents of Natural Law in the Teaching of Jesus,” see Dodd, “Natural Law in the New Testament,” 135–36, and A.-M. Dubarle, Le péché original dans l’Écriture (Paris: Édition du Cerf, 1958), 107. 480 Paul Gondreau a theocentric fashion, the intrinsic norms that express the goods constitutive of true human flourishing.31 Jesus himself, we might add to close these remarks on biblical natural law and as Wilder points out, appeals constantly to God’s providential ordering of nature in his use of metaphors and examples: trees, fruits, mustard seeds, foxes, sparrows, ravens, thorns, thistles, weather patterns, lilies, grass, grains of wheat, and so on.32 A Morality of Conjugal Love We turn to those texts that allow us to ascertain the Pauline vision of human sexuality. Two texts emerge as especially foundational: 1 Corinthians 7:1–16 and Ephesians 5:21–33. In both we find St. Paul deferring to pre-established authorities as a ground for his own position: in the first, the authority of Jesus “the Lord”; and, in the second, that of Genesis 2. As for the 1 Corinthians passage, St. Paul writes: “To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord [Jesus], that the wife should not separate from her husband . . . and that the husband should not divorce his wife” (1 Cor 7:10–11). In the second (Ephesians) passage, the Apostle cites directly Genesis 2:24 in his effort to underscore the unitive love of husband and wife: “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies . . . ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” (Eph 5:28–31). (Paul of course, in his very appeal to “the Lord,” references indirectly Genesis 1–2 in the 1 Corinthians passage as well, given that Jesus had invoked it in his prohibition of remarriage after divorce.) The takeaway here is that St. Paul makes his own these two foundational sources, Jesus the Lord and the Genesis creation account, and this sets him “off and running,” as it were, in providing what one biblical scholar affirms is a veritable vision of the meaning and purpose of human sexuality.33 So if, for instance, Jesus’s teaching on marriage and divorce implies that marriage is indissoluble, that it is a holy and sacred union, and that it signifies a friendship of equality, we can affirm the same in St. Paul—and then some (as we shall see). Paul’s appeal to the Genesis creation account in particular, both Matthew Levering, Biblical Natural Law: A Theocentric and Teleological Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 60. 32 See Wilder, “Equivalents of Natural Law in the Teaching of Jesus,” 133–34. For agreement, see Spicq, Théologie morale du Nouveau Testament, 1:394. 33 Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 124. 31 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 481 directly and via his invoking Jesus “the Lord,” shows that, for him, there can be no doubt that male–female complementarity, sexual dimorphism, marks a fundamental structure of human nature. Genesis 1–2 set forth the male–female anthropology, expressive of God’s creative design, as normative for human sexual comportment. Put more directly, Genesis 1–2 (in conjunction with natural law) make clear that God has endowed the human family with the gift of sexuality for the joint purposes of procreation and unitive love, and thus for the express purpose of marriage (which alone unites these two orderings). Because this bears on any who share the same sexed design, Paul sees imbedded in the Genesis creation account a universal standard of conduct—“applicable to all people at all times,” to quote Edart.34 Based on the 1 Corinthians and Ephesians passages cited above, then, we can say that at the core of the Pauline vision of human sexuality, that is, at the heart of the effort at “putting on” Christ in the arena of sexual practice, is the principle that marriage acts as the normative good of our sexuality. As with Jesus, St. Paul’s vision of human sexuality could be summed up simply as a morality of conjugal love—though understood in properly relational terms (“belonging to Christ”). For Paul, what renders a sexual act good and holy is the measure by which it respects the unitive and procreative orderings of the marital act. Any sexual act falling short of this will fail to attain what God intends for human sexual practice. Paul’s remarks on sexually immoral behavior, which shall be examined shortly below, make this quite clear. “A Great Mystery” There is something more, much more, in the Ephesians passage relative to the Pauline vision of the meaning and direction of human sexuality. In this passage Paul offers a newer understanding of Christian marriage than what one finds either in the Genesis creation account or even in Jesus’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage (though one could argue it is implicit in the latter). As the Apostle announces it, Christian marriage signifies nothing less than the conjugal union between Christ and the Church: “[Marriage] is a great mystery [mustērion mega], and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church” (Eph 5:32). While new, this vision of marriage, we should point out, is at the same time anticipated by the nuptial imagery “The reference to the creation story is the foundation of the universal character of Paul’s judgment [on sexual immorality]. According to him, it is applicable to all people at all times” (Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 124). 34 482 Paul Gondreau that the Old Testament employs to allegorize the soul’s union with God (see Song of Songs, Hos 2, Isa 54 and 62, Jer 3, and Ezek 16 and 23). Rendering mustērion mega as sacramentum magnum, as does St. Jerome in his Latin Vulgate translation of Ephesians, the Latin tradition has understood Paul’s declaration to mean marriage marks a sacrament. (By Jerome’s day the Greek Fathers had long since been using the term mustēria to designate those Christian rites that the Latin tradition was referring to as sacramenta, “sacraments.”) This means that marriage, and human sexuality in general, shares in the economy of salvation in the way that is unique to the sacraments.35 Paul’s vision of the meaning and purpose of human sexuality should thus be more accurately termed a morality of redeemed conjugal love. Here, then, we find ourselves at the summit of Gospel perfection relative to the moral meaning and direction of human sexuality: our sexuality is not merely ordered to marriage; it is ordered to a partaking in our redemption, and thus to a sharing in our eternal glory. It goes without saying that St. Paul could affirm the goodness and holiness, not to mention indissolubility, of Christian marriage in no stronger terms than by identifying it with the conjugal love of Christ and the Church. If it is impossible to desecrate or tear asunder the conjugal bond between Christ and his Bride the Church, so likewise the conjugal bond of Christian husband and wife. The Marriage “Debt” Mindful that married partners “have power/dominion” (exousiazō) not over their own bodies but over each other’s bodies, St. Paul enjoins his readers in the same First Corinthians passage: “Let the husband render the debt [opheilēn] to his wife, and the wife also in like manner to her husband” (1 Cor 7:3–4). Sometimes opheilēn is translated in English as “conjugal rights,” as in the RSV: “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.” Whatever one’s preferred translation, at bottom the marriage “debt” signifies that married partners have the moral obligation to grant conjugal intercourse to each other, within the bounds of reason. While it was standard for medieval theologians to include consideration of the marriage debt in their treatment of marriage, scholars today not infrequently snicker at the notion of “debt” for the archaic and legalistic stamp it puts on marriage, and disre- For more on the meaning of marriage as a sacrament, see my essay, “The Redemption and Divinization of Human Sexuality through the Sacrament of Marriage: A Thomistic Approach,” Nova et Vetera (English) 10, no. 2 (2012): 383–413. 35 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 483 gard it as an excusable “hiccup” in the Pauline corpus.36 However, on this matter we need not see the marriage debt as necessarily out of step with contemporary “personalist” approaches to human sexuality in general and to marriage in particular. This Pauline notion, in fact, fits squarely with the indissoluble nature of marriage, that is, with marriage as a true unity. When, through marriage, a man and a woman bind themselves in life-long love and fidelity to each other, they become united in body and soul (“one flesh”). They become “another self,” to use Aristotle’s language of friendship, in the deepest and most intimate sense of the term. That is, their entire persons, including their bodies and their souls, belong to each other. Each has a claim on the other’s body and soul, so to speak, as on his/her very person (a sense that the words of marital consent that were in use in the thirteenth century—“I take you as mine,” which both bride and bridegroom pronounced—evoked).37 Spouses enjoy a kind of ownership over each other’s bodies. To speak of “debt” is to speak of what is owed, due, on the basis of fundamental equality in personal dignity, as Aquinas argues when discussing the matter.38 Marriage debt (conjugal rights) in no case means the granting of free license to each spouse, or to expect sex “on demand,” to quote one scholar, as if sexual intimacy with each other could be taken for granted, or as if spouses could treat each other’s bodies as objects, as a kind of plaything for one’s amusement.39 Rather, each spouse is due the total gift of body and soul of the other as another self in the deepest bonds of highest friendship. Granted, the medievals see the rendering of the marriage debt largely as a kind of legal transaction and as an antidote to concupiscence, Aquinas devotes an entire article to the marriage debt (debitum in Latin) in ST Suppl., q. 64 (this is pulled from In IV sent., d. 32, q. 1). Reid (Power over the Body, 105) notes how canonists and lawyers since the twelfth century had stressed “the sense of obligation (debitum) that bound [married] parties together.” Raymond of Peñafort, who was himself a thirteenth-century teacher of canon law, gives central treatment to the notion of the marriage debt in his Summa on Marriage (see, e.g., title II, nos.9–11 [trans. Payer, 23–24]). For a modern treatment of it, see John C. Ford and Gerald Kelly, Contemporary Moral Theology, vol. 2, Marriage Questions (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1963), 63–74. 37 We know “I take you as mine” were the “customary words” of marital consent in the thirteenth century from the testimony of Raymond of Peñafort, Summa on Marriage, title II, no. 2 (trans. Payer, 20). 38 ST Suppl., q. 64, a. 5 (taken from In IV sent., d. 32, q. 1, a. 3). 39 The view that the marriage debt implies that sex is to be provided “on demand” comes from Jean Porter, “The Natural Law and Innovative Forms of Marriage: A Reconsideration,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 30, no. 2 (2010): 79–97, at 87. 36 484 Paul Gondreau or, as St. Thomas explains, as an assuagement of sexual desire.40 But this does not mean a more “personalist” take on the marriage debt, whereby it signifies the offering of one’s body and soul in the total gift of self, is absent from such a view. “Shun Porneia” To reiterate, Paul’s hetero-normative vision of human sexuality implies that any sexual act that falls outside marriage in its procreative and unitive structure falls short of what God intends for our sexuality. As such, it remains at variance with the life that “belongs to” or “puts on” Christ. Sexual conduct which befits our “putting on” Christ demands that we honor marriage as the normative good of our sexuality. The Letter to the Hebrews, whose doctrine, biblical scholars confirm, relates closely to Paul’s, puts it succinctly: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled” (Heb 13:4). Such defilement takes many forms, but for Paul the catchword that encompasses all of them is porneia, as when he exhorts us to “shun porneia” (1 Cor 6:18) and to “put to death porneia” (Col 3:5). Difficult to translate, porneia is best rendered, generally, as sexual immorality or unchaste action (“living according to the flesh,” as Rom 8:12 puts it), or, more precisely, as any sexual act, whether of an extramarital or unnatural sort, that dishonors marriage in its procreative-unitive nature.41 So when Paul writes to the Christian community in Corinth that “the body is not meant for porneia” (1 Cor 6:13), what he means is the body is meant for no other form of sexual intimacy than that between husband and wife, in an embrace of procreative-unitive love. To “shun porneia” means to shun those sexual practices that seek pleasure as the ultimate aim, to shun those sexual acts that oppose or divide in any way the procreative and unitive orderings of the marital embrace. Paul enumerates several specific examples of this, as we shall see in a moment. By exhorting us to shun general unchaste conduct [porneia], Paul approximates closely Jesus’s injunction, bound up with his condemnation of “adultery of the heart” (Matt 5:27–28), to exercise internal self-mastery ST Suppl., q. 64, a. 1, sc (taken from In IV sent., d. 32, q. 1, a. 1, sc). Aquinas adds in q. 64, a. 9 ad 1 (In IV Sent,, d. 32, q. 1, a. 5, qla. 3, ad 1): “It is ordained by God, on account of the weakness of the flesh [propter lubricum carnis], that the debt must always be paid to the one who asks lest he be afforded an occasion of sin.” 41 For porneia signifying general unchaste behavior, see Ceslas Spicq, Théologie morale du Nouveau Testament, vol. 2, 555, n. 2. According to Hauck and Schulz (“πόρνη,” 6:590), porneia signifies “all extra-marital and unnatural intercourse.” 40 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 485 over our sexual urges. He exhorts us to inculcate the virtue of chastity, all in view of heeding the fundamental meaning and purpose of our sexuality. Porneia as an “Abomination of Desolation” Turning up the heat in his same first letter to the ancient Corinthian Christians, Paul insists that to engage in porneia is to profane our very own bodies, which are living temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:18–19). No doubt St. Paul intends in this connection to link unchaste conduct with the infamous “abomination of desolation” mentioned in 2 Maccabees (Wright postulates that 1–2 Macc loomed large in the mind of Paul).42 By this abomination of desolation, the Jewish temple in Jerusalem was profaned through “pagan debauchery,” through “sexual intercourse with (prostitutes) in the sacred precincts,” and through “other indecencies” (see 2 Macc 6:3–7). Whenever we, for our part, descend to the ranks of unchaste action and cross the line of sexual impropriety, Paul wishes us to understand, we desecrate anew our very own bodies. To be sure, not made of stone but of living flesh and blood, and in which dwells, truly, God’s Spirit, our bodies are temples of an exceedingly higher sort. Sexual sins, unchaste actions, are a type of personal abomination of desolation that we repeat over and over. Put a bit differently, since marriage elevates sex to the sacred and holy, any sexual act that falls short of the procreative-unitive nature of the marital embrace is not simply evil, it is gravely evil, as it profanes the sacred, the holy, and not merely “the good.” “So glorify God in your body,” Paul concludes (1 Cor 6:20). Little wonder, then, that Paul, holding the moral duty of abstaining from porneia in mind, should exhort us: to “crucif[y] the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24); to “make no provisions for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom 13:14); to “shine as lights in the world, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation” (Phil 2:15); to “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God . . . [And] not to be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of [our] mind” (Rom 12:1–2). “Running Headlong with Impunity into Lust, Unbridled and Unrestrained” Make no mistake. St. Paul’s exhortation to “shun [and] put to death porneia” was no small order for the “crooked and perverse [pagan] generation” of his Greco-Roman day (nor, of course, for our own culture, given the “new philosophy of sexuality” that suffuses it, to cite Pope Benedict Wright, Paul, 32–34. 42 486 Paul Gondreau XVI43). If the ancient Jews “remained aloof from [unnatural sexual] vices,” to quote one ancient Jewish source,44 then even more so were the early Christians in their heeding Paul’s call for sexual purity. Indeed, the Greco-Roman world, operating on the principle that sexual intimacy in any form, whether of a homoerotic or heterosexual sort, was “just as necessary and justifiable as eating and drinking,” as one scholarly authority puts it, was steeped in sexual depravity.45 So much so that the Roman poet Horace felt compelled to denounce the “prolific wickedness” of his day for having “defiled the marriage bed and family and home” (Odes 3.6). Even the Roman Emperor Augustus, passing the Julian laws supporting the family, intervened in the effort at shoring up the sexual morals of Roman culture. And we know from the erotic frescoes found on the brothel walls of the ancient city of Pompeii that the ancient Romans favored a diverse sort of deviant sexual practices. Other ancient Christian sources attest to the same. The Christian philosopher Aristides († ca.150) says the Greeks and Romans of his day were given to “base [sexual] practices” and to “monstrous impurity,” while Epiphanius († 403) rebuffs the pagans for their sexual “carousing,” a carousing that St. Jerome († 420) insists was tantamount to “running headlong with impunity into lust, unbridled and unrestrained.”46 John Pope Benedict XVI, Address to Members of the Roman Curia, December 21, 2012 (Vatican Information Service,visnews-en.blogspot.com/2012/12/family-dialogue-new-evangelisation.html). By “new philosophy of sexuality,” Benedict means the view where “sex is no longer [seen as] a given element of nature . . . [but merely as] a social role we choose for ourselves.” Even in 1930, Pope Pius XI denounced the “new and utterly perverse morality” of his day (Casti Connubii, Encyclical Letter on Christian Marriage, §3). 44 This assertion comes from the Epistle of Aristeas, a Jewish account from the second century BC; the larger passage reads: “Entire countries and cities [in the pagan world] pride themselves because of (their rampant homosexuality). . . . They [further] sully themselves (through incest). . . . As for us [ Jews], we have remained aloof from these vices [of homosexual relations and incest]” (Lettre d’Aristée à Philocrate, no. 152, trans. A. Pelletier, Sources chrétiennes 89 [Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1962], 175; cited in Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 85). 45 Hauck and Schulz, “πόρνη,” 6:582. 46 Aristides, Apology 17; Epiphanius, Panarion [Adversus haereses Panarium] 51.30 (PG, 41: 941); and Jerome, Epistle. 77, no. 3 (PL 22: 691). The fuller passages from Aristides’s Apology (a work that was addressed to the Roman Emperor Hadrian), deserves to be quoted. In bk. 15 we read: “Christians know and trust in God, the Creator of heaven and of earth . . . from whom they received commandments which they engraved upon their minds and observe in hope and expectation of the world which is to come. Wherefore they do not commit adultery nor 43 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 487 Chrysostom († 407) censures the larger pagan culture for its “lasciviousness and unchasteness,” “indecency,” “harlotry,” and “sexual wantonness,” the origin of which he attributes to the devil.47 So when St. Paul writes to the Christians in Ephesus that they “must no longer live as the Gentiles do” (Eph 4:17), what he holds first and foremost in mind is sexual immorality (porneia). If the duty to shun sexual immorality was true of ancient Judaism, and it certainly was (Wright identifies sexual immorality as “one of the major differences between Jewish and pagan lifestyles”), then all the more was it true of ancient Christianity—as it still is today.48 Homosexuality Concrete examples of porneia in the Pauline corpus are manifold. In general, they are either of an extramarital or of an unnatural sexual sort. For the first, we find St. Paul censuring premarital sex/fornication (koitais), lust/disordered desire (orexis, epithumia) or erotic passion (pathos), impurity (akatharsia), adultery (moicheia), orgies (kōmois), prostitution (pornē), and incest, to name the best-known (see Rom 1:27; 13:13–14; 1 Cor 5:1ff; 1 Cor 6:9, 15, Col 3:5, and 1 Thess 4:3–5). Romans 1:26–27 As for unnatural sexual practices, homoerotic conduct stands out as the most prominent form of this type of porneia enumerated by St. Paul— and certainly the most controversial from a modern standpoint.49 The fornication . . . and (Christian) women, O King [Hadrian], are pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest; and (Christian) men keep themselves from every unlawful union and from all uncleanness, in the hope of a recompense to come in the other world.” Later in bk. 17 he adds: “Now the Greeks, O King [Hadrian], as they follow base practices in intercourse with males, and a mother and a sister and a daughter, impute their monstrous impurity in turn to the Christians. But the Christians are just and good, and the truth is set before their eyes.” Quotations are from the online English translation of D. M. Kay (earlychristianwritings.com/ text/aristides-kay.html). 47 John Chrysostom, In epistolam ad Colossenses Homelia 12 [Homily 12 on Colossians, on Col 4:18; PG 62: 585]; English translation in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff, ser. 1, vol. 13 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1890), 566–72 (available online at newadvent.org/fathers/230312. htm). 48 Wright, Paul, 167. 49 “In Greek, porneia . . . refers implicitly to all of the commandments in Leviticus 18–20, and therefore to homosexual acts [among other specific acts]” (Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 117n65). 488 Paul Gondreau Pauline censure of homoerotic practices occurs in three key passages. The first comes in Romans 1:26–27, where St. Paul employs the prepositional phrase “against nature” (para physin) to denounce homosexual activity (“men committing shameless acts with men” and “women exchang[ing] natural relations for ones against nature”). From the pen of Paul, the phrase para physin is particularly potent, carrying with it the full weight of what the natural law and the male–female anthropology of Genesis 1–2 would accord it. As Edart tells us, the phrase para physin relays Paul’s view “that sexual differentiation is willed by the Creator, and that it is a fundamental structure of the human being, a characteristic that is negated in the homosexual act.”50 On Aquinas’s reading of this passage, homosexual conduct is especially “deformed” (deformitatis), since from it “generation cannot follow.” Performed “not with the proper sex [non debitum sexum], as male with male or female with female, as the Apostle says in Rom 1:26–27,” and so failing to observe what is “suitable [convenit] for the human species,” it qualifies as a sin contra naturam (the Latin equivalent of para physin).51 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 St. Paul delivers his second condemnation of homosexual conduct in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10: “Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral [pornoi], nor idolaters, nor adulterers [moichoi], nor homosexuals [malakoi and arsenokoitai] . . . will inherit the kingdom of God.” While the RSV here, along with most translations, collapses the two terms malakoi and arsenokoitai into the one “homosexuals,” this is for convenience’ sake. Paul Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 92; see also 97–98: “The context of Rom. 1:19–23 invites us to see in this nature [to which Paul appeals in vv. 26–27] the order willed by God and seen in his creation. From this perspective, ‘against nature’ can legitimately be understood with reference to Genesis 1…They [homosexual relations] are called ‘against nature’ because they are contrary to the plan of the Creator since they ‘unite’ two people of the same sex.” Joseph A. Fitzmyer agrees: “‘Nature’ expresses for (Paul) the order intended by the Creator, the order that is manifest in God’s creation or, specifically in this case, the order seen in the function of sexual organs themselves, which were ordained for an expression of love between man and woman and for the procreation of children” (Romans, Anchor Bible 33 [New York: Doubleday, 1993], 286n26). 51 ST II-II, q. 154, a. 11; here Aquinas expressly lists masturbation (“procuring ejaculation without sexual union for the sake of sexual pleasure”), bestiality (“copulating with a thing not of the same species”), and sodomy as examples of sins contra naturam. In SCG III, ch. 122, Aquinas defines “sins against nature [contra naturam)]” as “any emission of semen [from which] generation cannot follow,” and “such would be any emission of semen apart from the natural union of male and female.” 50 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 489 employs these two terms to describe the nature of the male homosexual act in somewhat graphic language. Difficult to translate, malakos means “soft” or “effeminate one,” though here it is best rendered as “the man who desires to be penetrated.” Arsenokoitēs, a term that Paul seems to be the first to have employed in all of Greek literature, literally means “male bedder” or “male seeder,” that is, one who beds/seeds a male. In other words, by these terms “Paul has simply laid out the active and passive roles in a homosexual act,” to quote Edart (with arsenokoitēs obviously corresponding to the active role and malakos to the passive role).52 As such, homoerotic activity stands in sharp contrast to the nature of that sexual act which alone is expressive of the creative will of God, namely, the procreative-unitive union of man and woman. There is more to Paul’s use of arsenokoitēs. The biblical scholar Adrien Schenker reminds us that, “as a Pharisee and one who is knowledgeable in the Torah, Paul could not ignore the weight of Leviticus 18 and 20.”53 Specifically, Schenker is referring to Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, wherein we find homosexual conduct condemned in the severest of terms, as a tôʿēbâ: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed a tôʿēbâ.” Usually translated as “abomination,” tôʿēbâ connotes as well “going badly astray” or “repugnant filth.”54 The position of Leviticus, indeed, of the entire Torah itself, on homoerotic practice is thus harsh and uncompromising.55 Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 78; see 74–80 for a comprehensive treatment of the meaning and contextual background of malakos and arsenokoitēs. See also Max Zerwick and Mary Grosvenor, A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament, 3rd ed. (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1988), 508; and A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. [BDAG], ed. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, and Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 135 (arsenokoitēs) and 619 (malakos). 53 Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 7. 54 For the various meanings of tôʿēbâ, see Anthony Esolen, “God Is Not the Author of Confusion,” Crisis Magazine, December 21, 2016 (crisismagazine.com/2016/ god-not-author-confusion). 55 “These passages [from Leviticus on homosexual practice] implicate the entire Pentateuch [or Torah]” (Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 47–48). Besides Lev 18:22 and 20:13, there is also, of course, Gen 19:1–29 (especially v. 5), where homoerotic practice (along with the refusal of hospitality) is counted among the chief sins of Sodom (whence the term Sodomy) and a chief reason for this city’s ensuing destruction. We find an almost identical Sodom story, the infamy of Gibeah, recounted in Judg 19:11–25. On the Sodom and Gibeah stories, Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart (The Bible on Homosexuality, 41–42) observe: “The story [of Sodom] highlights the refusal of hospitality. This refusal 52 490 Paul Gondreau So when we come to the Septuagint’s Greek renderings of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, the key terms used to describe the homosexual act are arsenos (“male”) and koitēn (“bed” or “sleep”), as in Leviticus 20:13: “Whoever sleeps with a man [arsenos] as one sleeps [koitēn] with a woman, it is an abomination.” Sticking closely to this language of the Septuagint, Paul pens the neologism arsenokoitēs as a way of continuing in the line of Leviticus on the gravely immoral nature of homosexual relations.56 (The two rabbinic Talmuds do much the same thing when, drawing upon the Hebrew text of Lev 18:22 and 20:13, they use the Hebrew phrase “to sleep with a male,” miškab zâkûr, to signify homosexual conduct.)57 Paul’s use of arsenokoitēs, in other words, draws direct allusion to Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, and in so doing gives Christian echo of the Torah’s censure of homosexual relations as a tôʿēbâ (abomination, repugnant filth). 1 Timothy 1:8–10 The third and last Pauline condemnation of homoerotic activity appears in 1 Timothy 1:8–10: “The law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for . . . the sexually immoral [pornoi] [and] for active homosexuals [arseis expressed by a violation of the home, the intention of committing an act of a homosexual nature on a stranger, apparently to make him submit. . . . If we want to stop at homosexuality, while keeping in mind the proper intention of these two texts [Gen 19 and Judges 19], we could say that homosexual behavior is part of what constitutes the sins of the inhabitants of Sodom as well as those of the men of Gibeah. It can also be said that the two texts condemn this kind of behavior.” This reading stands against attempts by numerous scholars to restrict the reason for Sodom’s destruction exclusively to the refusal of hospitality (see, for instance, Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983], 74n14, who also says it might be homosexual rape that is condemned, even though the passage does not contain the Hebrew term for rape). For agreement with Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, see P. Dickson, “Response: Does the Hebrew Bible Have Anything to Say about Homosexuality?” Old Testament Essays 15 (2002), 350–67, and Lynne C. Boughton, “Biblical Texts and Homosexuality: A Response to John Boswell,” Irish Theological Quarterly 58 (1992): 141–53, at 143. 56 See Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 77. Thus, John Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980], 102) ignores the plain Pauline evidence (and the ensuing patristic witness) when he opines, “Levitical proscriptions were not likely to have much effect on early Christianity.” 57 For support of the rabbinic usage, Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart cite, from the Babylonian Talmud, b. Sanh. 54a, b. šab. 17b, and b. Sukkah 29a, and from the Jerusalem Talmud, y. Ber. 9:50, 13c (The Bible on Homosexuality, 77). Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 491 nokoitai].” By offering a repeat use of the term arsenokoitēs, Paul hearkens anew to the teaching of the Torah that homosexual relations constitute an “abomination,” a tôʿēbâ; they pervert the nature of the sexual act established by God (see Gen 1–2). Condemning the Sin but Not the Sinner If the language that St. Paul unloads on those who engage in homosexual relations in the three forgoing passages strikes the modern reader as particularly harsh, if not embarrassingly harsh, we must bear in mind that it is the conduct itself that he condemns, not the persons themselves as persons. Recall the distinction between persons and moral behavior that we noted above in reference to Jesus’s condemnation of adultery of the heart and which is nowhere more pertinent than here. Condemning moral behavior does not equate with condemning persons. Jesus again provides the model for this when he says to the woman caught in adultery, “neither do I condemn you,” while at the same time instructing this woman to “sin no more,” thereby making clear his stance on the conduct itself of adultery (see John 8:11). We must do the same when treating the Pauline position on homosexuality: “It is only homosexual acts and the desires at their origin that are condemned,” Edart observes, “[since o]nly acts and desires to which one fully consents can be qualified as good or evil.”58 Nor should we think St. Paul is singling out homosexual conduct for excessively disproportionate censure. To repeat, he comes down severely on all forms of porneia, of which homoerotic conduct is simply one (albeit attention-catching) type. As was mentioned above, Paul’s statement, “the body is not meant for porneia” (1 Cor 6:13), means the body is meant for no other form of sexual intimacy than that between husband and wife, in an embrace of procreative-unitive love. The Silence of Jesus on Homosexuality We may wonder, of course, why Paul should target by name homoerotic conduct when Jesus himself, at least as far as the written record serves, remains silent on the matter. To answer, recall that Paul, in his own words, preached to a “crooked and perverse generation” of pagan Gentiles (Phil 2:15) whose “prolific wickedness” had “defiled the marriage bed and family and home,” to quote again the Roman poet Horace. But given the clear teaching of the Torah, especially Leviticus, on the gravely immoral nature of homosexual conduct, not to mention the Sodom and Gibeah stories (Gen 19:1–29 and Judg 19:11–25) or the teaching of Genesis on Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 106. 58 492 Paul Gondreau the male–female complement as normative for sexual love (to which Jesus appeals in his teaching on marriage and divorce), the Jews by Jesus’s day had, according to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, been “set apart from the unnatural sexual practices” that were otherwise prevalent among the pagan Gentiles.59 Another Jewish account from the second century BC also testifies that, with regard to unnatural sexual practices, the ancient Jews “remained aloof from these vices.”60 Hence, Schenker insists that sexual purity marks “the distinctive behavior of the Israelites in the midst of all the nations of the earth” (recall that Wright argues the same).61 It should not astonish us, then, that Jesus, who was sent “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 15:24), utters nary a word on homosexual conduct, nor on some of the other sexual immoralities condemned in Leviticus (incest, bestiality). Put simply, it was not an issue for the Jewish audience of his day (“no social visibility” is how Edart characterizes the issue of homosexuality in Jesus’s Jewish milieu62). Seen in this light, Jesus’s silence on the issue should hardly be taken somehow as a tacit departure from Leviticus and Genesis 19 on the gravely immoral nature of homosexual acts, as some (e.g., James Martin, S.J.) would like to suggest.63 Indeed, recall that Jesus departs from the moral rigors of the Torah, at least as regards sexual matters, only in order to intensify and elevate these rigors. He does away with the Mosaic right to divorce because, as he says, it marks a concession to sin (a doing away that left his Jewish interlocutors Josephus’s remark comes in Contra Apionem, quoted in Fitzmyer, Romans, 286. John L. McKenzie adds: “The morality of sex is far more rigorous in Israel than among its neighbors” (“Aspects of Old Testament Thought,” in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond E. Brown [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990], 1284–315, at 1304). 60 See note 44 above for Epistle of Aristeas, no. 152. 61 Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 48 (emphasis theirs). 62 “Jesus’ silence on this matter [of homosexual acts] can only be interpreted as reflecting agreement with the tradition of Israel on this point. Besides, it is highly probable that he never directly came across this question in the Jewish milieu, since, given the existing prohibition, this behavior had no social visibility”(Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 114). 63 In a video interview, James Martin, S.J., states: “In his long ministry, his three-year public ministry, Jesus says nothing about the topic [of homosexuality]” (“James Martin: Jesus Says Nothing about Homosexuality,” “Facebook Live” video, June 8, 2017, youtube.com/watch?v=cXAXlxAdbGQ). The entirety of this video makes clear that Martin does indeed intend to suggest such a tacit demurral on Jesus’s part. Father Martin, of course, is the author of Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity, revised and expanded (New York: HarperOne, 2018). 59 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 493 so stunned that they queried whether celibacy would be preferable to marriage). And in his signature Sermon on the Mount, Edart reminds us, Jesus goes “to the root of the law’s demands” and otherwise “reaffirms the permanent validity of the Decalogue and takes no liberties with the moral law,” or with what Wilder calls “the norms themselves [of the Torah].”64 For these reasons, we can safely assume that had Jesus discharged his mind on homoerotic practice, his language would have approximated Paul’s. We can say more. If Jesus opposed divorce on the grounds that, as he says, “from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’” (Mark 10:6), it would have been exceedingly incongruous, to say the least, if he should not also have opposed homoerotic relationships on the same grounds, namely, that they violate the male–female structure (dimorphic complementarity) of our sexuality: “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’” Granted, the image of a “non-judgmental” and “tolerant” Jesus who stands ready to accept one’s sexual choices and lifestyles dominates today’s popular imagination, as when gay-rights demonstrators hold up rainbow-adorned posters that ask rhetorically, “What Would Jesus Do?” No matter if social pressure or convenience may incline us to lay aside the textual evidence in the interests of advancing a popular, politically correct image of Jesus, we must remain faithful to the written record. And the textual evidence, whereby Jesus resorts to the strongest language possible in raising the bar on sexual morals that extends to our very thoughts and desires, allows for one conclusion: it is highly improbable to suppose that, on the issue of homoerotic conduct, Jesus would move in a more lax direction. Not only would this be fundamentally out of step for him, it would pit him in direct opposition to the clear, unbending teaching of the Book of Leviticus, and thus to the hetero-normative moral teaching of the entire Torah. What would Jesus do, then, if hypothetically confronted with persons committed to homosexual conduct? At the very least, we could expect him to have uttered, without personal condemnation, that same phrase he addressed to the woman caught in adultery: “sin no more.” Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 124–25. Wilder adds: “[ Jesus’s change with regard to the Mosaic Law] did not carry with it the nullification of the moral aspects of the Torah. It is the legalistic character of the law which is dissolved, . . . not the norms themselves” (“Equivalents of Natural Law,” 126–27). For more on this, see Boughton, “Biblical Texts and Homosexuality,” 147–48. 64 494 Paul Gondreau A “Gravely Erroneous” Read on the Pauline Stance on Homosexuality Given today’s ever-growing cultural acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle, we should not find it surprising that recent scholarship has witnessed myriad attempts either to dismiss outright or to soften the otherwise moral juggernaut of the Pauline condemnations of homoerotic conduct. Usually these efforts are put forward on the following two grounds: first, that the so-called homosexual “orientation,” and by extension loving, stable homosexual relationships, were unknown in the ancient world, with the result that what Paul condemns was more pederasty or abusive/violent sex (such as between master and slave) or prostitution than committed homosexual relationships as we understand them today;65 second, that the meaning of these passages (as well as those in the Old Testament) remains obscure and, in any case, ever-evolving in light of cultural and historical change and modern scientific findings, if not eclipsed by these changes and findings.66 Martin opines: “Certainly in Old Testament times they didn’t understand the phenomenon of homosexuality and bisexuality, I would say, as we do today” (“Jesus Says Nothing about Homosexuality”). Martin’s remarks make clear that he includes the New Testament in this (see the following note). For others arguing the same, see: Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality, 84; Gerald Coleman, “The Vatican Statement on Homosexuality,” Theological Studies 48 (1987): 727–34, at 728–29; Adriano Oliva, Amours: l’Église, les divorcés remariés, les couples homosexuels (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2015); David G. Myers and Letha Dawson Scanzoni, What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (New York: Harper, 2006), 93; Martii Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998); and Walter Wink, “Homosexuality and the Bible,” in Homosexuality and the Christian Faith: Question of Conscience for the Churches, ed. Walter Wink (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1999), 33–49. 66 Martin argues: “All these Bible passages [condemning homosexuality] that people throw at you, I think, really need to be understood in their historical context, right? I mean, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and even the stuff brought up in the New Testament where Paul talks about it, you know, once or twice, has to be understood in the historical context” (“Jesus Says Nothing about Homosexuality”). At one level, of course, Martin is correct, but his video and his book, Building a Bridge, make clear that his effort is to move beyond the biblical condemnation of homosexual conduct. For others arguing this position, see Garry Gutting (professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame), “Unraveling the Church Ban on Gay Sex,” op-ed in The New York Times, March 12, 2015; (opinionator.blogs. nytimes.com/2015/03/12/unraveling-the-church-ban-on-gay-sex/?_r=2). This position was also put forward by a homosexually active Episcopal priest at a panel discussion on same-sex marriage that I participated in at Rhode Island College in Providence, RI, in March of 2009. And it is the implicit position of Daniel A. Helminiak: “I do not presume the Bible provides the last word on sexual ethics. In my mind, the matter is more complicated than that. Historical, cultural, phil65 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 495 One well-known author, John Boswell, sums up the upshot of these efforts when he declares that the Bible takes “no demonstrable position” on sexual intimacy between members of the same sex within the context of a stable, affirming relationship.67 Another, Daniel A. Helminiak, is even more unabashed: “To me this seems to be fact: the Bible supplies no real basis for the condemnation of homosexuality. . . . Taken on its own terms and in its own time, the Bible nowhere condemns homosexuality as we know it today.”68 These conclusions find recycled airplay in those who appeal to them as authoritatively definitive, and it is not uncommon even to find high-ranking churchmen calling for a re-examination of the biblical teaching on homosexuality.69 Boswell’s and Helminiak’s contentions notwithstanding, other biblical scholars (in unison with countless Fathers and Doctors of the Church) confirm that what Paul condemns is indeed what his words would on the osophical, psychological, sociological, medical, spiritual and personal factors all come to bear on the matter” (What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality [Tajique, NM: Alamo Square Press, 2000], “Preface to First Edition”). 67 Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, 92. For an outlining of these various arguments dismissing the Pauline condemnation of homosexual practice, see Dan O. Via and Robert A. J. Gagnon, Homosexuality in the Bible: Two Views (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003), 74–75, and Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 81–83. 68 Helminiak, What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality, “Preface to First Edition” and “Preface to Millennium Edition.” For agreement, see Aaron Milavec, What Jesus Would Say to Same-Sex Couples: Ratzinger’s Disordered Thoughts on Homosexuality + Nonviolent Resistance to the Christian Taliban (Amazon Press, 2019). According to Krzysztof Charamsa, a Polish priest who held positions at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the International Theological Commission before being removed after “coming out” as gay: “The Bible never speaks about homosexuality as we know it today. . . . The Bible never condemns homosexuals, just as it never condemns heterosexuals, on the basis of their sexual orientation” (Andrea Miluzzo, “Interview with Krzysztof Charamsa after his coming out,” LGBT New Italia, January 8, 2016, trans. Flavia Viglione, lgbtnewsitalia.com/2016-01-08-interview-with-krzysztof-charamsa-after-hiscoming-out-in-the-vatican-ive-never-read-anything-about-what-we-condemn-asgender-ideology). For Scroggs, the Old Testament expresses “indifference” to homosexual acts (The New Testament and Homosexuality, 70). 69 Thus, for instance, the afore-cited op-ed piece in The New York Times, “Unraveling the Church Ban on Gay Sex,” by Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. For an example of the call to re-examine the biblical teaching on homosexuality by those holding high office in the Church, see the comments of Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen, Germany, in the February 2019 issue of the German theological monthly Herder Korrespondenz. 496 Paul Gondreau face of them suggest.70 These scholars assure us that St. Paul stands strictly in line with the teaching of the Torah on the inherently immoral nature of homosexual conduct, as based especially upon Leviticus, upon the Sodom and Gibeah stories, and upon the male–female (natural-law) anthropology of Genesis. The multiple efforts to lay aside Paul’s condemnations of homosexual acts, these scholars argue, amount in the final analysis to revisionist attempts at evading the plain sense of these passages, even if said attempts are often not without erudite apparatus (Boswell’s historical studies, in particular, have been roundly debunked).71 If the Bible honors marriage, the life-long union of man and woman as expressive of God’s creative design, homosexual unions receive no such honor. They receive instead, without exception, the severest of censures. This is an undeniable and inescapable fact. Resorting to gerrymandering exegesis that stretches the imagination and which ends up sounding like an endorsement of the sexual revolution or of the gay-rights movement as a way of circumventing this reality will not do. St. Paul, to repeat, enjoins us “not to be conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2). So when confronted with a biblical exegesis that proposes a morality that smells of “conforming to the world,” we can safely assume we are no longer in the realm of biblical morality. Perhaps modern sensibilities would have preferred St. Paul to have distanced himself and his vision of the Christian moral life from the harsh tone of Leviticus, as of the entire Old Testament precedent. But he does not. He opts for the opposite approach, and no amount of revisionist These scholars would include, in addition to Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart (The Bible on Homosexuality), the following: Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2002); Boughton, “Biblical Texts and Homosexuality,” 148–52; Dennis Kinlaw, “A Biblical View of Homosexuality,” in The Secrets of Our Sexuality: Role Liberation for the Christian, ed. Gary R. Collins (Waco, TX: Word, 1976), 104–15; and Fitzmyer, Romans, 276, 284–88. See as well Ceslas Spicq, Les Epîtres Pastorales, 2 vols. (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1969), 1:334. Citing a rich array of texts, Roberto De Mattei (Église et homosexualité [Paris: Pierre Téqui, 1995]) lists the following Fathers and Doctors of the Church who followed Paul in condemning homosexual conduct: Augustine, John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, Peter Damian, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas (as we saw above in regard to: ST II-II, q. 154, a. 11; and SCG III, ch. 122; and see also In IV sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 5), Catherine of Siena, Bernardino of Siena, Peter Canisius, Pope St. Pius V, and Pope St. Pius X. De Mattei also cites the Council of Elvira in Spain (AD 305), canon 71; the Council of Toledo XVI (AD 693), canon 3; and Lateran Council III (AD 1179), canon 11. 71 For a point-by-point refutation of the revisionist efforts, see Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 347–95. 70 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 497 or sloppy exegesis can alter this fact.72 Paul’s message is unambiguous: if homoerotic conduct has no place in the life of the devout Jew who observes the law of Moses, then all the more should it be excluded, along with all forms of porneia, from the lives of those endeavoring to “put on” and “belong to” Christ. His language is strong and unbending (“will not inherit the kingdom of God,” “shameless acts,” “unholy and profane”), with no confusion of referent, such as pederasty or male prostitution, and with no exceptions, such as for homosexual orientation. If one wishes to dismiss the biblical condemnation of homosexual conduct, one must simply dismiss the Bible outright. Not surprisingly, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) as Cardinal Prefect, did not mince words when addressing the “new exegesis of Sacred Scripture” that seeks to downplay or dismiss the biblical censure of homosexual conduct: “These views are gravely erroneous.” 73 Edart’s final word on this matter could not contrast in any sharper terms with the afore-cited assertions of Boswell and Helminiak: Paul is talking about acts considered to be the most serious, directly offensive to the divine law. This teaching was in line with first century A.D. Judaism. Paul makes no reference to sexual orientation or to specific sexual acts (pederasty, rape, etc.). It is the act itself that is condemned. . . . All homosexual acts are against nature, that is, opposed to the divine will, whether they be between men or between women. Moreover, beyond this argument, nothing in the text supports the thesis that Paul is talking about sexual relations imposed by force [i.e., rape or pederasty]. . . . Homosexual acts remain against nature whether they are experienced by someone with a heterosexual orientation or by a person with a homosexual orientation within the confines of a stable affective relation.74 An example of sloppy exegesis is provided by James Martin, “Jesus Says Nothing about Homosexuality.” For instance, Martin lumps together the condemnation of homosexual acts in Leviticus with the position of Leviticus on slave holding, improper attire, and crop placement: “We don’t look at those passages [on slave holding, attire, and crop placement] in an ahistorical way, so why should we look at passages on homosexuality in that way?” 73 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its 1987 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1987), §4 (www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_ doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html). 74 Himbaza, Schenker, and Edart, The Bible on Homosexuality, 80, 105–6. 72 498 Paul Gondreau Our last word on this issue should go to the recent sex-abuse scandal in the Church, given that the “shameless acts” (Rom 1:27) committed by certain clerics were disproportionately of a homoerotic sort.75 What this biblical teaching bears on homosexually active priests and bishops should appear obvious. Homoerotic acts are in God’s eyes deeply immoral— always and everywhere. “Sexuality has an intrinsic meaning and direction which is not homosexual,” writes Benedict XVI.76 When these acts are committed by those entrusted with the office of the sanctification of God’s people and who are committed to a life of celibacy, they are of the most reprehensible and deplorable, even horrific and sacrilegious, sort. Virginity (Celibacy): The Eschatological Virtue Before closing our reflections on the vision of human sexuality in Jesus and Paul, we should give brief consideration to the privileged place that virginity or the celibate state enjoys both in Jesus’s counsel to pursue spiritual perfection “for the sake of the Kingdom of God” (Matt 19:12) and in St. Paul’s moral recommendation that all “remain single as I do” (1 Cor 7:7–8; see as well vv. 25–38). As these remarks “from the Lord” and from the Apostle intimate, human sexuality undergoes a transformation in the New Law of the Gospel. Ordering us not simply to an “earthly” good, as does the Mosaic Law, but to our ultimate, supernatural end (eternal life), the New Evangelical Law of Christ extends the meaning and purpose of human For the recent study showing a link between clergy sex abuse and homosexuality in the priesthood, see D. Paul Sullins, “Is Clergy Sex Abuse Related to Homosexual Priests,” Ruth Institute, November 1, 2018, ruthinstitute.org/clergy-sex-abuse-statistical-analysis. On this connection, Dominic Legge writes: “In the main, the persistent problem is with homosexually active priests. Fr. Roger Landry argues— rightly, I think—that most priests who persist in infidelity with women eventually leave the priesthood, but priests who cheat on their vocation with men often continue to live a double life. Most of the issues stem from this kind of duplicity. Networks of active homosexual priests have developed: They protect and promote their own and others who will tolerate them. . . . The sin is even more serious when a bishop, a seminary formator, or a priest uses the authority of his office—an office instituted by Christ for the sanctification of the faithful—in a perverse way, in the service of shameful and selfish passions” (“Cleansing the Church of Clerical Sacrilege,” First Things, August 16, 2018, firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/ cleansing-the-church-of-clerical-sacrilege). For the Landry piece, see “Truth Is Needed to Free the Church from Sacrilege of Clergy Scandal,” National Catholic Register, August 7, 2018; ncregister.com/daily-news/truth-is-needed-to-free-thechurch-from-sacrilege-of-clergy-scandal. 76 Benedict XVI, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times, a Conversation with Peter Seewald, trans. Michael J. Miller and Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), 151. 75 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 499 sexuality beyond the carnal or earthly nature of the marital relationship to the very supernatural, glorified end of human life.77 How so? Besides elevating marriage to the level of a sacrament (see again Eph 5:32), the New Law of Christ commends that virtue which, giving witness to St. Paul’s declaration that “this world [including our bodies] in its present form is passing away” (1 Cor 7:31), consists in the perpetual sacrifice of sexual pleasure; namely, the virtue of virginity (often realized in the avowed celibate state). What is key here, as Benedict XVI notes, is the renunciation or sacrificial offering of the sexual pleasure that is proper to marriage, given “sexuality’s intrinsic meaning and direction,” which is “to bring about the union of man and woman.” Celibacy makes sense, and as Benedict further explains, only as a renunciation of that good to which our sexuality by design orders us, a meaning that is lost when celibacy is opted by those “who don’t want to get married anyway” (Benedict was speaking specifically of those who struggle with homosexuality).78 By renouncing the earthly good of sexual pleasure (note this is far different from simply “not getting married,” as claimed by those who favor the view that “sterile sex among men” does not violate the vow of celibacy), celibacy or virginity anticipates the glorified state of our bodies at the final resurrection, when See Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 107, a. 1: “The New Law which derives its pre-eminence from the spiritual grace instilled into our hearts . . . is described as containing spiritual and eternal promises, which are objects of the virtues, chiefly of charity [but also of chastity and virginity].” Earlier in q. 91, a. 5, Thomas explains: “To this (sensible and earthly good) man was directly ordained by the Old Law. Thus, at the very outset of the law, the people were invited to the earthly kingdom of the Canaanites (Ex 3:8–17). . . . But to this (our spiritual and heavenly good) man is ordained by the New Law. Thus, at the very beginning of his preaching, Christ invited men to the kingdom of heaven, saying (Mt 4:17): ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” 78 Benedict XVI, Light of the World, 151–53. Further, as Daniel Mattson, who himself has struggled with homoerotic desires, notes in his piece on homosexuality in the priesthood: “Men with homosexual tendencies find it particularly difficult to live out the demands of chastity. The vast majority of scandals in the Church since 2002 involve homosexual priests profoundly failing in chastity. This is no surprise to me. Chastity, I’m convinced (and the evidence bears this out), is much harder for men with a homosexual inclination than for others” (“Why Men Like Me Should Not Be Priests,” First Things, August 17, 2018, firstthings. com/web-exclusives/2018/08/why-men-like-me-should-not-be-priests). Of note, for support he cites clinical psychologist James Loyd, C.S.P., who, after working with homosexual men (including priests) for over thirty years, maintains: “It is clear enough from the clinical evidence that the psychic energy needed to contain homosexual drives is far greater than that needed by the straying heterosexual” (cited by Mattson). 77 500 Paul Gondreau men and women “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matt 22:30).79 Even if retaining its sexed design, the human body on the Last Day will yet be raised “celestial,” “imperishable,” “spiritual,” “immortal,” and with “power” and “glory,” to use St. Paul’s vocabulary (1 Cor 15:40–44).80 For Thomas Aquinas, this eschatological spiritualized state means “the soul will, to a certain extent, communicate to the body what properly belongs to itself as a spirit.”81 That is, at the final resurrection, the glory of the beatified soul will redound or overflow into the resurrected body, so that the body will receive what Aquinas terms an “incorruptible being” (esse incorruptibile).82 Part and parcel of the body’s esse incorruptibile, Aquinas further explains, is “subtlety” (subtilitas), whereby the body, entirely subject to the spirit and sharing fully in the soul’s spiritual enjoyment of R. R. Reno relates (per the testimony of the Irish philosopher William Desmond): “The main debate in the Jesuit dining room [at Fordham University in the 1970s] concerned whether or not sodomy constituted a violation of the vow of celibacy. Some priests took the line that celibacy concerns the conjugal act, not sterile sex between men” (“Catholicism after 2018,” First Things, October, 2018, firstthings. com/article/2018/10/catholicism-after-2018). Hence the excessively narrow and skewed definition of celibacy as simply “the restriction against marriage for members of the Catholic clergy” that James Martin, S.J. offers in his The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 216. 80 As for the glorified, spiritualized resurrected body retaining its sexed design, see Aquinas, In IV sent., d. 44, q. 1, a. 3, qa. 3, corp., and qa. 4, ad 2: “The diversity [of sex] befits the perfection of [our] species. . . . And therefore just as humans will rise again in diverse statures, so too, in diverse sexes. And although there be a difference between the sexes, nevertheless there will be no shame [confusio] in the mutual sight, for there will be no sexual desire inciting them to base acts, which is the cause of this shame. . . . [qa. 4, ad 2] The difference between the sexes and [genital] members will be for restoring the perfection of human nature [ad naturae humanae perfectionem reintegrandam] both in the species and in the individual” (trans. Beth Mortensen, Peter Kwasniewski, and Dylan Schrader [Green Bay, WI: Aquinas Institute, 2018], 74–75, with adaptations). Aquinas makes the same argument in SCG IV, ch. 88. 81 Aquinas, ST I, q. 97, a. 3; see also q. 98, a. 2, ad 1. 82 See ST III, q. 54, a. 2, ad 2; and SCG IV, ch. 86. See also ST II-II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 4. For more on all this, see Philippe-Marie Margelidon, O.P., Les fins dernières: de la résurrection du Christ à la résurrection des morts, 2nd ed, (Paris: Éditions Lethielleux, 2016). See also Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Résurrection de Jésus et résurrection des morts: Foi, histoire et théologie (Paris: Cerf, 2012). For more on what this esse incorruptibile spells in terms of the healing of our bodies, particularly in the case of those with disabilities, see my essay, “Disability, the Healing of Infirmity, and the Theological Virtue of Hope: A Thomistic Approach,” Journal of Moral Theology 6, special issue 2 (2017): 70–111. 79 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 501 God, will not engage in the bodily activities of eating, drinking, and sexual union, as these “serve the corruptible life.”83 Because it gives witness to the glorified state that awaits the final resurrection, virginity or celibacy is sometimes called the eschatological virtue.84 As John Paul II, who insists that “a complete theology of the body” must include reflection upon virginity or celibacy, puts it, the state of virginity or celibacy “is a sign that the body, whose end is not death, tends toward glorification.”85 John Paul II goes on to relate celibacy to the nuptial meaning of human sexuality by seeing it as signifying a kind of spiritual marriage. By this he means the celibate individual makes the complete gift of self not to one other person “in the flesh,” but to all God’s people “in the spirit.”86 In this way celibate persons, renouncing the sexual pleasure that is proper to marriage “in the flesh,” imitate Christ’s own spousal union with the Church. They can thus be considered “married” in this higher sense. Aquinas makes a similar move by creatively linking celibacy or virginity with God’s command “to be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). This command, Thomas argues, implies not only physical or bodily fecundity, but spiritual fecundity as well. By devoting themselves “to the contempla Aquinas, SCG IV, ch. 86; see also ch. 83 and ST Suppl., q. 83, aa. 1–6. See: Spicq, Théologie morale du Nouveau Testament, 2:562; Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Mary T. Noble (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 131; John Paul II, General Audiences of December 16, 1981, and (especially) March 24, 1982 (Man and Woman He Created Them, 395 and 419); Edward Schillebeeckx, Marriage: Human Reality and Saving Mystery (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965), 108–9, 125–40, and 155–76; and Lawler et al., Catholic Sexual Ethics, 24–29. For its part, the Second Vatican Council writes in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, §44: “It [the consecrated religious state which is avowed to a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience] not only witnesses to the fact of a new and eternal life acquired by the redemption of Christ, but it foretells the future resurrection and the glory of the heavenly kingdom. . . The religious state clearly manifests that the Kingdom of God and its needs, in a very special way, are raised above all earthly considerations.” The wording is even more explicit in Vatican II’s Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life, Perfectae Caritatis, §12. 85 John Paul II, General Audiences of March 17 and 24, 1982 (Man and Woman He Created Them, 415 and 419). In his “theology of the body” General Audience discourses, John Paul II devoted considerable attention to celibacy or virginity, covering it in seventeen consecutive general audiences (beginning on December 16, 1981, and ending on July 14, 1982 [Man and Woman He Created Them, 394–457]). 86 John Paul II, General Audience of April 14, 1982, (Man and Woman He Created Them, 431–32). 83 84 502 Paul Gondreau tion of divine things for the beauty and welfare of the entire human race,” celibate individuals fulfill the spiritual thrust of God’s command to be fruitful and multiply.87 Conclusion In closing, we can say that Jesus and Paul, indeed, the biblical witness as a whole, present a high—extremely high—estimation of human sexuality, with marriage at the marrow of its teaching. As this essay has attempted to show, the core principles embedded in the moral teaching of Jesus and Paul signal nothing less than a whole vision of human sexuality. According to this vision, God has endowed man and woman with a sexed nature for the express purpose of conjugal love, that is, for a union defined by—and by only—its joint procreative and unitive orderings. Realized in only one form, namely, the life-long loving and exclusive union of one man and one woman, marriage marks the normative good, the intrinsic meaning and direction, of human sexuality. Conveying the mind of God on sexual choices and lifestyles, this biblical teaching, clear and unambiguous, corrects the skewed vision of human sexuality that human sin has wrought—Genesis traces the corruption of human sexuality directly to the fall of man. This skewed vision is everywhere to be found in Western society today, just as it was everywhere to be found in the ancient world outside the nation of Israel. By the standards of biblical morality, the modern turn toward sexual license and unbridled hedonism, ensuing upon “the false principles of a new and utterly perverse morality,” to quote Pope Pius XI (Casti Connubii [Encyclical Letter On Christian Marriage], §3), and by which the procreative and unitive orderings are severed from each other, marks nothing less than a turn toward “madness and evil,” as Gandalf the wizard, in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, says of Lord Denethor after Denethor had lost his mind and had ordered his own death and the death of his innocent son Faramir. Has Western culture today, abandoning the principles of biblical morality in favor of what Benedict XVI again calls a “new philosophy of sexuality” (albeit a philosophy that is identical in practice to what the New Testament condemns as porneia), lost its mind and ordered its own cultural death as regards sexual choices and lifestyles? It would seem so. For those who wish to “belong to” and “put on” Christ (in the full Pauline sense), there is but one choice: to heed Gandalf ’s example in contesting the will of the Lord Denethor by contesting the will of this new philosophy ST II-II, q. 152, a. 2, ad 1. See Servais Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 458–59. 87 Jesus and Paul on the Meaning and Purpose of Human Sexuality 503 of sexuality and returning to biblical standards, that is, returning to a morality of conjugal love. Our very happiness and flourishing in the sexual arena depend upon it. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 505–519 505 Contemporaneity: The Mystery of Liturgical Time Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. University of Dallas Dallas, TX In the period after the Second Vatican Council, the balance between relevance and tradition, adaptation and conservation, inner and active participation, and dynamic and literal translation all occupied a central place in liturgical discussions, and led at times to passionate confrontations. Essential indeed were these issues in promoting an authentic liturgical renewal but, as almost always happens in history, they eclipsed, to the point of near total oblivion, a fundamental issue that, when ignored, distorts the proper understanding of liturgical participation. Faithful Catholics in the pew know that Christ becomes present on the altar, that they receive him in holy communion, and that they remember his death and resurrection in the Mass. They also know that in the other sacraments they receive Christ’s grace adapted to the purpose of the respective sacrament. But they are largely unaware that in the liturgical action they enter liturgical time, the intersection of our time with eternity. If the sacrifice of Christ in the Mass remains for them a mere object of their own “liturgical imagination,” and heaven is the mere object of future hope, they remain locked up within the narrow walls of their secular life. Yet, when we enter a Romanesque or Gothic cathedral or the modern chapel of Le Corbusier, we cannot help feeling that we entered another world whose dimensions enlarge and elevate our mind and heart. Is this merely an illusion imagined by the visitor, or could this world perhaps be more real than what one leaves outside? In other words, if there is liturgical space, should there not be also liturgical time? In the present article, I intend to take up a subject which had been a hotly debated topic in the first half of the twentieth century. I do not intend to provide an overview of the various theological positions in that near past, but rather to articulate and develop what seem to me their positive results. 506 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. Twentieth Century Reflections on Liturgical Time While in the late Middle Ages and in the post-Tridentine period the focus of theological inquiry centered on the substantial presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine, in the first half of the twentieth century a number of dogmatic theologians and liturgists began to explore the presence of the “work of our redemption” in the liturgical actions of the Church. They referred to Christ’s redemptive work by the traditional term “the mysteries of Christ” or the “saving history of Christ,” which includes his conception, birth, earthly life, suffering, resurrection, and ascension. Odo Casel, a Benedictine of the Belgian Abbey of Maria-Lach, was the first to study the biblical and patristic evidence for what he called the Mysteriengegenwart, the presence of the redemptive mysteries in the liturgical actions of the Church.1 The subsequent lively theological discussion centered on the apparent contradiction: Casel and followers claimed that Christ’s historical acts have an abiding presence in the liturgy, but others objected that a historical act necessarily becomes past or else it is not historical. Besides Casel, the most important theologians who tried to provide an intelligible explanation of the traditional data are Gottlieb Söhngen, Johannes Betz, Brian McNamara, and Edward J. Kilmartin.2 As metaphysical studies became unpopular by the last decades of the twentieth century, the issue of the Mysteriengegenwart also disappeared from among the relevant themes of theological inquiry. I first intend to survey the data of the Tradition on the presence of the redemptive work of Christ in the liturgy, and then offer an explanation of what constitutes ”liturgical time.” A complete bibliography of his works is available: D. Praxedes Bienias, “Bibliographie von DDR. P. Odo Casel OSB,” in Vom Christlichen Mysterium: Gesammelte Arbeiten zum Gedächtnis von Odo Casel, ed. A. Mayer, J. Quasten, and B. Neunheuser (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1951) 363–75. Of particular interest is Odo Casel, The Mystery of Christian Worship (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1962). 2 Gottlieb Söhngen, “Symbol und Wirklichkeit im Kultmysterium,” in Grenzfragen zwischen Theologie und Philosophie (Bonn, 1940); Söhngen, “Die Kontroverse über die kultische Gegenwart des Christusmysteriums,” Catholica 7 (1938): 114–49; Söhngen, “Christi Gegenwart in uns durch den Glauben,” in Die Einheit in der Theologie (Munich: Karl Zink, 1952), 324–69; Lothar Lies, “Zur Eucharistielehre von Johannes Betz,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 128 (2006): 53–80; Brian McNamara, “Christus Patiens in Mass and Sacraments: Higher Perspectives,” Irish Theological Quarterly 42 (1975): 17–35; Edward J. Kilmartin, The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology, ed. Robert J. Daly (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998) 267–386. 1 The Mystery of Liturgical Time 507 Scripture In the first half of the twentieth century, form-critical studies by K. L. Schmidt, Martin Dibelius, and Rudolph Bultmann asserted that many of the pre-Gospel pericopes that later became the building blocks of the Gospels originated in a Eucharistic setting. Recently, Denis Farkasfalvy reformulated their theory and successfully argued for the Eucharistic provenance of most Gospel pericopes. The “words and deeds of Jesus” were remembered, told, retold and shaped in the Eucharistic gatherings not as mere subjective memories of what he did and said in his earthly life and post-resurrection appearances, but with the awareness that his words and deeds are contemporaneous to each Eucharistic celebration. He himself continues to speak and act in the Eucharistic celebration: he comes, or is approached, he comforts and reprimands, forgives and chastises, heals and feeds the community, and extends to them the presence of his Kingdom in his Eucharistic presence among them.3 In particular, the dying and rising of Jesus are somehow part of the Eucharistic celebration according to Paul. He finishes the institution narrative by reminding the Corinthian faithful: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).4 The Lukan narrative of the disciples going to Emmaus suggests the structure of a Eucharistic celebration: first, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them all that referred to him in all the scriptures” (Luke 24:27), and only after this ”Liturgy of the Word” does he reveal himself in ”the breaking of the bread.” It seems that Luke wants to show us that in the Church’s Eucharistic worship the Emmaus story is represented, and thus in some sense becomes present to believers at every celebration. In addition to the exegetical evidence from the Gospels, a theological analysis of the word of God in the Bible points in the same direction. One essential difference between a mere human writing and a biblical text consists in the difference of their origin. While the human writing contains a message of a mortal man who wrote the text in the past and may no longer be alive at the time when it is read, the transcendent author of the biblical text is God who transcends time, and therefore his word is always “living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb See Denis Farkasfalvy, A Theology of the Christian Bible: Revelation, Inspiration, Canon (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018), with ample bibliography. 4 Note that the text does not simply mean a homily on the death of the Lord, but that the Eucharistic celebration itself proclaims it. 3 508 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. 4:12). Its connatural locus is the liturgical celebration which, in fact, considers its biblical texts as God’s actual word to the assembly. If God speaks in the present, his message must also be relevant to the present.5 The Fathers of the Church Many Fathers, both in the East and the West, wrote about and contemplated the presence of the action and Passion of Christ in the Eucharist. For instance, Theodore of Mopsuestia writes: We inscribe the vision of heavenly realities into our mind insofar as we remember that Christ who has died, risen and ascended into heaven for us, is being even now offered by means of these symbols; as we look with our eyes in faith at the signs of the memorial that has been now performed, we are led to see that he still dies, rises and ascends into heaven—(all) that took place once for us.6 That in the liturgy no new self-offering of Christ takes place, neither by Christ nor by the priest, another text makes abundantly clear: “Evidently, the bishop accomplishes an offering; however, this offering is neither new nor his own, rather it is the memorial of that offering (of Christ’s).”7 Theodore also teaches that not only Christ enters the heavenly sanctuary, but so do his people in the Eucharist: [The author of Hebrews] called the veil [of the Temple] the flesh of the Lord, for it is through this flesh that we enjoy our entry into the holy of holies. Just as the high priest according to the Law entered the holy of holies through the veil and it was impossible for him to enter in any other way, thus the believers in Christ enjoy their heavenly citizenship through the reception of the most holy body [of Christ].8 St. Ambrose likewise insists that the mysteries of Christ become present in the Eucharistic celebration by the very fact that we commemorate them: See Farkasfalvy, A Theology, 60–62. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Homiliae catecheticae 15.20 (all translations from patristic sources are my own). Our interpretation, of course, presupposes that the liturgical anamnesis (memorial) is a share in God’s memory that transcends time. 7 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Homiliae catecheticae 15.15. 8 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Interpretatio in xiv epistulas Sancti Pauli. 5 6 The Mystery of Liturgical Time 509 Therefore, whenever you receive [the Eucharist], what did the Apostle tell you [about it]? Whenever we receive it, we announce the forgiveness of sins. If, whenever the blood is poured out, [it] is poured out for the forgiveness of sins, I must always receive it so that it may always forgive my sins. I who always sin must always receive a medication [for sin].9 Not only his passion becomes present to the participants, but also his resurrection and ascension: So you hear that whenever the sacrifice is offered, the death of the Lord, the resurrection of the Lord, the ascension of the Lord as well as the forgiveness of sins are represented; and you would not receive this bread of life daily? . . . “Give us this day our daily bread.” If you receive it every day, every day is today for you. If Christ is for you today, he rises for you every day. How? “You are my Son, today I begot you” (Ps 2:7). Today is when Christ rises from the dead. According to the Apostle Paul, “He is yesterday and today” (Heb 13:8). Yet, at another place he says: “The night has passed away, the day has arrived” (Rom 13:12). [In other words], the Night of yesterday has passed away, the Day of today has drawn near.10 It seems that, according to Ambrose, whenever we receive the Eucharist, we share in the eternal present, the eternal Today of the risen Christ, a presence that in some way includes the mysteries of his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.11 Both the Eastern and Western Church, the Eastern in the patristic age and the Western in the Middle Ages, attempted to explain the mystery by transforming the Eucharistic liturgy into an allegory. Each event of the Passion and resurrection was imagined to appear in temporal sequence on the altar, symbolized by different gestures and words of the priest.12 This approach helped to satisfy the imagination, but it threatened to degrade the mystery to the level of mere allegory. St. Ambrose, De sacramentis 4.27. At the same time, Ambrose insists that only those should share in Holy Communion who are purified by baptism and live so that they may deserve to receive the Eucharist every day (see 5.25). 10 St. Ambrose, De sacramentis 5.25–26. 11 See also St. Ambrose, De mysteriis 58. 12 For instance, the beating of the breast by the priest at the nobis quoque peccatoribus of the Roman Canon would signify the piercing of Jesus’s breast by the lance of the Roman soldier. 9 510 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. In modern times theologians in the East and West abandoned the allegorical explanation because they realized that the presence of the mysteries of Christ transcends the dividedness of ordinary time. In the liturgical action the mystery is present in its totality, rather than in temporal sequence. Liturgy According to St. Bernard, the eternal newness and renewing power of Christ accounts for his new birth within us at every Christmas: What always renews our minds remains always new; what bears fruit unceasingly and does not decay will never become old. This is the holy [thing] which is not allowed to see corruption. This is the new man who is unable to grow old in any way whatsoever and who transfers into the true newness of life those whose every bone has grown old. This is the reason—if you noticed—that, in the present most joyous annunciation, we say appropriately not that he was born but that he is being born: “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is being born in Bethlehem of Judea.” Just as in some way he is immolated every day while we announce his death, it seems that he is also being born as long as we faithfully represent his birth to our minds. Thus, tomorrow we will see the majesty of God, but in ourselves not in himself; that is, we will see majesty in humility, power in weakness, God in man.13 It is enough to take a cursory glance at the texts of the great feasts of the liturgical year. We celebrate the entire divine drama of our redemption, and in the time of the liturgical action we are always present in the “today” of the event we celebrate. Let us look only at some samples. On Christmas night, the Church sings with exuberant joy: Today true peace descended for us from heaven, today everywhere in the world the heavens drop down honey. Today the new day of redemption lit up, the end of a long preparation, the day of eternal joy.14 Similar is the jubilation of the Magnificat antiphon. The Church, as it Bernard of Clairvaux, Christmas Vigil Sermon 6: on the Proclamation. Responsory to the second reading of the Office of Readings, in Liturgia Horarum, vol. I (Rome: Editrice Vaticana, 1985), 350 (my translation). 13 14 The Mystery of Liturgical Time 511 were inebriated, cannot repeat enough the word Hodie (Today): Today Christ was born, today the Savior appeared, today angels sing on earth, the archangels rejoice, the just exult and sing: Glory to God in the highest! In the Holy Thursday Mass, before the consecration the priest adds to the words of the Roman Canon: “On the day before he was to suffer, that is, today, he took bread . . .” In the solemn praise of the Easter Candle on Holy Saturday night, the deacon’s exulting song returns nine times to the solemn conviction that “This is the night . . . O truly blessed night” of the Jewish Passover and Christ’s resurrection. We find the emphasis on the “today” also in the offices of the Ascension and Pentecost. It appears that in these celebrations the Church enters God’s eternity, and in faith shares God’s perspective in which the entire salvation history is present. Magisterium Pius XII was the first pope who taught that the mysteries of Christ’s life, Passion and resurrection are in some way present in the liturgy: The liturgical year, devotedly fostered and accompanied by the Church, is not a cold and lifeless representation of the events of the past, or a simple and bare record of a former age. It is rather Christ Himself who is ever living in His Church. Here He continues that journey of immense mercy which He lovingly began in His mortal life, going about doing good (Acts 10:38), with the design of bringing men to know His mysteries and in a way live by them. These mysteries are ever present and active not in a vague and uncertain way as some modern writers hold, but in the way that Catholic doctrine teaches us.15 Pius XII does not explain how “Catholic doctrine teaches us” this reality, but from the context it appears that the mysteries of Christ are present by influencing us and causing our salvation, each in its own way. Pope Saint John Paul II resumes the same topic in his last encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia. He writes from personal experience: For over a half century, every day, beginning on 2 November 1946, Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei (1947), §165. 15 512 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. when I celebrated my first Mass in the Crypt of Saint Leonard in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, my eyes have gazed in recollection upon the host and the chalice, where time and space in some way “merge” and the drama of Golgotha is re-presented in a living way, thus revealing its mysterious “contemporaneity” [cum suam arcanam “contemporalem” praesentiam manifestaret].16 John Paul formulates also the basic principle of this contemporaneity: The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift—however precious—among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work. Nor does it remain confined to the past, since “all that Christ is—all that he did and suffered for all men—participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times.”17 It is evident from these texts that John Paul asserts not only the personal presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but also the presence of his redemptive work. As is the general practice of the magisterium, the pope does not take sides in the theological debates on how this presence should be explained, but simply states the faith of the Church: “All that Christ is—all that he did and suffered for all men—participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times.” An Attempt to Explain the Data The inspection of two major issues should help us attain an intelligible formulation of Christ’s manifold presence in the liturgy: (1) the dynamics of Christ’s acts and sufferings, and (2) our participation in them through faith. The Dynamics of Christ’s Acts and Sufferings I presuppose here a Christology that takes seriously the human development of the incarnate Son. As an embodied spirit, the human being cannot determine himself fully by one free act of will. Even though the earthly Jesus is not burdened by the concupiscence of original sin, the law of gradual self-determination by a series of free decisions applies also to him, Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003), §59. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §11. See also Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1085. 16 17 The Mystery of Liturgical Time 513 since its cause is the complexity of the human being, its composition of body and soul. Even if the human soul had not fallen, its will and spiritual energies would still operate through the body, and could thus integrate and guide its forces only gradually, in a temporal process that follows the biological and psychological laws of human development.18 As the child Jesus becomes gradually capable of conscious and free acts, his awareness of being the Son of the eternal Father also grows in depth and clarity. In an ineffably close communion with the Father, Jesus listens to his inspiration, obeys the instructions of Mary and Joseph, and searches the Scriptures as he carries out step by step the Father’s will. In this way, he subjects his existence piecemeal, through its entire temporal extension, to the Father. Since Jesus the man obeys the Father in the Holy Spirit with an infinite love, his every act and suffering in love is of infinite value. With his last cry on the Cross—Tetelestai, “It has been completed” ( John 19:30)—he brings every moment of his earthly life under God’s rule through the Holy Spirit; when he dies, every act of his will and mind and every layer of his human nature have become, through the Holy Spirit, the human expression of the Son’s eternal love for the Father. The Father raises up Jesus on the third day, the Jesus whose humanity is now fully transformed and glorified by the Holy Spirit, to the extent that Saint Paul feels justified in writing that “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17). This Spirit-filled divinized Christ (which perfects rather than annihilates his humanity) has entered the realm of God and shares in his eternity. All that Christ did and suffered has become part of his glorified existence; and since Christ acted and suffered in our place and for us, our individual salvation history is a growing participation in Christ’s actions and sufferings—not in their external circumstances, but in the infinite love that has animated them. Saint Thomas Aquinas does not speak about the contemporaneity of Christ’s acts and sufferings with human history, but he does clarify their metaphysical foundation in two concise texts: Even though the suffering of Christ is a bodily suffering, it possesses spiritual power from the divinity that is united to it. And so it becomes effective by spiritual contact through faith and the sacraments of faith according to the apostle’s words: “. . . whom [God] has presented as reconciler in his blood through faith.19 For more details, see Roch Kereszty, Jesus Christ. Fundamentals of Christology, 3rd ed. (Staten Island, NY: Society of St. Paul, 2018), 372–81. 19 Summa theologiae [ST] III, q. 48, a. 6, ad 2: “. . . passio Christi, licet sit corpora18 514 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. Thomas affirms, as John Paul II will as well, the redeeming and transforming causality of Christ’s entire history: all that Christ did and suffered acts upon us per spiritualem contactum, as does his resurrection: The resurrection of Christ is not, strictly speaking, the meritorious cause of our resurrection. It is the efficient and exemplary cause. The efficient causality is through the humanity of Christ in which the resurrection took place and which is like an instrument acting in the power of divinity. Therefore, just as all other things which Christ in his humanity accomplished or suffered for us are saving acts through the power of his divinity, so too is his resurrection the efficient cause of ours through the same divine power whose proper effect is to raise the dead to life. This power is extended by being present in all times and places, and this contact of power is sufficient to fulfill the definition of efficient causality.20 Aquinas does not explicate in the above contexts what he means by a spiritual contact. We know, however, from his entire opus that he shares the conviction of Scripture and Tradition about the intimate bond between Christ and the Spirit: Christ always operates through the Holy Spirit and, thus, his entire saving work, life, death and resurrection, operate in us through the same Spirit who dwells both in him and in us. Thomas does not draw the conclusion from the causal influence of Christ’s acts and sufferings to their contemporaneity with us, but we can hardly avoid drawing this conclusion. If we are worked upon by the acts and sufferings of Christ, Christ himself must be in some sense present to us in his acts and sufferings. As long as he is working upon us, the distances of time and space disappear between us. It is not sufficient to conclude that he induces in us similar attitudes and dispositions to his own. He conforms our being to his, and offers us a share in his own love. The Fathers speak about the birth and growth of Christ within us in the sense that Christ relives his life in us in its various stages. For example, we share in the child Jesus’s trust in his Father, in his compassion for those who are suffering, and in his anger at the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. We unite ourselves to his total gift to the Father and participate in the energies of the risen Christ already in this life and then fully in our lis, habet tamen spiritualem virtutem ex divinitate unita. Et ideo per spiritualem contactum efficaciam sortitur, scilicet per fidem et fidei sacramenta, secundum illud apostoli, quem proposuit propitiatorem per fidem in sanguine eius.” 20 ST III, q. 56, a. 1, ad 3. The Mystery of Liturgical Time 515 dying with him. This process of participation in Christ is not limited to the level of intellect, will, and emotions. Acting and suffering with and in Christ presupposes and promotes an ontological conformation to him. The Role of Faith and the Holy Spirit I mentioned at the beginning that the main objection to the presence of the saving acts of Christ in the mysteries of the liturgy was the time-bound unrepeatability of a historical act. This problem, I believe, can be solved by examining the potential of the act of supernatural faith informed by love. By accepting God’s revelation on account of Christ’s witness, we are allowed to enter into the infinite dimensions of the triune God. Saint Bernard describes faith in these terms: What would faith not find? It reaches what is inaccessible, grasps what is unknown, comprehends immensity, apprehends the end of history; in its immense lap, faith includes in some way eternity itself. I say with confidence: I believe the eternal and blessed Trinity whom I don’t understand and I hold by faith what my mind does not grasp.21 If our faith includes God’s eternity, with the eyes of faith we can share in the Father’s contemplation of his incarnate Son’s journey on earth. Not by vision, but by mere naked faith we can walk with the Son and be united gradually to him by the Spirit of God who dwells both in the Son and within us. Just as the incarnate Son has expressed in his humanity his eternal relationship to the Father by the acts and sufferings of his human life, so too does he work out through the same Spirit his own image within us by conforming, step by step, our acts and sufferings to his own. To the extent of the measure of his grace and our cooperation, we grow in similarity and union with him until the end of our earthly life. It is true that the acts and sufferings of Jesus took place in time once, and now they belong to the past and are unreachable by our time-bound this-worldly existence. But by faith we share in God’s realm that transcends time and for whom the history of his Son is present in its temporal sequence. Moreover, every act and suffering of Christ has been animated by his infinite divine-human love, and thus their transforming and sanctifying power is inexhaustible and works on everyone who by faith and love open themselves to their transforming activity. The primary locus in which this redemptive history of Christ operates Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 76 on Song of Songs, no. 6. 21 516 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. on us is the celebration of the sacraments. They conform us to Christ according to the finality of each sacrament. In baptism we die with Christ to sin and are reborn in Christ; in confirmation we are empowered to reach maturity so as to bear witness to Christ. In the sacrament of penance we are reinstated into our life with Christ as the obstacles to growth, our venial sins, are removed. In the sacrament of the anointing of the sick we are conformed to Christ in our sufferings of illness, and in the sacraments of marriage and holy orders we are enabled to sanctify our new state of life by a new relationship to Christ. Thus, each sacrament connects us with Christ under a different aspect of his saving work. Since presence means a cause-and-effect relationship, Christ is present to us and within us under the aspect of each sacrament’s sanctifying activity. As said above, Christ is present in the other sacraments only through the effects of his activity within the recipient; his Eucharistic presence, however, is of a different kind. He reveals himself not only within us through his sanctifying work, but also in a personal encounter with us. We meet him as a person, both revealed and veiled in the impersonal species of bread and wine. He is the risen, glorified Christ who lives in God’s eternity, and thus his completed saving history is present to him. Even in the life of a saintly person, all that was valuable in his earthly life becomes part of his final identity; he would not be himself without his history. This, however, is only a faint analogy to show the inseparable link between the history and the identity of the risen Lord. In the Eucharistic celebration, we enter God’s eternity through faith so that the saving history of Christ might become contemporaneous to us. We are invited to share in his perfect self-offering which begins with his birth, is consummated on the Cross, and then is eternalized in the resurrection. Psychologically, it would be impossible for us to focus simultaneously upon each mystery of his life and death, and so the feasts in the cycle of the liturgical year allow us to participate through each particular mystery in the one integral saving mystery of Christ. While the Eucharistic celebration is the effective sacramental sign of our personal union with and conformation to Christ, we need to be prepared to personally unite our gift of self with his perfect sacrifice. Daily or at least frequent meditation is a powerful means to deepen personal participation in the Mass.22 In a real sense, however, even our personal See St. Thomas, ST III, q. 79, a. 1, ad 1: “No one receives grace before the reception of this sacrament [the Eucharist] except from some desire thereof.” Thus all grace received, no matter when and where, derives from, and directs us toward, the Eucharist. 22 The Mystery of Liturgical Time 517 meditation, in so far as it is helped by grace, is already an anticipation of the Eucharist since the Eucharist is Christ and all grace comes from Christ and draws us to Christ. Most Catholics, however, believe that in personal meditation, though God does help our prayer, we are left to our own resources when imagining the scenes from the life of Jesus. Yes, we need our imagination in order to reconstruct the scenery and the events according to our taste, strengths, and limitations. What we often do not realize, however, is the fact that our imagination reaches beyond subjective memories of Christ on earth. Through faith, our imagination enters God’s eternity in which Jesus’s history is eternally present, and our meditation allows this history to become contemporaneous to us and to transform us. One may react to our reasoning as very little different from what Catholics in the pew have always believed. Every Christian knows that by meditation we contact not a mere figure of the past but the living Lord. But most of us do not realize that the history of the risen Christ is also truly present to us in our act of faith. In some real sense, we walk with Jesus, we act and suffer with him. Each of us imagines Jesus differently as he heals the demoniac and the mother-in-law of Peter, as he multiplies the loaves, orders Peter to cast his net over the right side of the boat, and tells the little girl of Jairus, “Talitha koum”—“Little girl, get up,” and we could add the many other events of his earthly life. Yet our acts of faith and love do not stop at our own images and thoughts, but through them they get in touch with the real Jesus at one or another moment of his history as he is teaching, acting or suffering. The intensity of his presence and his influence on us is in proportion to the measure of grace and to our faith and desire. We also need to face a further question: what do we mean by the history of Jesus as it exists in eternity and is contemporaneous to us? Are the pain, the blood, the nails, and the last gasping breath of Jesus present for us in every Eucharist and in every meditation? In general, are all the material features of that moment of history present in our act of faith? Since God transcends time, for him all of history is always present in its temporal sequence, historical unfolding and completion, in the exact particular way as it has actually happened. But what is present to us?23 From the data of Scripture and Tradition, as outlined in the first part of this essay, we may Some of the saints claimed visions from the earthly life of Jesus, Mary and the saints. We can distinguish them from false subjective visions only in the light of the visionary’s entire life story. But even in case of an authentic vision, God did not circumvent the saint’s own psyche but revealed Jesus, Mary, or a saint to them through their own imagination. 23 518 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. conclude that every act of the earthly Jesus and every suffering he endured was motivated by his infinite love for his Father and for us. We could start with the words of the twelve-year-old adolescent to his parents when they find him in the temple, or quote a few examples of his Passion story, the desire to eat the Passover meal with his disciples, the gift of his Body and Blood to them and to the “many,” his warning to the weeping women, his prayer of asking forgiveness for his executioners, his words to the repentant criminal, his cry to God on the brink of despair, and his final cry, Tetelestai: “It has been accomplished.” In his every conscious act and his every reaction to his suffering, there was an ever-new act of infinite love expressed in many different forms. These acts, insofar as they expressed an infinite divine-human (theandric) love, are present to us, energizing and shaping us in the many similar situations of our lives. In summary, just as Christ on earth, interacting with the persons and events of his history, transforms his humanity into the human expression of his divine relationship with the Father, so too the risen Christ along with his transfigured earthly life enable us to live and act out our filial relationship to the Father.24 All this takes place in the Eucharist, in the sacraments that apply the grace of the Eucharist to the different needs of us or through the desire, implicit or explicit, of the Eucharist in personal prayer and meditation. Conclusion In this essay I could provide only a tentative outline of what awaits further study. God transcends time, and thus the history of Christ on earth, as it happened in its painful bloody empirical reality, is always present to God in its temporal sequence. But insofar as the history of Christ expresses his divine-human love in many forms and in many situations (what St. Thomas calls his acta et passa and what modern theologians refer to as the mysteria Christi), it has become part of his eternally risen, glorified, and spiritualized existence. In this sense, then, all the events of Christ’s history extend his active presence through the full length of human history. His acta et passa transform all those who open up in faith to him, carving out in them the features of the Son of God and thus making us his brothers and sisters and children of his Father.25 In the Eucharistic celebration, Christ himself becomes present in his The risen Christ breathes out his Spirit upon the disciples and makes his entire earthly life into a gift through the Holy Spirit ( John 20:19–23). 25 Christ alone had carried the full weight of all sins, abandoned by God and man, but now he first frees us from our sins and shares the energies of his risen life with us, and thus he actually carries our cross; we can only help him. 24 The Mystery of Liturgical Time 519 full divine-human reality for a personal encounter with us and to unite us with his act of self-surrender on the Cross both spiritually and sacramentally. In the other sacraments, he is present only through the effects of his reconciling and sanctifying activity. As for us, we are enabled to enter into God’s eternity through faith, where the mysteries of Christ can shape and form us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mere human acts are indeed essentially temporal and finite, but the divine-human acts of Christ participate in God’s eternal actuality. The contemporaneity to our history of Christ’s glorified existence along with his history obtains further intelligibility if we understand that this fact is one of the consequences of the Incarnation. Christ’s human life on earth, his crucifixion, and his glorification were indeed contingent historical events, but they do not constitute a mere sequence of passing incidents. By assuming as his own a human nature, the eternal Son has become the transforming center of all history, and confronts every human being. For those who accept him in faith, the entire Christ event becomes transformative and therefore contemporaneous.26 N&V We cannot deal here with the different modes of confrontation: whether explicit or implicit, before or after the historical fact of the Incarnation. This would need a much longer discussion. That Christ calls for a response from every human being is a datum of revelation. 26 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 521–563 521 The Hermeneutic of Continuity and Discontinuity between Romano Guardini and Joseph Ratzinger: The Primacy of Logos Roland Millare St. John XXIII College Preparatory Katy, TX We have reached the centenary of the publication of Romano Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy, which has had a tremendous impact upon liturgical theology and beyond despite its modest size. This was the first book published by Guardini and the first volume in the Ecclesia Orans series published by Abbot Ildefons Herwegen (1874–1946) of the abbey of Maria Laach, which was an influential center for liturgical study and renewal.1 The fundamental theme in Romano Guardini’s work, which has had the greatest impact upon Joseph Ratzinger’s theology of liturgy, is the primacy of logos over ethos (der Primat des Logos über das Ethos).2 1 2 After his election as abbot in 1913, Ildefons Herwegen formed an “academic circle” which was comprised of other influential members of the early liturgical movement: Kunibert Mohlberg, Odo Casel, and Anton Baumstark. In 1921, Herwegen founded one of the prominent journals on liturgical theology, Das Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft; see Robert A. Krieg, C.S.C, Romano Guardini: A Precursor of Vatican II (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press), 73. According to James Corkery, the priority of logos over ethos is one of the four characteristic features of Ratzinger’s theology; see Joseph Ratzinger’s Theological Ideas: Wise Cautions & Legitimate Hopes (New York: Paulist Press, 2009), 31–33. Corkery maintains, “The priority of logos over ethos, of receiving over making, of being over doing lies at the heart and center of Joseph Ratzinger’s theological synthesis” (31). Also see Michael Schneider, “Primat des Logos vor dem Ethos—zum theologischen Diskurs bei Joseph Ratzinger,” in Joseph Ratzinger: Ein theologisches Profil, ed. Peter Hofmann (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2008), 15–45. Schneider surveys briefly this theme throughout Ratzinger’s theology with an emphasis on 522 Roland Millare Guardini describes the relationship between logos, which is formed by the liturgy, and ethos: The liturgy is “primarily occupied in forming the fundamental Christian temper [logos]. By it man is to be induced to determine correctly his essential relation to God, and to put himself right in regard to reverence for God, love and faith, atonement and the desire for sacrifice. As a result of this spiritual disposition, it follows that when action [ethos] is required of him he will do what is right.”3 The primacy of logos is the theme of the final chapter in the small book of Guardini that serves as an essential hermeneutical key to understanding Ratzinger’s theology in general and his theology of liturgy and its relation to eschatology in particular. One of Ratzinger’s central theses in an article entitled “Preaching God Today” (Verkündigung von Gott heute) is that “God should be preached as Logos.” Ratzinger defends this thesis on the following grounds: “In the beginning was not the ‘deed’ [ethos] but, rather, the Word [Logos]; it is mightier than the deed. Doing does not create meaning; rather, meaning creates doing.”4 The subordination of logos to ethos allows for praxis to take 3 4 Ratzinger’s spiritual Christology and theology of liturgy. In our introduction, we have highlighted how the Council of Chalcedon was important in influencing the contours of Ratzinger’s arguments for Christocentrism as a point of departure for modern theology. Schneider also notes the importance of Chalcedonian Christology (24), as we will see with Pablo Blanco as well below (La Teología de Joseph Ratzinger: Una Introducciόn [Madrid: Ediciones Palabra, 2011]). The discussion of the primacy of logos influences Ratzinger’s ecumenical concerns. Commenting upon what he refers to as the “so-called consensus ecumenism,” Ratzinger maintains, “It is not, they say, truth that creates consensus but consensus that is the only concrete and realistic court of judgment to decide what shall now hold good. The confession of faith, too, would not then express the truth but would have significance as an achievement of consensus. Yet thereby the relationship between truth and action (“praxis”) is also reversed. Action becomes the standard for truth.” Further on, Ratzinger expresses his concern regarding this new paradigm for ecumenism that upholds various notions of justice for different (and at times contradictory) causes: “Ethos without logos cannot endure; that much the collapse of the socialist world, in particular, should have taught us”; see Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion [hereafter, PFF], ed. Stephan Otto Horn and Vinzenz Pfnür, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 262. In Ratzinger’s estimation, we must begin with a unified logos to guide our ethos. Romano Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. Ada Lane (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 86. Joseph Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to a Daily Life [hereafter, DP], trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 94. Elsewhere, Ratzinger addresses the significance of Guardini’s thesis concerning the priority of logos over ethos: “In the early 1920s, Romano Guardini spoke of the primacy of logos over ethos, intending thereby to defend the Thomistic position of The Primacy of Logos 523 the lead in defining doctrine, when in fact the divine wisdom is behind God’s saving actions and thus, behind the Church’s doctrine. When we assert the primacy of ethos, then the liturgy and eschatology become subject (if such were possible) to the creation of the community, and they cease to be the opus Dei. Establishing the primacy of the logos within Ratzinger’s theology is critical to make the argument that the liturgy is inherently eschatological and that the realized eschatology of Ratzinger begins with the liturgy. We will demonstrate that Ratzinger’s claim for the priority and centrality of the incarnate Logos establishes the relationship between the liturgy and eschatology. Ratzinger comments that as a result of the subordination of logos to ethos, eschatology “is no longer seen within the theology of creation but, rather, replaces creation: the real world worth living in is yet to be created, namely, by man himself, contrary to what he finds already in place.”5 In such a case, eschatology becomes a highly dangerous force, to which lives are sacrificed for an impossible dream of self-creation and self-perfection. In the celebration of the liturgy, similarly, the golden calf is a symbol for false worship that is characterized by the primacy of ethos because it is a “self-generated cult,” a “festival of self-affirmation,” or a “circle closed in on itself.”6 Although humans are continually making idolatrous pseudo-liturgies, Ratzinger asserts that the true “liturgy cannot be ‘made.’ This is why it has to be simply received as a given reality and continually revitalized.” 7 In this essay, we will establish the definition of the logos for Ratzinger and its relation to the ethos of self-giving love. Guardini’s impact upon scientia speculativa: a view of theology in which the meaning of christocentrism consists in transcending oneself and, through the history of God’s dealings with mankind, making possible the encounter with the being of God himself. I admit that it has become clear to me only through the developments of recent years how fundamental this question actually is”; see Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology [hereafter, PCT], trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 319 (emphasis in the original). 5 Ratzinger, DP, 380. 6 Joseph Ratzinger, Theology of the Liturgy: The Sacramental Foundation of Christian Existence [hereafter, JRCW11], ed. Michael J. Miller, trans. John Saward, Kenneth Baker, S.J., Henry Taylor et al., Collected Works 11 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 12; originally Theologie der Liturgie: Die sakramentale Begründung christlicher Existenz [hereafter, JRGS11], Gesammelte Schriften 11, ed. Gerhard Ludwig Müller (Freiburg im Breisgau, Herder, 2008), 39–40. I will cite both the English and German texts; slight modifications of the English translations are my own. 7 Joseph Ratzinger, The Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of Liturgy [hereafter, FF], trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 66. 524 Roland Millare Ratzinger’s understanding of the primacy of logos will become evident as we highlight the consistency of this theme throughout Guardini’s writings.8 First, we will highlight the clear affinity between Ratzinger and Guardini in order to draw out the parallels in their shared insistence upon the primacy of logos and their mutual interest in developing a strong relationship between the liturgy and Christology. Second, we will argue that the primacy of logos has been the central theme for Ratzinger, beginning with his inaugural lecture as a professor of theology at the University of Bonn in 1959 and leading to his address as Pope at the University of Regensburg in 2006. Third, we will maintain that the relationship between the liturgy and eschatology cannot be fully understood without a proper definition of logos or by subordinating logos to ethos. Finally, we will briefly examine the one specific area of discontinuity between Ratzinger and Guardini. On the one hand, Ratzinger claims that sacrifice is the true Grundgestalt (“basic form”) of the Eucharist, whereas Guardini suggests that the meal aspect has primacy over the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist. We will demonstrate that in Ratzinger’s view, the Church enters into the sacrificial prayer of the incarnate Logos through the Eucharist. There is a hermeneutic of continuity between Ratzinger and Guardini’s thought based on the primacy of logos, but there is a clear hermeneutic of discontinuity or rupture when we examine the notion of sacrifice in relation to the Eucharist. First and foremost for Ratzinger, the Logos is the person of Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man. However, logos has other meanings that Ratzinger acknowledges and utilizes. He defines logos explicitly as “mind,” “reason,” “meaning,” “discourse,” or “word.”9 Ratzinger argues that “divine 8 9 On the influence of Guardini’s theme of the primacy of logos over ethos, see Stephan Otto Horn, “Zum existentiellen und sakramentalen Grund der Theologie bei Joseph Ratzinger—Papst Benedikt XVI,” Didaskalia 38, no. 2 (2008): 301–10. In this article, Horn describes what we have termed as a sacramental logos in Ratzinger’s thought. Also see Franz-Xavier Heibl, “Theologische Denker als Mitarbeiter der Wahrheit: Romano Guardini und Papst Benedikt XVI,” in Symphonie des Glaubens: junge Münchener Theologen im Dialog mit Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, ed. Michaela C. Hastetter, Christoph Ohly, and Georgios Vlachonis (St. Ottilien: EOS, 2007), 77–101. Heibl’s essay offers a very thorough survey demonstrating consistently the influence of Guardini upon the various theological themes of Ratzinger’s pre-papal and papal writings. See Joseph Ratzinger, preface to the 2004 edition of Introduction to Christianity [hereafter, IC], trans. J. R. Foster (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 26–29. Also see IC, 151–161, and DP, 93–95. We will rely upon Ratzinger’s understanding of logos and its relation to ethos throughout this work. For a detailed analysis of the concept of logos, see Christos Yannaras, Person and Eros, trans. Norman Russell The Primacy of Logos 525 worship in accordance with logos” or the logikē latreia is the “most appropriate way of expressing the essential form of Christian liturgy.”10 In Ratzinger’s view, other definitions or descriptions of the Eucharist, such as an assembly or a meal, fall short because they touch upon an individual aspect of the Eucharist and not the entire reality. By contrast, the idea of the logikē latreia demonstrates how the “logos of creation, the logos in man, and the true and eternal Logos made flesh, the Son, come together.”11 The Logos is the divine Person of Jesus Christ, who reveals the logoi of creation and of the human person. Drawing upon the patristic tradition, Benedict XVI emphasizes that in Jesus Christ, “the word was ‘abbreviated.’”12 Throughout our work, we will emphasize the centrality of the incarnate Logos in revealing the authentic logos that defines the liturgy and eschatology while simultaneously impacting their inherent relationship. Guardini explored the dynamic relationship between logos and ethos throughout his writings.13 Undoubtedly, Guardini’s affirmation of the primacy of the logos over ethos and his critique of the modern world’s logos, characterized by the dominance of technē, greatly influenced Joseph Ratzinger’s theology.14 In both his pre-papal, papal, and post-papal writ(Brookline, MA: Holy Orthodox Press, 2007), 159–72. For a brief survey of logos as both reason and Christ in the writings of the Church Fathers, see Brian Daley, S.J. “Logos as Reason and Logos Incarnate: Philosophy, Theology and the Voices of Tradition,” 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), 91–115. 10 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 30 [ JRGS11, 61]. 11 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 30 [ JRGS11, 61]. 12 Benedict XVI, Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini (2010), §12: “The Fathers of the Church found in their Greek translation of the Old Testament a passage from the prophet Isaiah that Saint Paul also quotes in order to show how God’s new ways had already been foretold in the Old Testament. There we read: ‘The Lord made his word short, he abbreviated it’ (Is 10:23; Rom 9:28). . . . The Son himself is the Word, the Logos; the eternal word became small—small enough to fit into a manger. He became a child, so that the word could be grasped by us. Now the word is not simply audible; not only does it have a voice, now the word has a face, one which we can see: that of Jesus of Nazareth.” 13 See Roland Millare, “The Primacy of Logos over Ethos: The Influence of Romano Guardini on Post-Conciliar Theology,” The Heythrop Journal 57, no. 6 (November 2016): 974–83. This present work builds upon that previous study of Guardini where I have explored the relationship between logos and ethos in other works of Guardini. 14 A number of scholars have highlighted the following remarkable parallels between Ratzinger and Guardini: both wrote a doctoral thesis concerning the work of St. Bonaventure; both wrote books outlining the main contours of the Christian 526 Roland Millare ings, Ratzinger has worked tirelessly to proclaim the primacy of Christ as the living Logos with the further intention of redirecting contemporary culture towards an ethos of love for God and neighbor. According to Ratzinger, this twofold love is authentic worship in accordance with the Logos (the logikē latreia).15 Many theologians of the twentieth century have faith; both wrote books on the liturgy; and both have written their own theological reflections on the person of Jesus Christ. See: Tracey Rowland, Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed (New York: T & T Clark, 2010), 17–19; Emery de Gaál, The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI: The Christocentric Shift (New York: Macmillan Palgrave, 2010), 39–43; and Aidan Nichols, O.P., “Romano Guardini and Joseph Ratzinger on the Theology of Liturgy,” in Lost in Wonder: Essays on Liturgy and the Arts (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 21–25. Guardini was also influential on the thought of the philosopher Josef Pieper (1904–1997) and of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Further, both Pieper and Balthasar would impact the thought of Ratzinger (Rowland, Benedict XVI, 19). Incidentally, Pieper urged Ratzinger to get in touch with Karol Wojtyla: “Ratzinger and Wojtyla began exchanging books; the Polish cardinal [Wojtyla] made use of Ratzinger’s IC in preparing the Lenten retreat he preached for Paul VI and the Curia in 1976, and they met briefly at the Synod of Bishops in 1977” (George Weigel, God’s Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church [New York: Harper Collins Publishing, 2005], 178). For an account of Guardini’s influence on Pieper, see Alberto Berro “Pieper y Guardini en Rothenfels: un encuentro fecundo,” La Plata 59, no. 216 (2004): 339–57. Ratzinger notes that Pieper developed the topic for his dissertation based upon his first meeting with Guardini, in which “he became aware of the superiority of being [logos] over duty [ethos] (PCT, 319n7). For more on the impact that Guardini had on Balthasar, see Hans Urs von Balthasar, Romano Guardini: Reform from the Source (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010). In his description of his studies as a seminarian in Freising, Ratzinger writes, “In the domain of theology and philosophy, the voices that moved us most directly were those of Romano Guardini, Josef Pieper, Theodor Häcker, and Peter Wust” (Milestones: Memoirs 1927–1977, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998] 43; emphasis added). On the influence of Guardini as one of Ratzinger’s primary teachers, see Blanco, La Teología, 18–23. Also, see Heibl, “Theologische Denker.” Heibl stresses the unity between the liturgy and Christology, which Ratzinger judges as one of the most significant contributions of Guardini (87–91 [heading: “Romano Guardini im Urteil Papst Benedikts”]). See also Róbert Kürnyek, “The Concept of Liturgical Reform in the Writings of Romano Guardini and Joseph Ratzinger/ Pope Benedict XVI: A Comparative Analysis” (PhD diss., Saint Paul University, 2016). Kürnyek offers a very comprehensive comparison between Guardini and Ratzinger in the areas of liturgical theology and liturgical praxis. 15 Romans 12:1–2. “Far from being a mere liturgical game or ritual, it is ‘λογική λατρεια, logiké latreia,’ Logos-filled worship that transforms human existence in the Logos, allowing the Christian’s interior to become contemporaneous with Christ” (De Gaál, Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, 240). For a succinct overview of the notion of the logikē latreia in Ratzinger’s theology of liturgy, see Michael Schneider, “Zur Erneuerung der Liturgie nach dem II. Vatikanum: Ihre Beurtei- The Primacy of Logos 527 worked to establish the primacy of the logos of communio and the ethos of self-giving love in contradistinction with modernity’s logos of mechanistic autonomy (technē) and an ethos of hedonistic utilitarianism or radical pragmatism. Ratzinger is one of the most recent thinkers to adopt consistently the Guardinian tension between logos and ethos as a major theological and pastoral theme throughout his works.16 The arguments set forth in this essay will demonstrate the significance of the primacy of logos, which is foundational for Ratzinger’s theology of liturgy. The liturgy, properly understood and examined in relationship to eschatology, can reorient the culture back to the proper logos that only Jesus Christ fully reveals. While our main concern is to demonstrate the consistency of the primacy of the Logos throughout Ratzinger’s thought, particularly as it relates to the liturgy and eschatology, there will be implications for how this primacy can potentially renew the direction of modern culture. Ratzinger is always articulating the authentic meaning and relationship between logos and ethos, as he desires to redirect our modern culture, characterized by a materialistic and secular logos. In his analysis of cultural 16 lung in der Theologie Joseph Ratzingers auf dem Hintergrund seiner Reden in der Abtei Fontgombault,” in Der Logos-gemäße Gottesdienst:Theologie der Liturgie bei Joseph Ratzinger, ed. Rudolf Voderholzer (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 2009), 139–70, at 146–52. Also see: Michaela Christine Hastetter, “Liturgie—Brücke zum Mysterium: Grundlinien des Liturgieverständnisses Benedikts XVI,” in Hastetter, Ohly, and Vlachonis, Symphonie des Glaubens, 131–50, esp. 140–42; Josip Gregur, “Fleischwerdung des Wortes—Wortwerdung des Fleisches: Liturgie als logike latreia bei Joseph Ratzinger,” in Voderholzer, Der Logos-gemäße Gottesdienst, 46–76. Gregur’s essay is very insightful in offering the philosophical and scriptural context to understand the implications of Ratzinger’s use of the Pauline logikē latreia to describe the liturgy. After giving credit to Guardini for asserting the primacy of logos in his article on “Preaching God Today,” Ratzinger argues: “Above all, however, this [primacy of logos over ethos] means that Christian faith essentially and originally has to do with the truth. What a man believes is not a matter of indifference to him; the truth cannot be replaced by a ‘good opinion.’ The loss of the truth cannot be replaced by a ‘good opinion.’ The loss of the truth corrupts even good opinions. It also corrupts love, which without truth is blind and, hence, cannot fulfill its real purpose [Sinn]: to will and to do for the other what is truly good. Only when I know what man is in truth and the world is in truth can I also be truly good. Goodness without truth can bring about subjective justification but not salvation. God is the Truth—this statement is a program, a fundamental orientation for human existence, which finds verbal expression in the belief in creation” (DP, 94). It is not difficult to see how this has been a consistent argument of Ratzinger throughout his theological works. On the relationship between logos and ethos as a fundamental issue in contemporary theology, see Tracey Rowland, Catholic Theology (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2017), 34–36. 528 Roland Millare development, the American theologian David L. Schindler concludes that “every ethos always needs a logos that precedes it and gives it meaning.”17 Schindler describes the effect of the contemporary mechanistic and materialistic logos on modern culture, as he maintains that sexual relations are reduced to lustful manipulation, political relations become “brutal power,” market relations become “hedonistic consumerism,” and music and architecture, in light of such market relations, become “noise and harsh ugliness.”18 Within Ratzinger’s theology the logos is sacramental as the unity between the Logos incarnate and the logoi reflected in all of creation. The world is sacramental, in that it reflects the glory and beauty of the Logos, but it should not be conflated with the Logos itself. Modern culture divorces the logoi of creation from the Logos, which has had detrimental effects upon how we understand the logos of the human person and of the world, as modern culture defines reality ultimately by what is materialistic. Subsequently, the truth (logos) is reduced to what is empirically verifiable. What is good or ethical (ethos) is determined by the law of utility or expediency. The modern ethos has been shaped by either a materialistic logos or the subordination of logos to ethos, or both. Ratzinger’s theology of culture was influenced significantly by Guardini such that a person can appreciate fully Ratzinger’s theses only by first understanding the prioritization of logos over ethos in the theology of Guardini.19 We have a clearer understanding of why Ratzinger emphasizes the primacy of logos and why the authentic Christian logos is sacramental, whereas a secular logos is characteristically materialistic. The implications of Guardini’s ideas, which have been very influential upon the develop David L. Schindler, “Grace and the Form of Nature and Culture,” in Catholicism and Secularization in America: Essays on Nature, Grace and Culture, ed. David L. Schindler (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1990), 30. According to Rowland, Schindler’s insistence on the relationship between logos and ethos is influenced by the thought of Balthasar; see “Theology and Culture,” in Being Holy in the World: Theology and Culture in the Thought of David L. Schindler, ed. Nichols J. Healy Jr. and D. C. Schindler (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans , 2011), 55–77, at 56. For an overview of Schindler’s understanding of modern culture’s mechanistic logos in contrast to the logos of communio, see Michael Hanby, “Beyond Mechanism: The Cosmological Significance of David L. Schindler’s Communio Ontology,” in Healy and Schindler, Being Holy in the World, 162–89. 18 Schindler, “Grace,” 19. 19 It is beyond the scope of our present article to develop a theology of culture, but see the work of Rowland wherein she develops various themes relating to a Christocentric renewal of culture particularly via the thought of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Saint John Paul II: The Culture of the Incarnation: Essays in Catholic Theology (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2017). 17 The Primacy of Logos 529 ment of Ratzinger’s theology, become very clear when we consider what this means for eschatology. A materialist ontology forms an immanentized eschatology. If liturgy is inherently eschatological, then this will have logical consequences for the manner in which we celebrate the sacred liturgy. The most significant insight that we gain for understanding Ratzinger’s theology of liturgy comes from an understanding of the liturgy that is inseparable from his eschatology. The Symphonic Harmony of Guardini and Ratzinger Joachim Cardinal Meißner (1933–2017), the Archbishop of Cologne, has referred to Ratzinger as the “Mozart of theology” because of his great gift of weaving various aspects of theology into a unified and joyful symphony.20 As a master composer of theological erudition, Ratzinger unifies Christology, ecclesiology, anthropology, eschatology, and his theology of liturgy. The Guardinian theme of the priority of logos over ethos assists Ratzinger in bringing about this symphonic harmony. On February 2, 1985, Ratzinger gave an address on the occasion of Guardini’s one hundredth birthday. He traces the contours of Guardini’s theological thought. The basic theological approach of Guardini is similar to the methodology adopted by Ratzinger. For both thinkers, theology reaches its culmination in the liturgy, which is celebrated properly in accord with the logos (the logikē latreia). Liturgy 20 Although the above is my general interpretation for Cardinal Meißner’s usage of this analogy, Rowland suggests that the analogy reflects Ratzinger’s theological method insofar as he does not “jettison the classical repertoire” and integrates it with the influence of the German romantic movement: “Cardinal Joachim Meisner has suggested that Ratzinger is the ‘Mozart of theology,’ and while it is true that Ratzinger does not jettison the classical repertoire, given the influence of the Romantic movement on German theology, coupled with Ratzinger’s recognition that the failure to provide an adequate account of the mediation of history in the realm of ontology represented the single greatest crisis for Catholic theology in the twentieth century, a more appropriate analogy might be that of a more romantically-inclined composer, such as Carl Maria von Weber or Bruckner. Nonetheless, Ratzinger’s work does have the luminosity and directness of Mozart, and of course, a Mozart composition like the 40th symphony in G minor has its romantic movements” (Benedict XVI: Guide for the Perplexed, 23–24). De Gaál, also commenting on the analogy of Ratzinger’s theology to Mozart, adds: “Like Mozart, he does not delight in dark problematizations. He is charming and always cheerful in a quiet way” (Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, 45). For a treatment of Ratzinger’s theology in conjunction with this well-known and deserved appellation as the “Mozart of theology,” see the essay by the German theologian Michaela Christine Hastetter, “Einheit Aller Wirklichkeit: Die Bedeutung des symphonischen Denkens des ‘Mozarts der Theologie’ für die Pastoral,” in Hastetter, Ohly, and Vlachonis, Symphonie des Glaubens, 15–50, esp. 16–21. 530 Roland Millare allows the human person to enter into the dialogue (dia-logos) of love that Jesus Christ has with the Father in the Holy Spirit. In his analysis of Guardini’s thought, Ratzinger discusses the unity between liturgy and Christology. This unity is also retraced throughout the oeuvre of Ratzinger as we will continue to demonstrate throughout our work as we see the manner in which the logos is the consistent thread that unifies his symphonic thought. According to Ratzinger, Guardini desired to address the modern world, which was marked by a total separation between God and the human person. This chasm, which was characteristic of modernity, resulted in an alienation that reduced nature or the world to “mere materiality.”21 Liturgy enables the human person to appreciate the sacramental or symbolic nature of the world. Ratzinger contends that for Guardini, “liturgical action is more specifically symbolic action that is capable of grasping the world and its own being as symbol, because the symbol is the real epitome of the unity of spirit and the matter, the spirituality of matter and the materiality of the spirit.”22 There is an inherent transcendence in nature by the mere fact that it is an effect of the Creator’s love. In the words of St. Bonaventure, God created everything “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it.”23 The rites of the various liturgies involve the use of created things such as water, oil, bread, and wine. These worldly gifts reach their supernatural end in the celebration of the liturgy. This dynamic between the material and the spiritual within the liturgy points towards the world’s symbolic nature that cannot remain on the level of “mere materiality.” In Guardini’s theology, “Freedom is truth,” meaning that the human person discovers freedom by living in conformity to his God-given nature (being or logos).24 The liturgy is the primary means through which the Joseph Ratzinger, Fundamental Speeches from Five Decades [hereafter, FDFD], ed. Florian Schuller, trans. Michael J. Miller, J. R. Foster, and Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), 233. 22 Ratzinger, FSFD, 234. The sacramentality of the world is a dominant theme in the thought of the Eastern Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, e.g. in For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973). For a summary and commentary on Schmemann’s writings on the “ontological sacramentality” of the created order, see David Schindler, Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 288–309. 23 St. Bonaventure, In II sent., as cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], §293. 24 Romano Guardini, Auf dem Wege (Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, 1923), 26, quoted in Ratzinger, FSFD, 247. This dynamic between freedom and truth has been emphasized by the moral theologian Servais Pinckaers as a “freedom for 21 The Primacy of Logos 531 human person realizes his nature to worship God. The interrelationship between truth and worship is emphasized by Ratzinger, who underscores this Guardinian theme in his own writing: “The freedom for the truth and the freedom of the truth cannot exist without the acknowledgement and worship of the divine.”25 The fundamental characteristic of every human person is a call to the adoration of God. Adoration is a concrete recognition on the part of the human person that he is not self-sufficient or autonomous. Adoration is a humble act that recognizes God as the source of all existence. This is why Guardini defines adoration as “The obedience of being.”26 The nature of the human person finds its fulfillment in worship. Further on, Guardini states, “Adoration is the primary obedience that serves as the foundation for all the rest: the obedience of our being to the being of God. If a being is in truth, then it itself is nothing but truth.”27 This anthropological truth lays the foundation for one of the key concepts in the thought of Guardini: the primacy of logos over ethos, which is an idea that must be rediscovered for the sake of the renewal of theology.28 In theology, being (logos) should have a clear priority over doing (ethos), various developments in the history of theology have led to the subordination of logos to ethos. Hence, Guardini’s assertion of the primacy of logos represents a recovery of theology’s proper method, which is distinguished from other approaches to theological questions insofar as they give priority to ethos.29 Ratzinger highlights this famous idea of Guardini as a herme- 25 26 27 28 29 excellence” (The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sister Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995], 354–78). Ratzinger, FSFD, 190 (emphasis added). For a development of this theme on the relationship between truth and freedom, see Joseph Ratzinger, “Truth and Freedom,” Communio 23, no. 1 (1996): 16–35. Ratzinger, FSFD, 247. Josef Pieper, who was also influenced by Guardini, speaks of adoration in the form of festivity or liturgical worship as a commemoration of the truth of the person’s creation by God; see In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999), 44–51. Ratzinger cites this text of Pieper as he develops the theological basis of prayer and liturgy in FF, 26–27. Also see Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, trans. Alexander Dru (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 65–75. Guardini, Auf dem Wege, 21, quoted in Ratzinger, FSFD, 247. As we have noted previously, Guardini’s purpose in articulating this primacy in Ratzinger’s estimation was “to defend the Thomistic position of scientia speculativa: a view of theology in which the meaning of christocentrism consists in transcending oneself and, through the history of God’s dealings with mankind, making possible the encounter with the being of God” (PCT, 319). Ratzinger, PCT, 320: “Theology has to do with God, and it conducts its inquiry in the manner of philosophy. The challenge and the difficulty of such a concept will have become clear by now. Such a metaphysical (ontological) alignment of theol- 532 Roland Millare neutical key to differentiate Guardini’s approach to the liturgical movement from the method employed by the Benedictine monastery of Maria Laach. Whereas Guardini embraced the metaphysics of being in medieval thought, Odo Casel and the monks of Maria Laach subordinated the use of philosophical thought and logic in favor of seeking the form (eidos) of mystery.30 In Ratzinger’s estimation, the approach of the abbey of Maria Laach “resulted in a certain narrowness that had no sense of extra-liturgical piety and bore within itself a tendency to archaeological investigation aimed at a pristine restoration of an earlier age.”31 Guardini’s method was aimed at the larger question of being, which is found in the pursuit of the truth or the logos. Ratzinger, under the influence of Guardini, will develop an outline of the authentic spirit of the liturgy with this same end in mind. Ratzinger contends that, “Truth and worship stand in an indissociable relationship to each other; one cannot flourish without the other, however often they have gone their separate ways in the course of history.”32 The innate search for truth finds its fulfillment in divine worship. The true being or logos, whom every person seeks, is above all a living person that invites each person into a dialogue (dia-logos) of love. The logos is no mere abstraction or proposition, because the Logos has become flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. In his summary of Guardini’s liturgical theology, philosophy, and Christology, Ratzinger notes, “Man is open to the truth, but the truth is not out there somewhere; rather, it is in concrete existence, in the figure of Jesus Christ.”33 Faith is not merely an 30 31 32 33 ogy is not, as we have long feared, a betrayal of salvation history. On the contrary, if theology will remain true to its historical beginnings, to the salvation event in Christ to which the Bible bears witness, it must transcend history and speak ultimately of God himself. If it will remain true to the practical Scientia speculativa; it cannot start by being a Scientia practica. It must preserve the primacy of truth that is self-subsistent and that must be discovered in its self-ness before it can be measured in terms of its usefulness to mankind.” Ratzinger, FSFD, 249. Ratzinger, FSFD, 249. Also see Ratzinger, JRCW11, 560 ( JRGS11, 662–63). Joseph Ratzinger, The Nature and Mission of Theology: Approaches to Understanding Its Role in the Light of the Present Controversy [hereafter, NMT], trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 40. Ratzinger, FSFD, 254. In his commentary on the Johannine characterization of the Lord as Logos, Ratzinger maintains that “The concept of logos acquires a new dimension. It no longer denotes simply the permeation of all being by meaning; it characterizes this man: he who is here is ‘Word.’ The concept of logos, which to the Greeks meant ‘meaning’ (ratio), changes here into ‘word’ (verbum). He who is here is Word; he is consequently ‘spoken’ and, hence, the pure relation between the speaker and the spoken to. Thus logos Christology, as ‘word’ theology, is once The Primacy of Logos 533 assent to set of propositions; it is a personal communion that the human person enters into through the Person of the incarnate Logos.34 Guardini himself stresses that the person of Jesus Christ is the central message of Christianity, a theme which will be emphasized by Ratzinger throughout his work, as Guardini maintains: This Logos, which is perfectly simple and yet immeasurably rich, is no order of forms and laws, no world of prototypes and arrangements, but Someone, He is the living son of the eternal Father. We can stand before Him, face to face. We can speak to Him and He answers, indeed, He Himself gives us the power to stand before Him and He can grant our request. We can love Him and He is able to give us a communion which reflects the intimacy in which He lies upon the bosom of the Father, and which St. John experienced when His Master permitted him to lay his head upon His heart. This fact established a contrast to everything which natural philosophy and piety can experience or invent. This Logos, this one and all, steps into history and becomes man.35 This Christocentric approach in the writings of Guardini is characteristic of much of the theological work in the twentieth century.36 The theology of Ratzinger is no exception of this characteristic in light of the influence of Guardini upon his thought. Communion with Jesus Christ restores the communion with the gift of sanctifying grace, which the human person enjoyed in the beginning. 34 35 36 again the opening up of being to the idea of relationship. For again it is true that ‘word’ comes essentially ‘from someone else’ and ‘to someone else’; word is an existence that is entirely way and openness” (IC, 189). Elsewhere, Ratzinger maintains a similar argument: “Logos in the Johannine sense means not only ratio, but also verbum—not only ‘mind,’ but also ‘discourse.’ That is to say: the Christian God is not just reason, objective meaning, the geometry of the universe, but he is speech, relation, Word, and Love. He is sighted reason, which sees and hears, which can be called upon and has a personal character. The ‘objective’ meaning of the world is a subject, in relation to me.” For a summary of Ratzinger’s emphasis on the Logos as the Person of Jesus Christ, see Christopher S. Collins, The Word Made Love: The Dialogical Theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2013), 74–79. Romano Guardini, The Word of God: On Faith, Hope and Charity, trans. Stella Lange (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1963), 28. For a survey of the Christocentrism of the twentieth century, see Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, trans. Edward T. Oakes, S.J. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 326–63. 534 Roland Millare As a consequence of the absolute priority of the logos in the thought of Ratzinger, Pablo Blanco describes Ratzinger’s thought as being characterized by a certain “Logos centrism” (logocentrismo).37 One of the fundamental truths about creation is that it was brought about by the Word (the Logos), which has existed from the beginning (Gen 1:1; cf. John 1:1). Nature reflects the beauty of the logos because its very being originates from the Creator. The modern shift, which has been traced back to the univocal conception of being according to Blessed Duns Scotus, is the beginning of the shift towards a desacramentalization of nature for many contemporary thinkers.38 Hans Boersma maintains that in light of Scotus’s influence “it became possible to deny the sacramentality of the relationship between earthly objects and the Logos as their eternal archetype.”39 If every created Blanco, La Teología, 161. This view was espoused by the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI. See his “Regensburg Lecture,” no. 25. The citations for the text of this speech, which is known colloquially as “The Regensburg Lecture,” will come from the official English translation of the Vatican which is printed in James V. Schall, S.J., The Regensburg Lecture (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2007), 130–48. Further citations of the lecture will (as just now) use the section numbers as they appear in Schall’s edition (in which the lecture itself is the first appendix). Scotus opted for a univocal conception of being over Aquinas’s analogical understanding. In the metaphysics of Scotus, there is no distinction between the being of God and the human person. Hence, the Creator and creature belong to the same basic metaphysical category. Whereas for St. Thomas, human creatures through their being participate in the divine nature, which for St. Thomas is a sheer act of to-be itself (ipsum esse subsistens); Scotus effectively separates the natural from the supernatural, which comes to fruition in the thought of Ockham; see Robert Barron, The Priority of Christ: Toward a Postliberal Catholicism (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2007), 13–14. Also see: David Burrell, C.S.C., Analogy and Philosophical Language (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973), 171–93; Louis Dupré, Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 170–76; John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1995), 302–25; Catherine Pickstock, After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1998), 122–31; and Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 36–38. 39 Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 75. The self-sufficiency of the individual, which results from the univocal conception of being, will lead to alienation between the person and God because the intimate union between every created being with one another and God is severed. In the analogous conception of being, every created being participates in the eternal logos of God. Boersma expands upon the consequences of the nominalist shift towards the univocity of being 37 38 The Primacy of Logos 535 being is univocal, then each being possesses its own nature apart from God. Boersma concludes that the “loss of analogy meant the loss of sacramentality.”40 The world is perceived as a purely materialistic and mechanistic reality in the modern world. This mentality has resulted in a great alienation in the created order wherein the human person is at odds with nature itself, other people, and God. As we have already mentioned above, Ratzinger has consistently adopted the Guardinian principle that affirms the primacy of logos. Additionally, Ratzinger argues for a sacramental logos in order to uphold the analogy between creation and the Creator. The great difficulty of the twentieth century has been what Ratzinger describes a “crisis of sacramentality.”41 The majority of people in modern culture have, in Ratzinger’s estimation, “grown accustomed to seeing in the substance of things nothing but the material for human labor—when, in short, the world is regarded as matter and matter as material—initially there is no room left for that symbolic transparency of reality toward the eternal on which the sacramental principle is based.”42 In other words, there is only room for an immanentization for all created reality. Hence the modern logos, which was described earlier at the beginning of this essay by Schindler, results in the reduction of politics to power, sexuality to hedonistic lust, and so forth. This view will also affect the understanding of liturgy and eschatology because the presupposition of secular modernity precludes transcendence. As a result of the dominance of an immanentized secular logos in modernity, liturgy is reduced to a product of the person that can be manipulated by the utilitarian wants of the people. Eschatology is focused from the analogia entis: “Nominalism deeply affect human beings’ vertical and horizontal relationships. The christological anchor of the Great Tradition had ensured the vertical link between God and humanity: human beings received their being by participation in the eternal Logos [the analogia entis]. This vertical link with the Word of God means that, in turn, all human beings were horizontally related to one another: they all participated in a common humanity. The realism of the Platonist-Christian ontology meant that what united human beings was much more important than what divided them. Their common participation in the Logos provided unity and prevented fragmentation” (89). Also see Michael Hanby, “Creation as Aesthetic Analogy,” in The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God, ed. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 352–53, esp. 353: “Ockham’s nominalism and (unitrinitarian) voluntarism presupposes and, combined with the principle of annihilation, makes possible the notion of a ‘thoroughly individualized thing.’” 40 Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 75. 41 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 153 ( JRGS11, 197). 42 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 153 ( JRGS11, 198). 536 Roland Millare on the building of the Kingdom of God here below. The disavowal of the existence of a transcendent logically stresses what is immanent. Ratzinger addresses both areas repeatedly by emphasizing the primacy of logos, which has been subordinated to ethos. Additionally, Ratzinger affirms the need to recover a truly sacramental logos (communio) over and above the dominant materialistic secular logos (technē). Ratzinger characterizes the latter as a “de-sacramentalized [entsakramentalisierte] technological world.”43 Consistently, Ratzinger develops a truly sacramentalized view in his theology of liturgy and eschatology that is centered on Christ the incarnate Logos instead of the de-sacramentalized view with its focus on the centrality of the person. A major theme in Ratzinger’s theology of the liturgy is that the liturgy is the actio Dei and not merely a product to be manipulated according to the varying whims of the individual person. In his lecture entitled “The Theology of the Liturgy” at the Benedictine abbey in Fontgombault in 2001, Ratzinger cites the Second Vatican Council’s definition of the liturgy as “an action of Christ the Priest and of his Body, which is the Church.”44 For Ratzinger, the “action of Christ” refers to the Paschal Mystery on the one hand and the celebration of the liturgy itself on the other. In both instances, he underscores the work of redemption and the liturgy as actions of God and not mere human actions.45 The caricature has been to reduce both as works attributed solely to the efforts of the human person. Consistent with his insistence upon the primacy of the logos, Ratzinger insists that the liturgy is the opus Dei or actio Dei and not the work of man. The false icon that embodies this perversion of worship on the part of the human person is the construction of the golden calf in the book of Exodus. Ratzinger defines the idolization of the golden calf as a “self-generated cult,” whereby worship “becomes a feast that the community gives itself, a festival of self-affirmation.”46 Authentic worship is directed towards God and created by him, whereas this anti-worship is the product of the person. Elsewhere, Ratzinger writes, “Liturgy is God’s work or it does not exist Ratzinger, JRCW11, 156 ( JRGS11, 200). Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, §7. 45 Ratzinger underscores the tension between Jesus and history: “Thus in the liturgy, the present historical moment is transcended, leading into the permanent divine-human act of redemption. In it, Christ is really the responsible subject: it is the work of Christ; but in it he draws history to himself, into this permanent act which is the locus of salvation” ( JRCW11, 542 [ JRGS11, 640]). 46 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 12 ( JRGS11, 39–40). 43 44 The Primacy of Logos 537 at all.”47 Unlike the golden calf, liturgy is not made by the human person alone. Ratzinger asserts that the “liturgy cannot be ‘made.’ This is why it has to be simply received as a given reality and continually revitalized.”48 The primacy of God’s work is fundamental for Ratzinger’s theology of liturgy. The liturgy is an opus Dei and consequently, Ratzinger maintains that “all opera hominum [must] come to an end” because the liturgy is not subject to the whims of the people.49 Commenting on Guardini’s work The Church of the Lord, Ratzinger asserts that Guardini learned to see in the Incarnation the presence of the Lord who has made the Church his body. Only if that is so is there a simultaneity of Jesus Christ with us. And only if it this exists is there real liturgy which is not a mere remembrance of the paschal mystery but its true presence. Once again, only if this is the case is liturgy a participation in the trinitarian dialogue between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Only in this way is it not our “doing” but the opus Dei—God’s action in and with us.50 The Church enters into the prayer of Jesus Christ the High Priest, who offers himself to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Through the celebration of the liturgy, the Church actualizes her identity as a visible communion, which reflects the communion of love of the triune God. This visible communion is also an anticipation of the communion that awaits all of humanity in the eschaton. Similar to his theological approach to liturgy, Ratzinger maintains that the work of eschatology is first and foremost an opus Dei, which supports our fundamental thesis concerning the primacy of logos in Ratzinger’s Joseph Ratzinger, A New Song for the Lord: Faith in Christ and Liturgy Today [hereafter, NSL], trans. Martha M. Matesich (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 133. 48 Ratzinger, FF, 66. 49 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 206 ( JRGS11, 256–57). 50 Joseph Ratzinger, Joseph Ratzinger in Communio, vol. 1, The Unity of the Church, ed. David L. Schindler and Nicholas J. Healy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 33. This article (“Liturgy and Sacred Music”) was first published in English in Communio 13, no. 4 (Winter 1986): 377–91, and is also published in NSL, 111–27. In light of Ratzinger’s emphasis on the liturgy as the opus Dei or actio Dei, Mariusz Biliniewicz summarizes Ratzinger’s understanding of active participation (participatio actuosa) as “being a part of the action.” Biliniewicz explains: “‘The action’ in the liturgy is not the action of a human, but the action of God. Therefore, we are a part of that action (we participate) when we are included in the act that God himself performs in the sacrifice of the Eucharist” (Liturgical Vision of Pope Benedict XVI: A Theological Inquiry [Bern: Peter Lang, 2013], 57). 47 538 Roland Millare theology. Ratzinger argues that “Jesus is opposed to any form of righteousness, whether political or ethical, that tries to achieve the Kingdom of God by its own volition.”51 Christians, through the gift of grace received from the sacraments, are called to respond to their vocation as a relational being to enter into communion with God and neighbor. This relationality, which is initiated in Baptism, is strengthened by the Holy Eucharist, and fully realized in eschaton. Ratzinger describes heaven as the full realization of the “integration of the ‘I’ into the body of Christ.”52 The transformation of the individual “I” into the communal (ecclesial) “we,” through his communion with the Infinite “Thou,” is a constant theme throughout the works of Ratzinger. This unity can only be fully realized by God. Communion with the incarnate Logos enables the human person to be drawn into Jesus Christ’s “being for all.”53 The celebration of the liturgy brings about what Ratzinger describes as an “eschatological realism.” In an interview with Peter Seewald, Pope Benedict XVI maintains that the eschaton is not a “fata morgana or some kind of fictitious utopia, but [it] correspond[s] exactly to reality.”54 Benedict’s words have incredible implications, which we will continue to unpack within our work particularly when we focus in on the relationship between the liturgy and eschatology. It is clear in the words cited above and the rest of the comments in addressing Seewald’s question regarding “eschatological realism” that Benedict maintains the view that Jesus instituted the Last Supper as “the sacrament of inaugurated eschatology,” to borrow a phrase from the work of the Scripture scholar Brant Pitre. The recent work of Pitre helps us to understand the radical nature of Ratzinger’s claim as he argues that the Last Supper was the beginning of a new exodus wherein “Jerusalem is the point of departure and the kingdom of God is the ultimate destination.”55 Every celebration Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, ed. Aidan Nichols, O.P., trans. Michael Waldstein, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 31. 52 Ratzinger, Eschatology, 235. 53 See Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi (2007), §28. 54 Benedict XVI, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times: A Conversation with Peter Seewald, trans. Michael J. Miller and Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), 180. 55 See Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 444–512, at 511–12 (emphasis in the original). The phrase “the sacrament of inaugurated eschatology” is a modification of the words used by the English exegete C.H. Dodd, who described the Eucharist as a “sacrament of realized eschatology” (Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom [New York: Scribner, 1961], 164). Commenting upon Dodd’s notion, Ratzinger maintains: “From his starting point in modern exegesis, Dodd thus recreated that synthesis whereby the faith of the 51 The Primacy of Logos 539 of the Eucharist is both a realization and foretaste of the eschaton insofar as Jesus Christ does truly come back again. Further, Jesus offers the grace to each recipient to grow in the freedom that is characteristic of the Kingdom of God, which anticipates the ultimate freedom to be realized in the Kingdom in heaven. The Eucharist is both anticipation and realization of the eschatological Kingdom. According to Ratzinger, “This eschatological realism becomes present in the Eucharist: we go out to meet him—as the One who comes—and he comes already now in anticipation of this hour, which one day will arrive once and for all.”56 In the liturgy, the Church is able to hear the logos proclaimed and meet the Logos in his sacramental form, which is both a foretaste and a realization of the coming of the incarnate Logos in the Parousia. Ratzinger develops his theology of liturgy and eschatology in a Guardinian key. Ratzinger hopes to address the gap between God and humanity that has been created by the modern materialistic conception of the logos. Further, the subordination of logos to ethos contributes to the overshadowing of sacramentality. The affirmation of the liturgy first and foremost as the work of God is the ultimate end for both Guardini and Ratzinger as they emphasize the need to understand the authentic “spirit of the liturgy.” At the center of the liturgy’s essence is Jesus Christ himself, who enables the individual human person (the “I”) to enter into communion with others (the “thou”). This communion of every person as a “we” in Christ is a realization and anticipation of the unity of the eschaton. In order to understand fully the significance of the primacy of logos for Ratzinger, we will insist that the primacy of logos has been a major theme consistently throughout the development of his theology. In particular, we will highlight some of the themes primarily from the Regensburg Address of Pope Benedict XVI because it offers us greater appreciation of the primacy and the significance of the logos in Ratzinger’s thought. 56 Church throughout the centuries has interpreted the relation of past, present and future, in the eschatological message of the New Testament. In German language exegetical studies, and the theology which took its cue from them, such a view could find neither house nor home. Admittedly, the methodological basis of this mediation of the Church’s synthesis needs to be thought out afresh. Yet it should be clear that the native power of Christianity, something which will outlive all the ideas of the academics, draws its strength from just this synthesis. This synthesis is what binds together faith and life in a real and effective manner, whereas neither the actualism of the early Barth, nor Bultmann’s theological Existentialism, nor a theology with the formal structure of salvation history but deprived of this life-giving background will ever be more than somebody’s compilation” (Eschatology, 56). Benedict XVI, Light of the World, 180. 540 Roland Millare The Regensburg Address is a culmination and summary of Ratzinger’s persistent thesis concerning the primacy of logos over ethos and an outline of the consequences of subordinating logos to ethos that extend beyond its effects on the theology of liturgy. The Consistency and Centrality of Logos in Ratzinger’s Theology The key to understanding Ratzinger’s use of the word logos throughout his works is to underscore that logos is to be understood as truth and love.57 In light of his emphasis of Christ as the eternal “I,” who lives in eternal relation to the Father (the eternal “Thou”), Ratzinger claims it “is the identity of logos (truth) and love and thus makes love in the logos, the truth of human existence.”58 The very being of Jesus Christ is derived from the love of the Father. Consequently, truth and love coincide with one another. Reason has certain limitations because truth is a person and not simply an abstract idea. Love alone can overcome the shortcomings of reason.59 On the relationship between truth and love, see Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter Lumen fidei (2013), §§26–28. A strong argument can be made for influence of Benedict XVI on this particular excerpt. Also see Kurt Koch, Das Geheimnis des Senfkorns: Grundzüge des theologischen Denkens von Papst Benedikt XVI (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 2010), 14–44. 58 Ratzinger, IC, 208. 59 On this theme, see Ratzinger’s comments on the theology of St. Bonaventure in NMT, 26–27. Ratzinger outlines the relationship between truth and love and the implication this has for theology and philosophy. Also see Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience of March 3, 2010, “St. Bonaventure,” in Doctors of the Church (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2011), 175–93. Here, in one of his Wednesday audiences on the Doctors of the Church, Benedict focuses his attention on the theology of Bonaventure wherein he highlights the primacy of love for Bonaventure: “For St. Bonaventure the ultimate destiny of the human being is to love God, to encounter him, and to be united in his and our love” (190). St. Bonaventure, under the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius, emphasizes love’s ability to exceed the capacity of reason in the assent towards the truth. Further, in the text used for his general audience, Benedict asserts: “Whereas for St. Augustine the intellectus, the seeing with reason and the heart, is the ultimate category of knowledge, Pseudo-Dionysius takes a further step: in the ascent toward God one can reach a point in which reason no longer sees. But in the night of the intellect love still sees; it sees what is inaccessible to reason. Love goes beyond reason, it sees further, it enters more profoundly into God’s mystery” (192). Pseudo-Dionysius had a strong influence on the development of medieval theology in Benedict’s estimation. See Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience of May 14, 2008, “Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite,” in The Fathers, vol. 2 (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2010), 27–32. In addition to Saint Bonaventure, the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius would influence other medieval theologians such as Saint Bernard (1090–1153), William of Saint-Thierry († ca. 1148), Isaac d’Étoile († ca. 57 The Primacy of Logos 541 In a paper given at a conference commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Pope Pius XII’s encyclical on the devotion to the Sacred Heart, Haurietis Aquas, Ratzinger addresses the inadequacies of using reason alone in the pursuit of truth.60 Ratzinger cites various texts to highlight love’s ability to see what reason is unable to see, such as “Gregory the Great’s ‘Amor ipse notitia est’ (“love is knowledge itself”); Hugh of St. Victor’s ‘Intrat dilectio et appropinquat, ubi scientia foris est’ (“Love enters and comes close where knowledge has been left outside”); or Richard of St. Victor’s beautiful formulation: ‘Amor oculus est et amare videre est’ (“love is the eye, and to love is to see”).”61 Logos finds its full meaning in love, which only Christ fully reveals to all of humanity. Ratzinger points out that Christianity moves beyond the God of philosophy, who is described as pure thought. Ratzinger makes this claim clear: “The logos of the whole world, the creative original thought, is at the same time love; in fact this thought is creative because, as thought, it is love, and, as love, it is thought.”62 Love and truth are identical for Ratzinger; thus, grasping this point is fundamental for appreciating his theology of the Sacred Heart, which becomes a central component of his Christology.63 Furthermore, 1169), Robert Grosseteste (1168–1253), and Saint Albert the Great († 1280); see William Riordan, Divine Light: The Theology of Denys the Areopagite (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 61. Riordan’s work is an excellent introduction to the thought of Denys the Areopagite (Pseudo-Dionysius). 60 See Joseph Ratzinger, Behold the Pierced One: An Approach to Spiritual Christology [hereafter, BPO], trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 47–69. This address is also published as Joseph Ratzinger, “The Paschal Mystery as Core and Foundation of Devotion to the Sacred Heart,” in Towards a Civilization of Love: A Symposium on the Scriptural and Theological Foundations of Devotion to the Heart of Jesus, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1981), 145–65. See the parallels of thought in Hans Urs von Balthasar, TheoLogic, vol. 2, Truth of God, trans. Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 27–33, esp. 28: “Thus, where one defines God (Thomas Aquinas) or Christ (Bonaventure) as the formal object of theology, the first thing this object demands is to be loved.” Also see: Pierre Rousselot, S.J. “Spiritual Love and Apperceptive Synthesis,” in Essays on Love and Knowledge, ed. Andrew Tallon and Pol Vandevelde, trans. Andrew Tallon Pol Vandevelde and Alan Vingelette (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2008), 119–134; Rousselot, Eyes of Faith, trans. Joseph Donceel, S.J. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1990), 49–61. Rousselot argues for the mutual need for both knowledge and love in the act of faith. 61 Ratzinger, BPO, 55. Pope Benedict XVI speaks of “a heart which sees” in Deus Caritas Est (2005), §31. The Patristic theme of love as form of knowledge is repeated throughout the writings of Ratzinger/Benedict. 62 Ratzinger, IC, 148; see also 158–61. 63 See Peter John McGregor, Heart to Heart: the Spiritual Christology of Joseph 542 Roland Millare his Christology forms the foundation for his anthropology, his theology of liturgy and eschatology.64 Due to his interest in preserving the primacy of logos, one of Pope Benedict’s main intellectual pursuits concerns the relationship between the God of philosophy and the God of faith, which was the subject of his inaugural lecture as a professor of fundamental theology at the University of Bonn in 1959.65 Ratzinger has always been interested in the relationship Ratzinger (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016), 62–98, 279–335. McGregor’s work is a great contribution to the understanding of Ratzinger’s Christology. He is able to demonstrate the significance of Ratzinger’s spiritual Christology within Ratzinger’s theological oeuvre. McGregor is able to substantiate the importance of neo-Chalcedonian Christology in Ratzinger’s thought. I am very grateful to Tracey Rowland for directing me to McGregor’s work. Also see Sara Butler, M.S.B.T., “Benedict XVI: Apostle of the ‘Pierced Heart of Jesus,’” in The Pontificate of Benedict XVI: Its Premises and Promises, ed. William G. Rusch (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 144–67. For a brief treatment of various Christologies among Protestant and Catholic thinkers who relate Christology with the heart, see Edward T. Oakes, S.J., Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 271–300. Also see Bertrand de Margerie, S.J., Christ for the World: The Heart of the Lamb—A Treatise on Christology, trans. Malachy Carroll (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1973). De Margerie focuses on Christology with the hope of highlighting the co-redemptive role the Church has in communion with the Eucharistic or Sacred Heart of Jesus. 64 See Helmut Hoping, “Gemeinschaft mit Christus: Christologie und Liturgie bei Joseph Ratzinger,” Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift Communio 35 (2006): 557–72. Hoping argues that spiritual Christology is the foundation for Ratzinger’s theology of liturgy. Also see Hoping, “Christologie und Liturgie bei Joseph Ratzinger/Benedikt XVI,” in Zur Mitte der Theologie im Werk von Joseph Ratzinger/Benedikt XVI, ed. Maximilian Heim and Justinus C. Pech (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 2013), 109–21. Hoping reiterates the same thesis found in his article from Communio. 65 This lecture has been published as Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI, Der Gott des Glaubens und der Gott der Philosophen: ein Beitrag zum Problem der Theologia naturalis, ed. Heino Sonnemans with commentary (Leutesdorf: Johannes, 2005). For a summary and further commentary on this inaugural lecture, see de Gaál, Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, 73–77. Also see Corkery, Joseph Ratzinger’s Theological Ideas, 30–31. Corkery argues that the unity between the “God of Philosophy” and the “God of Faith” is the first facial feature of Ratzinger’s theology. The Pope Emeritus himself comments that the subject of this lecture originated with his study of Pascal in a seminar with Gottlieb Söhngen in which they read Romano Guardini’s book on Pascal. The work by Guardini focused on Pascal’s Memorial, which Benedict XVI notes is about the “‘God of faith,’ the ‘God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,’ as a contrast to the ‘God of the Philosophers’”; see Pope Benedict XVI (with Peter Seewald), Last Testament: In His Own Words, trans. Jacob Philips (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 104. On Guardini’s work on Pascal, Christliches The Primacy of Logos 543 and the affinity between reason and faith.66 His former student Vincent Twomey comments, “For Ratzinger, ‘reason’ is our capacity for truth (and, therefore, for God). Like language, reason is at the same time both personal and communal by nature. Indeed, so is revelation, the social dimension of which is found in the human-divine complex of tradition/Church.”67 Throughout his writings as a theologian, he has worked to demonstrate the unity that exists between reason and faith. Faith purifies reason and enables Ratzinger to identify logos as we have seen above with love: “The primacy of the Logos and the primacy of love proved to be identical. The Logos was seen to be, not merely a mathematical reason at the basis of all things, but a creative love taken to the point of becoming sympathy, suffering with the creature.”68 Authentic logos is reason that is truly liberated by faith. Reason is elevated by faith, philosophy is made complete by theology, and the God of philosophers can become an object of idolatry unlike the God of Abraham. Consistently throughout his work, Ratzinger draws our attention to the primacy of logos to reorient the human person to the truth about himself, God, culture, and the world. Ratzinger’s interest in this Bewußtsein: Versuche über Pascal, see Balthasar, Romano Guardini, 69–73; on the unity of the “God of Faith” (faith) and the “God of Philosophy” (reason) elsewhere in the writings of Ratzinger, see: IC, 137–50; NMT, 13–29; Faith and the Future, trans. Ronald Walls (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 61–85; Truth and Tolerance [hereafter, TT], trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 183–209. 66 See Aidan Nichols, Conversation of Faith and Reason: Modern Catholic Thought from Hermes to Benedict XVI (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2009), 190–206. Nichols underscores the relationship between faith and reason throughout Ratzinger’s works with a particular focus on IC, TT, NMT, and the Regensburg Address. 67 D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D., Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age—A Theological Portrait (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 54. 68 Ratzinger, TT, 182. Elsewhere, Ratzinger maintains: “God is Logos. But there is a second characteristic. The Christian faith in God tells us also that God—eternal Reason—is Love. It tells us that he is not a being turned in on himself, without relation to others. Precisely because he is sovereign, because he is the Creator, because he embraces everything, he is Relation and he is Love. Faith in the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, and in his suffering and death for mankind, is the supreme expression of a conviction that the heart of all morality, the heart of being itself and its deepest principle, is love” (Europe: Today and Tomorrow, trans. Michael J. Miller [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007], 97). Also see Joseph Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 112–13. As pontiff, Benedict XVI notes: “The ancient world had dimly perceived that man’s real food . . . is ultimately the Logos, eternal wisdom: this same Logos now truly becomes food for us—as love” (Deus Caritas Est, §13). 544 Roland Millare theme will culminate in his papal address at the University of Regensburg. This address is a succinct summary of a theme that Ratzinger has consistently addressed as a central facet of his theological project. The logos is crucial for fully comprehending the human person, which the Christian faith has received from its Hellenic, specifically Platonic, influence. Ratzinger affirms the centrality of the logos in light of the writings of the Church Father Origen and the work of the historian Endre von Ivánka (1902–1974): “It is the Logos which is at the center of us all—without our knowing—for the center of man is the heart, and in the heart there is the ἡγεμονικόν—the guiding energy of the whole, which is the Logos.”69 In Ratzinger’s view, the center of the human person is not the intellect, but the heart. According to Ratzinger, who draws once again upon the thought of Ivánka, “Here the word ‘heart’ has expanded beyond the reason and denotes ‘a deeper level of spiritual/intellectual existence, where direct contact takes place with the divine.’” 70 Hence, it is the pierced Sacred Heart of Christ that allows Christians to enter into an intimate knowledge of the Lord, who is love itself. As a consequence of modernity’s self-limitation imposed upon reason, the divorce between reason and faith, and modernity’s exercise of faith without logos, the human person is unable to know and to love fully. It is the primacy of logos that Ratzinger is interested in reiterating in his papal address at the University of Regensburg. On September 12, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI gave a lecture to the faculty of the University of Regensburg entitled “Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections” to highlight the essential unity between faith and its proper relation to logos; additionally, he wanted to underscore the potential consequences and implications of separating faith and reason.71 Although Benedict’s main concern was to emphasize the 69 70 71 Ratzinger, BPO, 67. Ratzinger, BPO, 68. For a definitive and thorough philosophical exploration of the heart and affectivity, see Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Heart: An Analysis of Human and Divine Affectivity, ed. John F. Crosby (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2007). On January 17, 2008, as Supreme Pontiff, Benedict was supposed to give another public lecture on the theme of faith and reason at Rome’s La Sapienza University. Hostile protests from members of the faculty and student body resulted in the cancellation of Benedict’s appearance; nevertheless, the text of the speech was made available. For a summary of this text and its relation to the Regensburg Lecture, see Nichols, Conversation of Faith and Reason, 201–6. For a succinct history of theology (faith) and philosophy (reason) in relation to the mission of the university, see Alasdair MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). The Primacy of Logos 545 primacy of the Logos, the media highlighted the following quotation from Byzantine Emperor Manual II: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” 72 The focus on this quotation misses the fundamental point, which Benedict makes as he draws upon the writings of Manual II: “Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the Soul.” 73 In the words of Manual II, “not acting reasonably (σύν λόγω) is contrary to God’s nature.” 74 This Manuel II Paléologue, Entretiens avec un Musulman, quoted in the Regensburg Lecture, no. 12. In recognition of the tragic misunderstanding and misrepresentation of this quotation, Benedict writes this in a footnote added to a published version of his lecture: “In the Muslim world, this quotation has unfortunately been taken as an expression of my personal position, thus arousing understandable indignation. I hope that the reader of my text can see immediately that this sentence does not express my personal view of the Qur’an, for which I have the respect due to the holy book of a great religion. In quoting the text of the Emperor Manuel II, I intended solely to draw out the essential relationship between faith and reason. On this point I am in agreement with Manuel II, but without endorsing his polemic.” Nevertheless, the fallout that occurred in the Muslim world led to a reopening of a dialogue that remains pertinent. In a response to the journalist Peter Seewald, Benedict affirms: “It became evident that Islam needs to clarify two questions in regard to public dialogue, that is, the questions concerning its relation to violence and its relation to reason. It [the Regensburg Lecture] was an important first step that now there was within Islam itself a realization of the duty and the need to clarify these questions, which has since led to an internal reflection among Muslim scholars, a reflection that has in turn become a theme of dialogue with the Church” (Light of the World, 98). For commentary on the relationship between freedom and religion as it relates to the Regensburg Lecture specifically and the treatment of this topic in light of both Christian and Islamic theology, see Martin Rehak, “Die Freiheit der Religion: Nachbetrachtungen zur Regensburger Vorlesung,” in Hastetter, Ohly, and Vlachonis, Symphonie des Glaubens, 171–218. 73 Ratzinger, Regensburg Lecture, no. 13. 74 Manuel II Paléologue, Entretiens; quoted in Ratzinger, Regensburg Lecture, no. 13. God’s very nature is logos, which is characterized as both reasonable and loving. In an earlier address, prior to his papacy, Ratzinger states: “God is Logos. But there is a second characteristic. The Christian faith in God tells us also that God—eternal Reason—is Love. It tells us that he is not a being turned in on himself, without relation to others. Precisely because he is sovereign, because he is the Creator, because he embraces everything, he is Relation and he is Love. Faith in the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, and in his suffering and death for mankind, is the supreme expression of a conviction that the heart of all morality, the heart of being itself and its deepest principle, is love. This affirmation is the most resolute refusal of every ideology of violence; it is the true apologia for man and for God” (Ratzinger, Europe, 97). This text comes from a conference given by Ratzinger at the Church of Saint-Étienne in Caen, June 5, 2004 on the occasion of the sixtieth 72 546 Roland Millare is the main argument against the incompatibility between faith and violence. Acting with reason or logos precludes the use of force because it is opposed to God’s very nature. The use of irrational violence as a result of the separation of faith from logos represents an extreme form of immanentizing the eschaton. In the absence of logos, the human person becomes the uncreated, and casts judgment upon others in the name of religion using terror and violence. Christianity is formed in part by the unity between the reason of the Greeks and the faith of the Jews. Benedict accentuates the use of logos in the Johannine tradition as representative of the “profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the Biblical understanding of faith in God.” 75 According to Saint John, the logos has existed from the beginning and this Logos is God.76 A synthesis between faith and reason developed early in the Church only to be severed in Benedict’s estimation by late-medieval theology, beginning with the voluntarism of Duns Scotus.77 In response to the developments in theology following the thought of Scotus, Benedict responds, “God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf.” 78 God’s acts of love flow from his being as the Logos. Consequently, Benedict affirms once again with Saint Paul that Christian worship is logikē latreia.79 Christians offer true worship in accordance with the logos and not in spite of it. anniversary of the landing of the Allied forces in France during World War II. Ratzinger, Regensburg Lecture, no. 17. 76 Ratzinger, Regensburg Lecture, no. 18. The prologue of Saint John ( John 1:1–18) will serve as a fundamental Scripture passage as Pope Benedict develops a theology of the Logos in his Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini (2010); see §5: “[The Prologue of Saint John] is a magnificent text, one which offers a synthesis of the entire Christian faith.” Later in the exhortation, Benedict notes that the “Logos is truly eternal, and from eternity is himself God. God was never without his Logos. The Word exists before creation. Consequently at the heart of the divine life there is communion, there is absolute gift” (§6). 77 Ratzinger, the Regensburg Lecture, no. 25. On the effect of the primacy of freedom and the will in the thought of Scotus on medieval thought, see Josef Pieper, Scholasticism: Personalities and Problems of Medieval Philosophy, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001), 136–51. Pieper outlines the consequences for the relationship between faith and reason in light of the via Scoti and the influence his writings will have on William of Ockham. 78 Ratzinger, the Regensburg Lecture, no. 27. 79 Ratzinger, the Regensburg Lecture, no. 28. 75 The Primacy of Logos 547 The nominalism and the voluntarism of the fourteenth century laid the foundation for various forms of de-Hellenization that emerged in the Reformation in the sixteenth century and the liberal theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as represented by the Lutheran theologian Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930).80 The latter form is the focus of the remainder of Benedict’s address. This second type of de-Hellenization is rooted in Kant’s “self-limitation of reason.”81 Reason is limited by what can be measured empirically because matter or nature is limited to what is visible. Benedict explains the dire consequences of this misguided and limited 80 81 According to Benedict, he has dealt with the theme of Hellenization in more detail in his inaugural lecture as a newly appointed professor at the University of Bonn in 1959. Also see Ratzinger’s comments on Hellenization in TT, 90–95. Ratzinger, Regensburg Lecture, no. 40. Ratzinger explains elsewhere the self-limitation imposed by Kantian epistemology: “According to Kant, man cannot perceive the voice of being in itself; he can hear it only indirectly, in the postulates of practical reason, which remain so to say as the last narrow slit through which contact with the really real, with his eternal destiny, can still reach him. For the rest, for what the activity of his reason can substantively grasp, man can go only so far as the categorical allows. He is therefore limited to the positive, to the empirical, to ‘exact’ science, in which by definition something or someone Wholly Other, a new beginning from another plane has no room to occur”; see “Biblical Interpretation in Conflict: On the Foundations and the Itinerary of Exegesis Today,” in Opening Up the Scriptures: Joseph Ratzinger and the Foundations of Biblical Interpretation, ed. José Granados, Carlos Granados, and Luis Sánchez-Navarro (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 18. The predominance of Kantian presuppositions in the interpretation of Sacred Scripture has resulted in a secularized hermeneutic. In response to this limited method, Benedict calls for the use of a hermeneutic of faith and the harmony of faith and reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures; see also Verbum Domini, §§29–36. For more commentary on the effect of Kant on the relationship between faith and reason in general, see TT, 130–37, and NMT, 13–41. For Guardini, the subordination of logos to ethos has been established definitively by Kant: “This importance of the will has been scientifically formulated in the most conclusive manner by Kant. He recognized, side by side with the order of perception, of the world of things, in which the understanding alone is competent, the order of practicality, of freedom, in which the will functions. Arising out of the postulations of the will he admits the growth of a third order, the order of faith as opposed to knowledge, the world of God and the soul. While the understanding is of itself incapable of asserting anything on these latter matters, because it is unable to verify them by the senses, it receives belief in their reality, and thus the final shaping of its conception of the world, from the postulations of the will which cannot exist and function without these highest data from which to proceed. This established the ‘primacy of the will.’ The will, together with the scale of moral values peculiar to it, has taken precedence of knowledge with its corresponding scale of values; the Ethos has obtained primacy over the Logos” (The Spirit of the Liturgy, 87–88). 548 Roland Millare logos: “The subject then decides on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective ‘conscience’ becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical.”82 The radical autonomy of the individual and an ethic based on utility, power, and pleasure remain the “moral” norms. Consequently, logos becomes subordinated to the ethos of the person’s capricious will. The Regensburg Lecture is simply one of the many addresses in which Benedict expresses his invitation for all of humanity to enter into dialogue with the incarnate Logos. The dia-logos is fundamental for a fully developed human person. The key to understanding the inherently eschatological nature of the liturgy is to emphasize the dialogical nature of the human person. The emphasis on de-Hellenization within theology, which began with Harnack, has contributed to an emphasis upon the primacy of ethos. It is evident with the Regensburg Address, that Benedict argues that this has implications for the relationship between faith and reason. Furthermore, this has affected the unity between salvation history and metaphysics, which forms the “fundamental crisis” of our age. The centrality of logos is a foundational key to comprehending the unity between eschatology and liturgy. True worship will always be in accordance with logos, and eschatology must always begin with asserting the primacy of logos. The Logos-centric Theologian The primacy and centrality of logos fundamentally orients Joseph Ratzinger’s theology. The close relationship between liturgy and eschatology hinges upon his insistence on the incarnate Logos at the center of the Christian faith. Commenting on the Guardinian primacy of logos over ethos, Ratzinger emphasizes, “In the beginning was not the ‘deed’ but, rather, the Word; it is mightier than the deed. Doing does not create meaning; rather, meaning creates doing. . . . This means that Christian faith essentially and originally has to do with the truth.”83 The liturgy and eschatology cannot be fully understood without a proper definition of logos or by subordinating logos to ethos. The modern world is guided by a materialist ontology, which in practice can reduce the liturgy to a display of the person’s creative abilities, or it becomes subject to the personal preferences of the individual community of believers.84 The liturgy enables every individual believer Ratzinger, Regensburg Lecture, no. 48. Ratzinger, DP, 94. 84 Again in his interview with Peter Seewald, Benedict XVI clearly states: “[The liturgy] is not about our doing something, about our demonstrating our creativity, in other words, about the displaying everything we can do. Liturgy is precisely not 82 83 The Primacy of Logos 549 (the “I”) to worship Jesus Christ, the source of authentic freedom, as part of the ecclesial “we.” Ratzinger maintains that every person finds his authentic liberation as a result of the “being-taken-out-of-himself that goes beyond reflection—not in continuing to be himself, but in going out from himself.”85 As we have seen with Guardini and as we continue to discover with Ratzinger, there is never truly an individual “I” in the celebration of the liturgy. The “I” used in the prayers of the liturgy refers to communal “I” of the Body of Christ. At the same time, the liturgical encounter with the eschaton points to the reality that individuals united to the incarnate Logos in prayer are meant to experience the gift of salvation as a unified group. Whereas the materialist ontology affirms an autonomous individual, the sacramental ontology emphasizes the relational communion that should be the true end of human existence. God’s eschatological action, as exhibited by the resurrection, highlights the communal existence for all of humanity in Ratzinger’s view: “The Resurrection has both a cosmic and a future-oriented character and . . . the corresponding Christian faith is a faith of hope in the fullness of a promise that encompasses the whole cosmos.”86 The significance of this “cosmic” and “future-oriented character” of the resurrection in Ratzinger’s thought means “a rejection of the individualization of [the person], the ordering of the ‘I’ to the ‘we,’ the orientation of Christianity to the future as much as to the past.”87 The modern view of liturgy and eschatology, under the influence of a culture that emphasizes the autonomy of the “rugged individual,” leads to alienation of the person from himself and others. Additionally, the lack of full transcendence in the reigning materialist or secular ontology leads to a view that emphasizes action (ethos) over and above logos. The logos-centrism of Ratzinger is an example of what Father Matthew Lamb describes as “wisdom (or sapiential) eschatology.”88 Contrary to the self-imposed limitations upon reason, a show, a piece of theater, a spectacle. Rather, it gets its life from the Other. This has to become evident, too. This is why the fact that the ecclesial form has been given in advance is so important. It can be reformed in matters of detail, but it cannot be reinvented every time by the community. It is not a question, as I said, of self-production. The point is to go out of and beyond ourselves, to give ourselves to him, and to let ourselves be touched by him” (Light of the World, 156). 85 Ratzinger, PCT, 171. 86 Ratzinger, PCT, 187. 87 Ratzinger, PCT, 187. 88 Matthew L. Lamb, “Wisdom Eschatology in Augustine and Aquinas,” in Aquinas the Augustinian, ed. Michael Dauphinais, Barry David, and Matthew Levering (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 258–75, at 259. Lamb uses the term “wisdom eschatology” because in his view “eschatology depends upon a faith-illumined knowledge and wisdom of the telos or end of the 550 Roland Millare Ratzinger maintains that the human logos finds its fulfillment in an illuminated faith directed towards the incarnate Logos. Reason alone is insufficient and faith expressed by the Creed is fully realized in cultus. Cultic worship, which we have seen throughout our work, is most aptly described by the Pauline logikē latreia (see Rom 12:1). Sacramental communion with God in Jesus Christ leads to communion with one’s neighbor in love. This is a foretaste of the eschatological communion that is realized for the Church triumphant. Worship is foundational for a proper ethos of charity. Ratzinger emphasizes this point: “It is only, therefore, when man’s relationship with God is right that all of his other relationships—his relationships with his fellowmen, his dealings with the rest of creation—can be in good order.”89 The logos achieved in authentic worship precedes any authentic ethos. Once again, we must emphasize that the false form of worship is exemplified by the building and worship of the golden calf in Ratzinger’s view: “The worship of the golden calf is a self-generated cult. . . . Worship becomes a feast that the community gives itself, a festival of self-affirmation.”90 Preference is given to the ethos of the human person over the logos of God. The assessment of the philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973) is an apt summary of this type of false worship: the value of “doing” replaces that of “being.” As a consequence, Ratzinger concludes that “Instead of being worship of God, it becomes a circle closed in on itself: eating, drinking, and making merry.”91 An ethos of self-seeking pleasure is an antithesis to the authentic worship of God. Authentic worship leads to an ethos of charity for one’s neighbor. This type of ethos is a sign of eschatological faith that whole of redeemed creation.” Ratzinger, JRCW11, 10 ( JRGS11, 38). 90 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 12 ( JRGS11, 39–40). A constant theme in Ratzinger’s liturgical theology is his insistence that the liturgy is the opus Dei or actio Dei and not the work of man. Elsewhere Ratzinger writes, “Liturgy is God’s work or it does not exist at all” (NSL, 133). Unlike the golden calf, liturgy is not made by the human person. Ratzinger asserts that the “liturgy cannot be ‘made.’ This is why it has to be simply received as a given reality and continually revitalized” (FF, 66). Commenting on Guardini’s work The Church of the Lord, Ratzinger asserts that Guardini learned to see in the Incarnation “the presence of the Lord who has made the Church his body. Only if that is so is there a simultaneity of Jesus Christ with us. And only if it this exists is there real liturgy which is not a mere remembrance of the paschal mystery but its true presence. Once again, only if this is the case is liturgy a participation in the trinitarian dialogue between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Only in this way is it not our ‘doing’ but the opus Dei—God’s action in and with us” (Joseph Ratzinger in Communio, 1:33). 91 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 10 [ JRGS11, 39–40). 89 The Primacy of Logos 551 was evident in the life of the Church from its apostolic beginnings. Theologian Matthew Levering draws upon the Acts of the Apostles to highlight the essential marks of eschatological faith in the Apostolic Church: “apostolic teaching and fellowship, and the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist.”92 Regular participation in the liturgy led to and presupposed charitable concern for one’s neighbor. Once again, Levering, citing the Acts of the Apostles, asserts that the “eschatological community is also known by its sharing of possessions so that all have a sufficiency: ‘And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need’” (2:44–45; cf. 4:32–35).93 Love of God expressed in liturgical worship is not mutually exclusive with love of neighbor. The latter is a realization and anticipation of eschatological communion. Drawing upon the Pauline corpus, particularly 1 Corinthians, Levering highlights the eschatological marks of the Apostolic Church, emphasizing the participation in the Eucharist as the means by which the community participates in the Pasch of Jesus Christ. Further, Levering once again maintains that the Apostolic Church embrace selfless generosity with one’s neighbor as part of her eschatological mission.94 Self-giving, which Christians experienced in the “breaking of the bread,” was translated into their everyday giving of bread to others. The logos of the liturgy should transform the existence of the Christian. Ratzinger maintains that the liturgy should be a “logikē latreia, the ‘logicizing’ [Logisierung] of my existence, my interior simultaneously together with the sacrifice of Christ.”95 The bodies of Christians can become a “living sacrifice” through the generous self-gift which can unfold as they love others, particularly those in need. The primacy of the logos leads to Ratzinger’s emphasis on the primacy of the vertical relationship of love, which the person offers to God in the sacred liturgy. At the same time, worship does not preclude love which the faithful believer must have in his horizontal relationships of love for his neighbor. In his work Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, Ratzinger maintains: Matthew Levering, Jesus and the Demise of Death: Resurrection, Afterlife, and the Fate of the Christian (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), 66. He quotes from Acts 2:42. 93 Levering, Jesus and the Demise of Death, 66. 94 Levering, Jesus and the Demise of Death, 71–72. 95 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 34 ( JRGS11, 65–66). 92 552 Roland Millare Caritas, care for the other, is not an additional sector of Christianity alongside worship; rather, it is rooted in it and forms part of it. The horizontal and the vertical are inseparably linked in the Eucharist, in the “breaking of the bread.” In this dual action of praise/thanksgiving and breaking/distributing that is recounted at the beginning of the institution narrative, the essence of the new worship established by Christ through the Last Supper, Cross, and Resurrection is made manifest: here the old Temple worship is abolished and at the same time brought to its fulfillment.96 Worship includes both love of God and love of neighbor. This type of new worship is eschatological and centered upon the Christian finding his identity first and foremost in the incarnate Logos. This tension between history and ontology, reason and revelation, nature and grace, and ultimately, between the human person and God is sustained throughout Ratzinger’s thought because the incarnate Logos maintains the tension between the natural and supernatural. Divorced from the logos, both liturgy and eschatology can cease to be the actio Dei; the former can become a product of the creative human person, whereas the latter can be driven by utopian ideology. 96 Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection [hereafter, JN II], trans. Vatican Secretariat of State (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 129–30. Also see Joseph Ratzinger, God is Near Us: The Eucharist, The Heart of Life, ed. Stephan Otto Horn and Vinzenz Pfnür, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 121–29, esp. 127–28: “Christ shares himself with us. Let us take this to heart again and again, so that we may share him out; it is immediately clear that we can devote ourselves to the breaking of bread only if we ourselves become beakers of bread in the fullest sense. Hence the Eucharist is the true motive power for all social transformation in the world. From Elizabeth of Hungary, by way of Nicholas of Flüe and Vincent de Paul, right up to Mother Teresa, it is evident that wherever the gestures of the Lord, the breaker of the bread, are accepted, then the breaking of the bread must be carried on right into everyday life. There is no longer any stranger there who means nothing to me; rather, there is a brother there who calls on me and who is waiting for the broken bread, to find a resting place in his love.” Also see Joseph Ratzinger, Called to Communion, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 43: “The designation of the sacrament as the ‘breaking of the bread’ expresses the social requirement of the Eucharist, which is not an isolated cultic act but a way of existence: life in sharing, in communion with Christ, who gives the gift of his very self.” The Primacy of Logos 553 The Grundgestalt of the Holy Eucharist In his theology of liturgy, Ratzinger consistently argues that the new worship, which characterizes the liturgy as the previously discussed logikē latreia, is marked by the Church’s participation with and in the sacrificial prayer of the incarnate Logos through the Eucharist.97 Among German-speaking theologians in the twentieth century, a dispute arose concerning the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist.98 We will highlight the history of this debate briefly in order to develop the contrast between Romano Guardini and Joseph Ratzinger on the Grundgestalt of the Eucharist and to underscore the significance of Ratzinger’s position in arguing for the primacy of the sacrifice as the essence of the Eucharist. Ratzinger is very wary of scholars that would remove the notion of sacrifice from the theology of the Eucharist because this would transform the fundamental essence of the sacrament. Ratzinger highlights the work of Stefan Orth, who offers a survey of recent literature dedicated to the theme of sacrifice.99 Orth sums up his survey with this position: “Many The phrase “new worship” is used by Benedict XVI in this third part of his Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (§70). He has also repeatedly used this idea in the second part of JN II (see 129–30). For an insightful commentary on the use of this phrase in Jesus of Nazareth, see Geoffrey Wainwright, “The ‘New Worship’ in Joseph Ratzinger’s Jesus of Nazareth,” Nova et Vetera (English) 10, no. 4 (2012): 993–1013. For a treatment of this theme in his earlier works, see Ratzinger’s discussion of new worship (Der neue Kult) in his dissertation, published as Volk und Haus Gottes in Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche: Die Dissertation und weiter Studien zu Augustinus und zur Theologie der Kirchenväter, Gesammelte Schriften 1, ed. Gerhard Ludwig Müller (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2011), esp. 264–317. Also see a lecture given by Ratzinger in Salzburg in 1958, “Christus, die Kirche und der neue Kult,” in Kirche—Zeichen unter den Völkern: Schriften zur Ekklesiologie und Ökumene, Gesammelte Schriften 8/1, ed. Gerhard Ludwig Müller (Freiburg: Herder, 2010), 157–68. For a brief commentary on this theme in Ratzinger, see Cong Quy Joseph Lam, O.S.A., Joseph Ratzinger’s Theological Retractions (Bern: Peter Lang, 2013), 181–85. 98 See Manfred Hauke, “The ‘Basic Structure’ (Grundgestalt) of the Eucharistic Celebration according to Joseph Ratzinger,” in Benedict XVI and the Roman Missal: Proceedings of the Fourth Fota International Liturgical Conference, ed. Janet E. Rutherford and James O’Brien (Dublin: Four Courts, 2013), 70–113. I am relying upon Hauke’s historical and theological account of this controversy among German speaking theologians to contextualize the position of Ratzinger. 99 Stefan Orth, “Renaissance des Archaischen? Das neuerliche theologische Interesse am Opfer,” Herder Korrespondenz 55 (2001): 195–200, cited in JRCW11, 543 ( JRGS11, 642). See also: Philip McCosker, “Sacrifice in Recent Catholic Thought: From Pardon to Polarity, and Back Again?,” in Sacrifice and Modern Thought, ed. Julia Mészaros and Johannes Zachhuber (Oxford: Oxford University 97 554 Roland Millare Catholics themselves today ratify the verdict and the conclusion of Martin Luther, who says that to speak of sacrifice is ‘the greatest and most appalling horror’ and a ‘damnable idolatry’; this is why we want to refrain from all that smacks of sacrifice including the whole Canon, and retain only that which is pure and holy.”100 Orth concludes his summative thoughts by commenting that the Church, following the Second Vatican Council, “led people to think of divine worship chiefly in terms of the feast of the Passover related in the accounts of the Last Supper.”101 In his commentary on Orth’s statement, Ratzinger argues that we need not view the Passover and sacrifice as mutually exclusive notions. We will see that Ratzinger’s position presents a nuanced view of the primacy of sacrifice in relation to the Eucharist that is overshadowed by other German theologians of the twentieth century. Citing the work of Wilhelm Imkamp (b. 1951), the theologian Manfred Hauke has traced the tendency towards proposing the Eucharistic sacrifice as a meal to the theologian Franz Seraph Renz (1884–1916).102 A student of Renz, Franz Sales Wieland (1877–1957) re-affirmed the theories of Renz and proposed the thesis that the Eucharist was identified only as a meal prior to Irenaeus. Hauke summarizes one thread of the argument for Wieland: “Only after Irenaeus did the thanksgiving sacrifice [Danksagungsopfer] become a presentation/offering sacrifice [Darbringungsopfer].”103 This position would draw critics among other theologians such as the Austrian Emil Dorsch, S.J. (1867–1934), who would argue for patristic Press, 2013), 132–46; Richard Schenk, O.P., “Opfer und Opferkritik aus der Sicht römisch-katholischer Theologie,” in Zur Theorie des Opfers: Ein interdisziplinäres Gespräch, ed. Richard Schenk (Stuttgart: Fromman-holzbook, 1995), 193–250. McCosker and Schenk offer surveys of recent contemporary literature among Catholic theologians on the notion of sacrifice. 100 Orth, “Renaissance des Archaischen?,” 198 (cited in Ratzinger, JRCW11, 543 [ JRGS11, 642]). 101 Orth, “Renaissance des Archaischen?,” 198 (cited in Ratzinger, JRCW11, 543 [ JRGS11, 642]). 102 Wilhelm Imkamp, “Die katholische Theologie in Bayern von der Jahrhundertwende bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges,” in Handbuch der bayerischen Kirchengeschichte, vol. 3, ed. Walter Brandmüller (St. Ottilien: EOS, 1991), 576–78, cited by Hauke, “‘Basic Structure,’” 70. The work of Franz Renz is entitled Die Geschichte des Messopferbegriffs oder der alte Glaube und die neuen Theorien über das Wesen des unblutigen Opfers, 2 vols. (Freising: F. P. Datterer, 1901–1902). See also Gerhard Rauschen, Eucharist and Penance: In the First Six Centuries of the Church (St. Louis, MO: Herder, 1913), 62–63. 103 Hauke, “The ‘Basic Structure’ (Grundgestalt) of the Eucharistic Celebration according to Joseph Ratzinger,” 7. The Primacy of Logos 555 evidence (prior to Irenaeus) that supported the notion of the Eucharist as a sacrificial offering of Christ’s Body and Blood.104 The discussion revolving around the structure of the Mass would find continual interest among the German theologians of the liturgical movement such as Guardini,105 Joseph Pascher,106 and Josef Andreas Jungmann, S.J.107 All of these thinkers have been influential in various ways upon the liturgical theology of Ratzinger, particularly Guardini and Pascher. Guardini, maintains that the understanding of the Grundgestalt is an essential task of liturgical renewal: “Therefore one of the most important tasks of liturgical education is to reveal as clearly and as vigorously as possible the interior structure of the divine events. So what is the basic structure [Grundgestalt] of the Mass? It is that of the meal.”108 Interestingly, the fourth edition of Guardini’s work omitted the chapter concerning the Grundgestalt of the Mass. In his preface, Guardini explained that he excluded this section from a previous edition because there was a misunderstanding of his thesis that was read as a rejection of the Tridentine doctrine of the Eucharist as a “true and proper sacrifice.”109 Nevertheless, the understanding of the meal as the primary content of the Mass would continue to gain support among other figures who would influence Ratzinger, such as Gottlieb Söhngen and Michael Schmaus.110 Despite the See Hauke, “‘Basic Structure,’” 70–71. Also see Rauschen, Eucharist and Penance, 74–98. Rauschen provides the history of exchanges between Wielend and Dorsch along with the patristic texts used by Wieland as he makes his claim favoring the meal characteristic of the Eucharist as it was celebrated in the pre-Irenic period. Rauschen rejects Wieland’s thesis after his very apt summary of the arguments presented: “Wieland, in particular, has done much towards clearing up the testimony of the early Fathers in regard to the Eucharist. But for very good reasons we cannot follow him in the contention that before the time of Irenaeus the idea of the Christian altar was foreign to the Church, and that in the days of Irenaeus the conception of the Eucharistic sacrifice underwent an essential change” (98). 105 Romano Guardini, Besinnung vor der Feier der heiligen Messe, 2 vols. (Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, 1939). 106 Joseph Pascher, Eucharistia: Gestalt und Vollzug (Münster und Krailling: Aschendorff und Wewel, 1947). 107 Josef Andreas Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, 2 vols. (Wein: Herder, 1948). On the impact of this debate on these various German theologians of the liturgical movement, see Ratzinger, JRCW11, 299–318 ( JRGS11, 359–82). Also see Hauke, “‘Basic Structure,’” 74–86. 108 Guardini, Besinnung, 72, (cited in Hauke, “‘Basic Structure,’” 77). 109 Guardini, Besinnung, 14 (cited in Hauke, “‘Basic Structure,’” 77–78). 110 See Hauke, “‘Basic Structure,’” 79–80. In Söhngen’s nuanced development of Guardini, he maintains: “A sacramental sacrifice can have the form [Gestalt] of a meal, because a sacramental sacrifice is a sacrifice not in its proper form, but 104 556 Roland Millare impact of these various thinkers upon Ratzinger in other areas of theology, he would maintain the preeminence of sacrifice as the authentic Grundgestalt in both the theology and celebration of the Eucharist. The significance of the primacy of sacrifice for our work is that it also communicates the eschatological nature of the liturgy. In an attempt to discern the authentic Gestalt of the Eucharist, there was a clear division vacillating either towards the primacy of the Eucharist as a meal or as a sacrifice that will affect an understanding of the essence of the Eucharist. In Ratzinger’s estimation, the underlying issue relating to this debate is identifying the proper relation between dogmatic and liturgical theology, which he identifies as the “central problem of liturgical reform.”111 Ratzinger, in his attempt to work through this issue consistently with his theological method, does not accept the thesis that there can be a total separation between dogmatic and liturgical theology. Theology is a symphonic whole with distinct and complementary parts.112 If there is a constitutive relationship between the lex orandi and lex credendi, then there must be a way to reconcile these two theological notions. Pascher introduced the notion of sacrificial symbolism as part of the meal structure of the Eucharist; the distinct offering of bread and wine symbolize the sacrificial offering of Christ’s blood.113 The thesis of Jungmann had greater significance for Ratzinger because the Austrian theologian argues that the Grundgestalt of the Eucharist, beginning in the apostolic period, affirms in a different form”; see Das sakramentale Wesen des Meßopfers (Essen: Augustin Wibbelt, 1946), 59 (cited in Hauke, “‘Basic Structure,’” 80). This is a modification of Söhngen’s original thesis found in his Der Wesensaufbau des Mysteriums, Grenzfragen zwischen Theologie und Philosophie 6 (Bonn: Hanstein, 1938), summarized by Edward Kilmartin, S.J.: “Christ who suffered, the Christus Passus, still bears the marks of his passion and under this formality is present in the liturgical mysteries. This absolute and substantial presence implies the virtual presence of the historical redemptive acts of Christ and grounds the objective presence of the past saving acts which are realized (in their effects) in the individual subject of the liturgical celebrations”; see The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology, ed. Robert Daly (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1998), 284. On the development of Söhngen’s view of sacramental sacrifice, see Kilmartin, Eucharist in the West, 284–91. 111 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 301 ( JRGS11, 361). 112 Recently, Marc Cardinal Ouellet has expressed the need to restore liturgy to its primary place as “as the privileged source of trinitarian and ecclesiological doctrine. Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex theologandi”; see Mystery and Sacrament of Love: A Theology of Marriage and the Family for the New Evangelization, trans. Michelle K. Borras and Adrian J. Walker (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 13. 113 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 301 ( JRGS11, 362). The Primacy of Logos 557 the prominence of eucharistia over the meal aspect.114 Ratzinger defines the eucharistia, as employed by Jungmann, as “the prayer of anamnesis in the shape of a thanksgiving.”115 Further on, Ratzinger highlights the later research of Jungmann, which argues that Luther’s use of the word “supper” (Abendmahl) was a “complete innovation in the sixteenth century.”116 This eucharistia thesis of Jungmann, in Ratzinger’s view, establishes the necessary unity between liturgical and dogmatic theology. Based on the words of Jesus Christ used at the Last Supper, Ratzinger cites the work of the German New Testament scholar Heinz Schürmann (1913–1999), among others, and claims that Jesus “actually underwent, in an inward and anticipatory manner, his Death on the Cross.”117 Additionally, the eucharistia thesis is connected to Ratzinger’s theology of logos and subsequently a Trinitarian understanding of both the Cross and the Eucharist.118 Ratzinger emphasizes the latter point as he argues, “The eucharistic Prayer is an entering into the prayer of Jesus Christ himself; hence it is the Church’s entering into the Logos, the Father’s Word, into the Logos’ self-surrender to the Father, which, in the Cross, has also become the surrender of humanity to him.”119 The eucharistia thesis highlights the central role of Ratzinger’s emphasis on the notion of the logikē latreia in his liturgical theology. The unity between the Church’s Eucharist and Christ’s self-sacrifice are deepened by the eucharistia thesis. This thesis provides the foundational emphasis on the spiritual notion of logikē latreia in the life of the Christian, which is ultimately a participation in the sacrificial love of Christ himself. Beyond the unity between liturgical theology and dogmatics, Ratzinger wants to connect the Last Supper of Jesus with the Church’s celebration of the Eucharist. Ratzinger consistently highlights the newness of the Lord’s celebration of the Last Supper in relation to the traditional Jewish Passover meal to establish the necessary continuity between Jesus’s celebration of the Last Supper and the Eucharist celebrated by the primitive Church. Ratzinger, drawing upon the exegetical work of Schürmann,120 contends: “What the Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia, 1:327, (cited in Ratzinger, JRCW11, 301 [ JRGS11, 362]). 115 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 301 ( JRGS11, 362). 116 Jungmann, “‘Abendmahl’ als Name der Eucharistie,” Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 93 (1971): 93 (cited in Ratzinger, JRCW11, 302 [ JRGS11, 362]). Ratzinger reiterates this point from Jungmann again in JN II, 142. 117 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 302 ( JRGS11, 362). 118 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 302 ( JRGS11, 362). 119 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 302 [( JRGS11, 362–63)]. 120 Heinz Schürmann, Ursprung und Gestalt: Erörterungen und Besinnungen zum 114 558 Roland Millare Lord is doing is something new. It is woven into an old context—that of the Jewish ritual meal—but is clearly recognizable as an independent entity.”121 In a later work, Ratzinger demonstrates commitment to this idea by emphasizing that Jesus is celebrating his “new Passover”: One thing emerges clearly from the entire tradition: essentially, [the Last Supper] was not the old Passover but the new one, which Jesus accomplished in this context. Even though the meal that Jesus shared with the Twelve was not a Passover meal according to the ritual prescriptions of Judaism, nevertheless, in retrospect, the inner connection of the whole event with Jesus’ death and Resurrection stood out clearly. It was Jesus’ Passover. And in this sense he both did and did not celebrate the Passover: the old rituals could not be carried out-when their time came, Jesus had already died. But he had given himself, and thus he had celebrated the Passover with them. The old was not abolished; it was simply brought to its full meaning.122 121 122 Neuen Testament, Kommentare und Beiträge zum Alten und Neuen Testament 27 (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1970), 77–99. Ratzinger, JRCW11, 304 ( JRGS11, 365; emphasis added). Benedict XVI, JN II, 114. The relationship between the Last Supper and the Passover is a complicated issue that remains debated among Scripture scholars and theologians. One of the difficulties to work through is reconciling the discrepancy in chronology of the Last Supper according to the Synoptic Gospels with the Johannine account. Many scholars, including Ratzinger, have relied upon the work of Annie Jaubert in The Date of the Last Supper (New York: Alba House, 1965). The partial solution presented by Benedict is the emphasis on the new exodus that Jesus is leading. This reading coincides incidentally with N. T. Wright’s position as he contends the Last Supper “brought Jesus’ own kingdom-movement to its climax. It indicated that the new exodus, and all that it meant, was happening in and through Jesus” (Jesus and the Victory of God, vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God [Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997]), 557. Similar to Ratzinger’s arguments, Wright claims that the Last Supper is a new Passover that can only be fully understood in relation to Temple-action. The Last Supper in Wright’s view anticipates the death of Christ symbolically and serves as another sign of the kingdom, which Christ is establishing. Wright concludes: “Passover looked back to the exodus, and on the coming of the kingdom. Jesus intended this meal to symbolize the new exodus, the arrival of the kingdom through his own fate” (559). Also see Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 554–59. The classic work in Scripture scholarship on the relationship between the Last Supper and Pasch remains Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, trans. Norman Perrin (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1966). For the most comprehensive work on the Last Supper, see the previously cited Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper, especially his discussion of the various hypotheses on the dating of the Last Supper (251–373). The Primacy of Logos 559 The key idea is that the Last Supper is the Passover of Jesus himself, which Ratzinger argues is the “full meaning” of the Passover. At this point in his study of the Last Supper, Ratzinger draws upon this Pauline text for an explanation of this new Passover: “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be new dough, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7).123 The identification of Jesus as the Paschal Lamb brings out the essence of the Last Supper as a “real anticipation of the Cross and Resurrection in the eucharistic gifts.”124 The final conclusion presented by Ratzinger is that the Eucharist is both a meal and a sacrifice. Insofar as the Last Supper presents the new Passover of Christ, it is an anticipation of the Cross and resurrection. Ratzinger concludes that the notion of the Eucharist as solely a meal is “historically a crass oversimplification.”125 Elsewhere, Ratzinger maintains that the Pasch of Jesus Christ is essential to defining the liturgy. Commenting on Sacrosanctum Concilium, Ratzinger maintains that the Pasch “forms the central category of liturgical theology of the Council. All other aspects are comprised in it.”126 Among theologians and exegetes, the post-conciliar emphasis on the notion of the meal as central to the identity of the Eucharist is simply not consonant with the true understanding of the liturgy. The thesis of the eucharistia affirms sacrifice as the authentic Grundgestalt of the Eucharist. Ratzinger summarizes his argument, which develops the proper tension between the Eucharist as a meal and a sacrifice: “Thus eucharistia is the gift of communio in which the Lord becomes our food; it also signifies the self-offering of Jesus Christ, perfecting his trinitarian Yes to the Father by his consent to the Cross and reconciling us all to the Father in this ‘sacrifice.’”127 Ratzinger concludes that there is “no opposition between ‘meal’ and ‘sacrifice’; they belong inseparably together in the new sacrifice of the Lord.”128 Sacrifice is a core doctrine that cannot be separated from the Eucharist. In his lecture at Fontgombault, Ratzinger opines, “the crisis of liturgy has its basis in central notions about man that cannot be overcome Benedict XVI, JN II, 114. Also see Benedict’s Homily for Easter Sunday of 2009, where he touches upon this theme of the “new Passover” and Christ as the Paschal Lamb. The relation of the Passover to the Eucharist is also the subject of a previous homily given on Holy Thursday, April 5, 2007. Also see Ratzinger, BPO, 114–21. The prominence of Christ’s identity as the Paschal Lamb is a frequent Easter theme in the preaching of Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. 124 Benedict XVI, JN II, 115. 125 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 311 ( JRGS11, 374)]. 126 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 578 ( JRGS11, 700). 127 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 311 ( JRGS11, 374). 128 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 311 ( JRGS11, 374). 123 560 Roland Millare by trivializing the liturgy and making it into a simple gathering or merely a fraternal meal.”129 There are elements of both sacrifice and communion in the Eucharist that unfold in their proper order. Assigning the communal meal aspect primacy or logical priority over the Eucharist as a sacrifice places the proverbial cart before the horse. Sacrifice and meal are never mutually exclusive in the Eucharist. In an interview concerning change and permanence in the sacred liturgy, Ratzinger, drawing from the example of the entire history of ancient religions, notes that “sacrifice and meal are inseparably united. The sacrifice facilitates communio with the divinity, and men receive back the divinity’s gift in and from the sacrifice.”130 Similar to John Paul in Ecclesia de Eucharistia,131 Ratzinger maintains the relationship between sacrifice and communion is evident not only in the Church’s theology of the Eucharist, but in the practice of various ancient religions. At the same time, Ratzinger is presenting a different conception of sacrifice that transcends mere cultic notions of sacrifice in light of the self-giving love of Jesus Christ. Sacrifice takes on new meaning in light of salvation history and Ratzinger’s keen interest in highlighting the centrality of the covenant. In order to relate the liturgy and eschatology to one another, it is critical to establish the notion of sacrifice as the Grundgestalt of the Eucharist. The emphasis upon the Eucharist as a meal, over and above the Eucharist Ratzinger, JRCW11, 550 ( JRGS11, 648)]. Significantly, Saint John Paul II shares the sentiments of Ratzinger: “At times one encounters an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery. Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, §10). 130 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 529 ( JRGS11, 625–26). 131 Citing the Council of Trent and CCC, Pope Saint John Paul II affirms the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist in Ecclesia de Eucharistia: “The Eucharist is indelibly marked by the event of the Lord’s passion and death, of which it is not only a reminder but the sacramental re-presentation. It is the sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated down the ages” ( §11). The Eucharist is a sacramental sacrifice that makes present the sacrifice of Christ. John Paul II’s encyclical emphasizes the notion of sacrifice. In his theological analysis of the encyclical, Richard Schenk, O.P., highlights John Paul’s uses of the term “sacrifice” or “sacrificial” over seventy times, which does not include the use of various synonyms such as “blood poured out,” “offering,” or “paschal victim” (“The Eucharist and Ecclesial Communion,” in At the Altar of the World: The Pontificate of Pope John Paul II through the Lens of L’Osservatore Romano and the Words of Ecclesia de Eucharistia, ed. Daniel G. Callahan [Washington, DC: John Paul II Cultural Center, 2003], 85). Schenk also remarks that the encyclical is “characterized by its emphasis on the Eucharist as containing the work of Christ ‘for’ [pro] humankind (pro vobis et pro multis, for those receiving Communion and for those others whose needs are prayed for by a Church united to Christ’s own sacrifice ‘for’ the world in the Eucharist)” (85). 129 The Primacy of Logos 561 as a sacrifice, contributes to the development of an immanentized view of the liturgy and eschatology. Throughout his theology of the liturgy, Ratzinger stresses the understanding of sacrifice as self-giving love. Hence, the emphasis upon the vertical communion between God and humanity that is part and parcel of the sacrificial character of the Eucharist does not preclude the horizontal communion, which is expressed fully by a life of charity. Every member of the faithful is called to enter into the “pro-existence” of Jesus as a mark of his participation in the sacrificial prayer and life of Christ. The debate over the Grundgestalt of the Eucharist among German theologians has significant implications for liturgical praxis. The emphasis upon the Eucharist as a fraternal meal influenced how Guardini celebrated Mass for the youth at Berlin’s St. Benedict Chapel: “The impact of the sacred action was all the more profound because Guardini celebrated mass versus populi; it was a missa recitata, something still new in those days, and we, the congregation, were the altar boys and girls responding to this invitations to pray.”132 The arrangement in the Students’ Chapel where Guardini celebrated Mass is characterized in part by a “free-standing, simple altar, which was surrounded by wooden cubes for seating. The presider’s cube closed the circle.”133 Defining the logos of the liturgy as a fraternal meal leads to the preference for the celebration of the liturgy versus populum. In contrast, Joseph Ratzinger, has consistently emphasized the need to return to the celebration of the liturgy ad orientem based upon his understanding of the sacrificial logos of the Eucharist. The celebration of the liturgy ad orientem or Ratzinger’s proposal to place the cross at the center of the altar during Mass (which has become known as a “Benedictine arrangement” because this became a standard arrangement for the altar at St. Peter’s Basilica with Pope Benedict) as a symbolic ad orientem makes the essence of the liturgy, the Paschal Mystery, plainly visible to every participant. Consequently, the placement of the cross on the altar symbolizes this centrality within the celebration of the liturgy.134 Christ is Heinz R. Kuehn, “Fire in the Night: Germany 1920–1940,” in Romano Guardini: Proclaiming the Sacred in a Modern Age, ed. Robert A. Krieg, C.S.C. (Chicago: Liturgical Training Publications, 1995), 8. 133 Regina Kuehn, “Encounters with Romano Guardini,” in Krieg, Romano Guardini, 88. 134 Ratzinger, JRCW11, 579 ( JRGS11, 701): “The Cross stands in the center of the Christian liturgy, with all of its seriousness. . . . The redemption cost God the suffering and the death of his Son, and its exercitium, which is what the liturgy is, according to [Sacrosanctum Concilium], cannot take place without the purification and maturation involved in the following the way of the Cross.” 132 562 Roland Millare the true Oriens, and it is only fitting that this external symbol be used to manifest this internal reality that is taking place within the sacred liturgy. The placement of the cross at the center of the altar can highlight the place of the Cross and the true meaning of sacrifice that all Christians are called to embrace in imitation of Christ: “Christian sacrifice is nothing other than the exodus of the ‘for’ that abandons itself, a process perfected in the man who is all exodus, all self-surpassing love. The fundamental principle of Christian worship is consequently this movement of exodus with its two-in-one direction toward God and fellow man.”135 Ratzinger will continue to emphasize that the key to understanding sacrifice, which is at the heart of the exodus that the person is called to, is love and not destruction.136 The Cross serves as a symbol for the fulfillment of the human person’s true nature as gift. The Christian is able to enter into Christ’s existence “for” humanity through a life of self-giving love. Not only is the Christian called to worship ad orientem (or ad crucem), he is called to live his life oriented towards the self-giving love of Christ. Sacrifice is meant to characterize his life, which is why Ratzinger emphasizes the logikē latreia as the true nature of Christian liturgy.137 The sacrificial love of Christ must become a daily reality in the life of a Christian. In this manner, what Christ did “once and for all” (semel) is “always” (semper) carried out.138 The celebration of the liturgy ad orientem or the placement of a crucifix in the center of the altar serves as a symbol for the entrance of Christ’s past sacrifice into the present, while at the same time anticipating the future reality of the eschaton. Although there is a clear divergence between Guardini and Ratzinger on Ratzinger, IC, 289. “The fundamental principle of the sacrifice is not destruction but love. And even this principle only belongs to the sacrifice to the extent that love breaks down, opens up, crucifies, tears—as the form that love takes in a world characterized by death and self-seeking” (Ratzinger, IC, 289). Earlier in our work, we noted that Ratzinger defines Christian sacrifice: “Christian sacrifice does not consist in a giving of what God would not have without us but in our becoming totally receptive and letting ourselves be completely taken over by him. Letting God act on us—that is Christian sacrifice” (IC, 283). Also see IC, 253 where Ratzinger identifies the Christian as having received a call “to the continual exodus of going beyond himself ” in imitation of the Pasch of Christ. 137 As we have noted previously, Ratzinger emphasizes the “[Liturgy] is meant to be indeed a logikē latreia, the ‘logicizing’ [Logisierung] of my existence, my interior contemporaneity with the self-giving of Christ. His self-giving is meant to become mine, so that I become contemporary with the Pasch of Christ and assimilated unto God” ( JRCW11, 34 [ JRGS11, 65–66]). 138 See Ratzinger, JRCW11, 34–36 ( JRGS11, 64–68). 135 136 The Primacy of Logos 563 the Grundgestalt of the Eucharist, they both continue to share a continuity in developing a liturgical ethos based upon their understanding of the logos of the Eucharist. Summary and Conclusion In our effort to highlight the unity between liturgy and eschatology in Ratzinger, we have argued for his consistency in presenting the centrality of logos in his thought. Under the influence of Guardini, Ratzinger favors the primacy of logos over ethos. This will have implications for Ratzinger in his approach to the liturgy and eschatology. Regarding the liturgy, Ratzinger’s emphasis on the primacy of logos drives one of his fundamental refrains within his theology: that the liturgy is the opus Dei. A subordination of logos to ethos subjects the liturgy to be manipulated or changed solely at the discretion of the people. The primacy of logos ensures that the proper nuances are given to the definition of the liturgy as the “work of the people.”139 In eschatology, the concern of Ratzinger regarding the subordination of logos to ethos (or theory to praxis) is that political theology, theology of hope, and liberation theology advocate social action without receiving their proper orientation from the logos of the liturgy.140 In practice, eschatology can easily be characterized like the liturgy solely as a caricature of the authentic “work of the people,” placing great stress upon the role of politics and social justice. Guardini has clearly impacted Ratzinger’s presentation of the logos. We have demonstrated similarities that both theologians share in their engagement with modern culture. They have a similar interest to critique modern culture, which attempts to separate itself from the influence of God in favor of human technocracy. Guardini and Ratzinger develop the harmony between liturgy and Christology, which offers a sacramental worldview that can bring the modern world back to its authentic logos. The true spirit of the liturgy is the communion that unites the individual “I” with other people in worship to form a “we.” The remedy for the isolating logos of technē is the communion that is realized via the liturgy. We have insisted upon the continuity in Ratzinger’s thought in present See CCC, §1069. The Church affirms that the liturgy is properly understood as “the participation of the People of God in ‘the work of God.’” 140 On the various relationships between theory (logos) and praxis (ethos), see Matthew Lamb, Solidarity with Victims: Towards a Theology of Social Transformation (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 61–99. Lamb provides an overview of the five common models used in theology to regarding theory and praxis: (1) the primacy of theory, (2) the primacy of praxis, (3) the primacy of faith-love, (4) critical theoretic correlations, and (5) critical praxis correlations. 139 564 Roland Millare ing the primacy of logos from his days as a young professor of fundamental theology to his service as the Supreme Pontiff. The concern regarding the subordination of logos to ethos has been a consistent and central theme in his theology. A person will not be able to penetrate Ratzinger’s thought with any depth if they do not examine the central role of logos in his theology. Additionally, it is critical for Ratzinger to define logos consistently and accurately as this affects our understanding of ethos. Consequently, Ratzinger is insistent upon defining the Grundgestalt of the Eucharist as a sacrifice in contradistinction to the emphasis of Guardini and other theologians who emphasize the primacy of the Eucharist as a communal meal. Although Guardini and Ratzinger are united in demonstrating the need to identity the logos of the Church as communio, which is symbolized by the sacred liturgy, this particular rupture between the two thinkers on the Grundgestalt (logos) of the Eucharist will affect their approach to liturgical praxis (ethos). In light of this context, we can understand Ratzinger’s call for a “new Liturgical Movement”: “We need a new Liturgical Movement, which will call to life the real heritage of the Second Vatican Council.”141 In his own The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ratzinger notes that Guardini’s work “may rightly be said to have inaugurated the Liturgical Movement in Germany. Its contribution was decisive. It helped us rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty, hidden wealth, and time-transcending grandeur, to see it as the animating center of the Church, the very center of Christian life.”142 When we celebrate the centenary of Ratzinger’s work, we may be able to make the argument that his work marked the beginning of the new Liturgical Movement, which was built upon the essential foundation that the world itself began with at creation: the Logos. N&V Ratzinger, Milestones, 149. Ratzinger, JRCW11, 3 ( JRGS11, 30). 141 142 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 565–611 565 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. University of St. Thomas Houston, TX In his moral writings , St. Thomas Aquinas dedicates much effort to identifying various kinds of human actions (e.g., almsgiving, murder, liberality, robbery, etc.) and to examining what determines such species.1 Among the various aspects of human action, the two he considers most important for determining moral species are “object” (what an agent is doing) and “end” (an agent’s purpose in acting). 2 Objects specify for Aquinas when they possess a morally relevant formal character (ratio) revealed by a comparison to right reason. An object with such a formal character will either realize or oppose some moral good if willed. Suppose that a married man is considering “having sexual relations with a woman.” This description of his possible action may be accurate, but it is insufficient for a determination about whether it would be good or evil in kind. When the action under consideration is compared with right reason—in this case, a correct understanding of how sexual powers ought to be used—aspects of the man’s action relevant to this comparison will come to light; St. Thomas holds that these aspects should be included in the object’s formal character. Sometimes the comparison will reveal This article is focused on human actions, but because what Aquinas asserts about specification of virtues and vices, he also typically asserts about the specification of human actions, we will in this article sometimes make use of texts about specification of virtues and vices to illuminate Aquinas’s teaching on specification of human actions. 2 For a more detailed study of the use of “object” and “end” in specification of human actions, see Joseph Pilsner, The Specification of Human Actions in St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 1 566 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. aspects which indicate conformity with right reason; for example, the man’s object might be “having sexual relations with his own spouse.” This object (with its formal character now identified) will determine a morally good human action of marital love. At other times, however, the comparison with right reason might reveal something discordant: the object might be “having sexual relations with another’s spouse.” This object has a distinctive opposition to the good of marriage as discerned by right reason; it defines or specifies an evil kind of human action, adultery.3 What role does an end play in specification? For Aquinas, in some cases, a human action will receive a moral species from its object, and no further determination relevant to this moral species will be added by an end. For example, a man may have as his object “to present himself as other than he is.” If the man wills this object simply from the pleasure of carrying out this deception and for no further end, then according to St. Thomas, this object by itself will determine the moral species of dissimulation (simulatio).4 On another occasion, this man might have a further end for dissimulating, but if this end has no special relation to right reason, then here too, the object will determine the action’s only moral species. If, however, the end on account of which some object is chosen possesses its own distinctive relation to right reason, then, according to Aquinas, this end would determine an additional moral species. For example, in a case where a man is “having sexual relations with another’s spouse” (object) as a means to “appropriating secretly some possession” of his paramour (end), the human action would have the species of adultery from its object and theft from its end.5 The end, like the object, is opposed to right reason, but the evil brought about by willing the end is essentially distinct from the evil brought about by willing the object. An end in such a case has a special importance in specifying the human action: since the object is willed for the end’s sake, the species from the end has a certain formal primacy over the species from the object. Note, however, that for St. Thomas, the species from this end does not subsume, alter, or contribute to the species that the action receives from its object. The human action in this case remains adultery from its object, even when it is determined to be theft (the more prominent species) from its end. See De malo, q. 2, a. 4, resp. Summa theologiae [ST] II-II, q. 111, a. 3, resp. and ad 3. Sometimes, Aquinas uses “object” and “proximate end” as equivalents, so in ST II-II, q. 111, a. 3, resp., he refers to a species of dissimulation being determined by a “proper object” and in ad 3 by “a proximate end.” For object as proximate end, see De malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 9. 5 ST I-II, q. 18, a. 7, resp. 3 4 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 567 There is a third way, according to St. Thomas, in which an object and end can be related to the specification of human actions, and this third way is the primary concern of this article. In certain species of human action, Aquinas holds that an object and end together contribute to the determination of a single moral species. One example is the human action (and virtue) of religion. St. Thomas identifies religion’s object as “offering something in worship.” Unlike the object that determines the species of dissimulation, however, the object of an action of religion cannot by itself determine a species; a certain end is also necessary. Only if a worshipper is “offering something” (object) “to honor the one, true God” (end) is this action specified as religion.6 If the worshipper were “offering something” (object) “to honor a creature” (end), then the human action would be in the species of idolatry, a kind of human action falling under superstition.7 For St. Thomas, then, one cannot define the species of religion without including both its characteristic object and end. In this article, a number of species of human action—scandal (as a “special sin”), fraternal correction, reviling, backbiting, derision, tale-bearing, religion, superstition (including divination and its numerous subspecies), and penance—will be proposed as requiring both an object and end for their specification according to the Angelic Doctor. We will try to discern the nature of each of these species of human action and consider their similarities and differences regarding how they are specified.8 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, resp. ST II-II, q. 92, a. 2, resp. 8 A number of authors have treated the end’s role in specification of human actions. For instance, see: William E. May, “Aquinas and Janssens on the Moral Meaning of Human Acts,” The Thomist 48, no. 4 (1984): 566–606; John Finnis, “Object and Intention in Moral Judgments According to Aquinas,” The Thomist 55, no. 1 (1991): 1–27; Steven Jensen, “A Defense of Physicalism,” The Thomist 61, no. 3 (1997): 377–404; Steven A. Long, “A Brief Disquisition Regarding the Nature of the Object of the Moral Act According to St. Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist 67, no. 1 (2003): 45–71; Tobias Hoffmann, “Moral Action as Human Action: End and Object in Aquinas in Comparison with Abelard, Lombard, Albert, and Duns Scotus,” The Thomist 67, no. 1 (2003): 73–94; Kevin L. Flannery, “The Multifarious Moral Object of Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist 67, no. 1 (2003): 95–118; Jensen, “A Long Discussion Regarding Steven A. Long’s Interpretation of the Moral Species,” The Thomist 67, no. 4 (2003): 623–43; Martin Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person and the Nature of Practical Reason: The ‘Object of the Human Act’ in Thomistic Anthropology of Action,” trans. Joseph T. Papa, Nova et Vetera (English) 2, no. 2 (2004): 461–516, repr. in Rhonheimer, Perspective of the Acting Person: Essays in the Renewal of Thomistic Moral Philosophy, ed. William F. Murphy Jr. with intro. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 195–249; Jensen, “When Evil Actions Become Good,” 6 7 568 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. An Examination of Various Species of Human Action in Aquinas Determined by Object and End Scandal as a “Special Sin” Scandal [scandalum] is leading another person to commit sin.9 In the Summa theologiae, Aquinas defines scandal as “a deficient [minus rectum] word or deed providing an occasion of downfall.”10 One might ask why St. Thomas does not simply assert that scandal is any kind of sinful action Nova et Vetera (English) 5, no. 4 (2007): 747–64; Steven Brock, “Veritatis Splendor §78, St. Thomas, and (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts,” Nova et Vetera (English) 6, no. 1 (2008): 1–62; William F. Murphy Jr., “A Reading of Aquinas in Support of Veritatis Splendor on the Moral Object,” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 11, no. 1 (2008): 100–126; Murphy, “Aquinas on the Object of and Evaluation of the Moral Act: Rhonheimer’s Approach and Some Recent Interlocutors,” Josephinum Journal of Theology 15, no. 2 (2008): 205–42; Andrew Jaspers, “Intentio and Praeter Intentionem in the Constitution of the Moral Object in Thomas Aquinas,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 81 (2008): 149–59; Joseph A. Selling, “Object, End and Moral Species in S.T., I-II, 1–21,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 84, no. 4 (2008): 363–407; Jensen, “The Role of Teleology in the Moral Species,” Review of Metaphysics 63, no. 1 (2009): 3–27; Selling, “Looking Toward the End: Revisiting Aquinas’ Teleological Ethics,” Heythrop Journal 51, no. 3 (2010): 388–400; Kevin F. Keiser, “The Moral Act in St. Thomas: A Fresh Look,” The Thomist 74, no. 2 (2010): 237–82; Matthew Levering, The Betrayal of Charity: The Sins that Sabotage Divine Love (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011); Flannery, “Thomas Aquinas and the New Natural Law Theory on the Object of the Human Act,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13, no. 1 (2013): 79–104; Long, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act, 2nd ed. (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2015). Most of these authors do not address the various species of human actions explored in this article. A few do take note of the importance of end in one of the human actions we are addressing. For example, regarding the end and scandal, see Levering, Betrayal of Charity, 134–39, and Flannery, “Thomas Aquinas and New Natural Law,” 91; regarding superstition, see Jensen, “Role of Teleology,” 23–24. The only author above who adverts specifically to the topic addressed in this article is Keiser, who notes briefly that some sins “for their very definition, require some ordering to an end in order to entail a disorder of reason,” and then shows how detraction and scandal exemplify this (“Moral Act in St. Thomas,” 262, 275; he also mentions murder, which we do not treat here). 9 For a fine summary of Aquinas’s teaching on scandal, see Levering, Betrayal of Charity, 127, 131–42. 10 ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, resp: “Et ideo convenienter dicitur quod dictum vel factum minus rectum praebens occasionem ruinae sit scandalum.” Latin texts in this article come from Thomas’s Opera Omnia collected for Fr. Roberto Busa’s Index Thomisticus, now posted at corpusthomisticum.org. Translations into English are the author’s own. Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 569 occasioning another’s downfall; why the expression “a deficient word or deed”? There are two reasons. First, the word “deficient” is used rather than “sinful” because morally good or indifferent actions can sometimes be scandalous: an action with only the appearance of evil is sometimes sufficient to lure another into sin.11 Second, the phrase “word or deed” is used because these two name external human actions; a wholly internal action such as a thought or a desire is imperceptible to others, and hence cannot be a source of temptation for them.12 St. Thomas distinguishes in the Summa between two different kinds of scandal, active and passive. He does so because scandal may involve two human actions: the inordinate word or deed of the one who tempts another (active), and the sin of the one who succumbs to temptation (passive). If the person scandalizing another is successful, then active scandal occasions passive scandal; for instance, Bill may shoplift in order to lead Jane into sin, and she may give in to this temptation by stealing something herself. In this case, both Bill and Jane are guilty of scandal. It is not a foregone conclusion, however, that both agents will be involved in a sin. The “deficient word or deed” of the first person may not lead the second person to sin: Bill may shoplift to lure Jane into wrongdoing (active scandal), but Jane may resist this temptation (passive scandal avoided). Conversely, passive scandal can sometimes occur without active scandal: Bill may perform a deed having no deficiency, and Jane may find in this deed an occasion for sinning anyway (passive scandal).13 Active scandal is further divided by St. Thomas into two types, per se and per accidens. St. Thomas has two ways of understanding per se scandal. In the first, an agent says or does something with the precise intention of leading another to sin. For example, Bill, envious of Jane’s innocence, may form the precise intention of leading Jane to a spiritual downfall and may drink wine excessively in the hope that his action will induce her to follow his lead. In the second kind of per se scandal, an agent speaks or acts without an intention that another person sins, yet the agent knowingly wills a word or deed of such a nature that it will very likely occasion another’s sin. For instance, Bill may drink excessively without intending that his friends also become drunk, but his sin is still per se scandal if he knows that his companions are very likely to find the prospect of being drunk with him attractive enough to follow his lead, and he drinks excessively anyway, ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, ad 2; see also In IV sent., d. 38, q. 2, a. 2, qa. 2, ad 1. ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, obj. and ad 1. 13 ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, ad 4; a. 2, resp. 11 12 570 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. heedless of this serious temptation to his friends.14 By contrast, per accidens active scandal occurs when an agent through his word or deed neither intends to lead another to sin nor believes that what he says or does will likely lead another to sin, yet his words or actions provide an occasion for someone else’s downfall anyway. For instance, Bill may innocently drink a glass of wine with dinner, neither intending to lead his companion, Jane, to intemperate consumption nor realizing that such drinking in itself might be a grave temptation; yet Bill’s glass of wine may still be the occasion of Jane’s succumbing to drunkenness.15 Are any of these kinds of scandal just distinguished (active, passive, per se, per accidens) included among the kinds of human action we are considering in this article where both a human action’s object and end are necessary to determine its species? In an article from the Summa theologiae, Aquinas asks whether scandal is a “special sin,” that is, a human action distinctively opposing some moral good and consequently possessing its own species of moral evil. Thomas determines in this article that neither passive scandal nor per accidens active scandal belongs to this category. Passive scandal is not a “special sin,” he reasons, because someone presented with an occasion of sin could be tempted to fall into sins of a number of different species. For instance, although a person learning about Bill’s committing adultery might be tempted to do the same, he or she might also reason: “If even Bill can commit a sin as serious as adultery, then surely I can commit another, less serious sin, such as petty theft.” Since in passive scandal the kind of sin occasioned by another sin does not necessarily belong to a particular species, passive scandal cannot determine a distinctive opposition to a particular moral good that is characteristic of a “special sin.” In addition to passive scandal, per accidens active scandal is also not a “special sin,” according to St. Thomas, because the agent in per accidens active scandal does not will ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, ad 4. St. Thomas uses the example of a person eating meat offered to idols even though he or she has not sinned by participating in the idolatrous sacrifice. Someone observing the person eating this meat might suppose that the person had been involved in the sacrifice and be tempted to commit idolatry on this account (ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, ad 2). Aquinas’s example is surely an allusion to Paul’s treatment of this question in 1 Cor 8. 15 ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, ad 4. Aquinas proposes envy as an example, where a person is saddened by a neighbor’s good; note here how one person’s good is an occasion of another person’s sin. One might ask how a person’s good could be considered a “deficient word or deed,” as required by Aquinas’s definition. St. Thomas says here that per accidens scandal happens because the one scandalized is “badly disposed.” For St. Thomas, then, it seems that a good action may sometimes not have the appearance of evil in itself, but only to a person whose bad disposition makes him or her susceptible to being tempted by it. 14 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 571 the spiritual harm characteristic of scandal (i.e., leading another into sin), and species of moral action are not determined by accidental relationships.16 There is still one kind of scandal remaining, namely, per se active scandal, and this kind of scandal does meet the definition of a special sin for Aquinas, since the agent wills another’s spiritual downfall: “Per se active scandal [is a special sin] when someone by his own inordinate word or deed intends to draw another into sin. And thus from the intention of a special end [ finis] is taken the ratio of a special sin, for an end [ finis] gives the species in moral things.”17 Notice how, in this text describing per se active scandal, St. Thomas recognizes two parts: (1) the inordinate word or deed (its object, though he does not use the word here) and (2) the intention of drawing another into sin. Notice also that he identifies “drawing another into sin” as scandal’s “end [ finis],” and proposes that it determines scandal’s species. Scandal as a “special sin,” then, meets the criteria for human actions of the kind we are exploring in this article.18 Aquinas also treats the question of whether scandal is a “special sin” in his earliest major writing, Scriptum super Sententiis. In this work, St. Thomas comments on Peter Lombard’s Sentences and addresses numerous theological questions using the scholastic method. We will examine now with special attention his teaching from this work. Why are we considering Saint Thomas’s text from the Scriptum super Sententiis (hereafter, Sentences) after his text from the Summa theologiae, since this places his ST II-II, q. 43, a. 3, resp. ST II-II, q. 43, a. 3, resp.: “Per se autem est activum scandalum quando aliquis suo inordinato dicto vel facto intendit alium trahere ad peccatum. Et sic ex intentione specialis finis sortitur rationem specialis peccati, finis enim dat speciem in moralibus, ut supra dictum est.” Aquinas also asserts that intention of the end defines special scandal in ad 1 and ad 3. 18 Recall that there is a second kind of per se active scandal according to Aquinas (see ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, ad 4) where an agent knows that a word or action is of such a nature that it will very likely lead another to a spiritual downfall, though the agent does not intend it. This kind of per se active scandal does not seem to meet Aquinas’s definition for special scandal above, since Aquinas includes explicitly in his definition the intention of another’s downfall. We will therefore presume that Aquinas did not consider this second type of per se active scandal to be a special sin. We cannot dismiss as a possibility, however, that he would have been willing to extend his definition so as to include it. This second kind of per se active scandal does not share the deficiencies that Thomas identifies in passive or per accidens active scandal, and it also seems to oppose the same kind of moral good as the first kind of per se active scandal, suggesting that it might meet Aquinas’s criteria for a special sin. 16 17 572 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. two treatments of scandal as a special sin in reverse chronological order? Aquinas’s treatment of scandal in the Sentences is in some significant ways more complex, so presenting his teachings from the Summa first helps us to make better sense of his earlier teaching. Here is St. Thomas’s consideration of scandal as a special sin from the Sentences: An action is determined to a moral species in two ways. In one way from its object, as fornication [is determined to its moral species] from this, that it is about pleasures of touch; and this determination is material and regards the habit eliciting the act. In another way [an action is determined to a moral species] from its end, and this is a formal specification and respects the habit commanding. It happens sometimes that an act is determined to the same species from each part [i.e., from object and end], as when an act is elicited and commanded by the same habit; for example, someone fornicates on account of pleasure. Sometimes [an action] is determined by each part [i.e., from object and end], but to diverse species, as when an act is elicited by one habit and commanded by another. For instance, someone may fornicate on account of wealth: [this action] is determined to the species of lust from its object but to the species of avarice from its end. One does not find [in this act] two sins, but one twofold sin, since it is one act. Sometimes an action is not determined to a certain species on account of its object, but on account of its end in the following way: it has a determined habit by which it is commanded but not by which it is elicited, such as “to build up a neighbor.” Charity does not elicit this act, because charity only elicits interior acts through which building up [of a neighbor] is not accomplished, but [charity] commands [building up of a neighbor]. [Building up of a neighbor] is elicited materially by other virtues, not in a fixed way by some [virtue], but by all, because charity can command all [virtues]. And because active scandal is a sin opposed to building up neighbors, therefore, materially speaking, from the part of the matter and the habits eliciting, it is not a special sin, but only formally speaking, from the part of the end and habit commanding, which is the habit opposed to charity, namely, the vice of hate; and therefore when someone brings forth a deficient word or deed intending to present an occasion of ruin for a neighbor, Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 573 he commits a special sin by scandalizing.19 Before examining this passage, it will be helpful for the sake of those unfamiliar with Aquinas’s moral writings to clarify some of the technical language he uses here. An elicited act is one that immediately proceeds from a particular power or from a habit disposing such a power.20 Examples proposed by Aquinas of an act elicited from a power include “choosing” coming from will, or “knowing” coming from intellect;21 examples of acts elicited from a habit are “doing right,” which the virtue of justice disposes, or “acting temperately,” which the virtue of temperance disposes.22 A commanded act, on the other hand, is one ordered to a (further) end. For example, legal justice, which concerns the common good, “commands” acts of other virtues to its end.23 St. Thomas recognizes that ends (and human actions/habits associated with ends) “command” only in a secondary sense. “Command” is properly an act of reason, as when someone (through his reason) directs his own limbs, or tells another to In IV sent., d. 38, q. 2, a. 2, qa. 2, resp.: “Ad secundam quaestionem dicendum, quod actus aliquis determinatur ad speciem moris dupliciter. Uno modo ex parte objecti, sicut fornicatio ex hoc quod est circa delectabilia tactus; et haec determinatio est materialis, et respicit habitum elicientem actum. Alio modo ex parte finis; et haec est formalis specificatio, et respicit habitum imperantem. Contingit autem quandoque quod ad eamdem speciem determinatur actus ex utraque parte, sicut quando aliquis actus ab eodem habitu elicitur et imperatur, ut cum quis fornicatur propter delectationem. Quandoque autem ex utraque parte determinatur, sed ad diversas species, ut quando actus ab uno habitu elicitur, et ab alio imperatur, sicut cum quis fornicatur propter lucrum; determinatur enim ad speciem luxuriae ex objecto, sed ad speciem avaritiae ex fine; non tamen sunt ibi duo peccata, sed unum peccatum duplex, cum sit unus actus. Quandoque etiam evenit quod aliquis actus non determinatur ad aliquam certam speciem ex parte objecti, sed ex parte finis, eo quod habet determinatum habitum a quo imperatur, sed non a quo eliciatur, sicut aedificare proximum, quem actum caritas non elicit, quia ejus non est elicere nisi interiores actus, per quos non fit aedificatio, sed imperat eum, et ab aliis virtutibus elicitur materialiter, non determinate ab aliqua, sed ab omnibus, quia caritas omnibus imperare potest. Et quia scandalum activum est peccatum oppositum aedificationi proximorum; ideo, materialiter loquendo, ex parte materiae et habituum elicientium non est speciale peccatum, sed solum loquendo formaliter, ex parte finis et habitus imperantis qui est habitus caritati oppositus, scilicet vitium odii; et ideo quando aliquis dictum vel factum minus rectum facit intendens occasionem ruinae proximo praestare, speciale peccatum scandalizando committit.” 20 In II sent., d. 25, q. 1, a. 3, resp. 21 For choosing, see ST I-II, q. 71, a. 6, resp.; for knowing, see In II sent., d. 25, q. 1, a. 3, resp. 22 De virtutibus, q. 2, a. 5, ad 3. 23 ST II-II, q. 58, a. 6, resp. 19 574 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. do something.24 An end can be said to “command” in a secondary sense in that the intellect’s commanding of a means to an end presumes that the will already desires this end, and in that the end’s nature will govern which means would be suitable for achieving it. In this secondary sense, then, Aquinas maintains that powers, habits, or actions related to an end “command” powers, habits, or actions related to a means/object willed for the sake of this end.25 We now turn to the meaning of Aquinas’s text. In the passage above from the Sentences, St. Thomas distinguishes three categories of human action directed to object and end. The first is relatively simple to understand: a human action is elicited and commanded by the same habit, as when someone fornicates on account of pleasure. Here, because the agent is sufficiently motivated by the pleasure taken in his or her very action, no end related to a virtue or vice other than lust is needed to account for an agent’s action or its species.26 The second category contains human actions determined by object and end, but where each determines a different moral species, as when an act is elicited by one habit and commanded by another. Aquinas’s example is someone fornicating on account of his own inordinate desire for enrichment. This second category helps to illustrate the relation between habits commanding and eliciting. Fornication in this case may be elicited from the vice of lust, since this vice disposes an agent to seek sexual pleasures inordinately (that is, without concern for their proper place within marriage). But the fornication is “commanded” by another vice: since the agent’s primary aim is wealth, the vice of avarice, which facilitates inordinate accumulation of wealth, may be said to co-opt fornication into its service. Beyond providing a good example of commanding and eliciting, actions in the second category are worth reflecting on as an aid to understanding Aquinas’s teaching on the specification of human actions with more than one goal. In the first category above, the human action has only one species, fornication. That a single human action should possess a single species should not at all surprise someone familiar with St. Thomas’s ST I-II, q. 17, a. 1, resp.; a. 3, ad 1. In IV sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 1, qa. 1, ad 3. 26 Another comparable example mentioned earlier is where a dissimulator (similator) feigns great things about him or herself for no other purpose than the pleasure of doing so: ST II-II, q. 111, a. 3, ad 3. Thomas also holds that lies can be told merely for pleasure: see ST II-II, q. 110, a. 2, resp. 24 25 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 575 teaching, since in other cases, such as natural substances, things possess only one species at a time. (A being cannot simultaneously be both a horse and an oak tree, for instance.) But as the passage from the Sentences illustrates, Aquinas believes that sometimes a single human action can have more than one moral species. Fornicating for the purpose of inordinately obtaining wealth is not two human actions performed in close sequence, but one act of the will, where the agent intends an end (namely, to possess wealth) through a willing of the means (fornication). The action’s essential unity comes from the fact that the act of will to achieve the end is the same as the will’s act to bring about the means: an agent in this case judges the means good and wills it because it is conducive to his or her end.27 Even granted the unity this human action has from the will, however, St. Thomas holds that this human action possesses not one, but two distinct moral species, since end and object in this case oppose moral goodness in two specifically different ways. Now an opponent might argue that if inordinate wealth is what an agent in this case is willing primarily, then the whole action should be specified as avarice, since St. Thomas considers an end to be formal with respect to a human action. But Aquinas maintains, to the contrary, that the species an action receives from its end cannot determine the whole formal character of the action: the sin of fornication and its evil do not disappear even if greed is the reason for its being sought. Rather, the one human action in this case possesses a twofold moral character: it is avarice (from its end) and fornication (from its object). As Aquinas maintains above in the passage from the Sentences, “one does not find [in this act] two sins, but one twofold sin, since it is one act.”28 Aquinas then introduces a third category of action/habit. Since special scandal belongs to neither of the two categories just examined, and since this Sentences article is dedicated to special scandal, Aquinas clearly presents the first two categories so that he can more clearly distinguish this third and final category of human action to which special scandal belongs. St. Thomas identifies two kinds of human action that fall in this category: special scandal and “building up a neighbor” (aedificare proximum). “Building up a neighbor” is scandal’s mirror image, where someone’s good words or deeds occasion good actions in another. An example Aquinas gives elsewhere is In II sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 4, resp., ad 1, ad 2; ST I-II, q. 12, a. 4, resp. Aquinas speaks about the possibility of a human action possessing two species of sin—a first from its object and a second from its end—in other texts as well: ST I-II, q. 18, a. 7, resp.; Summa contra gentiles III, ch. 138; De veritate, q. 23, a. 7, ad 2. For more on this topic, see Pilsner, Specification of Human Actions, 222–38. 27 28 576 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. when a person’s public prayer leads others to do the same.29 St. Thomas asserts that a human action in this third category is “not determined to a certain species on account of its object, but on account of its end in the following way: it has a determined habit by which it is commanded but not by which it is elicited.” What does he mean? Active per se scandal can be used to illustrate. Scandal has as its end “to occasion another’s [spiritual] downfall.” Now, to try to induce a neighbor to commit sin is directly contrary to charity, which wills good to others. 30 Thomas therefore sees enticing another to sin as a special evil against charity, referred to the vice of hate. The end “another’s spiritual downfall” and its associated vice of “hate” can then “command” the “inordinate word or deed” done for its sake. But what species of human action is associated with the object “deficient words or deeds,” and what vice elicits these words or deeds? The answer is that they are not exclusively associated with any one vice. One can occasion a neighbor’s spiritual downfall using theft, backbiting, drunkenness, or any number of other species of sin, and many of these kinds of sin are associated with different vices. This explains why scandal is said by Aquinas to have a determined habit by which it is commanded but not by which it is elicited. Scandal as a special sin involves committing In IV sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 2, qa. 1, ad 1. For “good example” leading to the building up of a neighbor, see In IV sent., d. 38, q. 2, a. 3, qa. 3, ad 2. Why is “building up a neighbor” not counted among the human actions featured in this article? Is “building up a neighbor” not defined both by object and end in the Sentences text above? The reason it is not featured is that St. Thomas gives “building up a neighbor” so little attention in his later writings that it appears as though he may have reconsidered whether it is a special species of good human action and virtue. Thomas speaks about “building up a neighbor” in Quodlibet 10, q. 6, a. 2, resp., and De malo, q. 9, a. 1, resp., and a. 2, ad 9, but the references are minimal, and it is not even clear in these texts that he is treating “building up a neighbor” as a distinct species of good human action or virtue. Perhaps the most telling evidence is that “building up a neighbor” is not mentioned in the Summa Theologiae in spite of the fact that St. Thomas dedicates so much attention in the Summa to the cataloging and study of species of human actions and habits. One might expect, for example, that Thomas would at least address “building up a neighbor” in his treatment of special scandal in the Summa, since “building up a neighbor” features so prominently in his explanation of special scandal in the Sentences. He does not. Does any human action or virtue take the place of “building up a neighbor” as a contrary to special scandal? Aquinas continues to speak of scandal as especially opposed to charity (ST II-II, q. 43, pr.; a. 3, sc) and beneficence (ST II-II, q. 34, pr.; q. 43, pr.), which refers to external acts related to charity (ST II-II, q. 31, a. 4, resp.) described as “doing good to another” (ST II-II, q. 31, a. 1, resp.); see Levering, Betrayal of Charity, 127. 30 For charity as willing good to others, see ST II-II, q. 23, a. 1, resp. 29 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 577 an act of hatred against a neighbor in desiring his or her spiritual downfall (hate here being the commanding habit), but the different possible inordinate external words or deeds willed as means to this downfall do not have a single vice from which they are elicited, since acts elicited from injustice, intemperance, or any number of other vices could serve to tempt another. Aquinas in the Sentences article above emphasizes the preeminence of end in special scandal. The end is, after all, the most well-defined aspect of “special” scandal and has a certain formal primacy over scandal’s object in that the object is willed on account of the end. One ought not, however, to discount the necessity of special scandal’s object in its definition. “Willing a neighbor’s spiritual downfall,” its end, is by itself insufficient to define special scandal: this kind of sin requires some external deficient word or deed to serve as an occasion for another’s sin. “Performing a good deed that has no appearance of evil” or “committing a sin of thought” cannot achieve special scandal’s end. For there to be an act of special scandal, an agent must intend someone’s spiritual downfall (end) through some deficient word or deed (object) capable of tempting the hoped-for victim.31 A proper How are we to understand Aquinas’s statement from the Sentences above that scandal is a kind of action “not determined to a certain species from its object, but from its end”? This statement seems to suggest that a certain kind of object is not required in scandal, but this is not so. St. Thomas does not mean by this assertion that scandal’s object can be anything at all and is irrelevant. After all, in his definition of special scandal above, he includes “a deficient word or deed,” which describes what the agent is doing (object). The point that St. Thomas is making in this quoted text is that object in the definition of special scandal does not determine a species of human action distinct from the one determined by the end, as happened in the preceding category where an object determines a species (fornication) distinct from the one determined by the end (avarice). So, in special scandal, although its end has a certain formal primacy, its object (“deficient word or deed”) is also necessary to its definition. What makes the case of special scandal especially perplexing, however, is that an individual act of special scandal will often possess two moral species. For example, in an act of having relations with another’s spouse in order to tempt an enemy to sin, two moral species can clearly be identified: adultery and scandal. But these two species belong to a particular act of special scandal, not to the definition of this sin/vice. As we have shown, the definition of special scandal requires a broadly defined object that includes many possible species, since many species of sin can occasion another’s downfall. Even in a particular act of special scandal, there is a sense in which the object is necessary. If we analyze the act just proposed of someone committing adultery in order to lead another to sin, the species of adultery would remain, even if the end of leading another astray were taken away, but scandal would not remain if the adultery were removed, since adultery in this particular human action is the word or deed being used to tempt the would-be victim, and if the adultery were taken away, the means in this action necessary to achieve the end of leading another astray would no longer be present. 31 578 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. definition of special scandal, then, cannot omit its object. In sum, then, Aquinas in both the Sentences and the Summa theologiae recognizes that the special sin of scandal is defined by both its object and end. In the passage above from the Sentences, St. Thomas even identifies a category of human actions/habits where an end “commanding” an object determines a human action of a single moral species and identifies “scandal” (as a special sin) and “building up a neighbor” as two kinds of human action belonging to this category. He carefully distinguishes this category of sins from two other categories of human action where end and object play a different role in specification. Fraternal Correction We now turn our attention to a second species of human action defined by both its object and end, “fraternal correction.” Fraternal correction (correctio fraterna) is described by St. Thomas as an “act of charity that specially aims at the emendation of a transgressing brother through simple admonition.”32 An example he proposes is that someone subject to a religious authority (e.g., a bishop or abbot) might recognize a sin in this religious authority and bring it to his attention—gently and respectfully—in the hope of freeing him from this sin.33 Aquinas distinguishes fraternal correction “properly so-called” from a second kind of correction done as a remedy for wrongdoing, as when a religious authority, obliged by his office, punishes the fault of a person subject to his authority. The former St. Thomas recognizes as an act of charity, the latter, as an act of justice.34 Aquinas considers fraternal correction to be a virtue contrary to scandal. Scandal is defined primarily by an intention for a neighbor’s spiritual harm, whereas fraternal correction is defined primarily by an intention for a neighbor’s spiritual good, namely, his or her amendment from sin.35 We can see two indications that fraternal correction is a kind of human action where both a distinctive object and end are required to determine its species. One obvious indication can be found in Aquinas’s descriptions of fraternal correction in his writings. Articles expressly dedicated to fraternal correction appear in the Sentences, the Summa theologiae, and ST II-II, q. 33, a. 3, resp.: “Actus caritatis, qui specialiter tendit ad emendationem fratris delinquentis per simplicem admonitionem.” In the Sentences, St. Thomas uses the phrase correptio fraterna rather than correctio fraterna; see, for example, In IV sent., d. 19, q. 2, a. 1, pr., versus ST II-II, q. 33, pr., and De virtutibus, q. 3, pr. 1. 33 ST II-II, q. 33, a. 4, resp. 34 ST II-II, q. 33, a. 1, resp.; a. 3, resp. 35 ST II-II, q. 43, a. 3, resp. 32 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 579 De virtutibus.36 In these works, St. Thomas includes two components in fraternal correction: (1) “admonition of a brother” (for the purpose of) (2) “emendation of transgressions” (or equivalent phrases) .37 The latter component is explicitly identified as fraternal correction’s end ( finis) by Aquinas.38 Though the former is not explicitly named by the word “object” (objectum), it clearly corresponds to “what an agent is doing.” A second indication is the fact that an act of fraternal correction loses its species if its defining end (the emendation of a neighbor) is removed or changed to something substantially different, even if the means or object proper to fraternal correction (admonition) remains the same.39 A good illustration can be found in an article from the Summa theologiae where Aquinas considers the question of whether someone ought to admonish a person likely to become worse from correction. (He is thinking of someone who so resents correction that another’s admonition would likely make him dig in his heels and sin all the more.) St. Thomas responds that the end of fraternal correction is the reform of the sinner, and “where it is judged that the sinner will probably not receive the admonition, but be drawn down to worse things, one ought to desist from correcting, because means to an end ought to be regulated according to what their end requires.”40 What does this response tell us about the nature of fraternal correction? As we have shown earlier, one of the definitional elements of fraternal correction is that an agent seeks “another’s amendment” as an end. If someone “admonishing another” comes to the realization that this object/ De virtutibus is an academic disputation or quaestio disputata roughly contemporaneous to the secunda secundae of the Summa theologiae; see Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and His Work, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 336. 37 See above for the definition from the Summa theologiae. See also In IV sent., d. 19, q. 2, a. 1, obj. 1 and resp. In De virtutibus, one can see the two parts of the definition in q. 3, a. 1, ad 1. 38 Aquinas describes the end of fraternal correction with slight variations, none of which substantially changes its nature. For example, see: In IV sent., d. 19, q. 2, a. 1, ad 4; ST II-II, q. 33, a. 6, resp; De virtutibus, q. 3, a. 1, ad 7. For further references to the end of fraternal correction (including some references where the word finis is not used, although it is clearly implied), see: In IV sent., d. 19, q. 2, a. 1, obj. 1 and resp.; ST II-II, q. 32, a. 2, ad 3; q. 33, a. 2, resp.; q. 33, a. 6, obj. and ad 2; q. 43, a. 7, ad 3; De virtutibus, q. 3, a. 1, ad 1; q. 3, a. 2, resp. 39 ST II-II, q. 33, a. 2, resp.; q. 33, a. 6, obj. and ad 2 ; De virtutibus, q. 3, a. 1, ad 1. 40 ST II-II, q. 33, a. 6, resp.: “Et ideo ubi probabiliter aestimatur quod peccator admonitionem non recipiat, sed ad peiora labatur, est ab huiusmodi correctione desistendum, quia ea quae sunt ad finem debent regulari secundum quod exigit ratio finis.” See also ad 2, ad 3, and De virtutibus, q. 3, a. 1, ad 1. 36 580 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. means is not achieving the end of the other person’s amendment, then one of fraternal correction’s essential defining characteristics (its proper end) is absent; hence, the action can no longer be identified as belonging to the species “fraternal correction.” Indeed, if communicating a fault to another is tempting him or her to evil, then the action meets the definition of scandal, where someone’s word or action occasions another’s sin.41 (It would not be “scandal as a special sin,” however, unless the spiritual harm were intended.) Such an action would actually be bringing about the contrary of what fraternal correction is supposed to accomplish.42 This is why Aquinas counsels that a person should desist in correcting when he or she becomes aware that another’s amendment will probably not be achieved. Four Species of Sins of Speech: Reviling, Backbiting, Derision, and Tale-Bearing Four further species of human action of the kind we are examining can be found among sins of speech. In the secunda secundae of the Summa theologiae, questions 72–76 treat injuries done by words (outside of the judicial process).43 Aquinas treats five species of sin in this category; we will here consider four of them: reviling (contumelia); backbiting (detractio); derision (derisio), and tale-bearing (susurratio).44 St. Thomas observes the following: “Sins of speech principally ought to be considered according to the intention of the speaker. And therefore sins of this kind ought to be distinguished according to the diverse [ends] that someone speaking against another person intends.” 45 Note Aquinas’s point in this passage that ST II-II, q. 43, a. 7, obj. and ad 3. St. Thomas does not consider a case where the object of fraternal correction changes substantially instead of its end, but in such a case also, the action would presumably not belong to the species of fraternal correction. For example, if a person desired another’s amendment (end), but instead of admonishing the other person (object), he or she complimented this other person’s actions (alternate object), then this object/means could not reasonably achieve the end. The action surely would no longer be “fraternal correction”; after all, there would be no “correction.” 43 ST II-II, q. 67, pr. 44 Thomas summarizes the distinction among these four sins according to their proper ends in ST II-II, q. 75, a. 1, resp. The fifth kind, maledictio (cursing), follows a somewhat different pattern. 45 ST II-II, q. 75, a. 1, resp.: “Peccata verborum praecipue pensanda sunt secundum intentionem proferentis. Et ideo secundum diversa quae quis intendit contra alium loquens, huiusmodi peccata distinguuntur.” “Ends” can be inserted in the translation because an end, by definition, corresponds to the act of intention: ST I-II, q. 12, a. 1, resp. and ad 4. For the primacy of intention in these kinds of actions, see 41 42 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 581 sins of speech can be considered together as a group—he refers to them collectively as “sins of this kind” (huiusmodi peccata)—and that a hallmark of their kind is that they are distinguished according to what the agent intends [i.e., ends]. Why do ends specify sins of this kind? In a different passage, St. Thomas uses the following line of reasoning: Sins harm others. [Sins of speech can have as their objects speaking ill about others.]46 Words are not harmful to others in themselves, but insofar as they signify something. The agent’s intention in using the words, then, will determine the kind of harm the words are meant to inflict. So, sins of speech should be distinguished especially according to an agent’s intent in using his words (i.e., the agent’s end). 47 We can now consider how Aquinas defines and distinguishes reviling, backbiting, derision, and tale-bearing, with special attention to each sin’s proper end. Let us turn to the first two. Reviling (contumelia) is speaking ill about another person in public with the intention of dishonoring him or her. 48 For instance, someone might call another person “thief” to his face.49 Backbiting (detractio) is speaking ill of a person without his or her also ST II-II, q. 73, a. 2, resp.: “Sins of speech most especially (maxime) ought to be judged from the speaker’s intention.” Sometimes Thomas makes the same point using affectus as an equivalent for intentio; see ST II-II, q. 72, a. 2, resp., and q. 76, a. 3, resp. 46 One of these sins, tale-bearing, can also include in its object things with the appearance of evil, as we shall soon see. 47 ST II-II, q. 72, a. 2, resp. Additionally, St. Thomas recognizes that some verbal expressions may be so grave in themselves that they will likely cause serious injury even if this is not the speaker’s intention. In such a case, the speaker will be responsible for the harm done. (For this point in the context of reviling and railing, see ST II-II, q. 72, a. 2, resp.; for this point in the context of backbiting, see ST II-II, q. 73, a. 2, resp.) Aquinas compares this situation to a person hitting another in jest: such a blow may do serious harm even if the agent did not intend the harm. The agent must therefore be aware of the power of the blow in itself and accept responsibility for any foreseeable harm done by it (ST II-II, q. 72, a. 2, resp.). Note the similarity here to Thomas’s treatment of scandal, where certain kinds of actions may tempt others even though the agent may not intend it (ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, ad 4). 48 ST II-II, q. 72, a. 1, resp.; a. 2, resp. The evil spoken in reviling is the defect of guilt, as when a person’s sin is exposed (ST II-II, q. 72, a. 1, ad 3). Although “words” was used in the definition above, Thomas recognized that an evil about another could also be communicated by deeds, since deeds can also serve as signs (ST II-II, q. 72, a. 1, resp.). 49 ST II-II, q. 72, a. 1, ad 3. Although reviling often happens in front of a crowd (thereby exacerbating the sin’s seriousness), Thomas believes it is sufficient for this kind of sin that the evil be spoken in the offended party’s presence; see ST II-II, q. 72, a. 1, ad 1, and q. 73, a. 1, ad 2. 582 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. knowledge in order to denigrate this person’s reputation.50 For example, someone might either reveal a hidden fault or exaggerate the sin of another outside of this person’s earshot.51 Two key kinds of “differences” distinguish these two sins. A first difference Aquinas uses is the fact that reviling is out in the open (i.e., to a person’s face, perhaps in front of others), while backbiting is “secret” (behind a person’s back). Thomas sees in these two conditions distinctive ways in which a victim’s will can be opposed, either by force or by ignorance.52 A second difference between reviling and backbiting—and the one more significant for our purposes—concerns the speaker’s end. According to Aquinas, someone who reviles another speaks ill with the intention of dishonoring (dehonoratio),53 whereas someone who backbites speaks ill with the intention of denigrating another’s reputation ( famam denigret).54 St. Thomas is here drawing a subtle distinction between two kinds of human goods that can be violated: honor refers to the public signs and testimonies of a person’s excellence,55 whereas reputation is the knowledge (of good qualities) about a person that others possess.56 He believes that acting contrary to either of these goods could do serious (though distinct) harm to a victim, so he posits two species of sin. St. Thomas considers these two species of sin to be quite serious. To illustrate, when Aquinas compares the sins of reviling and backbiting to the sin of theft, he reasons that reviling and backbiting are worse sins in kind than theft because one’s honor and good name are of greater value than external things.57 The other two species of sin against speech mentioned earlier are also determined especially by their ends. Derision (derisio) involves speaking ill of another with the intention of shaming him or her (through jest); ST II-II, q. 73, a. 2, resp. ST II-II, q. 73, a. 1, ad 3. 52 ST II-II, q. 73, a. 1, ad 1. For a second example where Aquinas uses “openly” and “secretly” to distinguish sins, see his treatment of robbery and theft in ST II-II, q. 66, a. 4, resp.: the former is committed “openly,” with a victim’s possession being wrested from him by force (against his will), while the latter is committed “secretly,” with a victim’s possession being taken without his knowing (again against his will). 53 ST II-II, q. 72, a. 2, resp. 54 ST II-II, q. 73, a. 2, resp. 55 ST I-II, q. 2, a. 2, resp. 56 Thomas sometimes uses gloria humana as an equivalent of fama. In one such text, he describes gloria as “manifest renown with praise” (clara notitia cum laude) following Ambrose; see ST I-II, q. 2, a. 3, resp. 57 ST II-II, a. 72, a. 2, resp.; ST, II-II, q. 73, a. 3, resp. 50 51 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 583 an example would be making fun of another’s defect. 58 This sin can also be grave under some circumstances; for instance, Thomas maintains that derision can be more serious than reviling if the derider “judges another person so vile that he ought not to care about his evil but treats it as if a game.”59 Thus, derision may involve greater contempt for the victim than reviling does. Tale-bearing (susurratio) is like backbiting in that it involves speaking ill of another behind his or her back, but differs in intention: instead of denigrating another’s reputation, the tale-bearer’s aim is to break apart friendship. For example, a tale-bearer might approach two friends separately and speak ill of each to the other in order to cause a rift in their relationship.60 Regarding its gravity, Aquinas considers tale-bearing to be a more serious sin in kind than either reviling or backbiting: a friend for him is more precious than even honor or reputation, so a friend’s loss is a more grievous harm.61 There is a second difference between backbiting and tale-bearing that is especially of interest to our study. In addition to having distinctive ends, Aquinas holds that these two sins can also at times have a difference in their respective objects.62 Although St. Thomas recognizes that the object of both sins could be “speaking evil” of another person, he concedes that a tale-bearer, because his aim is not besmirching another’s good name but breaking apart a friendship, may at times say something good about another person, if this good has the appearance of evil in that it is somehow unpleasant to the hearer and capable of causing a division between friends.63 The fact that backbiting and tale-bearing may at the same time differ in both end and object raises the question of whether end or object holds more sway in determining the species and relative gravity of these two sins. An objection in the Summa theologiae challenges Aquinas’s position that tale-bearing is a worse sin in kind than backbiting. The objection ST II-II, q. 75, a. 1, sc, resp.; for making fun of another’s defect, see ST II-II, q. 75, a. 2, resp. 59 ST II-II, q. 75, a. 2, resp.: “. . . eum tam vilem aestimare ut de eius malo non sit curandum, sed sit quasi pro ludo habendum.” In this article, Thomas asserts that derision can be venial if the fault derided is slight. This would presumably be true of all sins of speech. 60 ST II-II, q. 74, a. 1, resp., ad 3. 61 ST II-II, q. 74, a. 2, resp. 62 Both these kinds of sin, on the other hand, share the fact that they are done behind the victim’s back; see ST II-II, q. 74, a. 1, resp. 63 ST II-II, q. 74, a. 1, resp., obj. and ad 1. 58 584 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. agrees with St. Thomas’s argument that between the two ends, severing a friendship is a worse evil than ruining another’s reputation, but points out that the backbiter may say worse things about another person, since a tale-bearer’s words sometimes have only the appearance of evil. To answer the objection, Aquinas must weigh the relative influence of end and object in these two species of sin. Here is his reply: “The species and gravity of a sin are taken more from its end [ex fine] than from its material object [ex materiali obiecto]. And therefore by reason of its end tale-bearing is more serious, although the backbiter sometimes says worse things.”64 In this brief response to the objection, then, Aquinas shows clearly that backbiting and tale-bearing possess both an object (objectum) and an end ( finis); this, of course, is the hallmark of the kinds of human actions we are examining in this article. His answer also shows that end here has a more important formal influence than object in these two instances. 65 In addition to this text comparing backbiting and tale-bearing, other texts can be found in Aquinas’s writings where an end is shown to have primacy over what is being said (object) in determining a species of a sin against speech.66 For example, regarding reviling, Aquinas says in the Summa theologiae: “If someone says a word of . . . reviling to another, not for the purpose of dishonoring him, but perhaps as a correction or something of this kind, it is not . . . reviling formally and per se.”67 ST II-II, q. 74, a. 2, ad 1: “Species et gravitas peccati magis attenditur ex fine quam ex materiali obiecto. Et ideo ratione finis susurratio est gravior, quamvis detractor quandoque peiora dicat.” The description materiale objectum is uncommon in Aquinas. For a passage where materia (used sometimes by Aquinas as an alternative term for objectum) and finis appear together in the same passage describing the two parts of backbiting and tale-bearing, see ST II-II, q. 74, a. 1, resp. 65 Although St. Thomas asserts that end plays a more important and formal role than object in determining the species and gravity of backbiting and tale-bearing, he does not reject an object’s possible influence in specification. Rather than asserting that object is irrelevant, he asserts rather that the species and gravity of these kinds of sin are taken “more” from end than object. This leaves open the possibility that that object could have a more important influence on species and gravity in other cases. (In fact, we will see species of actions later where “object” is more influential than “end” in determining species.) 66 Although St. Thomas focuses on “end” in these passages and does not use the word “object,” we know from texts already studied how he applies the end-and-object paradigm to sins of speech. 67 ST II-II, q. 72, a. 2, resp.: “Si vero aliquis verbum convicii vel contumeliae alteri dixerit, non tamen animo dehonorandi, sed forte propter correctionem vel propter aliquid huiusmodi, non dicit convicium vel contumeliam formaliter et per se.” The word convicium (omitted in the translation of this passage) is a synonym for contumelia. Thomas says that a corrective action as described above without its defining 64 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 585 In his treatment of backbiting, Aquinas shows that an end has such a determinative influence for this sin that substituting a good end for “denigrating another’s reputation” can change the character of the action from evil to good. An objection argues that backbiting cannot be a mortal sin because revealing another’s sin is virtuous: it is fraternal correction if done from charity, and a rightful accusation if done from justice. Thomas does not disagree with the objection’s point that revealing another’s sin could be virtuous if done for certain morally good ends. Instead, he contends that the objection’s argument fails because once one of the two morally good ends identified (charity or public justice) has been intended instead of denigrating another’s reputation, the human action no longer belongs to the species of backbiting as the objection has been presuming; instead, the two alternative ends (charity and justice) define respectively two species of human action different from backbiting: fraternal correction and rightful accusation.68 Note here that the object “revealing another’s sin” remains the same, whether the species of action is backbiting, fraternal correction, or rightful accusation. An end holds such sway over the formal character of these kinds of human action that it can even determine whether this object will be a part of a sinful kind of human action (backbiting), or a good kind of human action (fraternal correction or just punishment). Religion and Superstition Further species of human actions relevant to our investigation are religion (religio), superstition (superstitio), and various species of human action related to these two. Religion is a good human action/virtue in which due worship (i.e., religious ceremony) is offered to honor God.69 Superstition is the contrary sin/vice; it has a number of species falling end of dishonoring another may “sometimes be a venial sin, sometimes without any sin” (ST II-II, q. 72, a. 2, resp.). Thomas also proposes something comparable with regard to backbiting in ST II-II, q. 73, a. 2, resp.: “Nevertheless it sometimes happens that a person speaks some words through which the reputation [fama] of another is diminished, not intending this but something else. This, however, is not to backbite per se and formally speaking, but only materially and as if per accidens. And if indeed a person speaks words through which the reputation of another is diminished on account of something good or necessary, due circumstances being observed, it is not a sin, nor can it be called backbiting.” Note the similarity between (1) the two texts here concerning reviling and backbiting and (2) the text treated earlier about fraternal correction, where a different end changed the action’s character. 68 ST II-II, q. 73, a. 2, obj. 1 and ad 1. 69 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, resp. 586 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. under it, depending on various kinds of defect in religion.70 A good place to begin in explaining the structure of religion in Aquinas’s thought is to consider his reason for associating religion with justice rather than with one of the theological virtues. In St. Thomas’s moral theory, seven virtues have special preeminence: the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude) and the three theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity). In the second part of the Summa theologiae, St. Thomas undertakes the considerable project of explaining how the many human virtues and vices are related to these seven central virtues. Following Cicero’s lead in Rhetorica, the Angelic Doctor associates religion with the virtue of justice.71 Religion, he concedes, is not an act of justice strictly speaking because justice strictly speaking is defined as giving another person his or her due, and human beings are incapable of giving God his due: human beings cannot adequately compensate God for his goodness in creating and governing them and the rest of the universe. Still, human worship in religion does at least offer some return to God for his beneficence to us. So, Aquinas holds that religion ought to be associated with justice, since religion’s admittedly inadequate response to the debt owed to God makes religion more like justice (considered strictly) than like any other cardinal or theological virtue.72 An objection in an article about religion in the secunda secundae challenges St. Thomas’s decision to associate religion with justice.73 This objection begins by reminding readers that theological virtues have God as their object. (In the prima secundae of the Summa, St. Thomas distinguishes the theological virtues from the moral virtues, including justice, by showing that the former have God as their object, whereas the latter have things comprehensible by reason as their object.)74 The objection then recalls St. Thomas’s teaching that religion directs worshippers to God alone.75 Since religion concerns God, the objection concludes, it should be associated with one of the three theological virtues, which are also directed to God. (With this conclusion, the objection implicitly refutes the proposal that religion should be associated with justice, since justice and the other cardinal virtues are not directly about God.) Aquinas’s responsio in the article provides a presentation of religion that ST II-II, q. 92, a. 1, resp.; a. 2, resp. In III sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 4, sc 1; In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a.1, qa. 5, resp. 72 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, sc, resp., and ad 3. 73 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, obj. 2. 74 ST I-II, q. 62, a. 2, resp. 75 See ST II-II, q. 81, a.1. 70 71 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 587 he will refer to when answering this objection. Note especially his description of religion’s object and end: Religion offers due worship to God. Two things, therefore, are considered in religion. One is what religion offers to God, namely worship [cultus], and this relates to religion as matter and object. Another, however, is the one to whom it is offered, namely God. . . . Whence it is clear that God is not compared to the virtue of religion as matter or object, but as end. And therefore religion is not a theological virtue, whose object is the ultimate end, but is a moral virtue, whose object concerns means to an end.76 St. Thomas’s point here is that although the three theological virtues and religion can all be said to relate to God, there is a critical difference in how they do so. The theological virtues relate to God as object, since God is what these three virtues are directly about: a person believes, hopes in, and loves God. Religion, he maintains, relates to God differently. The virtue of religion does not have God as its object; rather, its object is “offering something in worship,” since this is religion’s immediate concern. This understanding of religion’s object does not mean, however, that God’s relation to religion is merely circumstantial: God is indispensable as religion’s end, since worship should be offered to him and him alone.77 So, God is ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, resp.: “Religio est quae Deo debitum cultum affert. Duo igitur in religione considerantur. Unum quidem quod religio Deo affert, cultus scilicet, et hoc se habet per modum materiae et obiecti ad religionem. Aliud autem est id cui affertur, scilicet Deus. . . . Unde manifestum est quod Deus non comparatur ad virtutem religionis sicut materia vel obiectum, sed sicut finis. Et ideo religio non est virtus theologica, cuius obiectum est ultimus finis, sed est virtus moralis, cuius est esse circa ea quae sunt ad finem”; see also ad 2. Thomas explains this relation between object (or matter) and end in the virtue of religion in other texts as well: De virtutibus, q. 1, a. 12, ad 11; Super Boethium de Trinitate II, q. 3, a. 2, corp. 5. 77 There is an apparent ambiguity about what finis means in this context. The way St. Thomas speaks about religion here and elsewhere, it sometimes seems as if God, whom Thomas identifies as end, is what would be referred to in English grammar as an action’s indirect object, as in the sentence: “I am offering something (direct object) to you, God (indirect object).” Based on Aquinas’s teaching elsewhere, however, his descriptions can also be interpreted as shorthand for an understanding of God as end in the proper sense of the word, namely, as an agent’s aim and reason for acting, as in the sentence, “I am making this offering of divine worship (object) in order to honor you, God” (see, for example, ST II-II, q. 92, a. 2, resp., discussed below). 76 588 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. an object for the theological virtues, but an end for religion.78 From this reasoning, St. Thomas concludes that religion should be associated with the virtue of justice rather than with faith, hope, or charity. Not surprisingly, a similar way of viewing object and end will appear in Aquinas’s treatment of superstition, the vice contrary to religion: The vice of religion consists in this, that the mean of virtue is exceeded with respect to some circumstances. As is said above, however, not every difference of corrupt circumstances varies the species of sin, but only when they are referred to different objects or different ends: for according to this, moral acts receive a species, as is held above. A species of superstition is differentiated, therefore, first, on the part of its object. For divine worship can be offered either to whom it ought, namely to the true God, but in an undue way: and this is a first species of superstition. Or [divine worship can be offered] to what it ought not to be offered, namely to whatever creature. And this is another genus of superstition, which is divided into many species, according to the different ends of divine worship. For, firstly, divine worship is ordered to offering reverence to God. And in relation to this, the first species of this genus is idolatry, which offers divine reverence unduly to a creature. Secondly, [divine worship] is ordered to this, that man is instructed by God, whom he worships. And to this is related the superstition of “divining,” which consults demons through some pacts entered into with them, whether tacit or expressed. Thirdly, divine worship is ordered to a certain guidance of human actions according to the commands of God, who is worshipped. And the Thomas elsewhere also distinguishes between justice and the theological virtues by showing that God is related to these four virtues according to different rationes or formal characters. To illustrate, when distinguishing the theological virtues, Aquinas proposes that God is the object of faith insofar as he is first truth, the object of charity insofar as he is highest good, and the object of hope insofar as he is of highest difficulty [to attain] (see: In III sent., d. 26, q. 2, a. 3, qa. 1, ad 1; ST II-II, q. 17, a. 6, resp., ad 1). Similarly, God as religion’s object is said by St. Thomas to possess a distinctive formal ratio: God is object insofar as he is “first principle of creation and of the governance of things” (ST II-II, q. 81, a. 3, resp.) These four formal rationes, then, allow faith, hope, charity, and religion all to relate to God, but each in a distinctive way that determines its respective species. St. Thomas apparently sees no contradiction between this way of considering religion’s object and the way he presents religion’s object in ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, above. (For a discussion of the different ways in which “object” is used in this context, see Pilsner, Specification of Human Actions, 137–40.) 78 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 589 superstition of certain observances pertains to this.79 This response is of interest for a few reasons. For one thing, in explaining the species of superstition, Aquinas proposes two more specialized ways in which religion can be understood. These two more specialized ways are not as easy to discern as the basic way proposed in the treatment of religion itself. Nonetheless, it is important to identify them before turning to the species of superstition. We have seen already from the earlier text that religion can refer to the offering of religious rites (object) to honor the one, true God (end).80 In the article on superstition above, Thomas adds that religion can also have as its end receiving instruction from the God who is worshipped. The instruction Aquinas has in mind here is especially God’s revealing to human beings what will happen in the future, though he will also in later texts refer to God’s revealing of “hidden things.”81 Although St. Thomas does not mention here how this instruction might occur, later articles suggest that reading prophecy in the Scripture or receiving a direct revelation from God would be examples of suitable means.82 A second, ST II-II, q. 92, a. 2, resp.: “Vitium religionis consistit in hoc quod transcenditur virtutis medium secundum aliquas circumstantias. Ut autem supra dictum est, non quaelibet circumstantiarum corruptarum diversitas variat peccati speciem, sed solum quando referuntur ad diversa obiecta vel diversos fines, secundum hoc enim morales actus speciem sortiuntur, ut supra habitum est. Diversificatur ergo superstitionis species, primo quidem, ex parte obiecti. Potest enim divinus cultus exhiberi vel cui exhibendus est, scilicet Deo vero, modo tamen indebito, et haec est prima superstitionis species. Vel ei cui non debet exhiberi, scilicet cuicumque creaturae. Et hoc est aliud superstitionis genus, quod in multas species dividitur, secundum diversos fines divini cultus ordinatur enim, primo, divinus cultus ad reverentiam Deo exhibendam. Et secundum hoc, prima species huius generis est idololatria, quae divinam reverentiam indebite exhibet creaturae. Secundo, ordinatur ad hoc quod homo instruatur a Deo, quem colit. Et ad hoc pertinet superstitio divinativa, quae Daemones consulit per aliqua pacta cum eis inita, tacita vel expressa. Tertio, ordinatur divinus cultus ad quandam directionem humanorum actuum secundum instituta Dei, qui colitur. Et ad hoc pertinet superstitio quarundam observationum.” 80 Acts of religion are not only acts of worship proper to it, but other acts commanded by religion that are directed to God’s honor (ST II-II, a. 81, a. 1, ad 1). 81 ST II-II, q. 95, a. 4, obj. and ad 1; obj. and ad 3; for a fuller discussion of various things revealed in prophecy, see ST II-II, q. 171, a. 3, resp. 82 ST II-II, q. 95, a. 2, ad 3. In this passage, the New Testament is said to contain knowledge about future events taken from those who possess the spirit of prophecy. See also the passage in ST II-II, q. 95, a. 4, resp. Note the passage from Athanasius (quoted with approval by St. Thomas) asserting that human beings 79 590 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. more specialized way of understanding religion is receiving guidance (or assistance) for human actions (directionem humanorum actuum) from the true God who is worshipped.83 Although St. Thomas in this passage again does not give an example of how this could happen, he suggests in a later article that God can guide human beings through divinely instituted signs, such as sacraments, or by granting human knowledge or wisdom directly, as he did with King Solomon or with early Christians whom he enlightened through the Holy Spirit.84 So, for St. Thomas, although religion is primarily performing some external act of worship (cultus) as a way of honoring God, by extension, religion can include certain additional aims associated with reverence for God, such as receiving divine instruction or divine guidance/assistance. Given that religion is such a complex virtue for Aquinas, it is not surprising that he identifies a number of ways in which the good of religion can be opposed. In the passage on superstition above, St. Thomas names four basic species of superstition. Each species possesses both an object and end. Aquinas describes them briefly in the passage above, but he will dedicate whole questions to them later in the secunda secundae.85 The first species of superstition proposed by Aquinas has no name. Aquinas describes it (in another text) as “undue worship of the true God.”86 As the description suggests, this species is determined when the proper end for religion is intended (i.e., honoring the one, true God), but this end is sought by an inappropriate object or means. An example St. Thomas gives is a Christian who attempts to honor God (end) by participating in Old Testament religious ceremonies (object). Christians, of course, believe that such Old Testament rites have been superseded by the Eucharist and other New Testament rites.87 Notice that this species of superstition has both an act wickedly in seeking knowledge from the devil when they can consult divine Scriptures. For a person being directly enlightened by God, see ST II-II, q. 171, a. 3, resp. 83 “Assistance from God” is added to “guidance” here because in later articles from the Summa, Thomas shows that he understands “observances” (the vice related to this sense of religion) to include seeking demonic assistance in alteration of bodies, such as a restoration of health. Such manipulation of physical things shows that Aquinas’s understanding of this sense of religion extends beyond what one would ordinarily associate with “direction” or “guidance”; see ST II-II, q. 96, a. 2, obj. 1 and resp. 84 ST II-II, q. 96, a. 1, resp. 85 ST II-II, q. 93–96. 86 ST II-II, q. 93, pr.: “indebiti cultus veri Dei.” 87 ST II-II, q. 93, a. 1, resp.; for the Eucharist as the principle form of worship for Christians, see ST III, q. 63, a. 6, resp. Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 591 object and end, and that the species is determined precisely because of a defect in its object (rather than its end), something we have not seen in the various species of human actions/habits considered so far in this article. The other three basic species of superstition concern a defect in the end of religion (rather than its object). The first such species is idolatry. This sin is determined when acts of worship are given, not to God, the proper end of religion, but to a graven image or some creature, such as a demon.88 The next two, divination and observances, are contraries to the two specialized senses of religion that Aquinas proposed above. (Like these two specialized senses of religion, divination and observances are a bit more challenging to understand from the texts.) As noted above, the first more specialized way of understanding religion involves the end of receiving instruction from God. The species of superstition called “divination” (divinatio) is contrary to right reason in that a human agent seeks instruction, not from God, but rather from demons. According to St. Thomas, divination has both an object and end, and each can involve a person in a kind of sin. When addressing divination’s end, he notes that seeking knowledge of the future improperly is a sin of curiosity.89 (It is unlawful/wrong for a person to have knowledge inappropriate for him or her to possess.)90 It is the object, however, which primarily opposes the good of religion: in order to obtain knowledge of the future (end), a person committing the sin of divination dishonors God by entering into some association with demons.91 Aquinas considered pacts with demons, explicit or tacit, to involve some worship (cultus) of demons (though he does not explain how).92 The third species of superstition regarding religion’s end is observances (observantiae). Here, an agent, instead of seeking guidance (directionem humanorum actuum) appropriately (for example, from God), seeks it by using certain undue means. An example of such guidance by undue means would be a person seeking from a demon knowledge about the world that he or she might otherwise learn appropriately through discovery and/or instruction.93 Another example of such inappropriate directio is seeking the restoration of a person’s body to health, not by natural means, but ST II-II, q. 94, a. 1, resp. ST II-II, q. 95, a. 2, obj. and ad 1. 90 ST II-II, q. 167, a. 1, resp. 91 ST II-II, q. 95, a. 2, resp. and ad 2; a. 3, resp. 92 ST II-II, q. 95, a. 2, obj. and ad 2. St. Thomas distinguishes the harm done by entering into a compact with demons (as by invoking them) and the additional harm done by offering them sacrifice or reverence; see ST II-II, q. 95, a. 4, resp. 93 ST II-II, q. 96, a. 1, resp. 88 89 592 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. by some improper agency, such as demonic power.94 The aims of worldly knowledge and health, of course, would be licit if they were achieved through natural means or if God intervened to grant them.95 The problem in “observances” is that a person believes he or she can achieve what is beyond natural human power through certain words (e.g., by using incantations associated with the magical arts), certain deeds (e.g., by gazing on certain shapes), or certain things (e.g., by wearing amulets). 96 Thomas believes that all these have no power in themselves, and at least implicitly involve an entanglement with the demonic.97 The primary wrongfulness of observances, then, and what makes them to be superstition, seems to be the honor implied for demons in using these various inappropriate means. Such means are contrary to the honor owed to the true God whom believers should seek for guidance/assistance.98 Recall that both divination and observances are species of human action possessing an object and end. It is worth underscoring that in both cases, an object has the predominant role in defining the species as a kind of superstition. To illustrate, divination has two parts in its definition: (1) consulting demons (object) for the purpose of (2) knowing the future (end). Between object and end, it is the former which especially opposes one of the specialized ends of religion proposed by Aquinas, namely, that we seek instruction from the true God whom we worship. The object, then, seems to be the more important element in determining divination to be a species of superstition. (Something comparable could be said of observances.)99 ST II-II, q. 96, a. 2, resp. It is admittedly difficult to understand why some sins under “observances” would not be included under species of divination instead. For example, some practices related to fortune telling (ST II-II, q. 96, a. 3) that Aquinas places under observances seem comparable to kinds of sins falling under sortilege (such as seeking future knowledge by casting of dice), which Thomas places under divination (ST II-II, q. 95, a. 3, resp.). 95 ST II-II, q. 96, a. 1, resp. 96 ST II-II, q. 96. 97 ST II-II, q. 96, a. 1, sc and resp. 98 ST II-II, q. 96, a. 1, obj. and ad 1. Even if it were true that demons could provide something useful for human beings, Aquinas believes that it is wrong in itself to create the fellowship with them necessary to obtain such a thing (see obj. and ad 3). 99 Aquinas’s description in ST II-II, q. 92, a. 2, resp., of the kinds of religion related to instruction and guidance is quite brief. Understanding how these definitions of religion relate to their contrary vices is not easy. To illustrate, the definition of religion related to instruction seems to be “to offer due worship (religious rites) in order to honor God for the good of his divine instruction.” Divination, the 94 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 593 The predominance of object in the definition and specification of divination can be recognized with even greater clarity in Aquinas’s consideration of the various (sub)species under divination. St. Thomas dedicates a whole question to divination in the secunda secundae of the Summa theologiae. In an article from this question, entitled “On the Species of Divination,” he maintains that divination is not only a species of the genus “superstition,” but that divination is also a genus under which many additional species are found.100 St. Thomas did not devise these many species under divination, but rather adopted them from the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville. Aquinas organizes the species of divination into three basic groups. The first group concerns seeking knowledge of the future through explicit consultation and pacts with demons. These species are divided according to the various ways in which demons can communicate with human beings, for example, through (1) apparitions or (2) dreams.101 The second basic group of species under divination includes actions where knowledge of the future is sought through observation of various natural things. These species here are divided by the kinds of natural things that diviners observe, such as the (1) movement of stars or (2) the cries of birds. Although this group does not involve an explicit consultation with demons, Aquinas believes there is a demonic connection in that “demons involve themselves in futile questionings about the future in contrary vice, is defined as “using means that explicitly or implicitly invite demonic assistance for the purpose of seeking future or hidden knowledge.” A virtue that mirrors divination according to this definition would seem to be “using appropriate means (such as reading prophecy in Scripture) to seek instruction (from God) about future or hidden things.” Such appropriate means would seem necessary to religion related to instruction, given what is defective in the corresponding vice. For Aquinas, then, does the honoring of God through appropriate religious rites in this case imply somehow using appropriate means for receiving instruction? 100 ST II-II, q. 95, a. 3. 101 Aquinas believed that the direct involvement with demons characteristic of this first group of sins was certainly a more serious offense against God than the indirect involvement characteristic of the next two groups; see ST II-II, q. 95, a. 3, ad 1. Aquinas teaches that demons ought not to be consulted about the future both because they are ignorant of future things and because any relationship with them is spiritually dangerous (ST II-II, q. 96, a. 1, ad 3). When he says that demons are ignorant here, he does not mean that they have no knowledge of the future, but rather that they can only know the future insofar as they can understand how effects usually proceed from their causes (e.g., the sun will rise tomorrow), and even then, not with unerring accuracy as God can. For imperfect angelic knowledge of the future, see: ST I, q. 57, a. 3, resp.; II-II, q. 172, a. 5, a. 6. 594 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. order that they might entangle people’s minds with vain things.”102 The third basic group, which Thomas calls “sortilege” (sors), concerns observing some external human action performed for the purpose of discovering the future. Species in this group are divided by St. Thomas according to the different possible external actions (or the results of these actions) through which the future is sought, such as (1) the drawing of lots or (2) the casting of dice. As with the previous group, Aquinas considers there to be demonic involvement, even though demons are not explicitly invoked or consulted. All told, St. Thomas in this article names fourteen different species under divination. If one counts as species kinds of human action that Aquinas describes but does not name, the number grows to twenty or so. Unsurprisingly, the way object determines these numerous species under divination parallels the way an object determines the (more general) sin of divination considered as a genus for these species. A telling demonstration of this can be found in an objection and response in Aquinas’s article concerning the various species under the genus divination. An objection begins by recalling the principle that a human action’s species is taken from its end. It then observes, however, that the various species falling under divination all have the same end, namely, to know the future. The objection concludes that, based on St. Thomas’s own principle for specification of human action, all types of divination should belong to a single species determined by this common end.103 Aquinas’s succinct response is as follows: “Knowledge of future or hidden things is the ultimate end from which is taken the general formal character [ratio] of divination. Diverse species [of divination] are distinguished according to their proper objects or matters, namely insofar as in diverse matters knowledge of hidden things is considered.”104 As we can see from his reply, St. Thomas understands that the various species of divination all have both an object and an end. His description of knowledge of future or hidden things as an “ultimate” end might initially lead a reader to believe that this “knowledge” is remote and irrelevant to the determination of these various species under divination. 105 In ST II-II, q. 95, a. 2, resp.: “Daemones se ingerunt vanis inquisitionibus futurorum, ut mentes hominum implicent vanitate.” 103 ST II-II, q. 95, a. 3, obj. 2. 104 ST II-II, q. 95, a. 3, ad 2: “Cognitio futurorum vel occultorum est ultimus finis, ex quo sumitur generalis ratio divinationis. Distinguuntur autem diversae species secundum propria obiecta sive materias, prout scilicet in diversis rebus occultorum cognitio consideratur.” 105 In some contexts, when St. Thomas speaks about an “ultimate end,” he is referring 102 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 595 his response, however, Aquinas explicitly states that the end of seeking “knowledge of future or hidden things” constitutes a dimension of the formal character (ratio) of these various species of action. For Aquinas to assert this makes sense. The various objects of these species of divination do not by themselves define what is characteristic of these sins; as related to divination, these objects would not be sought unless they led to the end of knowledge of future or hidden things. Since all of these species share the same end, only the objects could differentiate the various species. Further, the different means are the various ways in which demons are consulted, or at least given an opportunity to insinuate themselves; any such inappropriate relation with a demon is the reason that these actions offend against religion, which gives honor only to God. The key differences for these many species under divination, therefore, are not their common end, but their distinctive objects.106 So, to sum up, the many and various human actions and habits belonging to religion and superstition possess an object and end. Although an end is sometimes predominant, as when idolatry is defined by offering worship (object) to a creature (end), in the majority of species, the predominant role in specifying is played by their objects. This is in marked contrast to the species of human actions addressed earlier, where ends always played the predominant role in determining their species. to the final end of a human being, namely, happiness. For instance, he states in ST I-II, q. 1, a. 8, resp.: “If therefore we speak about the ultimate end of man insofar as it is that thing which is the end, thus all other things concur in the ultimate end of man, because God is the ultimate end of man [Deus est ultimus finis hominis] and of all other things”; see also ST I-II, q. 3, a. 1, resp. In the text about divination considered above, however, Aquinas does not seem to be thinking of “future knowledge” as though it were an ultimate end for a human being, that is, a kind of false god substituting for the true God in whom happiness is found. Instead, “ultimate end” here seems simply to mean the final end in a series of related ends; in other words, “knowledge of the future” is the goal a human agent is aiming at, and various means for obtaining such knowledge are the objects or proximate ends that conduce to it. Aquinas also uses “ultimate end” in this way elsewhere. For example, he asserts in ST I-II, q. 12, a. 3, resp., that a sick person’s “ultimate end” is “health”: “For intention is not only of an ultimate end, as is said, but also of an intermediate end. Someone intends at the same time both the proximate and ultimate end [finem proximum, et ultimum], say, preparing medicine and health.” “Health” here is not intended to be that in which a person’s happiness consists, but rather the final end of two goals where one is willed for the sake of obtaining the other. 106 ST II-II, q. 95, a. 2, ad 1. 596 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. Penance A final species of human action to be considered is penance (poenitentia). Penance is sorrow for an offense committed against God with a view to eradicating this past sin and to living a new life free from sin. (When St. Thomas refers to eradicating “past sin,” he is not referring to the sin itself, which cannot be undone, but rather to sin’s effects, such as the offense against God and the debt of punishment.)107 As we shall see, the inclusion and arrangement of certain elements in Aquinas’s definition will vary a bit in his different presentations of this virtue. Regardless of the variations, however, St. Thomas’s definition of penance will always include both an object and end. St. Thomas first treats penance in his Sentences, writing two questions (ten articles) on this virtue. In significant respects, Aquinas’s teaching about penance in this work resembles his teaching about religion. For instance, as with religion, penance is annexed to justice. Why? Although penance lacks the full character of justice since a human being can never adequately recompense God for the offense sin brings against the divine majesty, nevertheless, penance is better associated with justice than with any of the other preeminent virtues (cardinal and theological) because penance involves response to a debt—a defining mark of justice—even if this debt cannot be fully satisfied.108 But as with religion, the question arises as to why the theological virtues have been overlooked when associating penance with a virtue. Is not penance directed to God, much as faith, hope, and charity are? 109 And if so, would not penance be better associated with one of these three? Aquinas’s reply in the Sentences resembles closely his reply regarding religion from the Summa above: A theological virtue has the same reality for its object and end. In penance, however, this is not the case, because its object is the sin committed, which [penance] intends to expiate; its end, however, is God, to whom [the penitent] intends to be reconciled; and therefore it is not a theological virtue, but ought to be numbered among the moral virtues.110 ST III, q. 85, a. 1, ad 3. In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 5, resp. and ad 1; see also ST III, q. 85, a. 3, resp. and ad 2. 109 In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 4, obj. 1. 110 In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 4, resp.: “Virtus theologica habet idem pro objecto et pro fine. Hoc autem non est in poenitentia: quia objectum ejus est peccatum commissum, quod intendit expiare; finis autem est Deus, cui intendit reconciliari; 107 108 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 597 Appearing in the same article is a more specific version of the objection which argues that penance ought to be associated with charity rather than with justice. Aquinas’s reply to this objection is of interest for our investigation because, before he addresses the virtue of penance directly, he makes a distinction concerning where object and end can be found in various kinds of infused virtues: Virtues that are infused relate to God in three ways. For certain ones have God as object and end, as the theological virtues do. Others have God not for that object in which their act passes, but for a proximate end, as is clear concerning the act of worship [latria], which has some demonstration of servitude as if for its matter, which it immediately ordains to God as if to an end; and such virtues are closest to the theological. . . . Certain others, however, hold God neither as object, nor as proximate end, but for the ultimate end; as temperance which has passion for its matter, and quiet of the soul for its proximate end; but this is further ordained to God. Penance, however, although it does not have God for its object, nevertheless has God for its proximate end: because for this [a man] is moved in destroying the sins [he has] committed, that he might be reconciled to God.111 “Worship” (latria) mentioned here is a virtue closely associated with religion: latria involves the servitude human beings give to God, while et ideo non est virtus theologica, sed inter morales virtutes numeranda est.” See also ad 1, where the object is described more precisely as grieving for sins committed. Elsewhere in his Sentences, Aquinas seems to view the intention to expiate as an aspect (ratio) of the object; see In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 3, resp. 111 In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 4, ad 2: “Virtutes infusae tripliciter se habent ad deum. Quaedam enim habent deum pro objecto et fine, sicut theologicae. Quaedam non pro objecto in quod transeat earum actus, sed pro fine proximo: sicut patet de latria, quae aliquas servitutis protestationes quasi materiam habet, quas immediate ordinat in deum quasi in finem; et tales virtutes propinquissimae sunt theologicis: unde et actus harum virtutum attribuuntur virtutibus theologicis, sicut proximis imperantibus. Unde dicitur in augustino, quod fide, spe et caritate colitur deus. Quaedam autem non habent deum pro objecto, neque pro fine proximo, sed ultimo; sicut temperantia quae habet passiones pro materia, et quietem animi pro fine proximo; sed hanc ulterius ordinat ad deum. Poenitentia autem quamvis non habeat Deum pro objecto, habet tamen Deum pro fine proximo: quia ad hoc in peccata commissa destruenda movetur ut Deo reconcilietur; et ideo actus ejus, scilicet peccatum expellere, vel justificare, quandoque fidei, quandoque caritati ascribitur.” 598 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. religion involves the ceremonial rites (cultus) by which God is honored. (At times, Aquinas refers to these two virtues almost interchangeably.) 112 Although St. Thomas in the text quoted above is only addressing infused virtues, it is noteworthy for our purposes that he explicitly recognizes worship (latria) and penance as belonging to a special category of habits: those possessing both an object and a special “proximate end” (here God). This kind of habit is differentiated from the theological virtues, which have God as their object, and from virtues possessing their own matter/ object and proximate end, but which are related to God as an ultimate end, as happens when an action is commanded by charity.113 Aquinas here again identifies a category of habit (and by extension, human action), defined by an object and a (proximate) end, which he distinguishes from other categories of habit which are related to object and end in a different way. When St. Thomas addresses penance later in his career in the Summa theologiae, his descriptions are somewhat different from what one finds in the Sentences. He does not call God an “end” ( finis) of penance, even when considering whether penance should be affiliated with the theological virtues, the question that occasioned Thomas’s identification of God as a proximate end of penance in the Sentences.114 In the Summa theologiae, Aquinas identifies the removal of sin as an end of penance.115 For example, in one text, he states that penance “assumes a (properly) moderated sorrow for past sins with the intention of removing them.”116 In a second For the distinction between latria and religio, see: ST II-II, q. 94, a. 1, ad 2; q. 81, a. 1, obj. and ad 3; In III sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 4, sc 1. Thomas acknowledges that latria and religio belong to the same virtue (In III sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 1, resp.). In the Sentences, he describes latria as possessing both an object and end in a way nearly identical to his depiction of religio in ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, above: in addition to In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 4, ad 2, just quoted, see In III sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 3, resp. and ad 2. For latria and religio as closely related alternatives, see: In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 5, resp.; ST II-II, q. 88, a. 5, sc and resp.; q. 89, a. 4, resp. 113 This passage also presents temperance as having both matter (object) and end, raising the question of whether temperance and virtues related to it can also be conceived of according to this model. 114 When St. Thomas addresses whether penance should be a theological virtue in the Summa, he identifies the matter of penance as “human acts through which God is offended or placated.” He identifies God as “he to whom justice [is due],” but avoids the word finis when describing God. See ST III, q. 85, a. 3, obj. and ad 1. 115 The intention to expiate sin is present in Thomas’s description from the Sentences; however, it is not given the prominence that God as an end is accorded. (See the text from In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 4, resp. above.) 116 ST III, q. 85, a. 1, resp: “Poenitens assumit moderatum dolorem de peccatis praeteritis, cum intentione removendi ea.” 112 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 599 text, St. Thomas is discerning how displeasure of past sin relates to two virtues, charity and penance. He draws a distinction, asserting that while displeasure for past sin in itself pertains to charity, displeasure with “an intention for working for the eradication of past sin” requires a special virtue, penance.117 A case might also be made that Aquinas sometimes suggests “amendment” as an end for penance. He says that penance involves “detesting past sin, with a purpose [proposito] of changing life for the better, which is as if [quasi] the end [ finis] of penance.” St. Thomas continues that “because moral matters receive a species according to an end . . . it follows that diverse species of penance are taken from diverse changes [of life] that the penitent intends.”118 He then proposes three species of penance based on such different ends: penance before baptism, penance for mortal sin, and penance for venial sin.119 The differences in how the end of penance is identified in the Sentences and the Summa theologiae do not seem to involve a significant re-conceiving of penance by Aquinas. In both works, the penitent chooses to grieve past sin against God, to remove the punishment due to sin through expiation (with God’s assistance), and to amend his or her life. The variations in description may simply be the result of the challenge of applying the object-and-end paradigm to a complex virtue whose definition possesses ST III, q. 85, a. 2, ad 1: “Sed intentio operandi ad deletionem peccati praeteriti requirit specialem virtutem.” Although Thomas does not use the word “end” (finis) in the two passages just cited, “removal of sin” can be identified as end because Thomas asserts that the agent “intends” removal of sin, and, as we noted earlier, intention for him by definition is a will act directed to an end (see ST I-II, q. 12, a. 1, resp., ad 4). 118 ST III, q. 90, a. 4, resp.: “. . . detestetur peccata praeterita, cum proposito immutandi vitam in melius, quod est quasi poenitentiae finis. Et quia moralia recipiunt speciem secundum finem . . . ; consequens est quod diversae species poenitentiae accipiantur secundum diversas immutationes quas poenitens intendit.” 119 ST III, q. 90, a. 4, resp. Thomas uses “as if ” (quasi) when describing “the purpose of changing life for the better” as an end for penance, which might suggest that he is using “end” in some qualified way, but he then goes on to identify three different “purposes” in which life is changed for the better as the very elements by which three further species of penance are defined. Another Summa passage seems to propose emendationis proposito as the end of penance without using finis: “A penitent sorrows over sin committed insofar as it is an offense to God, with a purpose of amendment [cum emendationis proposito]” (ST III, q. 85, a. 3, resp.). Aquinas sometimes also calls this “purpose of amendment” the “proper act” of penance, presumably because this act related to the end of penance differentiates the virtue of penance from other sorrow for sin not related to this virtue; see ST III, q. 85, a. 4, resp. 117 600 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. a number of essential components. While the description of the end of penance varies somewhat in the different texts where it is addressed, for our present purposes, we need only to note that St. Thomas does not seem to have proposed in any of his works a definition of penance that possesses only an object without a related (proximate) end. Whatever variation we consider, then, penance should be included among the species of human actions and habits treated in this article. Some General Considerations Now that we have examined individually a number of different species of human action where object and end are required for their definition, we can consider some general observations about them. Review of Evidence The evidence that some species of human action proposed by Aquinas require an object and end for their definition can be summarized as follows. First, for each of the species of human action proposed above, Thomas identifies two elements in its definition, with one element corresponding to what an agent is doing (object), and the other corresponding to an agent’s further purpose in acting (end). Here is a table summarizing these various species of human actions. (This table includes all the species of divination, even those we only referred to generally above.) 120 Species of action What an agent is doing (object) An agent’s purpose in acting (end) 1. scandal (scandalum) A deficient word or as a special sin deed to draw another into sin Regarding the many species of divination, the Latin names will be used in the table because in a number of cases no obvious or familiar English equivalents exist. Did Aquinas consider the six unnamed descriptions of actions under sors (sortilege) to be distinct species of divination or just illustrations of the species sors? Thomas seems to consider them distinct species. At the end of the article, Aquinas names sors as a genus, and notes that “many” (multa) are contained under it (ST, II-II, q. 95, a. 3, resp.). Presumably, he means “many species,” since species fall under a genus. This would follow the pattern of the other two genera named by St. Thomas, nigromanticus (nigromancy) and augurium (augury), both of which have many named species under them. 120 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 601 2. fraternal correction (correctio fraterna) 3. reviling (contumelia) admonition of another speaking ill of another to persuade him or her to repent from sin to dishonor him or her 4. backbiting (detractio) 5. derision (derisio) speaking ill of another speaking ill of another speaking ill (or at least an unpleasant good) about one friend to another offering due worship (i.e., cultus, religious ceremony) to denigrate his or her reputation to shame him or her (through jest) to break apart the friendship 7.b. religion offering due worship121 to honor God for his instruction 7.c. religion offering due worship to honor God for his guidance122 6. tale-bearing (susurratio) 7.a. religion (religio) to honor God Species of Superstition (superstitio) 8.a. [unnamed species of superstition related to undue means] offering some inappropriate ceremony (in worship) to honor God 8.b. idolatry (idolo- offering something to honor a creature (in ways latria) (superstition (in worship)123 that only God should be from a first kind of honored) undue end) See note 99 above. These three are not identified as three different species of religion by St. Thomas, so all of them may be variations in understanding the one species of religion. 123 The means here is not “offering due worship,” as above, since the action would presumably still be idolatry, even if what is offered would be inappropriate if it were offered to God. 121 122 602 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. 8.c. divination (divinatio) (superstition from a second kind of undue end) using means that explicitly or implicitly invite demonic assistance 8.d. observances (observantiae) (superstition from a third kind of undue end) engaging in practices that explicitly or implicitly invite demonic assistance to seek knowledge of the future or hidden knowledge (beyond what a human being ought to possess) to bring about certain desired effects (that a human being ought only to seek from God or in accord with his direction) Species of Divination: 8.c.(i). praestigium 8.c.(ii). divinatio somniorum 8.c.(iii). nigromantia 8.c.(iv). divinatio per Pythones 8.c.(v). geomantia attending to to seek knowledge of the demonic apparitions future or hidden knowledge beyond what a human being ought to possess (hereafter, abbreviated as “to seek knowledge of the future”) interpreting dreams to seek knowledge of the influenced by future demons attending to appato seek knowledge of the ritions and/or locu- future tions from the dead (which are really demonic manifestations) attending to to seek knowledge of the messages from future possessed persons interpreting demon- to seek knowledge of the ically produced future shapes or signs appearing in earth (e.g. wood, iron, or polished stone) Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 8.c.(vi). hydromantia 8.c.(vii). aeromantia 8.c.(viii). pyromantia 8.c.(ix). aruspicium 8.c.(x). unnamed sin (but since it is said to pertinet ad astrologos, perhaps astrologia) 8.c.(xi). augurium 8.c.(xii). omen interpreting demonically produced shapes or signs appearing in water interpreting demonically produced shapes or signs appearing in air interpreting demonically produced shapes or signs appearing in fire interpreting entrails of animals immolated on altars of demons in which appear shapes or signs produced by demons interpreting the position and movement of stars in relation to the day of a person’s birth interpreting natural motions or sounds, such as movements or cries of birds or animals, the sneezing of men, or sudden movements of limbs interpreting human words (with a different meaning from the one intended by the speaker) 603 to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future 604 8.c.(xiii). chiromantia 8.c.(xiv). spatulimantia 8.c.(xv). sors 8.c.(xvi). unnamed 8.c.(xvii). unnamed 8.c.(xviii). unnamed 8.c.(xix). unnamed 8.c.(xx). unnamed 8.c.(xxi). unnamed 9. penance (poenitentia) Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. interpreting lines in the hand interpreting shoulder blades of animals to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future interpreting some human action (or the result of such an action) using the drawing of lots using the creation of shapes resulting from molten lead poured into water using the drawing of one sheet of paper among several using the drawing of one stick among several sticks of unequal length using the casting of dice reading a text that catches one’s eye when a book is opened sorrow for past sin to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to seek knowledge of the future to reconcile with God (variation 1) to remove the sin (i.e., to satisfy the punishment due to sin) (variation 2) to make amends (variation 3) Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 605 (Sub)species of penance 10.a. penance before baptism detesting one’s past sins to change one’s life for the better in a regeneration to a new life (in baptism) 10.b. penance for mortal sin detesting one’s past sins 10.c penance for venial sin detesting one’s past sins to change one’s life for the better through reparation for a past life already corrupted (by mortal sin) to change one’s life for the better to a more perfect operation of life (by removing venial sin) For many of the species in this table, Thomas in at least one text uses the terms objectum and finis to identify the two elements.124 For all of these species, Aquinas identifies an element of the action as its finis.125 That finis (end) is named for each species above is, in itself, significant. In cases where a species of human action is defined only by its object (e.g., dissimulation, as noted in the introduction), an end will not be included in its definition for obvious reasons. It is true that a species defined only by its object may be willed for the sake of a (further) end that provides an additional moral species if this end conforms with or is opposed to right reason in some distinctive way, as in the example earlier from the Sentences of someone who fornicates for Thomas uses the terms objectum and finis to identify the two elements in the following: scandal (In IV sent., d. 38, q. 2, a. 2, qa. 2, resp.), backbiting (ST II-II, q. 74, a. 2, ad 1), tale-bearing (ST II-II, q. 74, a. 2, ad 1), religion (ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, resp.), penance (In IV sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 4, resp; see also ad 1), and superstition (ST II-II, q. 92, a. 2, resp.). In describing generally the various species of divination, he also uses objectum and finis to name the two elements (ST II-II, q. 95, a. 3, ad 2). 125 In addition to the texts in the previous note, one can see finis used in fraternal correction (ST II-II, q. 33, a. 6, resp.), reviling (ST II-II, q. 75, a. 1, resp.), derision (ST II-II, q. 75, a. 1, resp.), and the three species of penance (ST III, q. 90, a. 4, resp.) Thomas in these texts uses finis to name “end,” but does not use objectum to refer to what is being done. Even in these cases, however, his definition of the kind of human action or habit clearly includes an element corresponding to “what is being done” or “object.” 124 606 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. the sake of (undue) wealth. This further end is not necessary, however, to define the species associated with its object. The agent could commit fornication for any number of ends. In the species of human actions studied in this article, however, end plays a different role. The end is essential (together with the object) for defining a species of human action or habit, and often is the most important element for the specification. Aquinas in all the examples included in the table identifies an end ( finis) as contributing to the definition/specification of the action or habit under consideration. (The ends proposed do not determine some further species.) This in itself is a clear sign that all of these species belong to the special kind of human actions (and habits) examined in this article. A second piece of evidence that Aquinas posits human actions determined by both object and end is that on rare occasions, he will identify, not just a single species of human action/habit defined this way, but a category of such species. One recalls, for example, how St. Thomas in the Sentences places “scandal as a special sin” and “building up a neighbor” together in a category of actions defined by object and end, and how in a different passage from the Sentences, he does something comparable with “worship” (latria) and “penance.” In both of these examples, Aquinas will even compare human actions/habits defined by both object and end with other categories of human action/habits where object and end specify differently, as when he compares “scandal as a special sin” (defined by object and end) to “fornication done simply for pleasure” and “fornication for the sake of wealth”.126 Finally, the most obvious and persuasive evidence that St. Thomas proposes the kinds of actions we are considering is found on those occasions when he identifies by name both an object and end for a species of human action/habit and then explains how both object and end should be understood in determining the species and/or its gravity. We saw this above in Aquinas’s treatment of backbiting, tale-bearing, religion, and superstition (including divination with its numerous [sub]species). Features of Specification in Different Kinds of Human Actions Studied The kinds of human action that we have considered in this article have Another example of Aquinas grouping kinds of human action defined by object and end is where he states that reviling, backbiting, derision, and tale-bearing are together sins of a “certain kind.” He also groups together many different species under divination and shows how they follow a similar pattern in their specification. 126 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 607 important similarities, but also some differences in how they are specified. Scandal, for instance, has some distinctive features. As we noted earlier, scandal’s object can contain as possibilities human actions (and habits) belonging to species of many kinds. For example, one can lead another to sin through murder, theft, drunkenness, and so forth. When proposing the object in his definition of scandal, Aquinas must use a broad description which includes them all: “words or deeds that are evil or have the appearance of evil.” When St. Thomas addresses scandal, he asserts that end (rather than object) is preeminent in specification. The end for him is formal, while the various possible sins in scandal’s object are as if material.127 Why might St. Thomas assert this? Firstly, Aquinas argues that an end has a greater formal influence over an object in human action because the object is chosen for the end’s sake.128 To illustrate, in scandal as a special sin, the reason someone is choosing a deficient word or deed is the hope that this word or deed will occasion another’s spiritual downfall. The agent in this case would not choose this object if he or she did not will this end, since the end is the overarching aim of his or her action. Secondly, the end of scandal (as a special sin) provides the one consistent defining feature of this sin when considering various individual acts of scandal. To illustrate, the end of “occasioning another’s spiritual downfall” will always be present and help to define a human action as “scandal,” regardless of which of many species of human action (murder, lying, stealing, etc.) might be determined by an object in particular acts of scandal. The way scandal as a special sin is defined and specified can be compared and contrasted with the way that fraternal correction, reviling, backbiting, derision, and tale-bearing are defined and specified. With these five sins, the end is also preeminent in definition and specification. As with scandal, the object is chosen for the end’s sake. In his various writings on this subject, including the text comparing backbiting and tale-bearing, St. Thomas shows that end has the greater formal influence over object in determining the species and gravity of these kinds of sin.129 When considering fraternal correction and the four sins of speech, one also notices some differences regarding the influence of the end over the object as compared with scandal. First, the object for fraternal correction and the four sins of speech—“communicating someone’s fault,” or some similar expression—is much narrower as compared to the object of scandal, which can include a whole range of possible species of human action. ST II-II, q. 43, a. 3, ad 1. ST I-II, a. 75, a. 4, resp.; see also ST II-II, q. 110, a. 1, resp. 129 ST II-II, q. 74, a. 2, ad 1. 127 128 608 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. Second, the object of the sins of speech and fraternal correction is usually more open to the formal influence of the end regarding the goodness or evil of the action than is the object of scandal. In scandal, the object typically defines a species of evil human action (though in some cases, it may have only the appearance of evil). Where an object is sinful, the action as a whole will be marked by this evil. For instance, someone who takes the life of an innocent person in order to occasion another’s downfall cannot make this action good simply by willing a good end instead of an evil one. (The agent will still be murdering someone to achieve his or her good end.) The objects of fraternal correction and the four sins of speech, however, do not define either a good or bad kind of human action: Aquinas proposes no species of human action determined only by this object. The various ends of fraternal correction and the four sins of speech, therefore, exercise a strong formal influence on the goodness or evil of the action: a person who “communicates someone’s fault” (object) can change the species of the whole action from an evil species to a good one by changing his or her intention. For instance, someone communicating another’s fault to dishonor him or her (the evil species of human action called “reviling”) could decide instead to communicate the same fault with a view to the other person’s repentance (a good species of human action called “fraternal correction”). As one can see, since the object does not in itself determine a moral species, the end has more influence in determining the fundamental moral character of the species of human action as good or evil. The end in sins of speech and fraternal correction, then, is the preeminent factor for determining whether the species of the human action (or habit) will be a good or evil one.130 We can also consider human actions/habits where object plays a more prominent role: religion and superstition. As we noted above, Aquinas attributes two elements to religion: what is offered in worship (object) and the honoring of the one, true God (end). In the kinds of human actions (and habits) we have addressed already, end plays such a prominent role in specification that the contribution of the object is minimal. Although none of the species treated above could have been defined without its object, no object had sufficient formal influence to be the primary element in determining a species. Religion and superstition, however, are different in this regard. This is not to assert that end no longer plays a significant A change of end could mean a change in the moral character (good or evil) of the overall action in scandal, though this would be atypical. It could happen if the object is not sinful in itself, but only has the appearance of evil. In this case, a new good end could determine the whole action to be good. 130 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 609 role in some cases. If someone had asked Thomas whether the object in religion or superstition is willed for the sake of the end, he would surely have said it is. Furthermore, some species under religion and superstition are clearly differentiated by their ends, as when idolatry is defined and specified because an agent offering religious rites intends as end a creature rather than the creator. Nevertheless, Aquinas understands “object” in religion and superstition to have a significant enough formal influence over the action that it can sometimes play the predominant role in determining a species. We saw this clearly when Aquinas identified a species of superstition that is determined by its object: offering an inappropriate rite as a means (such as when a Christian offers an Old Testament sacrifice) to God (as end). We also saw this above in Aquinas’s consideration of divination. The various species of divination share a single end of seeking future or hidden things. It is the objects, that is, the various illicit means for knowing the future, which determine the many species under divination. This way of defining divination makes sense both because each of these means involve entanglement with demons—the very thing that opposes the good of religion— and because the means is the element that differs among the species, since they share a common end of seeking knowledge of the future. If the end had formal preeminence in determining species here, all divination would belong to a single species. In religion and superstition, then, both object and end play an important role in definition and specification, though in different ways, depending on the species. Regarding penance, Aquinas’s various descriptions of this kind of action make it more difficult to analyze and summarize. The end here also seems to have a formal priority in the sin’s definition. For example, as we noted earlier, Aquinas argues that “sorrow for sin” can sometimes be associated with charity, but belongs to penance when this sorrow is related to penance’s end of working for the eradication of past sin. Concluding Reflections What has been learned from this investigation? First, and most obviously, this study has cast more light on the nature of the species of human action in Aquinas under examination and how object and end contribute to their definition and specification. Second, it helps us to understand better St. Thomas’s moral principles in specification. For instance, when examining a text where Aquinas claims that an action’s end specifies, one should now consider whether he means that the end brings an additional moral species, or is an essential component that helps to determine a single moral species. 610 Joseph Pilsner, C.S.B. Third, this study helps us to appreciate Aquinas’s prudence as a moralist in addressing these complex species of human actions (and habits). St. Thomas inherited and used certain basic moral terms from the tradition, including objectum and finis. These two terms are relatively easy to use in more straightforward cases. But the species we explored above are complex, and “object” and “end” cannot be applied simplistically when defining and specifying them. Aquinas’s approach is not to deny the complexity of these human actions and to insist on a more simple use of object and end. Instead, he cleverly adapts the terms and principles at his disposal to these more complex kinds of human action. In doing so, he maintains what is at the heart of his approach to specification. St. Thomas held that what is willed by a human agent has certain key formal features discovered by a comparison to right reason, and that these formal features define and determine the species of human actions. In some cases, such as dissimulation or adultery, only an object of a human action is needed in a comparison to right reason because everything necessary for defining and determining the species of a human action is found there. In the species of human action we have been examining, however, formal aspects key to understanding how an action either realizes or opposes a moral good fall both in the object and in a related end. Thomas appreciates this difference and adjusts his approach accordingly. He avoids the mistakes of either ignoring this related end in specification or of thinking that he needs to take into account in specification every possible end or effect, no matter how remote. What is essential to defining and specifying these kinds of human action/habit is found in both its object and its related end, and he tailors his approach accordingly.131 So, when treating these complex species, St. Thomas remains faithful to his key insight for how species of human actions are defined and determined, while making reasonable accommodations to account for the more complex structure of these species of human action. Further work can certainly be done in studying the species of human actions we have just considered. Additional species of human actions that share their characteristic traits may be discovered in Aquinas’s writings.132 These kinds of action defined by an object and related end have a kind of integrity such that they can even serve as if a means for further ends. For example, St. Thomas proposes that penance and/or religion can be further commanded by charity (for penance, see In IV sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 5, qa. 3, ad 2; and ST III, q. 85, a. 2, ad 1; for religion, see ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, ad 1). Aquinas also identifies two acts as particular to religion, devotion and prayer, and then shows how they can be directed further to charity (ST II-II, q. 82, a. 2, ad 1; q. 83, a. 15, resp.) 132 For example, this study may prove helpful in sorting out some of Aquinas’s texts 131 Species of Human Actions in Aquinas Determined by Both Object and End 611 This may include species of human actions (or habits) where St. Thomas does not use the terms “object” or “end,” but where it is clear from the context that the human action possesses essential elements which correspond to “what an agent is doing” (object) and “why an agent is doing this” (end). Also, there are kinds of human action which Aquinas presents as possessing both an object and end in his early writings, but treats them without reference to a related end in his later writings. These kinds of actions and the reasons for St. Thomas’s reappraisal of them would also N&V benefit from further investigation.133 addressing species related to killing. For example, see: ST I-II, q. 1, a. 3, obj. and ad 3; II-II, q. 64. 133 My thanks to Steven and Christine Jensen for their capable proofreading of this article. I would also like to thank Brett Kendall and Katie Takats for their competent editorial assistance in preparing this article for publication. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 613–637 613 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End: Two Visions of the Good Death in Christian Thought Paul Scherz The Catholic University of America Washington, DC Many people are unclear as to what a good death is, espe- cially a good Christian death. Nearly everyone agrees on what is a bad death: a highly medicalized death in the ICU with medical staff fighting until the last minute; a death leaving little time for the patient and her family to come to terms with mortality; a death portrayed as a painful failure of medical technique; a death experienced as a loss of control. The most prominent vision of the good death today is just the rejection of such a medicalized death. For example, a group of priests asked about good or happy deaths responded with phrases like “pain-free,” “dying with dignity,” or “surrounded by loved ones.”1 Over the last fifty years dismay at the bad, medicalized deaths of our contemporaries has led to many attempts to help people reach this vision of the good death. One of the most valuable institutional and legal responses has been hospice and palliative medicine (HPM), which has done much to allow people to escape medicalized deaths. Recent efforts by the Pontifical Academy for Life have pressed for the expansion of HPM in part to push back against the other major response to medicalized death, assisted suicide.2 Ken Leiser, “Clergy, Covenant Clinicians Review End-of-Life Issues at CHA Forum,” Catholic Health World, April 1, 2019, chausa.org/publications/catholic-health-world/article/april-1-2019/clergy-covenant-clinicians-review-end-oflife-issues-at-cha-forum. 2 Carlos Centeno et al., “White Paper for Global Palliative Care Advocacy: Recommendations from a PAL-LIFE Expert Advisory Group of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Vatican City,” Journal of Palliative Medicine 21, no. 10 (2018): 1389–97. 1 614 Paul Scherz More interesting from a theological and philosophical perspective have been the attempts by many to develop practices to help people prepare for death, such as by some secular authors like Atul Gawande or in the Conversation Project.3 There have also been Christian discussions of practices, many of which draw on the early modern art of dying tradition, the ars moriendi.4 This tradition was embodied in pastoral manuals that were first developed in the aftermath of the Black Death but maintained their popularity in diverse Christian denominations into the nineteenth century. These manuals explained virtues, practices, sacraments, and prayers that could help a person face death well. They were how-to manuals for dying. However, the argument of this essay is that underlying these recoveries lies a secular vision of the good death, the peaceful death, which largely seeks immanent goods in the dying process, like comfort, control, and community.5 It is an aesthetic of dying, involving a certain choreographed deathbed scene. While none of these aims are unworthy to seek at death in themselves, I will argue in the first section of this essay that they raise problems when set as major goals of the dying process, especially since most people will not be able to achieve them in their end of life experiences. If many terminal illnesses will not allow this particular scene at the hour of death, people will be tempted to seize the initiative themselves, enacting the good death they seek through assisted suicide. Though HPM does great good and is a worthwhile goal to seek for itself, it will not prevent the expansion of assisted suicide, as evidenced by the fact that nearly 90 percent of those seeking assisted suicide in Oregon were enrolled in hospice.6 While a focus on practice is also useful, it is necessary to attend to Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014); details on The Conversation Project can be found on its website at theconversationproject.org/. 4 The pastoral literature and resources are vast. My focus is primarily on a set of academic theological conversations, the primary texts being: Christopher P. Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, and the Christian Art of Dying Well (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004); Allen Verhey, The Christian Art of Dying: Learning from Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011); Dying in the Twenty-First Century: Toward a New Ethical Framework for the Art of Dying Well, ed. Lydia Dugdale (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016). There are other texts that treat death in a different way, one more sympathetic to my analysis, such as Matthew Levering, Dying and the Virtues (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018). 5 Daniel Callahan, The Troubled Dream of Life: In Search of a Peaceful Death (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000). 6 Courtney S. Campbell and Jessica C. Cox, “Hospice-Assisted Death? A Study of Oregon Hospices on Death with Dignity,” American Journal of Hospice and Palli3 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 615 the truth claims, frequently implicit, underlying a practice because it will shape how that practice actually influences action and character. What is needed is a different vision of death, such as the one held by the earlier art of dying tradition outlined in the next part of this essay, in which death is almost always a dramatic, climactic moment. In this understanding of death, a good death was defined exclusively by whether a person repents or maintains faith, thus coming to salvation, a view summed up in the oft-cited line of John Damascene that death is for humans what the Fall was for angels.7 This view contained two elements. First, dying well aims beyond the mere immanent practice or moment of dying towards achieving the end of eternal life. Therefore, in death, one could accomplish the end of one’s life by dying in Christ, both completing the work of one’s whole life and receiving eternal life, no matter how unpleasant the deathbed scene. Second, this deathbed scene was conceived as a spiritual struggle against sin and temptation. It was a reenactment of the martyrs’ struggle against the wiles of the devil. Even the virtuous person is assailed at the end of life and can only be successful through the gift of perseverance. Succeeding in this struggle to bring a completion to one’s life is what Catholics pray for in the Liturgy of the Hours at Compline when they pray for a finem perfectum, what used to be translated as a “perfect end.”8 Much of recent Christian ethical writing on death and the art of dying has repudiated this earlier Christian vision of the good death but has not replaced it with a clear alternative. Instead, these writings have sought to describe specific virtues and communal practices necessary for a good death. But I will argue that, lacking an articulated vision of a good death, they have incorporated aspects of the peaceful death, which is how finem perfectum is rendered in the current ICEL translation of the Liturgy of the Hours.9 The last part of this essay will argue that because much of the current writing in this area draws on this modern vision of a good death, it misinterprets the way that practices relate to virtue at death. Most writers assume that these texts focus on virtue as habitually formed through a ative Medicine 29, no. 3 (2012): 227–35. John Damascene, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.4. See references to Aquinas’s use of this idea in Josef Pieper, Death and Immortality (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 87, 140n8. 8 Liturgia Horarum, vol. 1, Tempus Adventus Tempus Nativitatis (Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1974), 540; The Hours of the Divine Office in English and Latin, vol. 1 (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1963). 9 International Commission on English in the Liturgy, The Liturgy of the Hours, vol. 1, Advent and Christmas Seasons (New York: Catholic Book, 1975), 673. 7 616 Paul Scherz lifetime of practice. Instead, these older texts on dying approach virtue in a much more Stoic manner, especially when they focus on the end of life. What they provide are techniques and meditations, Stoic therapies that one keeps ready-to-hand as weapons in the struggle that is the dying process.10 Better understanding these differing visions of virtue and the good death may allow us to better use these texts to address contemporary problems of dying. The Peaceful Death For many bioethicists, a focus on practices helpfully allows one to avoid a prescriptive vision of a good death, since, as Lydia Dugdale argues, a contemporary art of dying that would be useful for hospital bioethics would be a pluralist, secular art.11 Yet, underlying many of the examples in such secular projects and many of the Christian recoveries is an implicit understanding of what makes for a good death. Daniel Callahan outlined the elements of this predominant view of the good death: the person accepts that he will die; the patient is conscious; the patient is surrounded by family and friends; and the patient is not in pain. Most importantly, the patient must maintain self-possession, “awake, alert, and physically independent.”12 Stephen Latham gives a similar description of a good death: minimal suffering for a short period, no loss of capacities, the ability to affirm values, and “time to arrange for the kind of deathbed scene she desired.”13 In the documentary based on Gawande’s Being Mortal, one sees Jeff Shields dying this death.14 Though dying of cancer, he is alert until his last days and is able to die on his beautiful farm in the lush countryside, visiting with family until just before his death. Dying is peaceful, untroubled, and under our control. This vision of dying derives, frequently explicitly, from The Hour of Our Death, Philippe Aries’s magisterial history of dying, which draws on For Stoic therapies, see: Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, trans. Arnold Davidson (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1995); Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996); Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981– 1982, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 11 Dugdale, “Dying, a Lost Art,” Dying in the Twenty-First Century, 3–18, at 5. 12 Callahan, Troubled Dream, 54. 13 Stephen Latham, “Pluralism and the ‘Good’ Death,” in Dugdale, Dying in the Twenty-First Century, 33–46, at 41 (emphasis mine). 14 Thomas Jennings, “Being Mortal,” Frontline, February 10, 2015, PBS, pbs.org/ video/frontline-being-mortal/. 10 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 617 medieval chansons, Leo Tolstoy, and other works of literature, to give a picture of an older “tame death.”15 The tame death began with a premonition of death that the dying person accepted with resignation. Surrounded by his community, the person asked others for forgiveness, confessed his sins, settled his last worldly affairs, and commended himself and others to God.16 While Aries placed this death in the early middle ages, it is really the idealized death of any premodern peasant, as shown by his use of nineteenth-century fiction. That Elizabeth Kubler-Ross also began On Death and Dying by relating a similar anecdote of a Swiss farmer’s death shows the attraction of this idealized bucolic image.17 The first thing to note about both the tame and the peaceful deaths is that they are less spiritual or ethical discussions of death than a certain aesthetic of death. This aesthetic dimension is highlighted by Dugdale, who says in regard to the art of dying, that “art invites careful attention to the possibility of beauty.”18 Much of the power of Gawande’s example mentioned earlier comes from the beauty of the surrounding landscape and the home in which the death itself occurred. As Latham noted, it is the embrace of a certain deathbed scene: a patient surrounded by family and friends with no pain or spiritual distress. It would be a mistake to separate too strongly the spiritual and ethical from the aesthetic of course. Later in this essay, I will propose alternative aesthetics of dying. What is concerning is the kind of aesthetic at play in the peaceful death. It is a very bourgeois, even utilitarian aesthetic vision—no overwrought emotions, no pain, no mess, no existential dread. In one of his examples of a good death, Latham emphasizes the grace and manners with which the dying woman took an inopportune call.19 It is not an aesthetic that easily incorporates the Cross. Second, we should note the emphasis on the control over the situation that the dying person exercises. In the tame death, this control only occurs because the dying peasant enacted a culturally stereotyped set of behaviors. In contrast, in the contemporary ideal of the peaceful death, personal autonomy and choice become central. The patient becomes the choreog Philippe Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (New York: Knopf, 1981), 5–28. 16 Ariès, Hour of Our Death, 6–18. 17 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families, repr. ed. (New York: Scribner, 2014), 5. 18 Dugdale, “Conclusion: Toward a New Ethical Framework for the Art of Dying Well,” in Dying in the Twenty-First Century, 173–92, 174. 19 Latham, “Pluralism,” 41. 15 618 Paul Scherz rapher arranging the aesthetic project of death—negotiating treatment regimens, curating the right people for the deathbed scene, determining where the death should occur, and so on. Even the weeks or months leading up to death must be arranged to meet certain immanent goals. Here, the medical staff works with the patient to realize her values and desires at the end of life. Gawande argues that doctors must discuss with patients what their values are, what their valued life activities are, and shape treatment regimens to meet them. The Zen Hospice in San Francisco seeks to help patients end their days spending time in the ways that they desire, even if that means facilitating them playing video games.20 Much of this work entails helping patients enunciate the desires that they have, perhaps unknown to them before the dying process. Patients work down their bucket list.21 While many of these elements of the peaceful death are good or at least ethically indifferent in themselves, some aspects of the peaceful death suggest where problems might lie. Most superficially, ethicists should be suspicious of the narrative upon which it is based, a romantic narrative written by elite authors of idealized peasants dying deaths to which everyone should aspire. The concern is not that this might not be true in many cases, nor that the poor might not die better deaths than the rich. It is merely that the narrative seems too much like other idealizations of the premodern and contrasts with actual premodern sources. As Lucy Bregman argues: “The nostalgia model of ‘death as natural event’ is comforting. . . . But nostalgia can actively interfere with what the voices of the past were trying to say.”22 From a theological perspective, the peaceful death is also dangerous because it is a generic vision of death rather than a tradition-specific view of death.23 Even though its descriptions are drawn from Christian sources, Aries emphasizes that it “is not a specifically Christian death.”24 It is generic like the generic spirituality that most hospital chaplains now Jon Mooalem, “The House at the End of the World,” The New York Times, January 8, 2017, Sunday Magazine. 21 This is of course not how all HPM operates. Many practitioners and facilities aim to provide care more in line with Cicely Saunders’s original goal, which was much closer to older Christian visions. These frequently heroic efforts of practitioners are increasingly stymied by the corporatization of HPM and by this growing ethos of the peaceful death. 22 Lucy Bregman, Preaching Death: The Transformation of Christian Funeral Sermons (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011), 15. 23 Of course, this generic nature is a benefit in the eyes of Latham or Dugdale. 24 Ariès, Hour of Our Death, 13. 20 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 619 offer, into which, of course, one can slot various tradition-specific rituals or values. However, these values or rituals are not essential to this form of death. They do not shape it. In its form, it is indebted to modern commitments to autonomy and control, allowing a person to choose a tradition, but not making such a tradition constitutive of the person. The secular ethics that govern most hospitals could embrace only such a vision of death. Because of this, this vision of death is open to being coopted by the technocratic imperatives of contemporary medicine.25 Its avoidance of overwrought emotion or existential suffering allows the hospital to function more efficiently, and its encouragement of accepting death may decrease healthcare costs. Even considered in itself in secular terms, though, this vision is inadequate because it sets up an impossible ideal. As Sherwin Nuland argued: “Occasionally—very occasionally—unique circumstances of death will be granted to someone with a unique personality, and that lucky combination will make it happen, but such a confluence of fortune is uncommon, and . . . not to be expected by any but a very few people.”26 Most deaths will not be peaceful. They will be painful, disoriented, filled with existential concern. Even with the best will and efforts of the hospital staff, a large percentage of people will fail to achieve a peaceful death because of the nature of the person’s illness or because of other kinds of spiritual distress. When the peaceful death is set up as an ideal, a failure to achieve it threatens to become a personal or spiritual failure. Nuland relates a daughter’s dismay at her mother’s death: “It was nothing like the peaceful end I expected. I thought it would be spiritual, that we would talk about her life. . . . But it never happened—there was too much pain, too much Demerol.”27 More troublingly, this vision of the good death does not match what Michael Banner has described as the long dying of late modernity, the fact that our deaths will not be short affairs.28 Instead, there will frequently be a long period of physical decline before death, sometimes associated with intensive medical treatment and increased social isolation. Some of these aspects of dying are alterable by better practices, but others arise from fundamental features of the human condition. While any experience of M. Therese Lysaught, “Ritual and Practice,” in Dugdale, Dying in the Twenty-First Century, 67–86, at 82. 26 Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter (New York: Knopf, 1994), xvii. 27 Nuland, How We Die, xvi. 28 Michael Banner, The Ethics of Everyday Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 107–34. 25 620 Paul Scherz death may engender grief and rage, an experience that runs against an unrealistic ideal will almost ensure it. If such deaths cannot be considered good deaths because they do not live up to the choreographed ideal, then they can only be considered a bad death, a failure. In such cases, one might try to forestall the non-ideal death that illness lays before one, escaping the death that will be a painful challenge, the bad death, through assisted suicide. Suicide allows one to better choreograph one’s death. For example, Brittany Maynard’s video, which helped to make assisted suicide legal in California, dwelt beautifully on the aesthetics of her planned death.29 The camera sits lovingly on the sunlight streaming in through the trees onto the bed in the upper room where she planned to take the fatal pills. She carefully lists the few friends and family who would attend her. She even noted that she would have her favorite music on in the background. Similarly, last year I received an email describing a death through assisted suicide that specifically emphasized the person’s view of the Pacific Ocean as he killed himself. Here one sees the deeper dangers of an ideal of a peaceful death that does not match reality and is not supported by a rich set of traditions. 30 The Church will not be able to successfully oppose assisted suicide if it uncritically accepts this vision of the good death. The Perfect End The older Christian tradition had a very different aesthetic imaginary of a good death, which can be illustrated by a specific extreme example. Dante, in his description of the death of Manfred, seems to provide a portrait of what most people today would consider a bad death.31 Defeated in battle by armies allied with the Pope while contesting the mastery of Italy, he was struck down, betrayed by allies, dying painfully from his wounds alone on the field of battle. His death bore almost none of the hallmarks of dying well discussed by those attempting to recover a Christian art of dying. He had not led a life of virtue, instead embodying the splendid vices as he sought worldly glory and mastery, committing brutal sins to secure his Allie Hoffmann (dir.), The Brittany Maynard Story, October 6, 2014, youtube. com/watch?v=yPfe3rCcUeQ. 30 One review criticized Dugdale’s book for not fleshing out “the ways that euthanasia and PAS seem to fit with many of the themes developed here,” such as embracing finitude, consciousness at death, and the presence of community; see Anthony P. Smith, Review of Lydia S. Dugdale, Dying in the Twenty-First Century: Towards a New Ethical Framework for the Art of Dying Well, The American Journal of Bioethics 17, no. 8 (August 2017): W1–2,. 31 Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio 3.103–45. 29 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 621 throne. He lacked community in two ways, dying alone and betrayed on the battlefield and, even more profoundly, excommunicated. Thus, he was also denied the sacramental and liturgical aids of the Church. From a secular perspective, he was a failure, his life ending exactly at the moment when all his plans and projects came to naught in humiliating defeat. Finally, it was a painful death. By any description contemporary discussions of dying might provide, Manfred died a bad death. Yet, Dante meets Manfred not in the Inferno, but on the shores of the mountain of Purgatory. As he lay dying his painful, ignominious death, Manfred truly repented of his misled life. In God’s mercy, he was admitted to Purgatory and thus the sure hope of eternal life, although with a delay. Such a vision of deathbed repentance has deeply shaped the Catholic artistic imagination of death, from the image of the good thief on the cross to the deathbed climax of Brideshead Revisited. While Protestant authors in the art of dying tradition scorned this model of deathbed repentance (although Jeremy Taylor allowed for a heroic repentance at death) and even Catholic authors were extremely skeptical of it,32 they would agree with the basic understanding of what makes for a good death: passing “to a life that is eternal and blessed in every way.”33 This older Catholic tradition agrees with Nuland’s doubts about the peaceful death: while an attractive ideal that sometimes occurred, it was unlikely for most. Dying is a process surrounded by turmoil. In his Preparation for Death, Alphonsus Liguori repeatedly describes it as a tempest: “The time of death is a time of storm and confusion.”34 Cardinal Bellarmine, author of the most influential Catholic manual for dying, notes that the dying person is blown this way and that “by pain and weakness or by failing judgment or by fright at the nearness of death or by the love of dear ones whom they leave against their will.”35 It is a time of confusion brought on by both illness and the existential crisis of possible annihilation, distress both physical and spiritual. More practically, the Renaissance Catholic humanist Erasmus cites the sheer number of things to which the dying person must attend: consulting with doctors, making a will, reconciling Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying (London: George Bell and Sons, 1897), 294, 425, 435; Alphonsus Liguori, Preparation for Death, ed. Eugene Grimm (Brooklyn, NY: Redemptorist Fathers, 1926), 65. 33 Roberto Bellarmine, “The Art of Dying Well,” in Spiritual Writings, trans. John Patrick Donnelly and Roland J. Teske, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 369. 34 Liguori, Preparation for Death, 109. 35 Bellarmine, “Art of Dying Well,” 340. 32 622 Paul Scherz with neighbors, receiving the sacraments, planning a funeral.36 The time of dying is too busy to be peaceful. Because of this confusion, distress, and the pressing weight of obligations, even authors in the Catholic tradition doubted that a deathbed conversion was likely. For this reason, they urged an early preparation for death, which is the point much of the contemporary literature on dying emphasizes. If one were to give a Christological example of this tempest at death, it would be the agony in the Garden, and this in two ways.37 First, it is an agony in our sense of anguish. As Augustine argued, dying is a source of intense suffering: “For a sensation of anguish, contrary to nature, is produced by the force that tears apart the two things which had been conjoined and interwoven during life; and this sensation persists until there is a complete cessation of all that feeling which was present by reason of the union of soul and flesh.”38 It is against nature for the soul to be torn from the body, and thus humans revolt against it. Even those for whom death might be termed a good, the martyrs, experience dying itself as suffering. There is another framing of agony though, one focused on its connotations of competitive struggle in athletics or warfare.39 Erasmus described dying as “hand-to-hand combat” with the devil.40 Similarly, Bellarmine, citing Ephesians 6:12, describes it as a wrestling match with demons.41 It is a last decisive struggle with temptation, with vices, with the devil. Erasmus set this framing in a Christological context as well: “We may assume that [Satan] employed every weapon in his arsenal when Christ was on the cross Desiderius Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” in Spiritualia and Pastoralia, ed. John W. O’Malley, trans. John Grant, Collected Works of Erasmus 70 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 414. I would argue that many of these concerns continue today even with the longer time that one may have for preparation. Frequently, treatments continue until the last few days, and spiritual distress may strike at any time. 37 For the use of the theme of agony in Spanish devotional literature, see Carlos M. N. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 32–33. 38 Augustine, De civitate Dei 13.6, in The City of God against the Pagans, ed. R. W. Dyson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 547. Augustine develops an interesting but intricate discussion of when we can say death or dying actually occurs in 13.9–11. 39 For agony as preparation for a contest see E. Stauffer, “Ἀγωνία,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964). 40 Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” 425. 41 Bellarmine, “Art of Dying Well,” 352. 36 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 623 and Satan sees that death was near. . . . What Satan dared to do against our Lord he will dare also against us, who are members of his body.”42 It is this framing of death that one sees so vividly displayed in the woodcuts from the earliest books of the ars moriendi. 43 In these, the temptations and virtues discussed in recent writings are not abstract states of mind and soul. Instead, they are armies of demons contesting with the equally present army of angels and saints for final victory. Here death becomes the most accentuated moment of the Christian life as a whole, which Pope Francis calls “a constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil.”44 This framing of dying is extremely important because it gives a possible positive valence to the sufferings occurring at death. As temptations brought on by the devil, they allowed the dying Christian to assimilate her experience to that of the martyrs, which is the second aesthetic found in the tradition. Erasmus uses the same image of hand-to hand combat with the devil in regard to all deaths that Thomas More uses nearly contemporaneously in his last work, The Sadness of Christ, in regard to the martyrdom he faced.45 In this way, the martyrs become the exemplars of the good death. Because of this connection to struggle and martyrdom, one finds Biblical images of competition and warfare again and again in ars moriendi texts: running the race, winning the crown, putting on the armor of the virtues, and so on. Further these authors drew on the martyrs as exemplars of virtues at death. This analogy reaches back to the patristic period, such as in Cyprian’s De mortalitate, where one also finds three elements that later writers would use to justify seeing the suffering of ordinary Christian death as martyrdom. Cyprian’s occasion for writing was the great plague that swept the Mediterranean in the middle of the third century.46 In between episodes of persecution, the church in Carthage found itself beset by illness. Cyprian consoled his flock in regard to the deaths that they saw all around themselves and taught them to prepare for their own possible death. Perhaps Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” 404. Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 110–35. 44 Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate (2018), §159. See the similar discussion in Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes (1965), §37. 45 Thomas More, De Tristitia Christi, ed. Clarence H. Miller, Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More 14 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976), 71. Erasmus and More use different Latin terms though, cominus versus ad manum ventum, so these are conceptual similarities highlighted by translation rather than direct quotations. 46 Gary B. Ferngren, Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 115–23. 42 43 624 Paul Scherz oddly to our ears, one of the complaints he felt the need to address came from those who desired to die as martyrs. They lamented their death from illness because it would not allow them to witness to their faith by suffering at the hands of persecutors.47 Cyprian encouraged them to accept the will of God in their death because what mattered was the intention of martyrdom. For those in whom “martyrdom is conceived in the mind, the intention dedicated to good is crowned, with God as judge.”48 Thus, one could receive the reward of a martyrs’ death even if one died from disease. Moreover, suffering disease bore some of the marks of a martyr’s death. It too was an assault by the devil on the believer, as with all the sufferings of life.49 “Though it should be the constant and violent affliction of the members by wasting diseases, though it should be the mournful and sorrowful tearing away from . . . departing dear ones, let not such things be stumbling blocks for you, but battles: nor let them weaken or crush the faith of the Christian, but rather let them reveal his valor [virtutem] in the contest.”50 Second, if the goal of martyrdom is to witness to faith, one could prove one’s faith by enduring the suffering of illness well. Third, it served to exercise virtue. “These are trying exercises for us, not deaths.”51 Thus, the suffering of even a death from illness was framed by the themes of a battle with the devil, a witness to faith, and a test of one’s virtue. These goals are interlinked in the Catholic tradition, as later writers will point to Job as one whom God allowed to be tested by sufferings inflicted by Satan. If one moves forward to the main thread of the art of dying tradition, one finds these same themes, although they are articulated in different ways by different authors. Erasmus, as noted above, emphasizes combat with the devil, who assails the dying Christian. The confusion and distraction at death is due in large part to the variety of attacks that one suffers, “for it is at this time that Satan presses hard with every trick at his disposal.”52 To respond, Erasmus uses military metaphors, as he does in other writings. Drawing on Paul, the Christian is a soldier and thus must stand “in the battle line ready to fight.”53 She must accept the hardship that she faces in her service. Cyprian, De mortalitate 17, in Treatises, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1958), 212–13. 48 Cyprian, De mortalitate 17 (pp. 212–13). 49 Cyprian, De mortalitate 9. 50 Cyprian, De mortalitate 12 (p. 208). 51 Cyprian, De mortalitate 16 (p. 212). 52 Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” 414. 53 Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” 423. See also 2 Tim 2:3. The use of metaphors of military service in relation to death is part of Christian texts, but it also has a long pre-Christian pedigree. Epictetus adverts to our duty under the command 47 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 625 These uses of battle metaphors are distinct from the use of war metaphors in medicine criticized by feminist authors such as Susan Sontag and Barbara Ehrenreich.54 Understandably, these authors dislike such imagery, especially in relation to cancer, because they lead to a justification of over-treatment as a means of total war. Moreover, these battle metaphors portray those who succumb to the disease as losers in their fight. Death seems a defeat. In the ars moriendi tradition in contrast, the battle is not fought between medicine or the patient and the disease, but between the dying person and temptation or vice. Thus, death, far from being a defeat, is the moment that the individual enters into her reward. It is the moment of victory. The Anglican Jeremy Taylor has much to say about struggling with the devil, but his distinctive focus is much more about God testing the individual. Sickness “is the opportunity and the proper scene of exercising some virtue. It is the agony in which men are tried for the crown.”55 His framing is that the suffering of dying is how God tests the individual’s faith, but also prepares the person for great things. The struggle of death is both pedagogic and examinatory, with Christians “struggling against disease, and resisting the devil, and contesting against the weaknesses of nature, and against hope to believe in hope, resigning ourselves to God’s will.”56 These understandings of suffering and testing are found in Job, but most especially in Sirach 2. Yet, Taylor’s rendering of this framing of death goes much further than any other writer in the ars moriendi tradition, echoing Seneca’s description of God enjoying the combat of the virtuous in De providentia, which is also an extreme text by Stoic standards. Despite Taylor’s enthusiasm, it is important to emphasize that none of these authors encourage an ascetic masochism at the moment of death. There is nothing in these authors that would preclude the use of advanced palliative care to remove physical suffering. Further, as a later section will discuss, these authors provide an extensive pastoral armory to soothe existential distress. Their point is that these resources will rarely be completely effective in removing suffering from the experience of dying. In this, they are merely accepting the reality of the situation. What framing death in terms of struggle or martyrdom allows the dying person to do though is to of God to stand fast in the face of trouble and not withdraw, such as at Discourses 3.24.31–36. 54 Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (New York: Vintage, 1979); Barbara Ehrenreich, “Welcome to Cancerland,” Harper’s Magazine, November 2001, 43–53. 55 Taylor, Holy Living and Dying, 372. 56 Taylor, Holy Living and Dying, 375. 626 Paul Scherz use the evils attendant on death well, as Augustine saw the martyrs doing, to come to the end of one’s life holding on to one’s faith and hope.57 It allows one to incorporate suffering into one’s moral projects.58 The Erasure of the Vision of the Good Death Recent discussions of the ars moriendi, such as in Christopher Vogt or Allen Verhey, have rejected almost all parts of this older vision of death. While accepting that martyrdom was an aspect of older Christian framings of death, they do not find it a particularly compelling framing for the contemporary Christian experience of dying.59 First, recent theological understandings of martyrdom have tended to focus on a response to injustice.60 Further, there is a concern that martyrdom focuses on conflict with others rather than the conflict with the self. Finally, it may valorize suffering.61 This rejection of martyrdom goes along with a more general contemporary dismissal of the Christian concept of redemptive suffering that was so central to older Christian understandings of death. With the loss of the analogy to martyrdom, there is no way to valorize the sufferings of the struggle at death. Further, recent authors reject the vision of a struggle over the fate of the individual soul. First, there is a concern about the seemingly judicial notion of sin involved in these portrayals.62 These authors also question the focus on the last moments to the exclusion of the entirety of life, in part for reasons expressed by earlier authors in the tradition as to the likelihood of deathbed conversions, but also in part as a rejection of other parts of the earlier tradition. For Verhey, individual judgment seems too Platonic, allowing for salvation immediately following death, and thus drawing the Augustine, De civitate Dei 13.8. Stanley Hauerwas, Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped, and the Church (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 166–67. 59 Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 102; Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 350. See especially Vogt’s discussion of the tie between the deaths of Stephen and Jesus. An exception to this general statement would be Levering, who clearly accepts the vision of death as a possible spiritual struggle (Dying and the Virtues, 145–46). 60 Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 119. For this understanding of the Cross, see John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994). 61 Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 104; Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 350–54. 62 Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 33; Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 143. For concerns over a judicial understanding of sin in Catholic moral theology, see John Mahoney, The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 57 58 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 627 Christian’s attention away from the resurrection of the body and the Last Judgment.63 This critique is concerned about the individualism of this picture, that it looks to the salvation of the individual soul rather than to the person belonging to the community of the Church. It must not be the death of the individual soul analogous to martyrdom, but death in community pointed toward the resurrection. In this way, the older vision of the Christian death is erased. However, these authors have not replaced it with another vision of death, another narrative for understanding the deathbed scene. In a salutary way, these authors have refocused attention on the imitation of Jesus, which should be central to the Christian death as to all parts of life. Yet, this imitation does not occur through an imitation like martyrdom, nor necessarily through a reenactment of the Cross. Instead, this imitation is understood as the enactment of certain virtues. This interpretation has also led to an engagement with the communal practices necessary to form and shape these virtues.64 These virtues are traced to the death of Christ, but not in such a way as to show exactly how the ordinary Christian’s death looks like Jesus’s, other than the practice of virtue.65 This understanding of death leads to three problems. First, because the older Christian vision of the deathbed is rejected but not replaced with a new concrete articulation, the contemporary Christian understanding of death becomes infiltrated by aspects of the vision of the peaceful death, which is predominant in our culture. The practices of the Christian art of dying are generally described against the predominant forms of medicalized dying and, to a lesser extent, assisted suicide, defining what they negatively stand against but not necessarily what shape of death they positively support. One cannot do without a paradigmatic death to which to conform oneself, though. In its absence, that place is taken by what is ready-to-hand. Though many Christian ethicists criticize the natural-death model of the “death awareness” movement inspired by KublerRoss,66 many have in subtle ways embraced the deathbed scene offered by this same movement. Most straightforwardly, almost all discussions of contemporary dying, even Christian recoveries of the art of dying, begin with Aries’s tame death as the alternative to medicalized dying to which one must return, Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 143. Lysaught, “Ritual and Practice,” 79. 65 Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 97–121; Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 216–54. 66 E.g., Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 49–59. 63 64 628 Paul Scherz or at least find a contemporary analogue.67 Further, others have accepted Callahan’s peaceful death, perhaps not as an ideal, but at least as a minimal understanding of a good death.68 Even when struggle is brought into the understanding of death in opposition to the peaceful death, it is understood as “a much more inward, personal struggle to come to terms with their own finitude and helplessness,” which becomes the task of death.69 It is important to note that Callahan also points to this need to come to terms with finitude and dependency, a point that even Kubler-Ross could affirm.70 There are other ways that the peaceful death invades the work of astute scholars, so one could imagine that it would be even more prominent in the minds of the broader public. Second, the loss of a clear vision of death means that death itself loses something of its specific meaning and importance. The art of dying loses its specificity if it is merely an encouragement to imitate Jesus, as one should do in all of one’s life. One sees the effacement of the specific importance of death in the repeated emphasis in these authors to prepare for death over one’s entire life, that “the best ars moriendi is an ars vivendi.” 71 The texts of the older tradition generally did have sections devoted to shaping oneself throughout one’s entire life, but they also had large sections devoted specifically to the deathbed itself. Virtue and Dying Well The third danger is that once one loses this older understanding of death, one begins to misunderstand what the role of virtue was in these older texts. One must have a fairly clear sense of what one means by dying well. If it is a peaceful death one seeks, a death marked by the achievement of immanent goods at the moment of death, then virtue does not assure it. Even the good may die in pain and existential distress. Older texts repeatedly assert that one cannot judge whether a death was good or not based merely on the manner in which a person dies.72 Lacking our palliative medicine, they frequently used the example of painful deaths. Taylor says one should not judge a person’s death just because they are overcome Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 11–13; Lysaught, “Ritual and Practice,” 69–70. Lysaught, “Ritual and Practice,” 81. 69 Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 119. See also Jeffrey Bishop, “Finitude,” in Dugdale, Dying in the Twenty-First Century, 19–32, as well as the argument against painting death as good or indifferent in Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 93–109. 70 Callahan, Troubled Dream, 91–119. 71 Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 9. 72 Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” 420. 67 68 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 629 and cannot control their outward signs of pain.73 Spanish authors used the death of Philip II as an exemplum even though it was extraordinarily painful and physically degrading.74 Many of these authors see an important part of imitating Christ’s agony in one’s own is accepting the will of God in the manner of one’s death. Thus, the struggle of a seemingly bad death may serve a purpose unknown to us. Even spiritual distress is no sign of bad character or a bad death.75 In those with faith, Erasmus says, fear “arises from the awareness of our own fallenness,” more so than in those who do not believe in the afterlife.76 The good will have difficulty and be sorely tempted. According to Bellarmine, “even very good men are tempted by the devil to the sin of despair as they leave this life.” 77 Saint Alphonsus admits that “hell does not cease to tempt and attack even the saints at the hour of death,” and that “many saints have died with great fear of being lost.” 78 It is true that Saint Alphonsus responds by saying that the virtuous will have peace of a sort, in the form of aid and consolation from God.79 Even this is not assured though, since “the more a soul gives itself to God, the more strenuously hell labors to destroy it.”80 These works contain many stories of holy men and women assailed by doubts and trials as they approach death.81 Only a few very holy people are granted what our contemporaries would call a peaceful death. Indeed, one is almost more likely to die peacefully if one is wicked. Bellarmine describes how those who have lived lives devoted to greed, preying on the week, die completely satisfied with themselves, unworried by their end or future.82 Taylor argues that presumption is a more common and greater danger than despair.83 Recent writings have similarly emphasized the dangers of presumption in a world denuded of a sense of sin and the need to cultivate a sense of penitence.84 Thus, Taylor, Holy Living and Dying, 353. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, 300–21. 75 Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” 430; Liguori, Preparation for Death, 99. 76 Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” 426. 77 Bellarmine, “Art of Dying Well,” 356. 78 Liguori, Preparation for Death, 98–99. 79 Liguori, Preparation for Death, 98–99, 102. 80 Liguori, Preparation for Death, 313. 81 See a more recent example of the temptation to despair in Simone Troisi and Cristiana Paccini, Chiara Corbella Petrillo: A Witness to Joy (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute, 2015), 80. 82 Bellarmine, “Art of Dying Well,” 358. 83 Taylor, Holy Living and Dying, 500. 84 David Elliot, Hope and Christian Ethics, New Studies in Christian Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 110–38; Levering, Dying and the Virtues, 64–79. 73 74 630 Paul Scherz virtue is far from an assurance of a peaceful death, nor is vice necessarily a hindrance. One might respond that, surely, virtue is more helpful when one places one’s ideal of dying well in maintaining one’s relationship with God, since virtue must be an aid in achieving eternal beatitude. Even then, though, virtue is not as much a help as it is frequently portrayed in the contemporary literature, especially since virtue in regard to death is frequently framed in terms of habitual virtue. As Vogt described the importance of virtue ethics for dying well, “the key to preparing for a good death is the development of virtues throughout one’s entire lifetime.”85 Similarly, Therese Lysaught and Verhey describe the preparation for death as a lifelong process of communal practices that serve to shape us in virtue. Yet, from the discussions in these texts and in Aquinas, it is not clear that such habitual dispositions are adequate. As Patrick Clark and John Bowlin have shown in great detail, since the act of courage, which includes patience in the face of death, is in some sense contrary to our desires, there is always a gap, a space of choice, between habitual virtue and courageous action.86 In this, it is unlike other virtues in which desire and right action generally align. Because of this gap, Aquinas argues that in order to persevere to the end, Christians need not just habitual virtue but auxilium, the help of grace to persevere in the face of “the attacks of the passions” in individual instances.87 The dying process is when these attacks of the passions are at their most intense. Saint Alphonsus makes this same point in regard to the need for the gift of perseverance at death: “Paradise is promised to those who begin a good life, but is only given to those who persevere.”88 The whole Western Augustinian tradition focused on this need for perseverance rather than merely virtue. These problems do not mean that a virtue approach is useless; they just indicate that these discussions of the virtues of the dying might need to take a slightly different form. While the authors in the older art of dying tradition all encourage forming virtues early in life, their main focus as Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 2. John Bowlin, Contingency and Fortune in Aquinas’s Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Patrick Clark, Perfection in Death: The Christological Dimension of Courage in Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015). 87 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, q. 109, a. 10, II–II q. 137, a. 4 (trans. Dominican Fathers of the English Province). For auxilium, see Joseph P. Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human Action: “Merit” in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2016). 88 Liguori, Preparation for Death, 24. 85 86 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 631 death approaches is to ensure that one holds onto one’s faith against the temptations of the moment. All is not lost if one has failed to attain full virtue, nor is one safe if one is virtuous. Instead one must use therapies to fight against the continuing danger to the soul. In taking this approach, they engage in a Stoic rather than Aristotelian model of virtue.89 There are two distinctions that help to illustrate the importance of these differences. First, for the Stoics, virtue is knowledge, since, unlike in Aristotelianism, in Stoic psychology there are no prerational affective faculties.90 Thus, living virtuously just means adhering to and acting in line with a true understanding of reality. This distinction plays out in a second difference in how each system understands practical reason, best illustrated by the Aristotelian and Stoic uses of the metaphor of craft in relation to prudence. While Aristotle strongly distinguishes technē from phronēsis, he still uses craft metaphors to illustrate how prudence and virtue in general operate. The crafts he discusses tend to be productive crafts like building or medicine in which one seeks to attain a certain good, such as a house or health. In contrast, Stoics clearly assimilated craft and prudence, which was the art of living.91 However, they tended to use very different craft metaphors, frequently from sports such as dancing or boxing in which the end is contained in the activity itself in the immediate moment.92 The end is beautiful performance in fidelity to the knowledge of the craft or to wisdom in the case of prudence. The craft of dying as outlined by these authors is not so much concerned It is of course a mistake to envision these as mutually exclusive alternatives. Christian authors have frequently used elements of both, or elements of Aristotle and Plato, or Stoicism and Plato, in ethical thought. See: Sarah Catherine Byers, Perception, Sensibility, and Moral Motivation in Augustine : A Stoic-Platonic Synthesis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Matthew Kruger, “Aquinas, Hadot, and Spiritual Exercises,” New Blackfriars 98, no. 1076 ( July 1, 2017): 414–26. They remain helpful ideal types to use to explicate particular frameworks, though. 90 For overviews of Stoic ethics, see: A. A Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics (New York: Scribner, 1974); Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (New York: Clarendon Press, 1985); Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life; Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire; Foucault, Hermeneutics of the Subject; Gretchen Reydams-Schils, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 91 John Sellars, The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003). 92 Victor Goldschmidt, Le système stoïcien et l’idée de temps, 2nd ed., Bibliotheque D’histoire de La Philosophie (Paris: Vrin, 1969), 148–50. 89 632 Paul Scherz with making, nor achieving a certain immanent good. Instead, it is an art that allows one to respond to the vicissitudes of the moment of death. While Christian appropriations of Stoicism seek an end beyond this life, one attains that end by remaining faithful to the truth in the moment despite the trials one faces. Thus, the appropriate metaphor for practical reason in the face of death might be boxing: attaining prudence is like learning to take a punch. The art of dying allows one to face the struggle of dying without losing faith or hope. It is not enough to have general virtuous habits, therefore. These texts seek to teach the person how to respond to specific attacks or temptations that will throw the person off balance and into confusion. Similarly, these texts are seeking techniques that one can use that allow one to respond to these attacks.93 Thomas More says that what Christ gives is “a fighting technique and a battle code for the faint-hearted soldier.”94 That More is talking about technique rather than general virtue is shown by the fact that he spends much of the next eighteen of the precious few pages that he was allowed in prison in what he knows would probably be his last work castigating his reader for poor posture and distraction while praying. Other techniques in this literature are vivid pictures that grasp people, diverting their attention from other thoughts, tricks of mind that allow one to put aside doubts, or striking phrases that stay in one’s memory.95 The goal of these texts is to teach these techniques so that the dying person will have them ready-to-hand to respond in the moment. This strategy accounts for some of the oddness of these texts, such as in the discussions of resistance to doubt in order to maintain the virtue of faith. Some authors have been disappointed by their focus on the articles of faith and other formulas rather than the deeper meaning of faith as trust in God. Verhey regrets that “faith is defined in ways that seem to privilege intellectual assent and obedience to the church’s laws.”96 It is all much stranger than Verhey discusses though. To respond to temptations against faith, Erasmus provides a little set response that one can use against the devil, a dialogue repeated by Bellarmine.97 The story goes like this: A For discussions of the way these techniques were used in the philosophical life and spiritual direction, see: Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life; Ilsetraut Hadot, Sénèque: direction spirituelle et pratique de la philosophie (Paris: Vrin, 2014). 94 More, De Tristitia Christi, 109. 95 For a similar technique, see the focus on the necessity of an imaginative grasp of the afterlife and the use of examples in Levering, Dying and the Virtues, 37. 96 Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 147. 97 Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” 441–42; Bellarmine, “Art of Dying Well,” 353–54. 93 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 633 learned scholar on his death bed is approached by the devil who asks him questions about abstruse doctrines like the mystery of the Trinity. Satan outwits the confused scholar through his devious argumentation, thus step by step causing him to doubt all the truths of faith. After death, the damned scholar appears to a friend to relate how his soul was lost. This friend, also a scholar, did not trust in his learning on his deathbed. When questioned by the devil as to his doctrinal belief, he responds, “I believe what the Church believes.” When asked what the Church believes, he responds, “What I believe.” Thus he goes back and forth with Satan like this, firm in his faith until he dies. What is one to make of this? The underlying conviction is that our existential trust in God is dependent upon our beliefs in what reality truly is. Faced with the struggle and hardships of dying, a person is apt to doubt her core beliefs: the providential guidance of God, an afterlife, whether reality is absurd. These doubts may hit one wholesale or may be introduced step by step by doubts as to smaller issues. As Vogt correctly emphasizes, such doctrinal understandings of reality are central to one’s hope.98 The wisdom of these strategies is that one is not able to reason or argue to proper conclusions while stricken by the confusion attendant upon death, so one should not try. One knows they are just temptations brought on in the tempest. Instead, one should rest confident in the Church despite any doubts. Taylor makes a similar point when he directs the dying to concentrate on articles of the faith, not the arguments surrounding them. “Let him lay fast hold upon the conclusion, upon the article itself. . . . He can receive no good at all if Christ did not die, if there be no resurrection, if his Creed hath deceived him.”99 Erasmus provides a similar, even longer dialogue between the devil and a dying person in regard to hope and despair.100 In contrast to some who would try to see the deeper lesson in these dialogues, we must understand them as techniques. The lesson is to hold tightly to the simplest lessons and tactics. In regard to despair due to one’s sins, these texts make use of another Stoic tactic, exemplars and vivid images. They tell stories of repentant sinners, whose sins were far worse than the dying person’s, whom God forgave. These are not attempts to shape a narrative imagination, but ruses to grab the mind, diverting attention from one’s worries so that one maintains hope. Again, the pictures of martyrs in the woodblock Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 21. Taylor, Holy Living and Dying, 420. 100 Erasmus, “Preparing for Death,” 442–44; Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, 21–22. 98 99 634 Paul Scherz prints vividly bring to mind their heroic patience. A final tactic draws on proverbs, striking phrases, especially in regard to the worthlessness of the things of this world. Commentators worry that such texts seem to make worldly goods seem worthless, even bad, thus encouraging Platonism or Manicheanism. Yet, these proverbial saying are the tools the texts use to fight the temptation to mourn worldly goods rather than focus attention on readying oneself for the next life. At this point, the spiritual guide must point out the superiority of that for which one hopes. It would be pastorally useless to give detailed, accurate discussions of how Christians also believe creation to be good and so on. As noted above, critics say this whole program is too individualistic, focused on the individual’s salvation achieved through techniques used by the individual himself. To many, it sounds too much like the autonomous individual asserting technological control over the spiritual process of death, an alternative realization of the peaceful death’s demands for control and self-possession. This interpretation would misunderstand what the ars moriendi texts seek though. First, these techniques assume as a starting point that the individual is not in control. The individual is assailed by more powerful forces, confused, in pain, and storm-tossed. They assume this vulnerability and help the dying to deal with it by accepting their dispossession. The goal of these techniques is to aid the Christian to hold firm in his total trust in God, to trust even in the loss of control and possibility of annihilation, to hope despite one’s manifest failings, and to give over all to accepting the will of God.101 In this framework, one is far from the autonomous choreographer of one’s own death, but is dependent upon the power of God. One resorts to the most desperate of stratagems to hold fast to one’s faith. Second, this art of dying is a communal art. The dying person relies on those around her to bolster her faith and remind her of the proper techniques, guiding her through the dying process. This model relies just as much on the curation of visitors to the deathbed as does the peaceful death but uses radically different criteria for the choice. The deathbed accompagnateurs are not chosen because they will be pleasant or lead to an appropriate deathbed scene. Indeed, these texts are disturbingly skeptical of the family’s presence. It is not because this literature hates the family, but because they may not serve the end at which dying aims. The family threatens to distract the dying person and cause regret, nor will they be the most efficacious in their prayers. Bellarmine says: “Nor should one admit just any sort of person to visit the sick person in his last moments, but only Liguori, Preparation for Death, 372–82. 101 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 635 pious and good men.”102 These pious people will serve a purpose in aiding the dying person to hold fast to faith. The most important assistance these attendants provide is prayer. Most recent writing on the art of dying discusses the importance of prayer, but largely as a practice that shapes the dispositions and character of the dying person.103 In contrast, these older texts were concerned with its effectiveness, not in terms of whether it helps one to get better, as so much research in medicine and spirituality now tries to prove, but in the struggle with temptation. The prayers of those surrounding the dying person beat back the temptations of the devil. “The devil can do only what God permits; therefore we have no doubt that fervent prayer to God whether by the sick person or by those present is very effective.”104 The bedside companions are not there for pleasant conversation or even exhortation. They “should learn not so much to speak with the sick person as to pray ardently for him.”105 Through these means they also call in the broader community of the communion of saints to lend its aid. Finally, through prayer, the community implores God to grant perseverance to the dying, since it can only be obtained through God’s gift. “This gift of perseverance is . . . given only to those who ask it. Hence St. Thomas asserts that to enter heaven continual prayer is necessary.”106 Here one sees the dying Christian dependent on the community of the Church at the broadest scale. These texts all recognize dependence on God’s will. Conclusion Bregman notes: “When we turn to earlier voices, we can hear something very disturbing, very unlike what we hope from them.”107 She takes this as a sign of their lack of usefulness for addressing current problems, but one can also find their strangeness helpful. It is exactly in their radical unfamiliarity that they help us to think otherwise about our current situation. First, focusing on their unfamiliar aspects helps us better understand what the art of dying texts were trying to achieve. They sought a specific end, eternal life, by seeking to aid the dying to either attain or hold fast to repentance and faith in God, which is the perfect end to life. The goods to be attained were not immanent, with death itself understood to be a Bellarmine, “The Art of Dying Well,” 366. Verhey, Christian Art of Dying, 303–25. 104 Bellarmine, “Art of Dying Well,” 365. 105 Bellarmine, “Art of Dying Well,” 366. 106 Liguori, Preparation for Death, 24. 107 Bregman, Preaching Death, 15. 102 103 636 Paul Scherz difficult struggle for almost everyone. Thus, virtue is not only something to be formed earlier in life and relied upon, since even the virtuous are challenged and may not persevere. Instead, the focus at death became the Stoic end of holding fast to one’s understanding of the world through a set of techniques that sought to overcome specific challenges. These texts should direct us toward seeking a better theological understanding of what a good death as a perfect end is. Second, this understanding of the end to be attained is tradition-specific, creating difficulties for finding a neutral art of dying for pluralist hospitals and hospice programs. These texts suggest that Catholics should not try to frame the good death in terms of the peaceful death. Expanding HPM, while a worthy goal for itself, will not counteract this new embodiment of the culture of death alone, especially if it subtly underwrites a problematic understanding of dying. Many HPM practitioners do provide something like this richer understanding of death to their patients, but they are facing a difficult struggle if even Christians come to them expecting a peaceful death. For most people, death will not be peaceful, but a struggle with distress of various sorts, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual. Providing such realistic guidance may help assuage the guilt of individuals and their families when death does not conform to an unrealistic ideal. Many have noted the disciplinary nature of the stages of grief,108 but the peaceful death can be just as constraining. The dying need not feel guilty about existential distress, because they expect it. The family need not feel that they could have done more to make the dying process optimal but can be assured that their prayers provided more help than they can imagine. Most importantly, it may also provide an alternative script so that people do not merely attempt a peaceful death through suicide. It allows people to positively appropriate a difficult struggle. These possibilities should drive us to help people regain a better imaginary surrounding death, perhaps through better liturgical translations. Finally, these texts suggest that theological discussions need a slight change of focus. Instead of the broader frameworks of death and eternal life or communal practices, perhaps more focus needs to be placed on developing specific, simple techniques or tricks for confronting individual temptations at the end of life. Theologians cannot expect those facing death to shift or deepen their understanding of the Christian message. Instead, pastors may need to find ways to help them stand fast in what faith they have against specific assaults. While this vision of death is not Jeffrey Bishop, The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011), 253–78. 108 A Peaceful Death or a Perfect End 637 comforting, it has the benefit of corresponding in many cases more closely to the actual experience of death, preventing the forestalling of death or despair at the lack of peace. Such a vision allows Christians to testify to the reality of the situation and to offer accompaniment and support to the person in her struggle. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 639–652 639 An Inconsistency in Aquinas’s De veritate Account of Divine Ideas Carl A. Vater St. John Vianney Theological Seminary Denver, CO St. Thomas Aquinas offers his most extended treatment of divine ideas in De veritate (1256–1259). 1 A close reading of this account of ideas reveals a serious inconsistency that renders the account incomprehensible as written. The inconsistency in Aquinas’s theory can be found between his definition of divine ideas and his account of divine ideas as principles of speculative or practical cognition. In short, Thomas’s definition of an idea includes the agent’s intention to produce the artifact, but he claims that such an intention is irrelevant when he discusses ideas as principles of speculative and practical cognition. In the latter discussion, all that matters for an exemplar idea is that the agent knows he could produce an artifact like the idea. There is a tension here. Do divine ideas in the strict sense of exemplars require an intention to produce or not? I will argue that this tension is ultimately irreconcilable and that we can attribute Thomas’s later emphasis on the role of divine exemplars in what is actually produced in part to an attempt to resolve this tension. This paper will have five parts. First, I will discuss Aquinas’s De veritate account of ideas as exemplar forms that necessarily include intention. Second, I will treat his De veritate account of ideas as principles of speculative and practical knowledge, which declares the intention to produce irrelevant. Third, noting the inconsistency of the conclusions of the first and second parts, I will examine the ways in which Aquinas uses I follow the chronology of Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, vol. 1, Sa personne et son oeuvre, Nouvelle édition profondément remaniée (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2015). 1 640 Carl Vater the term “intention” as a possible way to resolve the tension. This section will conclude that Aquinas uses the term “intention” to refer to an act of the agent’s will, which confirms that the inconsistency of De veritate’s account of divine ideas unresolvable as written. Fourth, I will briefly look at Aquinas’s later accounts of divine ideas, which I suggest are changed from the De veritate account in a way that resolves the inconsistency. I will also suggest that Aquinas makes these changes in later works precisely so that he could resolve the inconsistency. Finally, I will summarize all these points in a conclusion. Divine Ideas as Exemplar Forms In De veritate, Aquinas begins his account of divine ideas by discussing how the Greek term “idea” should be translated into Latin. Following Augustine, he concludes that it should be translated as “form.” The form of some thing can be said in three different ways. In one way, the form of something can be understood as the form from which (a qua) a thing is formed, as the formation of an effect proceeds from the form of the agent. But such a form is not what is meant by the term “idea.” In another way, the form of something can be understood as the form according to which (secundum quam) something is formed, as the soul is man’s form and a statue’s shape is the bronze’s form. This sort of form, which is part of the composite being, is not what is meant by “idea” because an idea signifies a form that is separated from that of which it is a form. Thus, in a third way, some thing’s form is said to be the form of something to which (ad quam) something is formed, and this is an exemplar form to the imitation of which something is constituted. This third sense of the term “idea” agrees with the common use of the term, namely, that an idea is that form which something imitates.2 It follows that imitation is essential to the character of an idea. But, Thomas continues, something can imitate another in two ways. In one way, it imitates from the intention of an agent, as when the painter paints a picture that imitates someone whose figure it depicts. In another way, it imitates by accident, outside of any intention and comes to be by chance. Accidental imitation occurs when a painter makes an image that just happens to resemble something or something. The resemblance happens by chance. But when something imitates some form by chance it is not said to be formed “to” (ad) that form because the term “to” (ad) seems to imply an St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 3, a. 1. All citations of De veritate are from volume 22/1 of the Leonine edition, and all translations are my own from the Latin therein. 2 An Inconsistency in Aquinas’s De veritate Account of Divine Ideas 641 order to an end. Since an exemplar form or idea is that to which (ad quem) something is formed, it is necessary that something imitate an exemplar form or idea essentially (per se) and not accidentally.3 The likeness between the exemplar form and the imitation must be intentional. There is a certain ambiguity in Aquinas’s use of “intention” here. Aquinas could mean that it is intention in the sense that it is foreknown, or he could mean it is intentional in the sense that it is willed. The second sense entails the first, but the first sense could occur without the second. So, it is obvious that the likeness between the imitation and the exemplar form must be foreknown. The likeness between the two cannot be identified after the imitation comes to be. It cannot be an afterthought. The artist must have in mind that what he is making imitates the idea. Moreover, if he actually produces the artifact, he has to want the artifact to imitate his idea. The ambiguity is how much weight we should put on the likeness being foreknown versus the likeness’s being willed. The former is accomplished by an act of the intellect. The latter is accomplished by an act of the will. This ambiguity will be settled in the third section. Aquinas continues his account of exemplar forms saying it is not enough to say that an exemplar form is an intentional imitation because something acts because of an end in two ways. In one way, the agent acts such that the agent himself determines the end for himself, as happens in all agents that act through intellect. In another way, the end of the agent is determined by another principal agent. Aquinas uses the example of an arrow moving toward the end determined by the archer. If something is made to the imitation of another by an agent that does not determine the end for itself, then the imitated form will not have the character of an exemplar or idea. Even though the son imitates the form of the father, we should not call the father’s form the idea of the son because the father determines neither the end of his own humanity nor the end of his son’s humanity. It is only when the agent acts because of an end that he determines for himself that a form is the exemplar of another. Thus, we call the form of art in the artist the exemplar or idea of his artwork. Thomas adds that when an artist produces a work of art in imitation of an external form, that external form is the exemplar form of the artifact.4 Thomas concludes the foregoing analysis with a definition (ratio) of an idea. “An idea,” he says, “is the form which something imitates from the intention of agent who predetermines the end for himself.”5 This analy Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 1. Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 1. 5 Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 1. 3 4 642 Carl Vater sis of the term “idea” makes it clear that an idea is first and foremost an exemplar form. It is a form that is separated from that which imitates it. And the imitation must be intentional. No accidental intention meets the standard of an idea. Yet, as I noted, there is a certain ambiguity in Thomas’s use of “intention.” This ambiguity is exacerbated by what Aquinas says about divine ideas as principles of speculative and practical cognition, so before resolving the ambiguity, it will be helpful to see what he says about speculative and practical cognition. Divine Ideas as Principles of Speculative and Practical Cognition In De veritate, q. 3, a. 3, Aquinas asks whether ideas pertain to practical cognition only or also to speculative cognition. He begins his response by drawing a fourfold distinction in speculative and practical cognition. In the first place, speculative and practical cognition are distinguished by their ends. The end of speculative cognition is truth absolutely, and the end of practical cognition is operation. Upon close examination, however, both speculative and practical cognition can be distinguished into two. Considering practical cognition, Thomas notes that something can be ordered to operation in two ways. Sometimes it is actually ordered toward operation, as when the artist proposes to induce a preconceived form into matter. This sort of cognition is actually practical (actu practica) cognition. Other times, the cognition can be ordered to operation, but is not actually being so ordered, as when the artist thinks out the form of an artifact and knows the way to make it yet does not intend to make it. This sort of cognition is habitually or virtually practical (practica habitu vel virtute) cognition, not actually practical cognition.6 Speculative cognition, Thomas says, occurs when what is known can in no way be ordered to act, and this occurs in two ways. In one way, when the cognition is of things that are not naturally suited to being produced through the knower’s knowledge, as when we cognize natural things. In another way, when the thing cognized is indeed operable through the knower’s knowledge, yet it is not being considered as operable. Things are produced in being (esse) through operation, but certain aspects of things can be separated according to intellect that are not separable according to being. So, when things that are operable through intellect are considered by distinguishing from each other those things that cannot be distinguished according to being, it is not actually practical or habitually practical cognition, but only speculative cognition. Thomas uses the example of the builder who considers a house by investigating its properties Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 3. 6 An Inconsistency in Aquinas’s De veritate Account of Divine Ideas 643 (passiones), genus, differences, and so on. The house’s genus and differences are found indistinctly in the house itself. So, if they were being considered indistinctly, the house would be considered as operable, but when they are considered separately, the house is not being considered insofar as it is operable.7 Thomas then specifies that God has all four of these kinds of knowledge and investigates where divine ideas fall in this fourfold division. In doing so, he makes a distinction between the proper meaning of the term “idea” and what an idea itself is. The proper of the meaning of the term “idea,” as Augustine says, is “form.” As a form, the term “idea” extends to knowledge of that which can be formed. Such knowledge is either actually practical cognition or virtually practical cognition, the latter of which is also speculative in a certain way. If we consider what an idea itself is, an idea is the notion (ratio) or likeness (similitudo) of a thing. In this sense, the term idea also pertains to purely speculative cognition. More properly speaking, an idea relates to actually practical or virtually practical cognition. More broadly speaking, a likeness and notion relates to speculative knowledge as much as to practical knowledge.8 Aquinas applies this reasoning to exemplars in response to the third objection. The objector argues as we would expect given the definition of an idea. An idea, he says, is nothing other than an exemplar form. But an exemplar form can only be said of practical cognition because an exemplar is that in imitation of which another is made. Therefore, ideas relate to practical cognition only.9 Since the character of an idea includes the intention of the agent, we might assume that the objector has actually practical cognition in mind. There are only exemplars of that which the agent intends to make. Thomas’s reply, however, is not what we might expect. An exemplar, he says, does not imply just any respect to something outside. An exemplar implies the relation of a cause. Therefore, properly speaking, an exemplar pertains to cognition that is habitually or virtually practical, and not only to cognition that is actually practical. Something can be called an exemplar from the fact that something can be made in imitation of it, even if it is never made. An idea, strictly speaking, is the same.10 Thomas’s reply is especially frustrating because it directly contradicts what he had said earlier in De veritate, q. 2, a. 8. Considering whether God Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 3. Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 3. 9 Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 3, obj. 3. 10 Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 3, ad 3. 7 8 644 Carl Vater knows beings that neither are, were, nor will be—pure possibles—Aquinas makes a binary distinction between speculative cognition and practical cognition. The artist has speculative cognition when he knows the notions of the work without applying them to actual production through an intention. He properly has practical cognition when, by an intention, he extends the notion of the work to the end of operation. So described, practical cognition follows upon speculative cognition, the latter of which can exist without the former. Applying this distinction to God, Aquinas says that God has a quasi-practical cognition of those things that were, are, or will be, and he has a quasi-speculative cognition of those things that will never exist.11 In his reply to the third objection Aquinas further specifies the consequences of this teaching to divine ideas. If idea is taken in the common usage for a form of practical cognition, he says, then there are ideas only of things that exist at some time. But if an idea is a form of speculative cognition, then nothing prohibits there being ideas of pure possibles.12 This analysis of De veritate, q. 2, a. 8, is fully compatible with the definition of an idea in De veritate, q. 3, a. 1, but Aquinas seems to have abandoned the position by the time he wrote q. 3, a. 3. According to Aquinas’s account of ideas as speculative and practical, then, an idea is an exemplar form that can serve as a principle of actually practical knowledge, but the agent need not intend to produce according to the idea. The character of an idea is entirely defined by its being a form that something can imitate. The agent’s actual intention is irrelevant to the character of an idea at all. At this point, the inconsistency in Aquinas’s theory is obvious. Either the agent’s intention matters or it does not. In De veritate, q. 3, a. 1, Aquinas says that it matters. In De veritate, q. 3, a. 3, Aquinas says that it does not matter. The only way that these two positions would not be in conflict is if Aquinas is not using the term “intention” in a way we expect. Thus, the next step is to ask how Aquinas uses the term “intention” in the De veritate. This is the subject of the third section. Aquinas, De ver., q. 2, a. 8. Aquinas, De ver., q. 2, a. 8, ad 3. This tension is noted in a footnote by both Lawrence Dewan, O.P., and Vivian Boland, O.P., but neither author offers a compelling account for reconciling the two. Dewan even seems to throw up his hands at the problem, merely noting that “3, 3 is the ex professo treatment of the divine ideas.” I believe that my interpretation of the De veritate shows that the teaching of q. 3, a. 3, is simply mistaken, which is why Aquinas never returns to it in later writings. See: Dewan, “St. Thomas, James Ross, and Exemplarism: A Reply,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 65 (1991): 228n14; Boland, Ideas in God According to St. Thomas Aquinas: Sources and Synthesis (New York: Brill, 1996), 253n98. 11 12 An Inconsistency in Aquinas’s De veritate Account of Divine Ideas 645 Intention In his definition of an idea and the reasoning leading up to that definition, Aquinas very clearly states that the likeness between an exemplar form and an imitation must be intentional.13 Yet, this statement could, perhaps, be read in two ways because Thomas uses the word “intention” in more than one way. A review of the 190 occurrences of intentio in the De veritate reveals that the word is used in three distinct senses.14 In one sense, the term denotes an inclination of the will directing the means to an end toward that end.15 An intention in this sense is an act of the will and is concerned with putting certain knowledge into action to accomplish an end.16 In another sense, an intention is the content of intellectual knowledge. Thus, Aquinas says that the agent intellect takes intelligible intentions and places them in the possible intellect.17 In a third sense, the term is used to denote the true interpretation of a certain author, for instance, “according to the intention of the Commentator.”18 This third sense of the term could be considered a subset of the first sense because it refers to what the author wants to say. Regardless of whether the third sense should be grouped with the first, it is not relevant for our purposes here. These differing uses of the term “intention” yield two possible interpretations of Aquinas’s definition of an idea. In one way, the intention to which Aquinas refers could be to the artist’s will. An idea is an exemplar form to the imitation of which the artist wants to produce. The artist has to want what he produces to be like his idea. He intends the end that his artifact be like his idea of it. He cannot produce something haphazardly and then realize that what he produced bears a resemblance to some exemplar. The fact that something is produced means that the artist’s will has See De ver., q. 3, a. 1. I arrive at this number using the Index Thomisticus, available at www.corpusthomisticum.org/it/index.age. For more on Aquinas’s use of intentio, see H. D. Simonin, O.P., “La notion d’intentio dans l’oeuvre de s. Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques 19 (1930): 445–63. 15 Aquinas, De ver., q. 22, a. 14: “Intentio dicitur inclinatio voluntatis ad finem.” 16 Aquinas, De ver., q. 22, a. 13. 17 Aquinas, De ver., q. 11, a. 1, ad 11. He also refers to the particular intentions or forms preserved in memory or in the imagination; see De ver., q. 13, a. 3, ad 4. It is important to note that “intention is what is grasped in a concept; it is terminus rather than principium of intellectual knowledge” (Leen Spruit, Species Intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge, vol. 1, Classical Roots and Medieval Discussions [Leiden: Brill, 1994], 161). 18 Aquinas, De ver., q. 2, a. 15, ad 3. See also De ver., q. 2, a. 14, ad 1; De ver., q. 3, a. 1, ad 6 and ad 10; De ver., q. 11, a. 3, ad 10; De ver., q. 12, a. 5, ad 4; De ver., q. 22, a. 11, ad sc 4. 13 14 646 Carl Vater given a command, and the fact that an imitation is being produced means that the artist’s will has commanded that the exemplar form be imitated. It is not enough for the artist to foreknow that he could make something like the exemplar form in his mind. He must actually want—must actually will—to produce something to the likeness of the exemplar form. In another way, the intention to which Aquinas refers could be to the artist’s knowledge. Thus, the agent must foreknow the likeness that he is going to produce. Aquinas’s example of the artist seems to point toward this interpretation. The artist knows that a certain picture can look like something or someone. His knowledge of the imitation precedes the actual production. The intention in his intellect points toward the artifact in advance. If the imitation occurs accidentally or by chance, then the artist’s knowledge of the imitation follows the actual production; if he were to paint a certain person in a painting and then later realizes that the person he painted actually looks like someone. The issue is not any actual production, but the artist’s knowledge that such-and-such a possible painting would be made in imitation of a particular exemplar form. Intention adds that an idea is a mental form, as opposed to a natural form. This ambiguity in connection with the definition of divine ideas has been little discussed in the secondary literature. Father Louis B. Geiger, O.P., and Monseigneur John Wippel, who both focus on the way Aquinas accounts for the multiplicity of divine ideas, merely note that Thomas includes the agent’s intention.19 John F. Farthing, who focuses on how divine ideas do not introduce composition or passivity in God, is content to mention that there are clearly exemplars because things happen intentionally.20 James Ross, Father Armand Maurer, and Father Lawrence Dewan, O.P., who focus on the existence of possibles, make little mention of the agent’s intention.21 The closest the trio comes is when Maurer and Dewan state that Aquinas restricts the notion of an exemplar to what God L. B. Geiger, “Les idées divines dans l’œuvres de s. Thomas,” in St. Thomas Aquinas 1274–1974: Commemorative Studies, ed. Étienne Gilson, vol. 1 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1974), 191; John F. Wippel, Thomas Aquinas on the Divine Ideas (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1993), 16. 20 John F. Farthing, “The Problem of Divine Exemplarity in St. Thomas,” The Thomist 49 (1985): 183–222, at 199. 21 James Ross, “Aquinas’s Exemplarism; Aquinas’s Voluntarism,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 64 (1990): 171–98; Armand Maurer, “James Ross on the Divine Ideas: A Reply,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 65 (1991): 213–20; Dewan, “St. Thomas, James Ross, and Exemplarism,” 221–34; James Ross, “Response to Maurer and Dewan,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 65 (1991): 235–43. 19 An Inconsistency in Aquinas’s De veritate Account of Divine Ideas 647 actually creates or intends to create in the Summa theologiae, but in the De veritate he had extended the notion of an exemplar to whatever could be created, regardless of whether it ever was, is, or will be created.22 Father Vivan Boland, O.P., makes a few comments in the footnotes about speculative and practical knowledge that will be important to consider below, but he does not specifically relate these comments to Aquinas’s definition of an idea.23 Gregory Doolan seems to be the only scholar who even discusses the significance of intention in Aquinas’s definition of an idea. He offers some arguments that the intention of an idea is from the agent’s will, but in the context of the discussion of the De veritate, he takes for granted that Aquinas means intention in the sense of will and declares: “The agent’s will and intention are clearly made part of the very definition of exemplar ideas.”24 I agree with Doolan that the agent’s will becomes part of the very definition of exemplar ideas, but given what Aquinas says about ideas as principles of practical and speculative knowledge, I am less sure that the agent’s will does so clearly. It seems to me that Aquinas’s position only becomes clear after two considerations. First, a consideration of what Aquinas says in response to the question whether intention is an act of the will. Second, an application of his response to this question to Aquinas’s definition of ideas. In De veritate, q. 22, a. 13, Thomas takes up the question whether intention is an act of the will. In his response, he first argues that intention has to be an act of the will, and then he shows the way in which it is an act of the will. Intention has to be an act of the will because of its object. The object of an act of intention is the good that is an end. Since the good that is an end is the object of the will, intention must be an act of the will.25 Having determined that intention is an act of the will, he distinguishes Maurer, “James Ross on the Divine Ideas,” 215–16; Dewan, “St. Thomas, James Ross, and Exemplarism,” 228, 233. 23 Boland, Ideas in God, 255n108. As will be seen below, Boland’s comments suggest that Thomas understands “intention” as relating to the will, but perhaps the will’s intention is that the intellect understand. 24 Gregory T. Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 8; see also 26: “If assimilation does not occur according to an agent’s intention, then it occurs merely by chance. Hence, the intentionality of an agent is an essential characteristic of exemplar causality. And what the agent intends is that the work of art be like the form that he conceives in his mind. This implies that the agent both knows and wills what he intends to produce” (emphasis original). 25 Aquinas, De ver., q. 22, a. 13. 22 648 Carl Vater two acts of the will, one which the will has absolutely and in virtue of its own power and another that it has insofar as it is relatively posterior to reason. The first act, which belongs to the will according to its nature insofar as it tends toward its proper object absolutely, is the act of willing and loving. Willing and loving presuppose the action of reason, but the act belongs to will absolutely because it concerns the good absolutely. The second act belongs to the will according as the influence of reason is left in the will. Since it is proper to reason to order and to compare, whenever a certain comparison or ordering appears in an act of the will, such an act will not be of the will absolutely but as subordinated to reason. Intention is in the will in this way because to intend seems to be nothing other than that someone wills to tend toward something as toward an end. Thus, the two acts of the will are distinguished by willing the end absolutely and willing the means as directed to the end.26 Aquinas further distinguishes intention from choice because intention is an act of the will in subordination to reason ordering those things that are for the end to the end itself, but choice is an act of the will in subordination to reason comparing those things that are for the end to each other.27 Intention, then, concerns carrying out the means to a certain end. It is not merely the knowledge of possible means to an end, nor the comparing of possible means to the same end to determine which means is best. Intention is implementing the means, drawing them toward the end.28 The intention is the end that be achieved by the means. Thus, Thomas frequently says that “every action or motion is from an intention for the good,”29 that a wicked intention results in sin,30 and that the end is prior in intention to the means but executed after the means.31 When evaluating Thomas’s use of the term “intention,” then, the proximity of a discussion of ends is key. If Thomas refers to intention and end, then he must be using the term “intention” to refer to an act of the will. Equipped with the criterion of proximity of discussion of an end, we can now look more closely at the context of Aquinas’s definition of an idea in De veritate, q. 3, a. 1. We should note that Thomas’s discussion of an agent’s intention as opposed to chance is immediately followed by a discussion of the two ways that something can act for an end. In fact, this Aquinas, De ver., q. 22, a. 13. Aquinas, De ver., q. 22, a. 13, ad 16. 28 Aquinas, De ver., q. 22, a. 14. 29 Aquinas, De ver., q. 14, a. 5, ad 5. 30 Aquinas, De ver., q. 17, a. 4, ad 8. 31 Aquinas, De ver., q. 21, a. 3, ad 5. 26 27 An Inconsistency in Aquinas’s De veritate Account of Divine Ideas 649 discussion of acting for an end completes the discussion of intention by specifying the way in which we should understand the agent’s intention; that is, it offers two ways in which we can understand an agent’s intention and determines which one is more suitable for ideas. The end that an agent intends can either be given to it by another, or it can be determined by the agent itself. Only the latter understanding is suitable for ideas. Moreover, the very discussion of intention in De veritate, q. 3, a. 1 implies the actual existence of an imitation. A painting would not imitate anything intentionally or accidentally if it were never painted. If there is no artifact, there is no imitation. Therefore, the discussion of intention with regard to imitation must be understood with reference to an act of the will, not the content of a concept. The agent’s intention is to produce an artifact. His intention is not merely the knowledge that, if he should so will, he could produce some artifact like his knowledge. Aquinas includes intention in his definition of an idea because it adds the volition to produce the artifact. According to his definition, Aquinas thinks that the character of an idea includes an act of the will because ideas are, first and foremost, causal principles according to which an agent produces.32 Before concluding this section, a certain objection must be considered. Boland claims, “virtual practical knowledge is included in the strict sense of idea since God wills his capacity to produce what remains merely possible.”33 By willing his own power, God must intend the means to his own power. Divine ideas fall under the means of divine power because they are the exemplar forms according to which he produces creatures. On this reading, the intention of the agent that Aquinas includes in his definition of an idea is the intention to be able to exercise his power. Intention still refers to the will, but it refers to the will’s willing of the means to exercise his own power rather than the will’s willing the production of an artifact. This interpretation of intention seems to be the best way to defend Aquinas against inconsistency, but I think even this interpretation fails. I do not see how it can be reconciled with the definition of an idea in De veritate, q. 3, a. 1: “An idea is a form which something imitates from the intention of an agent who predetermines the end for himself.”34 Aquinas tells us specifically what the agent intends. The agent intends that some See Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas, 27–28. Boland, Ideas in God, 255n108. This sentence is the whole of Boland’s comments on the matter. The argument that follows may not be what Boland intends. For Aquinas’s claim that the will moves other powers, see De ver., q. 22, a. 12: “Voluntas vult se velle et intellectum intelligere et vult animam esse et sic de aliis.” 34 Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 1. 32 33 650 Carl Vater thing imitate. The imitation is what is intended, not the agent’s ability to produce it. In order for Boland’s interpretation to save Aquinas from inconsistency, the phrase “from the intention of an agent” would have to modify “form,” not “which something imitates.” The idea would have to be form because of the agent’s intention, but such a reading strains the Latin. The plain sense of Aquinas’s Latin is that the agent intends the imitation. This interpretation of the definition is further confirmed by the fact that earlier in De veritate, q. 3, a. 1, Aquinas discusses intention as establishing the imitation on purpose as opposed to establishing it by chance. Thus, it is inescapable that the definition of an idea offered in De veritate q. 3, a. 1, demands that the agent actually will the production of the artifact. This analysis precludes any possibility of reconciling Aquinas’s statement about divine ideas in De veritate, q. 3, a. 1, and that in q. 3, a. 3. In the former text, Aquinas states that the character of an idea entails the intention to produce an artifact, but in the latter text, he denies that such an intention is necessary. Aquinas’s definition of an idea should result in the conclusion that, strictly speaking, an idea is a principle of actually practical cognition, but that is not what he concludes. Thus, the De veritate account of divine ideas is irreparably inconsistent as written. Later Developments in Aquinas’s Account of Divine Ideas As Thomas’s career progresses, he places greater emphasis on the causal role of divine ideas. In his commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius’s De divinis nominibus (1266–1268), written just a few years after the De veritate, Aquinas argues that by knowing himself, God knows all the ways he can produce, which are called notions (rationes).35 Not all notions deserve to be called exemplars, however. An exemplar is that in imitation of which something comes to be. But God does not actually will to produce all the things that he knows he can produce. So only those notions in imitation of which God wills to produce in existence can be called exemplars.36 This text, as Doolan notes, “marks a turning point in [Aquinas’s] treatment of exemplarism.”37 Beginning with this text, the term “exemplar” no longer refers to the knowledge of what could be produced. In the termi Although the dating of this commentary was uncertain for many years, Torrell is now confident that the work was completed after March 1266 during Aquinas’s stay in Rome (Torrell, Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, 1:460). 36 St. Thomas Aquinas, In De divinis nominibus 5, lec. 3, no. 665, in S. Thomae Aquinatis In librum Beati Dionysii De divinis nominibus exposition, ed. Ceslai Pera, O.P. (Rome: Marietti, 1950). 37 Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas, 13. 35 An Inconsistency in Aquinas’s De veritate Account of Divine Ideas 651 nology of De veritate, Aquinas ceases to refer to principles of habitually or virtually practical cognition as exemplars. Only principles of actually practical cognition are now called exemplars. Thomas is even willing to adopt Pseudo-Dionysius’s terminology and calls exemplars “willings” (voluntates) on occasion.38 The character of an idea necessarily includes the will’s intention to produce at some time. This narrower view of exemplars is found in Summa theologiae I (1266–1267) as well. There, Thomas makes only three distinctions among speculative and practical cognition. Knowledge that could never lead to production is purely speculative. Knowledge which the will intends to produce at some time is practical. Knowledge of operables but not insofar as they are operable or as not willed toward actual production is partially speculative and partially practical.39 He then specifies that an idea can be called an exemplar insofar as it is a principle of the making of things, and this pertains to practical cognition.40 Therefore, ideas in the sense of exemplars pertain only to those things that are actually produced. To use the terminology of De veritate, there are no exemplars of what God knows by virtually or habitually practical cognition. Only the principles of actually practical cognition are exemplars. Doolan claims that Thomas gets his narrowed view of exemplarism from Pseudo-Dionysius.41 I think Doolan is right in this regard, but I think this answer does not capture the whole reason for Aquinas’s change. I think that reading Pseudo-Dionysius was the proximate cause for Aquinas to look back over his theory of divine ideas from the De veritate. When he considered what he had written, he realized that his prior position was inconsistent and that taking a more Dionysian approach to exemplars resolved that inconsistency. It cannot be an accident that Aquinas resolves the inconstancy of the De veritate the very next time he writes about divine exemplars. Aquinas never offers as complete a definition of divine ideas as he does in De veritate, but he also never contradicts that definition. What he does change is his understanding of practical cognition, and he changes it precisely so that it will agree with his account of ideas. An idea takes its character from an act of the intellect and an act of the will. God has knowledge of all the things that could imitate him. The notions by which God knows these possible creatures can be called ideas in a secondary or improper sense, but the divine will plays no role in their character. It is Aquinas, In De div. nom. 5, lec. 3, no. 666. Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] I, q. 14, a. 16 (Leonine ed., vol. 4). 40 Aquinas, ST I, q. 15, a. 3; see also I, q. 44, a. 3. 41 Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas, 14. 38 39 652 Carl Vater only once the divine will acts that God has exemplars, which are ideas in the strict sense. Conclusion The account of divine ideas that Aquinas offers in De veritate contains an unresolvable inconsistency. He defines an idea as “the form which something imitates from the intention of an agent who predetermines the end for himself.”42 As we have seen, the agent’s intention entails an act of the will to produce. Yet, in Aquinas’s subsequent discussion of ideas as principles of speculative and practical cognition, he says that an idea in the strict sense of an exemplar is a principle of practical cognition. By a principle of practical cognition, he means a form in imitation of which the agent either does actually produce or knows he could produce, even if he never intends to do so. The inconsistency lies in the importance of the intention of the agent’s will. The definition of an idea includes the agent’s will in the character of an idea, but the discussion of ideas as principles of practical cognition denies that the agent’s will plays any role in the character of an idea. These competing claims render the account incomprehensible. The character of an idea must either include the agent’s intention or not, but it cannot be both. Thomas offers both. Therefore, the character of an idea cannot be determined with certainty from Thomas’s presentation in De veritate alone. This tension can only be resolved by changing the definition of an idea or by changing what it means for a form to be a principle of practical cognition. Aquinas takes the second route, and he does so the very next time he writes about ideas as principles of practical cognition. I suggest this change means that Aquinas has seen the error in his previous teaching and sought to resolve it. My argument for Aquinas’s motivation for changing must necessarily remain probable at best, but I do think it is telling that Thomas does not repeat the inconsistency of De veritate in any of his later writings. N&V Aquinas, De ver., q. 3, a. 1. 42 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 653–678 653 Globalism in Natural Law Theory: Pope Benedict XVI and Paul Francis Kōtarō Tanaka Kevin M. Doak Georgetown University Washington, DC Does Benedict’s 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate mark a shift away from an earlier interest in the natural law? Vincent Strand thinks so. In a 2017 article in the English edition of Nova et Vetera, he concludes that “because the practical conclusions reached by Benedict in Caritas in Veritate rest on an explicitly theological foundation rather than a philosophical foundation of the natural law,” Caritas in Veritate marks “a new turn in Catholic social thought” away from Benedict’s earlier interest in Thomism.1 Strand contrasts the Benedict in Caritas in Veritate who is all about “the gift” (grace) with what he calls “the neoconservative position” that draws on “a type of Thomism that separates the natural and supernatural spheres” and he concludes that Benedict’s rejection of this separation of nature and grace in favor of everything as gift explains why he prescinds from the natural law in Caritas in Veritate. I find several problems with Strand’s argument. In the first place, his characterization of a Thomism that draws a sharp line between nature and grace sounds to me like little more than a familiar stereotype in these kinds of theological debates. I think my colleague Stephen Fields has the better theological argument in the same issue of Nova et Vetera when he notes that Benedict “understands nature and grace as dialectically anal- 1 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., “On Method, Nature, and Grace in Caritas in Veritate,” Nova et Vetera (English) 15, no. 3 (2017): 835–52, at 845 (this issue of the journal was a special issue comprising a symposium in honor of Benedict’s ninetieth birthday, guest-edited by Stephen Fields). 654 Kevin M. Doak ogous” in his 2005 encyclical Deus Caritas Est.2 Did Benedict drop his analogic understanding of the relationship of nature and grace in the four years between Deus Caritas Est and Caritas in Veritate and thus prescind from an earlier commitment to the natural law? One problem with that assumption is that even Strand recognizes (albeit in a footnote) that Benedict explicitly refers to the natural law in several places in Caritas in Veritate, although Strand points out that these references to the natural law “are not significantly developed.”3 That is a fair point. In fact, Benedict never fully develops a theory of the natural law. That is not surprising, since he is a theologian, not a jurist. But that does not mean he does not rely on certain assumptions about what the natural law is when he brings up the natural law in his writings. I hope to clarify what those guiding assumptions about the natural law are. First, let us start with recognizing another problem with Strand’s argument: that European scholars, Germans in particular, who have looked carefully at Benedict’s legal philosophy have come to precisely the opposite conclusion from Strand about Benedict’s interest in the natural law. Martin Rhonheimer argues that Benedict offers a fulsome defense of the natural law in his 2011 address to the German Bundestag—two years after his supposed rejection of the natural law in Caritas in Veritate. And Manfred Spieker argues that Benedict moves away from an earlier rejection of the natural law in a 1964 article—the only one of Benedict’s publications that has the natural law in its title—to an embrace of the natural law, a move that he traced to sometime around the year 2000 in the context of the “certificate controversy” that arose over the liberalization of abortion in Germany. He reads the same encyclical as Strand, Caritas in Veritate, as part of a whole with Deus Caritas Est, the Regensburg address of 2006, and the Bundestag address. And this whole is a robust defense of basic human rights on the basis of the natural law. How shall we account for such divergent interpretations of Benedict’s texts and his view of the natural law? To be fair to Strand, the English translation of Spieker’s article did not come out until 2018, a year after Strand’s argument appeared in Nova et Vetera. And while Rhonheimer’s English article appeared in 2015, it was included in an anthology of legal scholars, making it easy for a theologian like Strand to miss. First of all, then, we must recognize a difference in the field of Benedict studies between Anglophone scholarship and Germanic scholarship. In the Stephen M. Fields, S.J., “On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est,” Nova et Vetera (English) 15, no. 3 (2017): 817–33, at 832. 3 Strand, “On Method, Nature, and Grace,” 845n24. 2 Globalism in Natural Law Theory 655 Anglophone field, there has been scant attention to the natural law in Benedict’s thought. Strand’s 2017 article is an important exception.4 But that article is really not about the natural law so much as about the broader theological problem of nature and grace in Benedict’s thought, and the natural law is only a subset of that problem. As offshoots of Strand’s theological analysis of the problem of nature and grace, his conclusions about Benedict’s understanding of the natural law are highly susceptible to error. In addition, limitations of language are always important factors in scholarship, and we should not forget this. Benedict’s one article that addresses the natural law by name remains untranslated from the German and rarely, if ever, cited in the Anglophone scholarship. It has been introduced briefly to the Anglophone public only this year in David Lutz’s translation of Spieker’s article. Also only this year, we finally have many of Benedict’s writings on political and legal themes available in a convenient English-language volume, Faith and Politics, published by Ignatius Press. In addition to language, history matters. Catholics working in traditions shaped by British, Australian, Canadian, and American experiences, among those of other Anglophone countries, share a different history in terms of the relationship of political institutions to the Church than Germans like Benedict do. As Spieker notes, “German Catholicism was distinguished by its sensibility for institutions that ensure freedom and legal systems, as well as for the separation of church and state.”5 Spieker’s point should not be restricted to theological or cultural implications, although those are also important. To understand Benedict’s view of the natural law, we need also to consider German jurisprudence, how the law has been understood by leading German jurists, particular Catholic jurists, in the years leading up to Benedict’s intellectual formation. Allow me a brief digression down the road of German jurisprudence in order to set the context for a better understanding of Benedict’s view of the natural law. But I want to note, this digression is led not by a German, but by a Japanese jurist, Paul Francis Kōtarō Tanaka, one of the twentieth century’s leading jurists and one trained in German jurispru Catholic University of America law professor Lucia Silecchia has written a fine editorial piece in the National Catholic Register that recognizes Pope Benedict’s embrace of the natural law in his 2008 address to the United Nations Assembly (“Recalling Pope Benedict XVI’s Human-Rights Appeal,” National Catholic Register, April 29–May 12, 2018, 11). But that is not a scholarly engagement with Benedict’s thought on the natural law. 5 Manfred Spieker, “The Quiet Prophet: Benedict XVI and Catholic Social Teaching,” trans. David Lutz, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 21, no. 1 (2018): 64–82, at 68. 4 656 Kevin M. Doak dence. I hope that by allowing a Japanese jurist to lead us into German jurisprudence, I have made a relevant point about the universality of law, even while recognizing the importance of the relativity of knowledge to culture and language. But this Japanese jurist in particular is important, because Tanaka and Benedict have so close an understanding of the natural law that Tanaka provides an important window through which to see more clearly the background and details of Benedict’s understanding of the natural law. In his work on the natural law, Tanaka emphasizes the importance of the German legal movement called Freirecht, which should not be understood (as the cognate would suggest) as “Free Law,” but as the sociological science of law. This early-twentieth-century legal movement sought to turn the tables on legal positivism by locating the source of law in social relationships rather than in the sovereignty of the state.6 For those drawn to the German sociological science of law like Eugen Ehrlich (1862– 1922), “the primacy of society meant that each state could be home to any number of different societies, each with its own internally binding regulations and mores.” 7 This sociological school of law was the precondition for the early-twentieth-century renaissance of natural law in Germany, and many of the leaders of this school were Catholics: Ehrlich himself, but also François Gény and Josef Kohler (1849–1919). Gény, although French, was in close contact with the German sociological school. He reinforced the connection the sociological school had to the natural law when he wrote “if natural law is called upon to circumscribe the activities of man, it must never forget that man presents himself less as an individual than as a member of society, which puts him in continuous contact and relations with his fellows.”8 Not all aspects or members of the sociological school accepted the natural law (Gustav Radbruch did not come around to accepting the natural law until late in life, after he had witnessed the horrors of the Third Reich). But this school of legal studies played an important role in the rise of interest in the natural law in the early twentieth century by freeing the concept of law from dependency on the state. And it led in Germany to an interest in the natural law that emphasized its grounding in social rela Kōtarō Tanaka, Sekai hō no riron [A Theory of World Law] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1932), 1: 113–14, 116n8. 7 Jason Morgan, “Catholic Critiques of Statism in Interwar Japan: Minoda Muneki, Suehiro Izutarō, and Tanaka Kōtarō,” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 21, no. 3 (Summer 2018): 39. 8 François Gény, 2 Science et Technique en Droit Privé Positif (1915), 18 (cited in Brendan Brown, “Natural Law and the Law-Making Function in American Jurisprudence,” Notre Dame Law Review 15, no 1 [1939]: 19–20). 6 Globalism in Natural Law Theory 657 tions in contrast to the abstract individualistic natural law of the Enlightenment period.9 To bring this back to Benedict, we can turn to Spieker who notes that “when nature is discussed in the texts of Benedict XVI, it does not mean primarily the nature than surrounds human persons. The term always has, instead, an anthropological connotation. It is about the human person. It is at the heart of the entire social order and, according to Benedict XVI, in agreement with Thomas Aquinas, ‘signifies what is most perfect in nature.’”10 Rhonheimer agrees. He points out that for Benedict, “’human nature’ . . . is not simply ‘nature,’ certainly not the nature of the environmental movement. And the natural law . . . is not simply a law that ‘nature’ reveals to us in some unambiguous way. Instead, it is always and only an ‘ordering of reason’ (rationis ordinatio), as Thomas Aquinas formulated it in agreement with canonical and early scholastic tradition.”11 Of course the human person never exists in isolation as a radically individualistic being. To be human is to exist with and for others, or to be in society. This is what Jacques Maritain meant when he called the human person “an open whole” (un tout ouvert).12 This highlighting of the social element in the natural law is worth keeping in mind when we encounter Benedict referring to “the social natural law.”13 To refer to the social element in the natural law is merely to say that the reason that lies at the heart of the individual person also has a social aspect. Beginning in the Protestant Reformation and intensifying during the Enlightenment, reason became subjectified, seen as the exclusive prop In this broader context, we must not overlook Viktor Cathrein, a Jesuit who advocated for the natural law in many works during this period. 10 Spieker, “Quiet Prophet,” 71 (quoting Benedict XVI, “Address to the Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences,” November 21, 2005). 11 Martin Rhonheimer, “The Secular State, Democracy, and Natural Law: Benedict XVI’s Address to the Bundestag from the Perspective of Legal Ethics and Democracy Theory,” in Pope Benedict XVI’s Legal Thought: A Dialogue on the Foundation of Law, ed. Marta Cartabia and Andrea Simoncini (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 88. 12 On Maritain’s concept of the person as un tout ouvert, see Kōtarō Tanaka, “Some Observations on Peace, Law, and Human Rights,” in Transnational Law in a Changing Society: Essays in Honor of Philip C. Jessup, ed. Wolfgang Friedmann, Louis Henkin, and Oliver Lissitzyn (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 242–59. For Maritain’s own discussion of the idea of man as un tout ouvert, see his The Rights of Man and Natural Law, trans. Doris Anson (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1947), 5. 13 Cf. Benedict XVI, “Affirming the Right to Combat Injustice: Speech to the Bundestag (September 22, 2011),”in Faith and Politics (Ignatius, 2018), 159–68, at 162. 9 658 Kevin M. Doak erty of an individual who was increasingly defined against the social whole. This was a radical departure from the classical understanding going back to Aristotle that “man is by nature a social animal,” an understanding that has been accepted and developed by the Catholic Church. Just as reason was seen to order the individual person’s acts in accordance with what is right, so too did it function to order the individual’s relations with others (society) and thus to order society itself. This may not be the appropriate place to fully develop this argument on the right relationship of reason, society, and the natural law. But it is important to grasp the main point: the relationship of the individual and society is not one of mutual exclusion; reason assists in ordering the individual’s moral behavior and at the same time, ordering society for the good. The natural law reflects man’s nature as a social animal, and so the natural law stems from both the individual as a moral actor and from the society in which the individual always exists. This is a complex question. But perhaps a close look at Benedict’s Caritas in Veritate will help clarify his sociological understanding of the natural law. To my knowledge, all the commentators on this encyclical, whether they see it as embracing the natural law or not, have ignored one critical phrase in the text. In §6, Benedict cites the classic legal maxim ubi societas ibi ius, which unfortunately the English translation glosses as “every society draws up its own system of justice.” The English translation makes it sound as if justice changes its meaning from one society to another. That would be to assert moral relativism, something which we know Benedict was strongly against. So, what does Benedict mean here by ubi societas ibi ius? The English translation not only makes a relativist claim (“every society does its own thing with justice”), but it removes the issue of law and replaces it with the broader philosophical question of justice. We need to interrogate this phrase more deeply because that phrase, I submit, holds the key to Benedict’s understanding of the natural law. In German, Benedict’s native language, the critical term rendered as “system of justice” in the encyclical is Rechtssystem (legal system) which is contrasted later in the paragraph with the term Gerechtigkeit (justice). In Latin, the term is iustitia, which is translated nicely as “justice”, but iustitia is not the same as ius which is better translated as “law.” I think the problem of translation here stems from the German language, where the term Recht straddles the English distinction between law and justice. And it is not just German that does this. In 1932, Tanaka highlighted this problem of terminology in his sociological study of world law that criticized the positivism of John Austin and others who had reduced law to the command of the sovereign. Of course, for a positivist, law and justice Globalism in Natural Law Theory 659 are one and the same thing and the purpose of both was social control. To Tanaka, law was about more than control of the people (although he certainly would not deny that was one aspect of the law); fundamentally, law was about justice. Any law that was not just was, in serious ways, an imperfect law, at best. Like Benedict, Tanaka defined the essence of law as an effort to achieve the common good (bonum commune) of society— which means, to achieve justice. Tanaka, who was quite a polyglot, pointed out that this link between law and justice (or “the right”) is found in the terms for law in many languages other than English (ius, Recht, droit, diritto, derecho, pravo).14 The important point is that if we understand ius (and Recht) in Benedict’s citation of the maxim ubi societas ibi ius as “law” rather than as “justice,” the moral relativism immediately disappears. To say that every society has its own justice implies a moral relativistic rejection of one universally applicable concept of justice. But it is hardly a relativistic claim simply to note that every society has its own legal system. In fact, the natural law presumes as much—not only that different societies today have different legal systems from each other, but that even a single society will establish different legal systems over time—all as efforts to more accurately codify the natural law through accrued experience and understanding. To grasp how this phrase ubi societas ibi ius reveals Benedict’s understanding of the natural law, we need to look at it more carefully. The phrase has a curious history, or I should say, no history. Often mistakenly attributed to Cicero, Ulpian, Hugo Grotius, and Baron Heinrich von Cocceji, there appears to be no classical source for the exact phrase. It may well have been derived from the following syllogism in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: ubi homo, ibi societas, ubi societas, ibi ius, ergo: ubi homo, ibi ius.15 The legal scholar Alessandro Levi (who titled an essay of his ubi societas ibi ius) wrote that “the origin and history of the phrase are as far as I know, still unknown.”16 The origin of the phrase was also unknown to Tanaka even though the maxim ubi societas ibi ius was the leitmotif of his lifelong study of the natural law. His translation of the phrase, which I think is right, is “wherever there is society, there is law.” His point, following Aristotle’s syllogism, was that wherever humans exist there is law Tanaka, Sekai hō no riron, 1:60. See Frank J. Garcia, “Between Cosmopolis and Community: the Emerging Basis for Global Justice,” International Law and Politics 46, no. 1 (2013), 1n1. 16 Cited in Renato Federici, “Ubi societas ibi ius: Ubi ius ibi societas: alla ricerca dell’origine e del significato di due formule potenti,” July 19, 2017, no. 2 (pp. 3–7), contabilita-pubblica.it/Dottrina2017/Federici.pdf (translation mine). 14 15 660 Kevin M. Doak because law does not presume a state or a king. Law is inherent to human life and in that sense its origins should be sought in society. Law is simply the mechanism by which men, all men, regulate the inevitable conflicts that arise among them. These conflicts are not always with the political state; as corporate law shows, they arise in private life too. The maxim was also a refutation of Protestant jurists like Rudolph Sohm (1841–1917) who famously argued that ecclesiastical law contradicts the very nature of the ecclesia. Sohm believed that bureaucratization of the Catholic Church, replete with something called canon law, was a later development that had betrayed the Church’s origins in “charisma.” To him, law was a matter for the state and not for the Church. Thus, it is no surprise to find that his Catholic contemporary Ehrlich embraced the maxim ubi societas ibi ius “to explain and justify his insistence on the multiplicity of legal orders under any given state framework.”17 One of those social orders, albeit not entirely “under a given state,” is the Church. Tanaka, as a specialist in corporate law, used the maxim that “wherever there is a society, there is law” to point out how every society by its nature has laws that regulate its members. Trade groups, scholarly associations, and corporations were all forms of society with their own laws; so too was the Church a society with its own laws to regulate human behavior within it. Of course, the recognition that law had its origins in society was a major contribution of the sociological school—and a direct refutation of the positivists who had rejected the natural law in favor of a theory of law as the commands of the sovereign of a state. But Tanaka went further than most members of the sociological school of law. By recognizing the Catholic Church as a society, he pointed out that if there are societies, or associations, that subsist within the state there are also societies that transcend the state. The existence of the Catholic Church as a visible global society with a canon law applicable to people across the globe pointed to the existence of law as something universal, something not restricted to the constitutions and positive laws of individual nation-states. Society in this global sense indicated something akin to the “nature” in natural law. It was found wherever human beings were found. So, following Tanaka, we can see that the “nature” in natural law does not refer chiefly to nature as the created material world, or the physical environment. Nature refers to the person and his ends, along with his inherent rational ability to identify his ends and regulate his behavior to achieve those ends. This is not well understood by the positivists who, following David Hume and neo-Kantians like Hans Kelsen, argue that Morgan, “Catholic Critiques,” 40. 17 Globalism in Natural Law Theory 661 natural law theory is based on what they call “the naturalist fallacy” or the idea that an “ought” (Sollen) can be derived from an “is” (Sein). What they do not understand is that for Benedict and Tanaka, nature refers to the person. And as a moral agent, the person is a being (Sein) who always by his very rational nature includes the question of what he “ought” (Sollen) to do. This is not to reduce the natural law to ethics but is in fact to recognize that the natural law rests on the metaphysical foundation of the person as a rational, moral agent. But here we must be careful not to interpret the metaphysical foundation of the natural law as meaning it is transcendent of human reason or is the equivalent of revealed law, the lex eterna. We should not forget that the natural law (lex naturalis) lies between positive law (lex humana) and the revealed law (lex aeterna or lex divina).18 This nuance was largely lost during the Enlightenment period in the works of jurists like Hugo Grotius. This is why in 1916 “Kohler recommended that teachers of the law of nations refer to the Spanish natural law thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries instead of Grotius.”19 Tanaka followed suit, at least in adopting a critical view of Grotius. Tanaka emphasized a radical break between Grotius and the Enlightenment tradition of natural law, on the one hand, and Aquinas’s orthodox view of the natural law on the other. And he drew from Kohler to point out that the usual criticism of the natural law as non-responsive to social particularities and historical change should be directed at Grotius and the Enlightenment understanding of natural law, not at Aquinas who recognized flexibility in applying the natural law to the concrete acts of particular men (without going as far as Rudolf Stammler did in his notion of a “natural law with a variable content”). 20 Let us now review the major sources of Benedict’s thinking on the natural law, keeping these points in mind as interpretative guides. We must start with Benedict’s 1964 article on “The Natural Law, Gospel and Ideology in Catholic Social Teaching.” It does seem as though Benedict See Anton-Hermann Chroust and Frederick A. Collins Jr., “The Basic Ideas in the Philosophy of Law of St. Thomas Aquinas as Found in the Summa Theologica,” Marquette Law Review 26, no. 1 (1941): 11–29. 19 Wilhelm G. Grewe, The Epochs of International Law, trans., Michael Byers (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000), 187. 20 Tanaka, “Shizen hō no kako oyobi sono gendai-teki igi” [“The History and Contemporary Significance of Natural Law”] (1930), repr. in Hōritsu tetsugaku ronshū [Collected Essays on Jurisprudence] vol. 2 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1944), 120. Stammler’s concept in German is Naturrecht mit wechselndem Inhalt, and is cited by Tanaka on 135. 18 662 Kevin M. Doak takes a critical stance against the natural law in this article. But on careful reading, one finds he only criticizes “rationales that only seem to be from natural law or theology, but which have actually come from a historical social structure that feels ‘natural.’”21 He even went so far as to refer to these formulas as “the pseudonym of the natural law.”22 In 2016, Benedict reflected on his “contempt for the nineteenth century” and desire to get away from “classical Thomism,” and Spieker sees this as an explanation for why Benedict was hostile to the natural law in the 1964 article. There is more than an element of truth to that interpretation, as it is supported by Benedict’s role as a co-founder of the Communio group only eight years later, and their well-known penchant for a ressourcement that was not unrelated to their sense of distance from certain kinds of mid-century neo-Thomism. But there may be another explanation, or at least a deeper element in Benedict’s point about “the pseudonym of natural law” in this 1964 article. Note that Benedict criticizes not the natural law per se but what he calls a “pseudonym” of the natural law. The implication of a pseudonym is the misuse of or corruption of something that is not itself necessarily bad. That is, Benedict leaves unaddressed what the true name of the natural law is in contrast to this pseudonym of the natural law. What Benedict is really critical of is what Tanaka and Kohler—both strong defenders of the natural law (rightly conceived)—had attacked as the Enlightenment concept of the natural law. Benedict wrote in his 1964 article that “the process of Reason in history, as Windelband once defined the Enlightenment, has been claiming legitimacy for itself in matters of faith, . . . [and] the continual spread of this type of thinking of ‘natural law’ unfortunately resulted in a strengthening of the purely deductive process from its initially tentative beginnings. The result was a strange type of positivism.”23 The distinction between these two understandings of the natural law is clarified by Heinrich Rommen, another scholar steeped in Joseph Ratzinger, “Naturrecht, Evangelium und Ideologie in der katholischen Soziallehre: katholische Erwägungen zum Thema,” in Christlicher Glaube und Ideologie, ed. Klaus von Bismark and Walter Dirks (Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag, 1964), 24 (I am indebted to Brian Pinke for translating Ratzinger’s original article for me). 22 Ratzinger, “Naturrecht, Evangelium und Ideologie,” 29: “It was a mistake not to include the special circumstances of the century, but that both–the standard of valuation of the Gospel and the given social facts–were combined under the pseudonym of the natural law and thus a confusion of legitimate elements emerged that hardly allowed the individual combinations their own space” (this is a rough translation). 23 Ratzinger, “Naturrecht, Evangelium und Ideologie,” 26. 21 Globalism in Natural Law Theory 663 the Germanic tradition of jurisprudence. Rommen describes these two types of natural law in the following terms: “One is the idea of a revolutionary and individualistic natural law essentially bound up with the basic doctrine of the state of nature as well as with the concept of the state as a social unit which rests upon a free contract, is arbitrary and artificial, is determined by utility, and is not metaphysically necessary. The other is the idea of a natural law grounded in metaphysics that does not exist in a mythical state of nature before the ‘laws,’ but lives and ought to live in them.”24 In a similar manner, Tanaka rejected what he called the natural law of Enlightenment rationalism that considered subjective decisions by legislators, judges, or scholars as ipso facto rational and thus universal. He insisted that the idée of law must be sought in an order above law itself,25 that is, in the world order that was designed by God’s reason.26 So we may conclude that what Benedict had criticized as operating under “the pseudonym of the natural law” was not the natural law itself but this kind of authoritarian, hyper-theorized, individualistic understanding of the natural law that Rommen and Tanaka also had criticized. This means that Spieker is incorrect in asserting that Benedict did not embrace the natural law until his turn-of-the-century criticism of liberation theology and the abortion-rights campaign in Germany. For example, even in Benedict’s 1992 speech in Bratislava, Slovakia, he upholds the natural law in addressing the question of what constitutes a just state. He appealed to “the Anglo-Saxon sphere [where] democracy was at least partly conceived and realized on the basis of the tradition of natural law and of a fundamental Christian consensus that certainly had a very pragmatic character.”27 Here we can see that Benedict associated democracy with the natural law and with a “pragmatic character”—precisely what he had found lacking in the post-Enlightenment “pseudonym of the natural law.” Heinrich Rommen, The Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy, trans. by Thomas R. Hanley, O.S.B. (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1998), 5. 25 Here Tanaka seems to be following the vocabulary of Stammler who distinguished between concepts or categories (Begriff) and the ideal (Idee) of law, in which the latter “represents the goal of a completely systematic explanation in terms of means and end” which never is achieved (George H. Sabine, “Rudolf Stammler’s Critical Philosophy of Law,” Cornell Law Review 18, no. 3 [April 1933]: 321–50, at 335). 26 Kōtarō Tanaka, Hō to shūkyō to shakai seikatsu [Law, Religion, and Social Life] (Tokyo: Kaizō Sha, 1927), 238–40. 27 Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 142. Benedict cites here Helmut Kuhn, Der Staat: Eine philosophische Darstellung (1967), and later says “Soloviev’s reflections on Church and state, which deserve to be pondered anew” (149n48). Tanaka was deeply involved in the study of Soloviev. 24 664 Kevin M. Doak We see the same distinction between a good and a bad understanding of the natural law in Benedict’s debate on September 21, 2000, with Paolo Flores d’Arcais. In response to Flores d’Arcais’s rejection of the natural law, Ratzinger conceded that “there was a certain excess in the use of the natural law in the Church’s social doctrine that arose in the late nineteenth century. And then in the twentieth century, until Vatican Council II, there were excesses. But this fact that there was a little, let us say, exuberance does not change the fact that it is still there in the writings of Saint Paul. . . . I would say that we can very well and must debate about the expansion of the natural law—how far does it extend?”28 Benedict set himself to that task of exploring how far the natural law extends in his 2003 masterpiece, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, when he embraced the law as the condition of freedom (and the absence of law as the absence of freedom) and then asked the question, “how do we find the true law?” (the law that liberates, not the pseudo law that oppresses). His answer was to find law in society, in community: “Let us start with a small community we can view as a whole . . . so that a common shape of freedom arises from their coexistence. . . . But no small community exists of itself. . . . In seeking the true yardstick of freedom, the whole of mankind must be kept in view, and—as we see more and more clearly—again, not just today’s mankind, but also tomorrow’s.”29 In short, ubi societas ibi ius. By the early twenty-first century, it becomes increasingly apparent that Benedict’s understanding of the natural law is linked to his recognition that politics has a legitimate role to play, independent, if supportive, of the distinctive mission of the Church. Natural law, as already evident in Truth and Tolerance, is a key part of the human effort to establish justice in ways not reducible to religious faith or divine revelation. We find this in “Reason and Faith for a Common Ethics,” Benedict’s 2004 dialogue with Jürgen Habermas. In it, Benedict criticizes a particular approach to the natural law, one that “presupposes a concept of nature in which nature and reason mesh and nature itself is rational” 30 as undermined by the force of evolutionary theory. This argument is closely related to what Benedict had said about the natural law in his 1964 article. But now Benedict explicitly offers a legitimate view of the natural law, one that goes back to the pagan jurist Ulpian (ca. AD 170–223) who held that “Ius naturae est, quod natura omnia animalia docet” (the law of nature is what nature teaches all Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 236. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 249–50. 30 Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 190. 28 29 Globalism in Natural Law Theory 665 sentient beings). Ulpian’s formula is a start, but ultimately insufficient for Benedict who notes that we need to get at, not merely what is true for all animalia, but what concerns “specifically human duties that man’s reason has created and for which there could be no response without reason.”31 To supplement Ulpian’s understanding of the natural law, Benedict turns to the concept of natural law found at the beginning of the twelfth-century Decretum Gratiani where we find that “the human race is governed by two things, namely, natural law and customs. The natural law is the one contained in the Law and the Gospel, whereby everybody is commanded to do unto others what he wishes to be done to himself and is forbidden to inflict on others what he does not wish to be done to himself.”32 Putting together these two statements, we conclude that Benedict holds that the natural law is broader than the revealed truths of the Catholic Church, but is also inherent in Church doctrine and has been a part of Church teaching for centuries. This differentiated understanding of the natural law is evident in Benedict’s 2005 encyclical Deus Caritas Est. A cursory reading of the encyclical might lead one to conclude that Benedict’s focus on the natural law is about the division of duties between Church and state—and that indeed is an element of his argument. But we must not overlook the critical role of society in Benedict’s analysis of the conditions for justice. Note that Benedict writes that “the just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics. . . . For her part, the Church, as the social expression of Christian faith, has a proper independence and is structured on the basis of her faith as a community which the State must recognize. The two spheres are distinct, yet always interrelated.”33 Here Benedict comes close to an explicit endorsement of Tanaka’s argument that the Church is a society (and hence has its own laws). But his main point is that a just ordering of the state alone is not the end of politics, even as the establishment of a just society (which is the end of politics) is not the immediate responsibility of the Church. “Justice is both the aim and the intrinsic criterion of all politics,” Benedict teaches, and the Church’s specific role in this “is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just.”34 And it does this “on the basis of reason and natural law, namely, on the basis of what is in accord with the nature of every human being. It recognizes that it is not Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 190. Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 191n3. 33 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (2005), §28 (emphasis added). 34 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §28 31 32 666 Kevin M. Doak the Church’s responsibility to make this teaching prevail in political life. Rather, the Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly.”35 We can draw two key points from Benedict’s writing on natural law in Deus Caritas Est: (1) society is the ground for the flourishing of justice, not the state; and (2) the Church has an important role to play as one of the members of society in the rational, non-coercive formation and propagation of justice. Such a claim is unimaginable without accepting the main principles of the sociological science of law as expounded by the early-twentieth-century Freirecht movement. Informed by this tradition of prioritizing society over the state, Benedict addressed the distinctive roles of the state, society, and religion in his 1992 address in Bratislava. “The state establishes a relative ordering for life in society,” he said, “but it cannot answer on its own the question of the meaning of human existence. Not only must it leave space open for something else, perhaps for something higher; it must also receive from outside itself the truth about what is right, since it does not bear this truth in itself.”36 Benedict was basically drawing on the Thomist insight that government arises from society, to which it is accountable. He also reminded his audience of how high the stakes are: National Socialism and Marxism were two twentieth-century examples of what happened when this important distinction between state and society was blurred. Here I will skip for the moment Benedict’s 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate, not merely because I have discussed it at some length already, but also because I want to conclude with it. The two remaining sources of Benedict’s thought on the natural law that I will touch on are his 2010 speech in Westminster Hall and his 2011 speech to the Bundestag. Both short speeches converge in an emphasis on the natural law as universally valid, across cultural and religious divisions. At Westminster, Benedict reminded the British people that their abolition of the slave trade “was built upon firm ethical principles, rooted in the natural law.”37 And he openly worried about where such firm ethical principles would be found today, as Christianity and its values were increasingly marginalized in affluent Western societies. But he was clear that he was not calling for a theocratic response to secularization. He was calling for a renewed appreciation of how “the Catholic tradition maintains that the objective Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §28. Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 139. 37 Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 154. 35 36 Globalism in Natural Law Theory 667 norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in public debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known to nonbelievers—still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion—but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles.”38 I think the most important aspect of Benedict’s Westminster speech was captured by Marta Cartabia and Andrea Simoncini, who argue that in it “Benedict XVI overturns the assumption that the contribution of Christianity to the public debates derives from the command of an authority—ipse dixit. In political and legal disputes he does not rely on the statements of the religious authority, but on the authority of reason.”39 In his speech to the Budestag the following year, Benedict emphasizes the autonomy of reason, pointing out that “unlike other great religions, Christianity has never proposed a revealed law to the state and to society, that is to say, a juridical order derived from revelation. Instead, it has pointed to nature and reason as the true sources of law . . . [and aligned itself] with a philosophical and juridical movement that began to take shape in the second century B.C. . . . the social natural law.”40 Benedict maintains that this social natural law provided the basis for law up to the time of the Enlightenment and again after World War II, but he recognizes that “the idea of natural law is today viewed as a specifically Catholic doctrine, not worth bringing into the discussion in a non-Catholic environment.”41 In explaining how we have arrived at a situation where what was originally a pagan idea now seems too Catholic to be acceptable to non-Catholics, Benedict points to the broad popularity, especially in European society, of Kelsen’s positivist concept of nature as purely functional, “an aggregate of objective data linked together in terms of cause and effect,”42 with no ethical implications. Benedict did not surrender his embrace of the natural law. In his New Year’s Day message of 2013, just weeks before he resigned, he said that “the precondition for peace is the dismantling of the dictatorship of relativism and of the supposition of a Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 155. Marta Cartabia and Andrea Simoncini, “A Journey with Benedict XVI Through the Spirit of Constitutionalism,” in Cartabia and Simoncini, Pope Benedict XVI’s Legal Thought, 4. 40 Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 163. 41 Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 163. 42 W. Waldstein, Ins Herz geschrieben: Das Naturrecht als Fundament einer menschlichen Gesellschaft (Augsburg, 2010); cited in Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 164. 38 39 668 Kevin M. Doak completely autonomous morality which precludes acknowledgment of the ineluctable natural moral law inscribed by God upon the conscience of every man and woman.”43 These carefully crafted words accurately express Benedict’s understanding of the natural law. In his earliest article on the natural law, he had criticized the tendency of some Catholic theologians to equate the natural law with revelation, undervaluing the role and power of human reason in its own right. But he also was critical of the secularist tendency to think that reason could be completely unmoored from the hand of God both in its creation and in its substance and then to relegate the natural law to a kind of fideism with Catholic coloring. Benedict’s middle ground may be described as “the analogical autonomy of reason.”44 His understanding of the natural law followed from this understanding of human reason. The proper understanding of the natural law in practice should not be to associate it with a state, even a peaceful, democratic state. Rather, drawing on the rich Germanic tradition of locating law in society, rather than as a function of sovereign command, Benedict reminded us that the natural law is found in the conscience of every man and woman. Much of the controversy over Caritas in Veritate that arose over fears that Benedict was calling for a world government or a world state was due to a failure to understand Benedict’s position that law had its foundations in society—in the interrelationships of rational people—not in the commands of a sovereign. Without rejecting the legitimacy of the national state, and without succumbing to a positivism that put no limits on the rights of the national state, Benedict reminded us that law and justice ultimately require a “true world authority,” an authority that he located in the natural law. It was a prescient and courageous stance that reflected the fact that “globalization is continuing apace, and that there is consequently a greater need for a theory of law and justice commensurate with the demands of an increasingly globalized society.”45 Not a globalized state. A global society. Ubi N&V societas ibi ius. Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 170–71. I owe this formulation to my colleague, Stephen Fields, S.J. 45 Kevin M. Doak, “Beyond International Law: The Theories of World Law in Tanaka Kōtarō and Tsunetō Kyō,” Journal of the History of International Law 13 (2011): 234. 43 44 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 669–694 669 Ratzinger’s Republic: Pope Benedict XVI on Natural Law and Church and State Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. University of Notre Dame and Saint Louis University Notre Dame, IN, and Saint Louis, MO Given the place natural law holds in Catholic thought, it would be a serious charge to claim that a papal encyclical rejects natural law. According to Kevin M. Doak, that is what one of the present authors, Vincent Strand, has done in an article considering Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate.1 The aim of Strand’s article was to demonstrate that the encyclical’s method evinces a reliance on Henri de Lubac’s theology of nature and grace, inasmuch as it derives economic policy from theological revelation. This is a consequence, it was suggested, of adopting the Lubacian view that human nature is intrinsically ordered to a supernatural end. In the course of the argument, Strand briefly noted that Caritas in Veritate has a meager reliance on natural law, which he suggested is not atypical for Benedict, who at times is skeptical about natural-law arguments because of his sense of reason being historically conditioned.2 Professor Doak thinks this is a misreading of Benedict on natural law, one which stems from Strand’s faulty analysis of nature and grace.3 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., “On Method, Nature, and Grace in Caritas in Veritate,” Nova et Vetera (English) 15, no. 3 (2017): 835–52. Doak leveled his criticism in a paper entitled “Globalism in Natural Law Theory: Pope Benedict XVI and Paul Francis Kotaro Tanaka,” delivered at the conference “Jesus of Nazareth and the Church’s Tradition: The Enduring Legacy of Benedict XVI,” sponsored by The Thomistic Institute and held at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, on September 15, 2018. The paper immediately precedes the present essay in this issue of Nova et Vetera (English): 653–668. 2 Strand, “On Method, Nature, and Grace,” 845, 849–50. 3 Doak, “Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 655. 1 670 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. Doak’s criticism provides the opportunity to consider in finer relief Benedict’s thinking on natural law, which, as Doak rightly points out, is an understudied area of the former Pope’s theology, particularly in Anglophone scholarship.4 Because Benedict’s references to natural law are ensconced in the wider matrix of his political thought, we need to widen our vision to consider his political theory more broadly in order to understand his view of natural law. As we do so, an unresolved tension comes into view. On the one hand, Benedict’s sense of reason being historically conditioned and in need of revelation leads him to argue that Christianity alone can provide the moral values the state requires; put simply, the state needs the Church. On the other hand, Benedict favors a non-confessional, pluralistic state; indeed, he believes it belongs to the very nature of the Church to be separate from the state. Faced with these two commitments, Benedict argues that the contribution the Church is to make to the state is to supply moral values that came about in the historical ambit of Christianity, but which can—and must—be stripped of their elements derived from divine revelation and reduced to their rational kernel, which in theory is accessible to all people, independent of their religious belief. Benedict’s ambiguity about natural law is situated within this fundamental tension in his political theory: his notion of reason’s historical embodiment and need of faith makes him suspicious of natural-law arguments, but his commitment to a liberal political arrangement leads him to employ natural law as an apparatus by which society can secure religiously neutral moral values. Benedict does not succeed in demonstrating the compatibility of the two poles that constitute the tension, which undermines the overall coherence of his political thought. Revisiting Nature and Grace and Natural Law Before turning to the question of natural law, however, we must first briefly respond to Doak’s criticism of Strand’s analysis of nature and grace, since Doak believes this is the origin of Strand’s erroneous reading of Benedict on natural law. Doak gives no evidence that Strand’s main point concerning nature and grace, namely, that Benedict’s theology of nature and grace is influenced by the Lubacian theory, is flawed; in fact, Doak’s praising Stephen Fields’s reading of Benedict’s theology of grace only supports Strand’s primary claim, as Fields explicitly notes that he and Strand both find the influence of de Lubac on Benedict.5 Moreover, it must be noted Doak, “Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 654–55. Doak, “Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 653–54; Stephen M. Fields, S.J., “Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics,” Nova et Vetera (English) 15, 4 5 Ratzinger’s Republic 671 that nowhere did Strand praise the Lubacian model of nature and grace or judge its effects on the method of Caritas in Veritate salutary.6 Doak’s central accusation is that Strand’s portrayal of Thomism is “little more than a familiar stereotype.”7 The stereotype we suspect Doak has in mind is one that paints the Thomist position as an extrinsicist, two-tiered model of nature and grace, in which nature is deemed complete in itself and lacking any intrinsic relation to grace.8 Yet Strand’s comments on Thomism in the 2017 article were limited and straightforward: the position favoring the autonomy of economics from divine revelation aligns with a type of Thomism that distinguishes the natural and supernatural more sharply than they are distinguished in the Lubacian theory. Strand avoided the question of whether such a view is faithful to St. Thomas himself, and did not attribute it to all types of Thomism. Strand’s treatment of contemporary Thomism also summarized Lawrence Feingold’s and Steven Long’s criticism of de no. 3 (2017): 705–727, at 725. The Fields article Doak cites is Stephen M. Fields, S.J., “On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est,” Nova et Vetera (English) 15, no. 3 (2017): 817–33. Peter Samuel Kucer is correct to note Ratzinger’s theology does not collapse the orders of nature and grace as occurs in John Milbank, but in his attempt to distinguish Ratzinger from Milbank (and provide a nature–grace foundation for Ratzinger’s separation of Church and state), Kucer goes too far in claiming that for Ratzinger “nature and grace are not intrinsically in their roots united to one another”; see Kucer, Truth and Politics: A Theological Comparison of Joseph Ratzinger and John Milbank (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014), 224. 6 Strand asks whether this leads to compromising the integrity of nature and the legitimate autonomy of human sciences apart from revelation (“On Method, Nature, and Grace,” 852). 7 Doak, “Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 653. 8 E.g., Gerard Loughlin writes: “Neo-Thomism had imagined a pure nature [natura pura] that was entirely autonomous with regard to the divine, and that had, in itself, no desire [desiderium naturale] for the divine, since it had no means to its attainment. This was a world in which no one had a sense of the world’s mystery, of its inexplicable existence”; see “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 45. See also Harm Goris, “Steering Clear of Charybdis: Some Directions for Avoiding ‘Grace Extrinsicism’ in Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera (English) 5, no. 1 (Winter 2007): 67–80, at 69. De Lubac saw this type of extrinsicism present in neo-Scholasticism and railed against it throughout his career, judging that it was responsible for a host of maladies ranging from religious indifferentism to erroneous interpretations of Vatican II. See, e.g.: Henri de Lubac, Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 232; de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed, Milestones in Catholic Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1998), xxix. 672 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. Lubac.9 These theologians argue that a human being receives a proportionality to the supernatural end only with grace—specifically, through the infused entitative habit of sanctifying grace, by which the creature receives a certain connaturality with an end that exceeds its natural powers. Let us go on record and say that we do not think this articulation is reducible to a “familiar stereotype,” as contemporary Thomists have successfully responded to the charge of extrinsicism by demonstrating how human nature contains an intrinsic openness to be elevated to a supernatural end.10 Doak’s primary concern, however, is not nature and grace, but natural law. According to Doak, Strand maintains that Benedict rejects natural law in Caritas in Veritate, moving away from his “earlier interest in Thomism” and “earlier interest in the natural law.”11 This is a gross misrepresentation. Nowhere does Strand claim: (1) that Ratzinger had an “earlier interest in Thomism” (to the contrary, citing works as early as Ratzinger’s 1968 commentary on Gaudium et Spes, Strand contends that Ratzinger’s theology had long been characterized by a movement away from the neo-Scholasticism that predominated in Catholic theology from the late-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century12); (2) that Ratzinger Strand, “On Method, Nature, and Grace,” 847. For this criticism, see: Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters, 2nd ed. (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010); Steven A. Long, Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010). 10 Feingold and Long have done so through their explication of the doctrine of specific obediential potency (Feingold, Natural Desire, 112–13; Long, Natura Pura, 31–32). Thomas Joseph White, O.P., and Reinhard Hütter have demonstrated how the ontological structure of the human intellect with its natural and conditional desire to know God provides a point of contact for grace, which elevates this desire to an unconditional desire for the beatific vision; see: White, “Imperfect Happiness and the Final End of Man: Thomas Aquinas and the Paradigm of Nature–Grace Orthodoxy,” The Thomist 78, no. 2 (2014): 247–89; Hütter, Dust Bound for Heaven: Explorations in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012), 129–247. 11 Doak, “Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 653. 12 Strand, “On Method, Nature, and Grace,” 849–50. Further evidence abounds. Describing his early intellectual formation in his 1977 Milestones, Ratzinger contrasts the rich experience he had reading Augustine with the difficulties he had entering the thought of Thomas Aquinas, “whose crystal-clear logic seemed to me to be too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made [fertig].” Ratzinger attributes this distaste for Aquinas in part to the version of Thomas he was taught, “a rigid, neoscholastic Thomism” that was distant from his own questions; see Milestones: Memoirs, 1927–1977, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998), 44. Similarly, in a 2016 interview with Peter Seewald, he 9 Ratzinger’s Republic 673 had an “earlier interest in natural the law”;13 or (3) that Caritas in Veritate demonstrates Benedict’s “rejection” of the natural law.14 Strand said only that the encyclical has a “thin account of natural law,” as its method relies more heavily on divine revelation.15 Doak has done nothing to disprove that assertion. In fact, after noting that Strand’s article indicates where Caritas in Veritate invokes natural law, Doak concedes Strand’s claim that these points are not significantly developed.16 The main problem Doak finds in Strand’s reading is that it differs from that of German scholars, particularly Martin Rhonheimer and Manfred Spieker, who find in Benedict a vigorous proponent of natural law. Doak locates this difference in the linguistic and historical divide between Anglophone scholars and those of the deutscher Sprachraum.17 Both Spieker and Doak acknowledge that Ratzinger at times seems to criticize natural-law theory, but they have explanations for this. In Spieker’s account, Ratzinger only embraced natural-law theory mid-career, after having been critical of it as a young theologian in the 1964 article “Naturrecht, Evangelium und Ideologie in der katholischen Soziallehre.”18 Doak, speaks of the “contempt for the nineteenth century” he had as a young theologian, saying he “wanted out of classical Thomism,” and Augustine showed him this path; see Pope Benedict XVI and Peter Seewald, Last Testament: In His Own Words, trans. Jacob Phillips (Bloomsbury: London, 2017), 78. 13 Nor does Strand deny this. 14 Doak, “Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 654. 15 Strand, “On Method, Nature, and Grace,” 849. 16 Doak says it is unsurprising that Benedict does not develop a theory of natural law because Benedict is “a theologian, not jurist” (“Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 654). This is puzzling: many theologians who are not jurists develop theories of natural law, and many pastors who do not treat natural law at the level of theory nevertheless vigorously invoke the natural law in the domain of practical ethics. 17 Doak suggests Strand did not cite Rhonheimer’s article because it appeared in a law rather than theology journal, and that Strand ignored Spieker because the piece appeared in German. A more obvious motive is that, as Doak himself notes, Strand’s discussion on Benedict on natural law was not the primary concern of his 2017 article. It occupies only a paragraph of the text, which includes no secondary literature at all—regardless of whether it appeared in German or English, or in a law or theology journal. See: Doak, “Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 654; Manfred Spieker, “The Quiet Prophet: Benedict XVI and Catholic Social Teaching,” trans. David Lutz, Logos 21, no. 1 (2018): 64–82; Martin Rhonheimer, “The Secular State, Democracy, and Natural Law,” in Pope Benedict XVI’s Legal Thought: A Dialogue on the Foundation of Law, ed. Marta Cartabia and Andrea Simoncini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 79–92. 18 Spieker locates this turnabout in Ratzinger’s involvement in the 1980s as prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the controversy over liberation theology and in the dispute in the German church over counseling pregnant 674 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. for his part, thinks Ratzinger’s early criticisms did not target natural law per se, but rather a distorted Enlightenment version of it.19 To evaluate these narratives, we must examine Ratzinger’s thought on natural law in more detail. As we do so, two currents emerge. The first is comprised of those instances where Ratzinger endorses arguments from the natural law, particularly highlighting its role as the foundation of a just democratic political order.20 Benedict’s addresses to political assemblies, such as before the Bundestag in 2010 and in Westminster Hall in 2011, exemplify the first current. Four aspects of it may be highlighted. First, Benedict contends that the principles on which civil law rests should be derived from reason rather than revelation.21 Second, Benedict argues that reason’s ability to apprehend truth prevents democratic society from collapsing either into the “dictatorship of relativism” or into the sheer will of the majority. The foundation of civil law in democratic societies is truth itself.22 Hence Ratzinger often points to natural law as that which must women (“The Quiet Prophet”); see also Joseph Ratzinger, “Naturrecht, Evangelium und Ideologie in der katholischen Soziallehre: Katholische Erwägungen zum Thema,” in Christlicher Glaube und Ideologie, eds. Klaus von Bismark and Walter Dirks (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1964), 24–30. For more on Ratzinger’s involvement in the Schwangerschaftskonfliktberatung controversy, see Achim Pfeiffer, Religion und Politik in den Schriften Papst Benedikt XVI: Die politischen Implikationen von Joseph Ratzinger (Marburg: Tectum, 2007), 63–75. 19 Doak, “Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 662–64. 20 Pope Benedict XVI, “The Listening Heart: Reflections on the Foundations of Law,” Address to the Bundestag, September 22, 2011, published as “Affirming the Right to Combat Injustice,” ch. 8 in Faith and Politics: Selected Writings (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018), 162, 174. 21 For representative pieces, see Pope Benedict XVI, “Affirming the Right,” 162–63; “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI at Westminster Hall” (2010), published as “The Ethical Foundations of Political Choices,” ch. 7 in Faith and Politics, 154–55; “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI at the Meeting with the Civil Authorities and Diplomatic Corps at the Presidential Palace Gardens in Nicosia” (2010), w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2010/june/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20100605_autorita-civili.html; “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI at the Welcome Ceremony and Meeting with Authorities of State at the Elysée Palace, Paris” (2008), w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/ speeches/2008/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080912_parigi-elysee. html. 22 Joseph Ratzinger, “Mass ‘Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice’: Homily of His Eminence Card. Joseph Ratzinger Dean of the College of the Cardinals” (2005), www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_ en.html; Benedict XVI, “Ethical Foundations,” 154; Benedict XVI, ”Affirming the Right,” 161; Joseph Ratzinger and Jürgen Habermas, The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, Ratzinger’s Republic 675 anchor democracy in truth and prevent it from drifting off into the chaotic seas of the naked will of the majority.23 Third, Benedict proposes natural law as a basis for checking the human desire for technological mastery over nature, which leads, in the Pope’s estimation, only to self-destruction.24 Here Benedict develops his idea of “human ecology.”25 Finally, continuing in the line of his papal predecessors, Benedict argues that human rights must have a robust metaphysical grounding in the natural law.26 The second current of Ratzinger’s natural-law theory is comprised of those instances in which he questions the effectiveness of natural-law arguments. He does so not because he rejects the existence of natural law per se, but rather because of his sense of reason obtaining in history. This attention to historicity has two dimensions. The first stems from Ratzinger’s philosophical belief that human reason is historically conditioned: “In practice . . . a pure rational evidential quality independent of history does not exist. Metaphysical and moral reason comes into action only in a historical context.”27 As he argues in “Naturrecht, Evangelium und Ideologie,” natural-law theory, and the concept of nature involved in it, did not come about through ahistorical philosophical considerations, 2006), 55–61; Ratzinger, “Does God Exist? A Debate of Joseph Ratzinger with Paolo Flores d’Arcais (September 21, 2000),” ch. 9 in Faith and Politics, 232–33; Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology (New York: Crossroad, 1988), 179, 185, 194, 216. 23 Joseph Ratzinger, Europe Today and Tomorrow: Addressing the Fundamental Issues, trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 63–64; Ratzinger, The God of Jesus Christ: Meditations on the Triune God, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 46. 24 Joseph Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life, ed. Michael J. Miller, trans. Michael J. Miller and Matthew J. O’Connell (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 92; Ratzinger, God of Jesus Christ, 46–47. 25 Spieker, Rhonheimer, and Doak all highlight that Benedict refers to the human person when he speaks of “nature” (Spieker, “The Quiet Prophet,” 71; Rhonheimer, “The Secular State, Democracy, and Natural Law,” 88; Doak, “Globalism in Natural Law Theory,” 657). While this is true, one should not overlook the fact that Benedict has an analogical understanding of nature that encompasses all of creation, including human beings. Using this analogical notion of nature, Benedict argues that ecological concern must also concern the human person; see Benedict, “Affirming the Right,” 165–66. 26 Ratzinger, Europe Today and Tomorrow, 77; Pope Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini (2010), §101; Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Benedict in America: The Full Texts of Papal Talks Given During His Apostolic Visit to the United States (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 95–96. 27 Joseph Ratzinger, “Truth, Values, Power: Touchstones of a Pluralistic Society,” ch. 6 in Faith and Politics, 95–150, at 147. 676 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. but rather was shaped by a concrete historical Christian milieu and its attendant theological beliefs: “Implicitly, the standard of natural law is strongly colored and formed by key Christian ideas and is unthinkable without them.”28 He criticizes the prior social teaching of the Church for overlooking historicity in its attempt to express social teaching in abstract, ahistorical formulas.29 He likewise says that natural-law theory at times was misapplied because it was burdened with too much specifically Christian content.30 Though Ratzinger regards the concept of nature that came about in Christianity through the encounter between Greek philosophy and biblical faith as true, he also realizes that this view of nature is no longer widely held. Without it, natural-law arguments can gain little purchase: What formerly seemed a compelling insight of God-given reason retained its evidential character only for as long as the entire culture, the entire existential context [der ganze Lebenszusammenhang], bore the imprint of Christian tradition. To the extent to which the fundamental Christian consensus [der christliche Grundkonsens] disintegrated and there remained leftover only a naked reason [eine nackte Vernunft]—which refuses to be instructed by any historical reality and wants instead only to listen to itself—the evidential character of morality also fell apart.31 This sheds light on Ratzinger’s remark to Jürgen Habermas that natural law has become a dull instrument, because the concept of nature on which it relies has been pushed aside by the theory of evolution.32 Elsewhere, Ratzinger says the concept of natural law has become a “laughingstock” (ins Lächerliche gezogen).33 This loss of the sense of nature that existed in Christian contexts leads him to a measure of pessimism about the Ratzinger, “Naturrecht, Evangelium und Ideologie,” 29 (translation ours). Ratzinger, “Naturrecht, Evangelium und Ideologie,” 29. When responding to Walter Kasper’s accusation of Platonism in Introduction to Christianity, Ratzinger remarked that theologians should be forbidden to use the word “historical” (geschichtlich) for a time, since the word has become a stand-in for everything and nothing; nonetheless, the concept has remained operative in his theology; see Ratzinger, “Glaube, Geschichte und Philosophie: Zum Echo auf Einführung in das Christentum,” Hochland 61 (November/December 1969): 537. 30 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 201. 31 Ratzinger, “Truth, Values, Power,” 144 (translation significantly modified). 32 Ratzinger, Dialectics of Secularization, 69–70. 33 Ratzinger, God of Jesus Christ, 46. 28 29 Ratzinger’s Republic 677 persuasiveness of natural-law arguments in the contemporary world. Furthermore, it explains in part why Benedict’s comments on natural law, especially before political assemblies, often are principally an apologia for the existence of natural law itself.34 A second dimension of Ratzinger’s stress on historicity is more properly theological: natural law obtains not in a hypothetical order where human nature is untouched by sin and grace, but rather in the real order in which both are active and in which reason needs faith. Ratzinger frequently points to the intelligibility of nature as evidence that it did not come about by chance, but rather was made by an intelligent creator—indeed, insofar as Ratzinger has a natural theology, this is its basic outline. This means that nature herself is not the origin of the laws discovered within her. Rather, they were placed there by the Creator.35 Thus natural law finds its ultimate metaphysical grounding in God, and, correlatively, the existence of natural law points back to its author.36 For Ratzinger, however, this detection of the Creator in the intelligibility of creation does not remain quarantined within the limits of reason alone. Rather, as one proceeds from the intelligibility of nature to the author of this intelligibility, one discovers love at the heart of morality and of reality, and so is opened to an encounter with the incarnate God revealed in Jesus Christ.37 In this journey, one discovers that “the realms of revelation and reason penetrate one another very closely [greifen . . . ganz eng ineinander].”38 Ratzinger has long been suspicious of drawing a strict division between reason and revelation. He criticizes the neo-Scholastic attempt to demonstrate the preambula fidei independently from faith.39 Likewise he contends that the Thomist division between E.g., in his addresses before the Bundestag and in Westminster Hall. Joseph Ratzinger and Peter Seewald, God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 160–64; Ratzinger, God of Jesus Christ, 46; Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 238–39; Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience of November 14, 2012 (“Year of Faith: The Ways That Lead to Knowledge of God”), w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20121114.html. 36 Benedict XVI, “Affirming the Right,” 166–67; Joseph Ratzinger, A Turning Point for Europe? The Church in the Modern World: Assessment and Forecast, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 43–44; Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, §9. 37 Joseph Ratzinger, Gospel, Catechesis, Catechism: Sidelights on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 16–17. 38 Ratzinger, Turning Point for Europe?, 43. 39 Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 136. 34 35 678 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. philosophy and theology has given birth to an inadequate juxtaposition between the two orders. Reason never obtains as “pure,” Ratzinger judges, but rather as historically conditioned—which is not to deny the existence of reason, but rather to affirm “a human reason in faith.”40 This bears directly on Ratzinger’s thoughts on natural law. In his doctoral dissertation, Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche, he notes how natural law has come to be thought of as superior both to positive human law and to positive divine law, since natural law is understood to be anchored in being whereas positive law is anchored only in will, which is contingent. This has led the Church to attempt to ground her norms as much as possible in natural law, while divine positive law recedes into the background. Against this tendency, Ratzinger affirms the equality of divine positive law with natural law.41 Ratzinger proposes that the best way to move forward on the issue of natural law is to consider it analogously to natural theology. Natural theology indisputably exists, but because of sin’s wounding of human nature, supernatural revelation is now morally necessary even for the mere securing of natural theology. The same pattern, Ratzinger says, may be applied to natural law: without supernatural revelation, natural law is practically ungraspable.42 Ratzinger did not abandon this view as a misguided youthful intuition. Sixty years later, we find him making similar remarks in a letter to Marcello Pera.43 Benedict affirms a certain autonomy of the ordo naturalis from the ordo supernaturalis, but points out dangers with this duplex ordo approach. He expresses one in the terms of de Lubac, whom he mentions by name: coming to think of the ordo naturalis as self-contained and complete in itself so that the Gospel and what is specifically Christian are regarded as “an ultimately superfluous superstructure.”44 Furthermore, Benedict warns, the duplex ordo approach can forget the reality of original sin, which leads to embracing naively optimistic positions that do not correspond to reality: “A naïve confidence [un’ ingenua fiducia] in reason results that does not perceive the actual complexity of rational knowledge in the Joseph Ratzinger, “The Dignity of the Human Person,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler, 5 vols. (London: Burns & Oates, 1969), 5:120. See our earlier comments on this point in Strand, “On Method, Nature, and Grace,” 849–50. 41 Joseph Ratzinger, Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche, Joseph Ratzinger Gesammelte Schriften 1 (Freiburg: Herder, 2011), 400–401. 42 Ratzinger, Volk und Haus Gottes, 401n6. 43 The letter is a response to Pera’s book La Chiesa, i diritti humani e il distacco da Dio and is published in English translation as the preface to Faith and Politics. 44 Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 17–18 (preface). 40 Ratzinger’s Republic 679 ethical realm.” Benedict continues: “The drama of the dispute about the natural law clearly shows that the metaphysical rationality that is presupposed here is not immediately evident.”45 Hence, for Benedict, nature will function “naturally” in the postlapsarian condition only when assisted by grace. This leads him to the bold claim that “the Church community is required as the historic condition for the activity of reason.”46 In light of this survey of Benedict on natural law, it is clear that neither Spieker’s nor Doak’s account of Ratzinger on natural law is satisfying. They fail to see that Ratzinger’s ambivalence about natural law continues late into his career and that it is rooted in one of his key theological principles: reason and revelation obtain in concreto in a dynamic interplay, since reason is not “pure” but historical, shaped not only by context taken in a general, philosophical sense, but—in a specifically theological sense—by sin, grace, and revelation. Ratzinger on Church and State Given this ambivalence, one might wonder why Ratzinger invokes natural law at all. An answer is found in his church–state theory, where natural law has an essential task of providing the state with non-confessional moral resources that it cannot furnish on its own. Before considering this in greater detail, it will be helpful to present the general principles of Ratzinger’s political thought. At its core is the conviction that Christianity desacralized the state and opened up a fundamental distinction between secular and sacral authority.47 The state is not the whole of human existence and does not encompass all human hope. A consequence is the rejection of the myth of the divine or utopian state.48 Thanks to Christianity, Ratzinger opines, the state is no longer the bearer of a religious authority extending to the innermost recesses of conscience, but points beyond itself to another community for its moral basis.49 It follows for Ratzinger that membership in the Church is voluntary, and she has no civil authority. He rejects the thesis advanced by many Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 18 (preface; translation modified). Thus, as Benedict told the U.S. bishops in 2008, a current exigency is cultivating “a greater sense of the intrinsic relationship between the Gospel and the natural law”; see Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 155, and Pope Benedict in America, 54. 47 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 146–47; see also Thomas Rourke, The Social and Political Thought of Benedict XVI (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), 5. 48 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 143–46. 49 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 156. 45 46 680 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. Catholic thinkers that the Church, while having no direct authority to mete out civil punishments, can instruct the civil authorities to do so. This authority belongs only to the state, which, on account of its desacralization, is essentially secular.50 Ratzinger applauds the development in Catholic thought of a positive concept of the secular, non-messianic state through the adoption of Aristotle and natural law theory.51 It pertains to the very nature (Wesen) of the Church to be separate (getrennt) from the state: “It belongs to the Church neither to be a state nor a part of the state but, rather, to be a community based on convictions [Überzeugungsgemeinschaft].”52 Ratzinger criticizes the Middle Ages and early modern period for disturbing the proper equilibrium between Church and state, leading to a de facto fusion between the two.53 This was a failure to recognize that faith can only become a political force if it does so after the pattern of Jesus, that is, in powerlessness.54 Nonetheless, Ratzinger insists, Christians do not have a negative view of the state as such, even when they are persecuted, and they do what they can to build it up.55 The writings of Augustine show awareness that alongside Nero, there was also Constantine, and hence the political was not necessarily evil and unjust, but also could be grounded in truth and justice.56 Christians participate in the building up of a coexistence based on truth, freedom, love, and justice, and religious communities are involved in a special way in educating for peace.57 At the same time, believers must understand the inherent imperfection of any human ordering, the disregard of which is a major threat to democracy.58 Another threat is the state’s infringement upon conscience, which Ratzinger calls the ultimate repository of moral norms upon which the state Rourke, Social and Political Thought, 55, 50; Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 156–57. 51 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 201. 52 Ratzinger, “Truth, Values, Power,” 104–5 (translation modified). 53 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 156–57. This criticism is repeated elsewhere: Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 45–46; Joseph Ratzinger/ Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, The Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 42. 54 Ratzinger/Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth, 1:39–40. 55 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 145. 56 Joseph Ratzinger, The Unity of the Nations: A Vision of the Church Fathers (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015), 93–94. 57 Benedict XVI, “Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Message for the 46th World Day of Peace ( January 1, 2013),” ch. 9 in Faith and Politics, 171, 179. 58 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 195. 50 Ratzinger’s Republic 681 is based and which serves as a limit on the power of the state.59 He is keen to protect conscience from what he sees as the encroaching power of both state and Church.60 He even criticizes the Catholic polities of the Middle Ages and early modern period on this point: they falsified faith’s claim to truth and turned to coercion, a caricature of what was actually intended.61 Rejecting the widespread belief that relativism is a necessary condition for liberal democracy, Ratzinger insists that conscience is irrevocably linked to truth, and that “to serve right and to fight against the dominion of wrong is and remains the fundamental task of the politician.”62 While Ratzinger is critical of a postmodern notion of freedom divorced from truth, he is basically friendly toward an Enlightenment notion of freedom.63 He traces this concept of freedom back to the new dualism between Church and state that Christianity introduced.64 Ultimately freedom must be defined positively if it is to be something positive, which means the recognition of fundamental values, that is, human rights.65 Ratzinger insists that the Church must defend, over and against the world, freedom of religion in two senses: the right to be able to choose one’s faith freely, as explained in Dignitatis Humanae, and the right to live as a believ Rourke, Social and Political, 69; Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 160–63. 60 “An appeal is made to conscience and to reason: this is the only authority that can decide. It really was a sin to think: then if reason is not ready, we must so to speak ‘help’ it, with the power of the state. This is a major error” (Ratzinger, “Does God Exist?,” 202 [translation modified]). 61 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 156–57. 62 Ratzinger, “Truth, Values, Power,” 132; see also Benedict XVI, “Affirming the Right,” 161. 63 In general, Ratzinger views the Enlightenment favorably. He defends the “modern era” (die Neuzeit, by which he seems to mean especially the Enlightenment) as part of the authentic European inheritance, particularly against postmodern skepticism about the possibility of knowing truth, and uses the term “enlightenment” (Aufklärung) to describe the overcoming of myth that Greek philosophy achieved. When Gad Lerner accuses the Church of having allowed itself to be contaminated by “laicist, Enlightenment thinking [pensiero laico e illuminista],” Ratzinger replies that the time has come to transcend these oppositions; see: Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 218–19; Truth and Tolerance, 28; “Does God Exist?,” 208–10. See also Gerald McKenny, “Moral Disagreements and the Limits of Reason: Reflections on MacIntyre and Ratzinger,” in Intractable Disputes About the Natural Law: Alasdair MacIntyre and Critics, ed. Lawrence S. Cunningham (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), 195–226, esp. 214–15. 64 “Hence the modern idea of freedom is a legitimate product of the Christian environment” (Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 157). 65 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 178–83. 59 682 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. ing Christian free from persecution.66 Just as his attitude toward Enlightenment notions of freedom is positive, so also is Ratzinger’s attitude toward democracy, and his criticisms of contemporary political forms are made with an eye to protecting them from harm.67 He indicates a preference for the Anglo-Saxon path, which had a basis in the tradition of natural law and Christian consensus, over the attack on Christian tradition that Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s version of democracy undertook.68 Fundamental for Ratzinger’s view of democracy is his belief that authentic liberalism is not opposed to Christianity. Liberalism, he believes, has God as its foundation for its “view of the world and of man.” If liberalism rejects Christianity, this is an abandonment of its very foundations, since “the logic of liberalism makes necessary precisely this acknowledgement [confessione] of the God of Christian faith.”69 In the same vein, Ratzinger contends that the Church is necessary for the sound functioning of a democratic state. For Ratzinger, democracy cannot be value-free or value-neutral. Rather, democracy itself must be based on fundamental values that precede the will of the majority.70 He embraces Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde’s thesis that the modern liberal state is a societas imperfecta: it needs moral values that the political sphere itself cannot secure.71 Ratzinger points to Christianity as the source of these values, arguing that Western democracy came about through a mingling of Greek and Christian elements and will not survive apart from these foundations.72 For this reason, Ratzinger believes, if we do not “learn to live democracy with a view to Christianity and Christianity with a view to the free democratic state, we will surely gamble away democracy.” 73 Emboldened by this belief, Ratzinger insists that Christianity has a public character and makes public claims to truth, which the state should affirm through expressions such as displaying crucifixes in schools and marking Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 192. He says that the classical theme of libertas ecclesiae is relevant here, without further explanation. 67 Ratzinger’s four theses for the revival of European democracy are: (1) a rediscovery of a firm sense of law, (2) the need for common and obligatory reverence for moral values and for God, (3) the rejection of world revolution and the nation as the highest goods or ends of politics, and (4) the recognition and preservation of freedom of conscience, human rights, academic freedom, and of a free society; see Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 219–22. 68 Ratzinger, “Truth, Values, Power,” 142. 69 Benedict XVI, Faith and Politics, 19 (preface). 70 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 179. 71 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 194. 72 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 194–95, 199, 202–3. 73 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 203; see also 104. 66 Ratzinger’s Republic 683 Christian feast days on the civic calendar.74 Critical Assessment When one considers Ratzinger’s political thought as a whole, a tension comes into view: his claim that the state needs Christianity with his commitment to non-confessional, pluralistic democracy. Ratzinger sees the difficulty: “We are faced with a dilemma [Aporie]: if the Church gives up this claim [her claim to be public, not merely private], she no longer accomplishes for the state what it needs from her. Yet if the state accepts this claim, it abolishes its own pluralistic character and thus both Church and state are lost.”75 Ratzinger approaches the dilemma through his particular idea of the faith–reason dialectic. Politics, he insists, is the domain of reason, not faith; when the Church does not respect this limit, it impinges upon the freedom of the state. As we have seen, however, Ratzinger’s notion of reason is far from a “pure” reason. Faith purifies reason, corrects it, and helps it discover objective moral principles.76 He goes so far as to say that “reason needs revelation in order to be able to function as reason.”77 With this notion of reason operative, Ratzinger makes his key move in his attempt to resolve the dilemma, which centers on his notion of Christian values. He cannot claim that the state needs the Church as the bearer of true religion, as this would compromise the state’s pluralistic character. What he can say is that “the state must recognize that a fundamental system of values based on Christianity [ein Grundgefüge von christlich fundierten Werten] is the precondition for its existence.” 78 These values, according to Ratzinger, came about historically in a Christian context through the faith–reason interplay. But he suggests—at least on occasion—that these are moral principles knowable by reason apart from revelation, and so they can be affirmed and enacted even by those who do not profess the Christian faith.79 They are non-confessional, in other words, and are shared by the world’s great religions—this consensus itself being evidence of a “shared rationality” (gemeinsame Vernünftigkeit).80 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 157, 202, 206–7, 252. Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 206. 76 Notably, Ratzinger believes reason plays a similar role vis-à-vis faith; see “Ethical Foundations,” 155, and Dialectics of Secularization, 77–80. 77 Given Ratzinger’s commitment to de Lubac’s theology of the supernatural end, one might conclude that he does not confine reason’s need for revelation to the postlapsarian state; see Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 206. 78 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 207. 79 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 221. 80 Benedict XVI, “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” 174, Ratzinger, “Truth, Values, 74 75 684 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. This leads Ratzinger to say that optimally, the values enacted by the state would be obtained as the “pure insight of reason” apart from revelation.81 Ratzinger’s belief that the state must remain neutral regarding religion forces him—as strange as it may sound for the former Pope—to propose a type of Christianity within the limits of reason alone when it comes to the contribution Christians are to make to liberal democracies. Despite these values coming about historically (and being preserved at present) in a rich interaction between faith and reason, when they are transferred to the public square, confessional elements must be trimmed off and the kernel that accords with pure reason is to be kept.82 J. Christopher Paskewich suggestively names these moral principles “secularized religious values,” explaining that within Ratzinger’s thought, “the revealed truths of Christianity are . . . secularized for general acceptance.”83 This allows Ratzinger, as it were, to have it both ways. He can insist, in harmony with his overarching sense of the historical conditioning of reason, that these values can only come about and be preserved in a Christian society, while also saying that these values are accessible to reason independent of divine revelation or Christian faith, and so people can adhere to them regardless of their religious affiliation.84 Here we see, finally, the place Benedict’s appeals to natural law assume within his political theory. Natural law provides him a confessionally neutral apparatus by which Christians can propose moral values to the broader populace. Despite Ratzinger’s reservations about the effectiveness of natural-law arguments, his commitment to a liberal church–state arrangement requires the natural law to claim a wider scope and do more work than it did in an older tradition of Catholic political thought. This tradition appealed to natural law for the temporal ordering of society, but not in a way that required natural law to stand on its own, because it assumed that divine positive law and ecclesiastical law would and should Power,” 148. Ratzinger, “Truth, Values, Power,” 147. 82 Tracey Rowland’s commentary on Deus Caritas Est (§28) claims that Ratzinger endorses “purified reason,” which is something vastly different from Kantian “pure reason.” (Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 119–20). What makes for the distinction, or how it can be arrived at apart from revelation, is not clear to us. 83 J. Christopher Paskewich, “Liberalism Ex Nihilo: Joseph Ratzinger on Modern Secular Politics,” Politics 28, no. 3 (2008): 169–76, at 174. 84 Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 221; Ratzinger, “Ethical Foundations,” 155; Benedict, “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” 174. 81 Ratzinger’s Republic 685 also be brought to bear upon civil law.85 Since Ratzinger precludes this possibility as a matter of principle, he must claim (sometimes rather dubiously) that the specific determinations that he advocates are matters of reason alone rather than faith. A consequence of his commitment to Christians proposing secularized religious values is that natural law itself must be secularized, that is, no longer seen in relation to divine positive law when Christians argue in the public square. To be sure, there are some passages in Ratzinger that suggest otherwise (such as when he argues for crucifixes in public spaces or for the intrinsic relationship of natural law to the Gospel), but these merely point to the fact that Ratzinger’s attempt to solve the aforementioned dilemma is not entirely consistent.86 That attempt involves endorsing the liberal disestablishment of Christianity while bringing it back under the guise of a rational public ethic. This exposes Ratzinger to attack from both sides: those who want a public ethic that is actually secular, and those who want a public ethic that is more robustly Christian. We begin with the former. Whether Ratzinger’s proposal really respects his liberal commitment to pluralistic democracy is questionable. It is not altogether clear whether Ratzinger believes that the moral values the state requires can actually be known and enacted outside of a Christian context. At times, as we have seen, he suggests this is the case. But such passages cut against the mainline of his thought, which eschews thinking in terms of historically detached “pure” reason and privileges a faith–reason dialectic in which reason needs revelation in order to function properly. This leads to a pessimism about the actual possibility of “secularizing” religious values. Ratzinger thinks attempts to furnish them by returning to a pre-Christian philosophy claiming universality is an artificial abstraction—he calls them “test-tube worldviews” (Weltanschauungen aus der Retorte)—doomed to failure, being a mere thought experiment divorced from history. As for democracy finding its moral strength in non-Christian religious sources, Ratzinger says one thinks first of Islam, but a merger here is impossible: Islam “is quite obviously the exact antithesis [Gegenmodell] of pluralistic democ- This assumption is clear even in those writers, such as Thomas Aquinas, Robert Bellarmine, and Francisco Suárez, who firmly ground their political theory in the natural law. Francis Oakley observes that the high Middle Ages witnessed the constant interplay and mutual influence of Roman private law, ecclesiastical law, and constitutional law; see The Mortgage of the Past: Reshaping the Ancient Political Inheritance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 155. 86 Another example is Ratzinger’s using divine revelation to determine economic policy decisions, as Strand demonstrated in “On Method, Nature, and Grace.” 85 686 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. racy.” Christianity alone can serve democracy.87 Such suggestions militate against his claim elsewhere that the values he is proposing are confessionally neutral and not freighting specifically Christian content. As Gerald McKenny explains, Ratzinger distinguishes between, on the one hand, affirming the moral truth of Christianity as a historical tradition and, on the other, faith in Christian divine revelation: for Ratzinger, “Christianity as a historical tradition has embodied moral truth in such a way as to supply its evidential character and . . . this evidential character remains even where the fundamental theological and metaphysical claims of this tradition have been rejected.”88 This distinction sheds light on statements from Ratzinger like “Christianity has proved to be the most universal and rational [rationale] religious culture,” or the claim that when Catholics demand crucifixes in public spaces, they are fighting for “the basic modicum of humanity and human standards” (den Grundbestand an Menschlichkeit und an menschlichem Maß).89 These assertions refer to Christianity as a historical tradition, not as a divinely revealed religion—a tradition whose objective superiority Ratzinger thinks can be evident even to the non-believer. Ratzinger has criticized earlier theories of natural law for being loaded up with too much Christian content and still claiming to be natural. One might ask if Ratzinger is not making the same move here in his political theory. McKenny observes that since Ratzinger does not think reason can grasp moral truth without the historical tradition of Christianity, this leads “to the suspicion that the moral values to which he is committed are derived from a historical tradition rather than from a created moral order that is in principle accessible to reason.”90 Ratzinger exhorts non-believers to live veluti si Deus daretur (“as if God exists”) and to assent to Christianity as a moral tradition even if they do not believe in Christianity’s theological and metaphysical claims.91 Yet one might ask, what motivation would non-Christians have to do so if they understand themselves to have moved on from Christianity—especially if a motive of that moving-on was Christianity’s moral demands?92 It is unsurprising that a secular thinker would accuse Ratzinger of Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 202–3. See also Ratzinger, “Truth, Values, Power,” 104. 88 McKenny, “Moral Disagreements,” 219. 89 Ratzinger, “Truth, Values, Power,” 148; Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 207. 90 McKenny, “Moral Disagreements,” 219. 91 Joseph Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 51. 92 McKenny, “Moral Disagreements,” 219. 87 Ratzinger’s Republic 687 wanting to use the law to impose on the whole populace, including non-believers, moral convictions belonging to Christians alone. Such was Paolo Flores d’Arcais’s charge in a 2000 debate with Ratzinger.93 The then-Cardinal Prefect responded that he did not wish the law to promote specifically Christian values, but only natural human values that can be known by natural law. Flores d’Arcais shot back: Christianity’s claims about what is natural are really failed attempts to make universal and human what is instead one of many moral viewpoints. “You see how absurd it is to claim that a viewpoint of one form of Christianity coincides with the natural norm. It is a claim that inevitably leads to a refusal to recognize pluralism.”94 Flores D’Arcais’s objection brings to light a flaw in Ratzinger’s church–state theory, which is the failure to see that even in his claim to be proposing only natural and universal human values, he is proposing a Christian moral theory. The claim that in invoking natural-law arguments, Christians are moving to some shared neutral ground of pure reason is not convincing, as Ratzinger has placed the natural law within a larger Christian framework. In other words, he still wants Christianity to set the terms of the debate and to determine what is natural (with the magisterium of the Church being the ultimate arbitrator the natural law). The non-confessional, pluralistic claims are, in the end, not respected. Ratzinger’s failure to see this point may be partially due to historical context. A weakness of Ratzinger’s thought, like that of many churchmen of his generation, is his penchant for universalizing a brief moment in European history, namely, the 1945–1968 postwar period, marked by the trauma of totalitarianism and a turn toward liberal democracy. Having lived under National Socialism, Ratzinger was deeply concerned with any political forms that might seem to divinize the state. He regarded the union of Church and state as such a form, which threatened both the liberty of citizens and the freedom of faith. In this, his assumptions are exactly the opposite of traditional Catholic political thinkers and the preconciliar popes, who thought that the civil authorities’ recognition of the Church placed limits on the exercise of state power. The general warming toward liberal democracy on the part of churchmen that took place in Western Europe and North America following World War II led to such conciliar documents as Dignitatis Humanae and Gaudium et Spes; As Flores d’Arcais puts it elsewhere, Ratzinger “wants to impose on the world the truth of his Roman, Catholic, and apostolic Church on the whole ethical-political horizon” (Paolo Flores d’Arcais, La sfida oscurantista di Joseph Ratzinger [Milan: Ponte Alle Grazie, 2010], 49; translation ours). 94 Ratzinger, “Does God Exist?,” 241. 93 688 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. Ratzinger was very much part of this generation, and living under the rule of devout Christian Democrats like Konrad Adenauer seems to have buoyed his confidence in such regimes. Whatever the commitment of the postwar states of Western Europe to “values,” the achievement was short lived, since by 1968 the crisis of the great ethical sources was unmistakable. Benedict himself has called attention to the destructive chaos of this historical moment more than once, most recently in his 2019 letter on the sexual abuse scandal.95 One could argue that the postwar period was less of an achievement, as Ratzinger identified it, than one of transition, when the political status of divine law had been largely destroyed, but remained strong in the churches, and its wider residual effects on the civil law and on hearts and minds had yet to be undone. In this light, it may be that Ratzinger has wedded himself too closely to what he calls in his 2005 Christmas address to the Roman Curia “the practical forms that are dependent on the historical situation and therefore subject to change.”96 His own observations about the fragile fortunes of liberal political thought after Vatican II, especially in Latin America, support this hypothesis.97 If a secularist might charge Benedict with injecting too much Christianity into the state, some Catholics might wonder if he has injected enough. The effort to reduce Christianity to its elements that can be grasped by reason alone runs into the problem that Christianity is more “Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom, one which no longer conceded any norms. The mental collapse was also linked to a propensity for violence. That is why sex films were no longer allowed on airplanes because violence would break out among the small community of passengers. . . . Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of ’68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate. For the young people in the Church, but not only for them, this was in many ways a very difficult time” (Benedict XVI, “The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse,” trans. Anian Christoph Wimmer, Catholic News Agency, April 10, 2019, www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-benedict-xvi-the-church-and-the-scandal-ofsexual-abuse-59639). See also Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, rev. ed., trans. J. R. Foster, preface trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 11–18. 96 Pope Benedict XVI, “Interpreting Vatican II,” Origins CNS Documentary Service 35, no. 32 ( January 26, 2006): 538. 97 He notes that by the end of the 1960s, the disenchantment with Euro-American liberalism among Latin Americans had spread even to Europe and America; see Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 383–89. 95 Ratzinger’s Republic 689 concerned with the things that can be known by faith. It makes claims not only about God’s revelation and grace, but also about the intertwining between human and divine things. For most of the Church’s history, her bishops, theologians, and jurists have made far more robust claims for the faith’s public role. Preconciliar social encyclicals articulated as a matter of course numerous principles that do not appear in Ratzinger’s thought: the state must assist its members so that the spiritual goods for leading a religious life can more easily abound, a duty that includes defending the Church; the separation of Church and state is harmful; true worship is a part of justice (i.e., what man owes to God), and this must find some political expression.98 Popes like Leo XIII, as well as the thinkers they drew upon, believed that without the recognition of these principles, the social status of both the divine and the natural law would suffer, along with the overall spiritual health of a given people.99 Given that their predictions in large measure have come true, one might argue that Ratzinger’s elimination of these principles as a matter of principle, rather than a prudential adjustment to changing circumstances, facilitates the effacing of both Christianity and the natural law from public life.100 Limiting Catholicism’s presence in statecraft to Christianity’s “rational” kernel does not make room for the ways that the divine law impacts the understanding of the natural law on certain questions. In theory, a state that only recognized and enforced the dictates of the natural law could end up impeding the Church’s mission. Marriage, for example, is an See: Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos (1832), §23; Pius IX, Quanta Cura (1864), §3; Leo XII, Libertas Praestantissimum (1888), §§18, 21; Pius XI, Quas Primas (1925), §18. A good summary of these principles can be found in Joseph Fenton’s essay “Principles Underlying Traditional Church-State Doctrine,” in The Church of Christ: A Collection of Essays by Monsignor Joseph Fenton, ed. Christian Washburn (Tacoma, WA: Cluny Media, 2016), 288–301. As one scholar notes, “the traditional notions that served as the political foundation of Christendom” are absent from Ratzinger, particularly “any retrieval of political Augustinianism” (Christopher M. Cullen, S.J., “On the Political Order,” Nova et Vetera [English] 15, no. 3 [2017]: 898). 99 Leo XII, Immortale Dei (1885), §13–23. 100 McKenny rightly criticizes Ratzinger’s belief that political reason should not be disturbed by Christian eschatology reality, noting that the very Christian moral tradition Ratzinger wants to uphold shows “positive traces of the impact of Christian eschatology on political reason” that have been salutary for social and political life in the West. Insisting on reason’s autonomy in the political sphere, McKenny believes, would be counterproductive, keeping “Enlightenment reason alive in spite of Ratzinger’s efforts to restore the role of historical tradition” (“Moral Disagreements,” 219). 98 690 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. arena where the natural law and revelation are closely intertwined. Thomas Aquinas said that polygamy was not altogether contrary to the natural law.101 Does that mean that the defense of monogamy is an unwarranted loading up of the natural law with Christian content? There is also the thorny issue of the so-called Pauline and Petrine privileges. The state has an obligation under natural law to defend consummated, natural marriages, but the Church claims the right to dissolve them extrinsically when one party converts and the other is willing neither to accept baptism nor live at peace. It seems that a state that abided by the natural law alone would be obliged to withhold recognition of a new marriage contracted under Pauline or Petrine privilege, since they are only intelligible in light of the divine law. Although this is obviously not a practical problem in the West at the moment, there is a significant principle at stake. Since the interests and jurisdictions of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities overlap not only persons, but also significant areas of social life (marriage, education, etc.), many Catholic political thinkers have advocated mutual recognition and cooperation between these authorities.102 The lack of this feature in Ratzinger’s vision, as this example demonstrates, introduces problems wherever grace and divine positive law impact the claims of natural law. A root of such problems is Ratzinger’s opinion that the Church according to her nature should be separate from the state. It seems that Ratzinger thinks that the type of church–state separation found in contemporary liberal democracies is not just a prudential decision about how best to arrange these entities in a particular historical context, but is the optimal ordering of political and social life in principle. His forceful condemnation of the “Constantinian” period of the Church’s history suggests a conclusion: that after fifteen hundred years of getting it wrong, the Church finally got her relationship to the state right.103 Such a position puts Ratzinger among the liberal interpreters of Dignitatis Humanae, who think that the document has committed the Church, as a matter of magisterial teaching, Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, Suppl., q. 65, a. 1. See Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, §13. 103 “The use of the State by the Church for its own purposes, climaxing in the Middle Ages and in absolutist Spain of the early modern era, has since Constantine been one of the most serious liabilities of the Church, and any historically minded person is inescapably aware of this. In its thinking, the Church has stubbornly confused faith in the absolute truth manifest in Christ with insistence on an absolute secular status for the institutional Church” ( Joseph Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II [New York: Paulist Press, 2009], 144). This view is not altogether harmonious with the view of Constantine that he articulates elsewhere; see note 56 above. 101 102 Ratzinger’s Republic 691 to separation from the state.104 This is a more restrictive understanding of the variety of legitimate church–state arrangements than the conciliar declaration itself seems to stipulate.105 As John Courtney Murray says in his commentary on Dignitatis Humanae in the Abbott edition of the documents of Vatican II, “the Council did not wish to condemn the institution of ‘establishment,’ the notion of a ‘religion of the state.’”106 Avery Dulles echoes this claim, arguing that “Dignitatis does not negate earlier Church teaching on the duties of the State toward the true faith.”107 A related problem with Ratzinger’s model is determining what he means by “Christianity” and how it exercises a political role. If he means Christianity in a generic sense, then it is far from clear that the tens of thousands of groups and assemblies that claim the name “Christian” possess and pass on a common moral consensus. In fact, disputes over such questions have been tearing apart ecclesial communities for centuries. Even setting aside such disputes, Christian churches are far too weak in the West as institutions, both internally and in their relations with each other, to act in a consistent or sustained manner on behalf of their ethical teachings in the public square. If by “Christianity” Ratzinger means the Catholic Church and her authoritative teaching, which one assumes he does, there is still the problem of how she exercises a public role. Ratzinger Martin Rhonheimer, “Dignitatis humanae: Not a Mere Question of Church Policy: A Response to Thomas Pink,” Nova et Vetera (English) 12, no. 2 (2014): 453; Massimo Faggioli, Catholicism and Citizenship: Political Cultures in the Church in the Twenty-First Century (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier, 2017), 79, 91–92; Thomas Guarino, The Disputed Teachings of Vatican II: Continuity and Reversal in Catholic Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018), 196. 105 “Religious freedom . . . leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ” (Dignitatis Humanae, §1); “If, in view of peculiar circumstances obtaining among peoples, special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional order of society, it is at the same time imperative that the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom should be recognized and made effective in practice” (Dignitatis humanae, §6). 106 John Courtney Murray, S.J., commentary note to Dignitatis Humanae, in The Documents of Vatican II: With Notes and Comments by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Authorities, ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), 685n17. 107 Dulles notes that the only official commentary on this point was the final relatio of Bishop De Smedt, in which he gave “a decisive answer” explaining that the conciliar text “did not overlook or deny but clearly recalled Leo XIII’s teaching on the duties of the public authority [potestatis publicae] toward the true religion” (Avery Dulles, S.J., Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures, 1988–2007 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 354). 104 692 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. does not want the civil authorities to recognize the teaching authority of the Church’s bishops, as this would violate the state’s secularity. If the role of religion is “to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles,” who is responsible for this task at the level of public decisions?108 He seems to envision individual Christians, armed with their individual consciences, influencing political and social life on their own initiative.109 If this is the case, then it leaves them in a notably weak position in the practical sphere, isolated from each other and from the hierarchy of the Church. As William Cavanaugh observes, this is a logical consequence of the Lockean ideas that pervade the Anglo-American tradition.110 For Christianity to have anything like a properly political role, even as the guarantor of the natural law, it needs some sort of corporate representation that is established either in civil law or at least in the mores of the populace. Ratzinger denies the legitimacy of the first and acknowledges the diminishing possibility of the second, raising serious issues about the practicability of his proposal.111 Nevertheless, his political writings have been warmly received.112 Ratzinger, “Ethical Foundations,” 155. Although he does not develop this theme at length, his examples are nearly always individuals acting in the face of powerful, hostile forces, rather than taking a common stand as a corporate body. His citation of the characters in Reinhold Schneider’s novel on Las Casas (Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 168–71), of Thomas More in his address at Westminster (“Ethical Foundations,” 153–54), and Josephine Bakhita in Spe Salvi (2007), §43, are all cases in point. 110 “Lockean liberalism can afford to be gracious toward ‘religious pluralism’ precisely because ‘religion’ as an interior matter is the State’s own creation. Locke says that the State cannot coerce the religious conscience because of the irreducibly solitary nature of religious judgment; ‘All the life and power of true religion consist in the inward and full persuasion of the mind.’ But for the very same reason he categorically denies the social nature of the Church, which is redefined as a free association of like-minded individuals”; see William T. Cavanaugh, “‘A Fire Strong Enough to Consume the House’: The Wars of Religion and the Rise of the State,” Modern Theology 11, no. 4 (1995): 407 (citing John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration [Indianapolis. IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955], 18, 35). 111 Ratzinger favors the German arrangement, which does entail a kind of state recognition of the Church, but not as the teacher of the true religion or even of the natural law; see Pfeiffer, Religion und Politik, 113. 112 Neo-conservatives have offered almost unqualified praise for Ratzinger’s political proposals. See: Rourke, Social and Political Thought; Mark Guerra, ed., Pope Benedict XVI and the Politics of Modernity (New York: Routledge, 2014); James Schall, The Regensburg Lecture (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2007); Martin Rhonheimer, “Benedict XVI’s ‘Hermeneutic of Reform and Religious Freedom,” Nova et Vetera (English) 9, no. 4 (2011): 1029–54; George Weigel, Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace (Chestnut Ridge, NY: Cross108 109 Ratzinger’s Republic 693 Conclusion We have traced Ratzinger’s ambivalence toward natural law to a deeper tension in his thinking on the Church’s place in public life and have questioned the internal consistency of Ratzinger’s position. In so doing, we take our direction from Ratzinger himself and his clear-eyed courage as a theologian and pastor. In a private circular first published in 1982 with the title Bilanz der Nachkonzilszeit, he pointed out some of the negative factors experienced in the wake of Vatican II (the emptying of churches, seminaries, and convents; an acrimonious and divisive spirit in the Church) and then continued: Anyone who says all this is quickly accused of pessimism and excluded from the discussion. But there is question here of empirical facts. To feel obliged to deny them is to betray no longer pessimism but a silent despair. No, to see facts is not pessimism; it is objectivity [Sachlichkeit]. Only when we face them can we ask what these facts mean, whence they come from and how they are to be met.113 The facts here concern respect for the natural law among both the faithful and the civil authorities in the Western democracies. On many moral issues where the Church claims that her positions are accessible to reason alone, road, 2008), 289–98. Even the conservative criticisms of Caritas in Veritate Strand noted previously (“On Method, Nature, and Grace,” 835–37) could be couched in such a way as to defend Benedict personally, as in the case of Weigel. Traditionalist authors, who more than any group would be in opposition to Ratzinger’s political principles, have largely spared him the criticism they directed against John Paul II, perhaps because the former was more sympathetic to some of their causes, especially liturgically. See, e.g., Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods Jr., The Great Façade: The Regime of Novelty in the Catholic Church from Vatican II to the Francis Revolution, 2nd. ed. (Kettering, OH: Angelico, 2015), especially 305–72. While liberation theologians have been unsurprisingly cool toward Ratzinger’s political thought, this has largely involved rebuffing Ratzinger’s criticism of their project rather than pointing out weaknesses in Ratzinger’s own political thinking. See, e.g.: Juan Luis Segundo, Theology and the Church: A Response to Cardinal Ratzinger and a Warning to the Whole Church, trans. John W. Diercksmeier (Minneapolis, MN: Seabury-Winston, 1985); Ignacio Ellacuría, “The Christian Challenge of Liberation Theology,” in Ignacio Ellacuría: Essays on History, Liberation, and Salvation, ed. Michael E. Lee (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2013), 123–35 (ch. 5). Others have expressed discomfort with Ratzinger’s Eurocentrism. See James Corkery, Joseph Ratzinger’s Theological Ideas: Wise Cautions and Legitimate Hopes (New York: Paulist Press, 2009), 122. 113 Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 370 (translation modified). 694 Vincent L. Strand, S.J., and Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J. the social, political, and cultural apparatus of the West has rejected them, to the point that, in many places, the articulation of those teachings in word and deed is treated as a sign of bad manners, a violation of justice, or even a criminal act. Meanwhile, belief in those same teachings among the faithful runs somewhere between a significant minority (as on abortion) to an infinitesimal minority (as on contraception). Making this observation, however unpleasant, is not pessimism; it is objectivity. We need to acknowledge that something has gone badly amiss. Ratzinger knows this well: few churchmen have decried with greater perspicacity the loss of the sense of God in the West and the concomitant dissolution of moral life that has occurred in recent decades.114 These vast changes in religious and social life since the post–World War II era have not caused him, however, to adjust his political vision, as he has remained tied to the promises of the mid-twentieth century long after that era and its possibilities have passed. In commenting on the sobering-up that some Catholics experienced after the initial enthusiasm of the council faded, Ratzinger remarked, “we cannot return to the past, nor have we any desire to do so.”115 We agree—whether this past be the thirteenth century or the mid-twentieth. We might look back, however, to consider what has gone wrong so that we might admit our failures, and then do some serious thinking about what we might do differently in the future. N&V At the time of the present writing, Benedict continues to do so, such as in his 2019 letter on the sexual abuse crisis, in which he declares the sexual revolution an “egregious event . . . unprecedented in history,” and traces the cause of the crisis ultimately to a loss of belief in God (“The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse”). 115 Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 393. 114 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 695–707 695 Thomism in Ecstasy: Olivier-Thomas Venard on the Wording of Theology and the Expropriation of Cultural Discourses Cyril O’Regan University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN I would like to begin this reflection with a very general dila- tion on the theological achievement of the Dominican Olivier-Thomas Venard, rendered in his trilogy of Pagina sacra, La langue de l’ineffable, and Littérature et théologie, and brought to the attention of the Anglophone theological public by the translation efforts of Francesca Murphy and Kenneth Oakes in their A Poetic Christ: Thomist Reflections on Scripture, Language and Reality (Bloomsbury, 2019). The substantial five-hundredpage anthology still represents only a third of the trilogy. Yet, even in translation the trilogy comes across as breathtakingly beautiful, not only because in large part it manifests the capacity to bear with and to bear the effects of glory rendered by the biblical text, but it also repeats at a distance a particular style of theology which, despite its theoretical sophistication, or precisely because of it, remains constantly in conversation with Scripture. For Venard, the figure of figures is none other than Thomas Aquinas. I will shortly provide a sketch of Venard’s unusual figuration of Aquinas, but before I do, it is important to note that while it is true that Venard is anxious to establish the aesthetic register of Scripture and the copious theological production of Aquinas, he wishes to go a step further in speaking to both as forms of poetics: Scripture and the theology of Aquinas bear an analogy to each other in that both are forms of enunciation that brazenly deploy all available linguistic and rhetorical resources to render the Word which by definition represents the coincidence of the act of enunciation and the content. The newly published translation makes us appreciate even more than 696 Cyril O’Regan one did in the French trilogy the level of sophistication displayed in Venard’s hermeneutics. With regard to Scripture, the philological performance is a match for the very best that one can find in German, while being vastly more knowledgeable in the history of interpretation, Patristic and medieval as well as modern, as well as being considerably more theoretically adept in its mastery of semiotics, ancient, medieval, and post-Saussurean. Yet beyond its singularity, Venard never forgets that the finality of Scripture is transformation, and he dares to think that this is also the aim of the most intellectually rigorous forms of Christian theology of which Aquinas represents an exemplary instance. Venard is not remotely interested in coming across as an original. Thus, when we read him on either Aquinas or Scripture, he will also acquaint us in the notes—without burdening his main text—with all the available scholarship in all the main languages of commentary. Venard does the Anglo-intellectual world a particular service, however, by drawing attention to the marvelous French scholarship on both. He introduces us to biblical commentators such as François Martin, Jean Grosjean, and Oswald Ducrot, among a host of others. With regard to French scholarship on the Bible he draws particular attention to discussions on the relation between the Gospel of John and the Synoptic Gospels which appear to be on an entirely different level from similar discussions in the German and English literature in terms that the theoretical apparatus deployed. A similar phenomenon is observable in Venard’s opening up of a treasure trove of French interpretation of Aquinas beyond the usual suspects of Chenu, Torrell, and more recently Gilles Emery. We are made aware of and come to appreciate Henri Paissac, Yves Floucat, Louis de Bonald, and Louis Lachance, who continue the ressourcement of the historical Aquinas, but in a new key. For these scholars, with whom Venard identifies himself, Aquinas is far more than a philosopher given to proofs of God’s existence. He is even more than the theologian who gives functional priority to sacra divina, a stance that, indeed, has been taken in the past decades by English interpreters of Aquinas; he is more even than the theologian who is a medieval interpreter of John, Matthew, and Paul of the first order. The Aquinas that these French commentators prime for Venard is an Aquinas who thinks that the Word that is worded in Scripture is also worded differently in theological texts that engage searching intellects not satisfied with anything less than the truth, goodness, and beauty of and as the tri-personal God. For Venard, the greatness of the Word both in Scripture and in the theological tradition is its very vulnerability: the Cross is a form of knowledge as well as reality, the gift which is nothing less than everything can be rejected as well as accepted; although even when rejected, it can Thomism in Ecstasy 697 demonstrate the capacity to exceed its own refusal. Now, there can be no dodging the preciousness of a title that recalls Ron Hanson’s Mariette in Ecstasy which has as its theme the clash between the scientific and religious assessments of the mystical experience of a cloistered nun. Still, I think there is something instructional in the particular use of “ecstasy” which precisely bears on the believability of a phenomenon. That the theology of Aquinas admits of the label “ecstatic” is just about as believable or unbelievable as the avowal of ecstatic Christian experiences according to the norms of the secular world. The theology of Aquinas has been widely labeled throughout its long history, but I am confident that its conjugation by ecstasy is non-standard. Aquinas has been held up as a model of analytic rigor and demonstration, an exemplar of what a comprehensive theological system would look like, a summary of Western intellectual history that might function as the guide for future ages, and also a form of thought that has a dynamic epistemological register as thinkers such as Rousselot, Maréchal, Maritain, Rahner, and Lonergan have shown. With less credibility Aquinas has been thought to be mystical precisely because we find him denouncing the elaborate semiotic and semantic procedures he deploys to elaborate Word and Wisdom in the Summa theologiae in his exclamation “all is straw.” The genius of Venard’s trilogy, which the translators manage to capture beautifully, is that all writing is the prolation or ecstasy of the Word paradigmatically spoken in the biblical text. Theology, as transcription and redescription, is in its munificent architecture calculated to be the vehicle of this ever-renewable speech act at once creative, preservative, and transformative. The ecstatic turn of Aquinas’s theological “poetics”—or what Venard calls “Thomasian poetics”—has as its aim the human subject turned towards God and in loving hospitality towards the neighbor. Venard’s rendering of a “Thomasian poetics” or “poetic Thomasianism” is not simply another in a long line of linguistic interpretations that insist that Aquinas pays considerable attention to the language of terms and does not innocently think of signs in terms of reference. The linguistic Aquinas rendered by Venard is far more replete than we are accustomed to, and Venard’s mastery of discourse theory and post-structuralist semiotics distinguishes him from most Anglo supporters of a linguistic Aquinas who are not expert in medieval speculative grammar and who, usually but not always, tend to see a proto-linguistic Aquinas through the speech act theory of Austin or the linguistic pragmatics of the later Wittgenstein. Much more would need to be said about particular Venard contributions to the linguistic register of Aquinas than I can say here. Rather than going into the intricacies of Venard’s argument perhaps it might be better to get 698 Cyril O’Regan a flavor of his linguistic and poetic contribution through two contrasts in and through which we can move from the more- to the less-known. The first contrast I would like to construct is that between Venard’s poetics of the Word and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics. While they have much in common, thinking through the differences allows us to get something of a fix on Venard’s unique contribution. The second contrast is between Venard and the postmodern author and thinker Umberto Eco. Eco is chosen because, while like Venard he is an aficionado of medieval aesthetics and is similarly expert in medieval, early modern, and postmodern semiotics, he insists that Aquinas’s thought is incapable of being stretched in such a way that it can account for modern and/or modernist works of art. Against Eco Venard claims that read properly Aquinas’s thought is poetic enough, ecstatic enough, to do precisely this. Venard’s Theological Poetics and Balthasar’s Theological Aesthetics With Radical Orthodoxy in the form of John Milbank championing Venard’s Christological poetics, one has to be careful not to be too apodictic in claiming that the analogue for Venard’s project is in the end provided by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Nonetheless, there seem to be sufficient grounds for asserting at the very least that the great Swiss theologian’s articulation of a theological aesthetics serves as a template for Venard’s bold articulation of a Christological poetics. First, and most formally, if one distinguishes between program outline and sustained theological performance, then Balthasar can be thought to provide a template for the differentiated, complex, yet highly integrated theological articulation of Venard’s trilogy which involves the explication and application of Scripture, the uplifting of the unique contribution made by theological science, and a significant exhibition of the scope and depth of biblical and theological encounter with modern cultural discourses. Second, it should be noted that throughout his trilogy the stance taken by Venard towards Balthasar is almost reverential. Balthasar’s insistence on the incommensurability of the biblical text is taken to heart; his Catholic specification of the principled difference between the Word and the words of the Bible and yet their equally principled inseparability is repeated; his essentially Irenaean understanding of the relation between the Old and New Testament is underscored; his use of the category of glory as a central thread uniting the Old and New Testament is highlighted; his brazen avowal of the Gospel of John as making a unique theological contribution to understanding the divine and the divine–human relation, while also serving as the point of reference and integration of the Synoptic Gospels is vigorously supported; his judgment that at their best the Patristic and Scholastic traditions orbit Thomism in Ecstasy 699 the biblical text and that the technical language of theology not only does not impede fidelity to Scripture, but facilitates it, is embraced with conviction; the Swiss theologian’s openness to philosophy understood as a discourse propelled by wonder and perplexity and characterized by conceptual sophistication is not only affirmed but copiously and judiciously acted upon; and finally Balthasar’s opening up of theology to the insights and language of literature in general, and poetry in particular, is non-identically repeated as Venard explores the relations between both theology and Scripture and modern French poetry. In terms both of the range of themes, the judgments taken on board, and the level of integration, it seems safe to say that it is Balthasar rather than Maritain who is Venard’s specifically Catholic precursor, despite the fact that Maritain is treated with great respect throughout the trilogy and that it is obviously Maritain rather than Balthasar who provides the template for the kind of creative Thomism represented and illustrated in Venard’s trilogy. Still, despite the massive continuities between the two theologians, there are salient differences between Venard’s trilogy and Balthasar’s multi-volume Glory of the Lord in which he elaborates his theological aesthetics. I will limit myself to three. The first concerns the degree of sanction provided the historical-critical method. While both affirm the validity of its use in interpreting the biblical text, and do so in the context of understanding biblical language to be performative as well as descriptive and thus aimed at existential transformation in the hearers of the Word, their measure of enthusiasm for historical-critical method is quite definitely variable. At the very least, Balthasar’s enthusiasm is muted, drawn as he is towards Patristic exegesis and de Lubac’s fourfold scheme of interpreting Scripture (literal-historical, moral, allegorical, and mystical) as an essential frame. In contrast, Venard lifts up the virtues of philological analysis which he thinks is capable of exposing transformative meaning every bit as much as allegorical and mystical interpretation. At the same time, Venard does not provide a carte blanche to the historical-critical exegete. For the French Dominican Dei Verbum is regulative in its insistence on the reality of revelation and the consequent incommensurability of the biblical text is intended to forestall, on the one hand, the imperialistic claims of any interpretive method to be the key to unlocking the Word of God and, on the other, the claim that the words of Scripture are reductively the expressions of human authors shaped and formed by expectations, social norms, and religious and moral traditions. A second major difference between Venard and Balthasar concerns the extent to which Aquinas is a featured player in their respective theological aesthetics and Christological poetics elaborations. If we take Balthasar 700 Cyril O’Regan first, we can say that there are numerous points throughout Glory of the Lord where Aquinas is an important figure for him. In Glory of the Lord IV, for example, Balthasar determines that Aquinas is an important metaphysical voice that should not be eschewed since he maintains the best of the Neoplatonic tradition while representing a recovery of Aristotle’s realist metaphysics. In addition, in Glory of the Lord V Balthasar defends Aquinas against Heidegger’s objection that metaphysics in general and medieval metaphysics in particular represent a flagrant transgression of the ontological difference between Being and beings by identifying Being with the highest being. In Heidegger’s philosophical horizon what he takes to be the entitification of reality is not only the category mistakes of category mistakes; it fatefully and fatally vacuums mystery and event from human existence. For Balthasar, the ontological difference is subtended by the even greater difference between the creator and the created in and through which mystery and gratuity are more fully captured and more adequately rendered as personal rather than impersonal. While Balthasar here can rely on other twentieth-century Catholic thinkers such as Erich Przywara and Gustav Siewerth, it has to be said that the distinction between the creator and created has a been a key ingredient in Catholic apologetics from the early to middle nineteenth century, is pivotal in the emergence of neo-Thomism, is ratified in the First Vatican Council, and comes to be a core feature in the different articulations of Christian philosophy provided by Maritain and Gilson. Of course, Aquinas is also a pre-text in Glory of the Lord I. In this, the foundational volume of Balthasar’s theological aesthetics, however, it seems as if the Angelic Doctor shares space with Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius and, arguably, is eclipsed by Bonaventure. In summary, while Aquinas is hardly absent from the three thousand pages of Glory of the Lord, his presence seems to be have been reduced to one among a select band of Catholic thinkers. This is disappointing news for any thinker of Thomist persuasion, Venard not excepted, even if, as we have already pointed out, his scintillating articulation of a linguistic and thoroughly post-structuralist Aquinas is hardly common fare, and nowhere throughout the trilogy do we find a trace of Thomistic triumphalism in which Aquinas is considered to be the philosopher and theologian of the Catholic church. With enormous discretion throughout the trilogy a particular Aquinas is recommended to our attention as helping us to understand the God we witness to and through whom we come to be who we are. The recommendation of the Angelic Doctor is unreserved, and the analyses of Aquinas texts superbly detailed yet elegant. Taking a very telescopic view, perhaps the best way of understanding the status of Aquinas in Venard’s trilogy is not after the pattern of Aeterni Patris, but Thomism in Ecstasy 701 rather that of Fides et Ratio in which if Aquinas is not a singularity, he is, nonetheless, special in the range and depth of his philosophical and theological performance. Neither in Glory of the Lord nor in other parts of his triptych of Glory of the Lord, Theo-Drama, and Theo-Logic does Balthasar elevate Aquinas to this extent. Part of the reason likely has to do with a concern that Aquinas is not a biblical theologian in the way that Augustine and Origen are, as well as other medieval theologians, Bonaventure for sure and, arguably, even Anselm. It is true that nowhere does Balthasar deny scriptural depth to Aquinas. At the same time nowhere does he draw specific attention to it. In contrast, for Venard, Aquinas is a biblical theologian all the way down and across, not simply for the reason that we can no longer ignore Aquinas’s biblical commentaries, above all his commentaries on the Gospels of John and Matthew, but also because it is impossible to read the Summa theologiae without taking account of the intrinsic relationship between Wisdom and Word and how the latter directly regulates large sections of Aquinas’s masterpiece and is the telos of the rest. A third difference between Venard and Balthasar worth mentioning concerns the role modern—or better, modernist—literature plays in Venard’s trilogy in comparison to Glory of the Lord and between Venard’s trilogy and the entire span of Balthasar’s triptych of Glory of the Lord, Theo-Drama, and Theo-Logic. Of course, as one puts the work of the two authors side by side one notices other broader and more obvious differences, including the fact that Venard is not anywhere near as interested as Balthasar is in tracking the historical interaction between the biblical text, theology, and the Western literary tradition in just about all of its genres and in the process adjudicating the question which genre of literature (lyric poetry, epic poetry, drama, novel) makes the best conversation partner for Christian theology. The conversation between theology and poetry is something that we find early in Balthasar’s work. Balthasar’s dissertation (1930) and his Apokalypse der deutschen Seele (1937–1939) focus on German-speaking poets such as Hӧlderlin and Rilke, and he returns to these poets again and again throughout his work, perhaps most conspicuously in Glory of the Lord V. But it is not only German poetry that is of interest to Balthasar. The natalist poetry of Charles Péguy with its extraordinary Marian frame is celebrated in Glory of the Lord III and, of course, from the beginning of his career Balthasar both recommends and translates the poetry of Paul Claudel, which he takes to be energized by the Word and capable of taking up the profane words of the world into the Word and thereby redeeming them. By and large, however, with regard to his French canon, as with regard to other non-French poets, Balthasar deals with poets who are friendly 702 Cyril O’Regan towards Christianity. Here Venard, who limits himself mainly to modern French poetry, comes across as by far the greater risk-taker. More in the tradition of Maritain, Venard focuses on French modernist poetry. Instead of elevating Baudelaire, as Maritain does, Venard’s reflections on poetry circle around Mallarmé, Ponge, and Rimbaud. The last-named represents for him the plenary example of a modern poet who has self-consciously left Christianity behind, and who yet cannot resist the attraction of the luminous figure of Christ, nor fail to recall the nest of biblical symbols and narratives that render him. Venard makes the audacious and counter-intuitive claim not only that the Bible, as the words that testify to the Word, has the capacity to enlist and counter explicit unbelief in modernity, but also that the philosophy and theology of Aquinas has a similar capacity. The latter claim, or what might be regarded as the second aspect of a more complex claim, is on the surface startling. Yet if we remember just how ecstatic, for Venard, the Word is in Aquinas’s thought and how much it animates his theological procedure, then perhaps it makes far more sense than at first it might appear. Venard is here travelling on a very different path than the modern Hegelian dialectic of the death of God in which the experience of the very absence of the divine functions as its re-inscription. Rather, Venard is referring to the paradoxical nature of Rimbaud’s poetic response which while refusing Christianity holds to Christ and his prophets and saints as the measure by which to judge a fatuous modernity and its jaded and flatulent literary expressions. Venard and Umberto Eco: Commanding or Suffering Chaosmos If Venard’s theological poetics is ecstatic, it is so in significant part because it immerses itself in and threads itself through the particular subject matters of Scripture, Aquinas’s philosophy and theology, and modernist literature. It is through the thickest of descriptions, rather than making relationships themselves the theme, that in his trilogy Venard allows the intricacies of these relationships to show themselves. Intrinsically tied to the Word, a “Thomasian” theology demonstrates its power of assimilation of modern culture not only by being able to explain, and thus include, both modes of modern literature that are friendly to Christianity and modes of aesthetic performance regulated by form and light, but also modes of literature hostile to Christianity (modernist) and regulated more nearly by the sublime that semiotically deranges and semantically maddens the reader of the text. Given this, it should come as no surprise that Venard touches also on various kinds of postmodern literary theories that eschew significance as well as reference. Here Venard shows himself to be particularly vexed by the post-Saussurean semiotic theories associ- Thomism in Ecstasy 703 ated with the names of Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida. Given the specificities and peculiarities of Venard’s theological poetics, however, ultimately its foil is provided by neither Barthes nor Derrida, nor for that matter any other French postmodern thinker. The foil I would suggest is provided by the Italian postmodern of gargantuan talent, that is, Umberto Eco. Not only is the creator of The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum a master of semiotic theory in general and a connoisseur of medieval and early modern semiotics in particular, but he is an adept when it comes to medieval aesthetics and is especially knowledgeable of Thomistic aesthetics which he admits has some—largely anachronistic— currency in modern literature in that it both regulates and is commented on in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist. Crucially, albeit accompanied with the kind of downplaying of the role of God as the “transcendental signified” one finds in Derrida’s Of Grammatology, it is Eco who asks the question of whether a medieval or specifically Thomistic aesthetic of form and light is adequate to the modern experience of language as a chain of signifiers whose meaning is liquid and whose correspondence with reality is deferred or whether another aesthetic entirely, that is, an aesthetic of the chaosmos rather than the cosmos, is called for. The question is as important as the answer, for the question unites Venard and Eco as much as the answer divides. Eco, of course, resolutely decides in favor of chaosmos, which in the post-Kantian horizon of aesthetics within which he operates effectively means a choice for the sublime over the aesthetic. Without prejudice to the likes of Mallarmé, who is a default French exemplum, once again Joyce is emblematic for Eco, only this time the Joyce of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, that is, the Joyce who puts behind him straightforward story-telling and the illusion of reliable meaning. Of course, this Joyce is also the Joyce of Derrida, who sees no reason to choose between Mallarmé and the Irish French immigrant. It does not take a great deal of wit to imagine a variety of apologetic responses emerging from Catholic theology as it deals with an aggressive modernity in which it has to face simultaneously challenges to the discursive authority of the biblical text and responses of incredulity and derision regarding its claim that even in its state of faded glory theology still remains queen of the sciences. If the natural sciences must necessarily be regarded as the main contender to the discursive authority of theology, so also can art and even more specifically literature. One knows that it can be so because in fact it has been so, French symbolist poetry providing a plenary example alongside German and English Romanticism and American Transcendentalism. Modes of apologetic adaptation are numerous. A possible and also actual Catholic response is to dispense with Aquinas 704 Cyril O’Regan altogether on the grounds that even if one could demonstrate that there was a gap between the historical Thomas and neo-Thomism, pragmatically it would not be of value to turn the difference into the Catholic cause. Whatever the internal benefits with respect to the Catholic sense of coherence and consistency across the centuries, unburying the real Aquinas would look like a very circuitous way of handling the pressing crisis of discursive authority in modernity. Which is not to say that Aquinas might not be kept in play, though where the emphasis would fall would depend in large part on which discourses are presumed to be rivals. If literature assumes this mantle, there exists a broad vocabulary of option: for example, one might shrink Thomas either by cutting off his aesthetic from his Trinitarian and Christological commitments and/or the Bible as the normative expression of the Word, or to all intents and purposes shirk him by blending him in with more thoroughgoing apophatic form of theology whose “negative capability” for dealing with a modern lack of confidence in the signified would be more obvious. Rather than going down any of these apologetic tracks, which ultimately prove to be cul de sacs, Venard doubles down on the integration of philosophy and theology in Aquinas as well as his recollecting and recasting of both of these Western traditions, insists on the mutual fructifying of theology and Scripture as both scans and scansions of the Word, and underscores the central role the Gospel of John plays both as the acme of testimony and as the crucial point of mediation between Scripture and “Thomasian” theology. It is only a slight exaggeration, then, to say that throughout his great trilogy Venard performs an inversion that is Nietzschean in its upsetting of expectations: he essentially dismisses the law of inverse proportion when it comes to the relation between the premodern and the modern. Venard’s law is the law of more: the more concerted the metaphysical impulse, the more determinately Trinitarian and Christological the theology, the more influential the biblical text in theology and practice, the more insistent the aesthetic posture, the greater the chance that theology can assimilate and expropriate cultural production in secular modernity that either explicitly refuses Christianity or rules out its Thomasian rendition. Venard is convinced that the Thomasian rendition of Christianity, and thus centrally the Word that has been paradigmatically worded by Scripture, has the capacity for stretching in and beyond the proliferation and autonomism of signs. A Thomasian Christological poetics has the capacity to vouchsafe the prophetic and critical elements of modern revolt, take on board its radical searching which recalls what is best in Augustine and Aquinas, and counter the erosion of meaning while funding the hope that the logic of the question supposes, if not an actual answer, then answerabil- Thomism in Ecstasy 705 ity in principle. For Venard, precisely because Aquinas’s Christ is Logos, he is at once langue and parole stretching across the thundering denial of meaning and the performative deformation of meaning in modernist and postmodern texts. This is to speak merely formally. Materially specified, the Cross and resurrection, which in Aquinas mark the Word’s infinite reach into the world of signs and meaning, traverse the loss of significance and non-violently recuperate significance. Together Cross and resurrection leave an indelible mark on discourse itself. If this is the general claim, then, the test case turns out to be the poetry of the precocious Rimbaud who lived for art, as art blessed him, before he deserted it for the mundane life of commerce. One can read Venard to say that in Illuminations and Une Saison en Enfer Rimbaud’s very execrations of the Church, priestly office, and precept paradoxically testify to the power of Christ as the supreme form of life. Indeed, the testimony to Christ, but also the prophets and saints that constellate around him, serve for Rimbaud as the measure for the poverty of the facile contemporary poetry that is l’art pour l’art, at once a poetry of pure form and purely formulaic, a poetry made up exclusively of signifiers and completely unhaunted by a signified that is not fully available to us in the present and that resides either in an irremediable past or the unapproachable future. For Venard—and here he seems to say Rimbaud is in agreement—a poetry worthy of the name, that is, a poetry that is a discourse of illumination and prophecy in that it moves towards a condition of testimony and thus transformation of the conditions of existence, will necessarily echo in its images and diction the biblical text. It is this echoing which saves poetry from its tendency towards moralism and even more from its tendency towards both vacuity and solipsism. For Venard, however, it is not enough that the power of the Word be demonstrated in literatures hospitable to Christianity or which share a common vocation to meaning. The power of a Christological poetics is demonstrated in and through its stretch across the gap of the denial of its pertinence and a denial of meaning. Venard both deepens and complicates Augustine’s ruminations on the spolia Aegyptorum in De doctrina Christiana by enlarging the scope of what can be enlisted or expropriated by the Word. At the same time there is no triumphalism: the Word that traverses the land of unlikeness is involved in a feedback loop whereby the poetry it expropriates capacitates the explication of Scripture and fertilizes and reanimates theology in eminent danger of giving way to the sclerosis of a system of propositions. Needless to say, any viable account of how the Word can traverse and express itself in a medium that would oppose it would necessarily have to take account of the Holy Spirit or better the 706 Cyril O’Regan relation between Christ and the Holy Spirit, who hovers over meaning and stretches over the abyss of its loss. While it is not a point that comes up, one wonders whether it is just here where Venard is most prepared to venture something like a literal sense of inspiration when it comes to modern literary production, he also has not put in something like an anti-Joachimite fail-safe after the manner of theologians like de Lubac and Balthasar. Not only in the volume explicitly devoted to poetry, but throughout Venard’s trilogy as a whole, Rimbaud functions as a synecdoche of modernist literature that has uprooted itself from the Christian tradition and which now proceeds under the guidance of an aesthetic in which semantic dérèglement finds its subjective correlative in the chaos of modern experience, at once accepted and invented. Answering a postmodern such as Eco, whether consciously or not, effectively outbidding him, is one of the most significant achievements of Venard’s trilogy. It certainly commends him to John Milbank, who has a similar understanding of the capacity of Thomas to assimilate or “evacuate” would-be purely secular production and a similar view of the necessity of a Christological poetics rather than aesthetics. Of course, even if Milbank and Venard agree with regard to overall intention, Venard has clear advantages when it comes to an understanding of, on the one hand, the intricate details of Aquinas’s theology and philosophy and his biblical hermeneutics and, on the other, where precisely in Aquinas’s discourse the prophetic or ecstatic is to be found. Venard and Milbank agree that with regard to Aquinas it is far better to speak of theology completing philosophy than of philosophy grounding theology, from which it follows that, from the point of view of thought, Christological and Trinitarian doctrines serve as overlapping hubs and, from the point of view of practice, the Eucharist serves as the concentrated form of the ramification of grace. Without prejudice to Milbank’s achievement, arguably, Venard is more patient when it comes to articulating the Trinitarian and Christological matrices of the Word, and more expansive when it comes to speaking to the performance of the Eucharist. But the most conspicuous difference is that, in the case of Venard, Aquinas’s Christological poetics is not mixed, as is the case with Milbank, either with the perspectivalism of Cusanus or the commitment to “making” of Vico. For Venard, Aquinas does not require supplements. Or put more paradoxically: he supplies his own. Conclusion I began by saying that Venard’s trilogy is breathtakingly beautiful. I would like to revise that and say that the trilogy, even in its current abbreviated English translation, is breath-givingly beautiful. It is intellectually Thomism in Ecstasy 707 world-bending in terms of scope, quintessentially French in its commitment to clarity and economy in expression, and lustrous in terms of its expression of a Christological poetics, guided by the Word, and relayed through Scripture. Venard’s projet operates in a similar horizon of assumption to that of John Milbank. Yet, as argued here perhaps some of the most important contributions of Venard’s audacious trilogy can be set off in and through developed contrasts with the theological aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar, on the one hand, and the postmodern sophistications of Umberto Eco, on the other. In the end, however, the expression as well as the thought of Olivier-Thomas Venard is sui generis. Venard allows us to see an Aquinas whose semantic reach is as wide as is imaginable given the constraints of the finitude of discourse and does so in a style that seems to repeat him, at once full and laconic, allusive yet conceptually rigorous, profound yet buoyant. And repeat also what might be called the constitutive “Thomasian” stance: fully engaged with the horrors of reality and yet hopeful in that the Cross provides the measure, and ebullient as well as serene because the Cross has a light that sheds hints of resurrection. This was Aquinas’s interpretation of the Gospel of John. For Venard it is N&V entirely sufficient. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2020): 709–740 709 Book Reviews Aquinas on Transubstantiation: The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist by Reinhard Hütter (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), viii + 129 pp. One of the most prolific and gifted systematicians of our time has revised and expanded two of his essays on the Eucharist in Aquinas and shaped them into a marvelous little book. Reinhard Hütter divides his work on the twin doctrines of transubstantiation and the corporeal, substantial presence of Christ into five chapters. These chapters ponder (1) the biblical foundations for Aquinas’s theology, (2) modern magisterial teaching on the Eucharist, (3) Eucharistic conversion, (4) Christ’s substantial presence as a way to avoid the intellect’s deception, and (5) friendship with Christ in the Eucharist. The third chapter forms the heart of the book. This work presents a passionate, metaphysically robust, detailed argument that only a Thomistic vision of Eucharistic conversion and Christ’s substantial presence in the gifts on the altar can account for the mystery of this sacrament. Hütter primarily engages in a close textual commentary of Aquinas, and also advances systematic arguments that the Thomistic path offers the most fruitful account for the teaching of Scripture and Tradition. The author’s aim is both apologetic and contemplative: to show that the Church needs Aquinas’s theology today, and to gaze upon the mystery with Aquinas as guide. Hütter begins with Thomas’s reading of Scripture and Tradition as the foundation for the doctrine of Christ’s substantial presence in the Eucharist, a reading that provides the entryway to the theology of transubstantiation, or the manner in which the gifts change. The author expounds on Thomas’ exegetical method and vision of sacra doctrina. He lauds Aquinas’s interpretation of the New Testament texts on the Last Supper. Surprisingly, the first chapter does not engage with contemporary biblical studies on the Eucharist, as it focuses on a commentary of Aquinas. The author dismisses modern quests for the historical words of Jesus at the Last Supper, as he appeals to Tradition’s insistence that these words be taken as God’s very own speech. This approach seems to overlook some larger questions, namely, how the historical study of Scripture, the theology of the Holy Spirit’s post-Easter interior teaching of the apostles and evangelists, 710 Book Reviews as well as Tradition’s claim of Gospel historicity can be synthesized anew. Perhaps a fuller engagement with an interpretive method such as that of Brant Pitre would have helped. The second chapter takes up nineteenth- and twentieth-century magisterial teachings on transubstantiation. Hütter also briefly touches upon Trent here: he will return to that Council in greater detail in the subsequent chapter. This part of the book primarily shows the magisterium’s consistent, implicit or explicit appeal to what the author calls “pre-philosophical knowledge of substance,” in other words, the common-sense philosophy of various twentieth-century Thomists (such as Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Ambroise Gardeil, Yves Congar). This theme becomes central for the rest of the work. The third chapter puts the author’s metaphysical skills as an interpreter of Aquinas on full display. His main concerns are to show that bread and wine are natural substances and not artifacts, to expound in detail on the relation between substance and quantity, and to demonstrate how the doctrine of concomitance solves multiple theological problems. For Hütter, Thomas’s teaching on substance and accidents emerges from a “natural hearing” of reality around us: it is not just a theory. The author’s method is not to read Aquinas in his historical setting, but to approach him in view of modern and contemporary controversies, from nominalism to Descartes, Schillebeeckx, and beyond. Overall, chapter 3 offers an outstanding companion to some of the most difficult passages of Aquinas’s Eucharistic theology. I would consider this chapter an indispensable guide for any in-depth study Summa theologiae III, questions 75–77. The fourth chapter takes up the sacramentality of the Eucharist, as it highlights (1) Thomas’s return to an Augustinian doctrine of the sacraments as signs, and (2) Aquinas’s insistence that substance is known by the intellect and not the senses. Both themes allow the author to show the centrality of faith in Aquinas’s Eucharistic theology. Hütter nicely locates Thomas’s Eucharistic doctrine within his Christology and general sacramental theology. The fifth chapter concerns Eucharistic communion. The chapter title signals the centrality of friendship with Christ in Aquinas’s Eucharistic theology and piety. In fact, this chapter focuses more on the link between the Eucharist and the mystical body: in this section, Hütter mostly draws upon Matthias Scheeben, Henri de Lubac and John Paul II. Here and elsewhere, Hütter’s own Eucharistic spirituality comes out. The writer’s passion for his topic is an inspiration. Indeed, the reader expects to find the fruits of his connatural knowledge of the Eucharistic mystery that he sets forth. Book Reviews 711 The work concludes with three appendices, as well as extensive endnotes with lengthy citations and commentary. Appendix 4 may present the author’s most controversial claim. He proposes that Aristotle has definitively established the science of being, and that it is probably impossible to receive the Church’s faith in Christ’s corporeal presence in the Eucharist without the metaphysical notions of form and matter, substance and accident. The previous chapters suggest that only the Thomistic formulations of these notions are ultimately coherent in the realm of Eucharistic theology. The author sees his position as an application of Paul VI’s 1965 encyclical Mysterium Fidei (see esp. 54–56). It would seem that Hütter largely identifies Paul VI’s (and by implication, John Paul II’s) teaching on the function of metaphysics in theology with Garrigou-Lagrange’s version of common-sense philosophy. One wonders whether this is a completely accurate reading and application of the magisterial texts. Perhaps Paul VI and John Paul II are more cautious than the “Sacred Monster of Thomism” in their description of the content of “implicit philosophy,” even as they posit the necessity of a certain common-sense philosophy for the possibility and coherence of Catholic dogma.1 The author’s work might also be fructified by a more direct engagement with contemporary metaphysicians, especially those working on various Scholastic traditions. Overall, Hütter offers the most penetrating textual commentary of questions 75–77 of the tertia pars published in recent decades. He also renders accessible to an Anglophone audience many riches of the early-modern Scholastic tradition. He provides a much needed, first-rate companion for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and teachers N&V engaged with Aquinas’s Eucharistic theology. Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P. Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) Rome 1 I recently studied this topic in my essay, “Implicit Philosophy and Hermeneutics: Metaphysics and the Historicity of Thought in Light of Fides et Ratio,” Angelicum 95 (2018): 201–18. 712 Book Reviews Embracing Wisdom: The Summa theologiae as Spiritual Pedagogy by Gilles Mongeau, S.J. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2015), xi + 221pp. Gilles Mongeau, S.J., is professor of theology at Regis College at the University of Toronto. His book ties together three threads in recent scholarship on Saint Thomas Aquinas’s theology. First, it examines its sapiential and spiritual character, expanding on the work of Jean-Pierre Torrell. Second, it joins recent studies that attempt to give an account of sacra doctrina, particularly its meaning and function in the Summa theologiae [ST]. Third, it explores Aquinas’s rhetorical and pedagogical methods that constitute the form of his theology. At a basic level, the book is an analysis of Aquinas’s rhetorical methods in the Summa theologiae, and it focuses on those formal patterns of memory, repetition, and affect that Saint Thomas used to train student pastors and lectors in sacra doctrina. For Aquinas, as Mongeau claims, sacra doctrina is ordered to Christian practice, or the spiritual life, since revealed doctrine is the highest wisdom (ST I, q. 1, a. 4, corp.). For Mongeau, these formal structures tell us that the Summa is a series of “spiritual exercises” that Aquinas designed to teach students the way of spiritual wisdom. The first part of the book (chs. 1–4) provides the historical context that grounds the study of the Summa theologiae’s rhetorical strategies in the second part (chs. 5–10). In chapter 1, Mongeau observes the ways his own argument differs from the recent rhetorical studies of Aquinas’s theology. Unlike Mark Jordan, whose important work focused on dialectic in Aquinas’s theology, Mongeau’s book “points to the anchoring of Aquinas’s text in the symbolic, the aesthetic-dramatic, and the affective elements of meaning, as well as the way in which the rhetorical form of the text mediates religious meaning” (5). For him, the Summa theologiae is a “deliberative rhetoric” that is designed to elicit actions on the part of its readers (5). It does so precisely by means of these symbolic and affective elements of meaning. Through this formal pedagogical quality, the Summa reorders the student’s acts of knowing and willing to God in Christ. In chapter 2, Mongeau explains how rhetoric conveyed meaning in ancient and medieval contexts. Drawing on the work of Alain Michel, Kathryn Tanner, and Bernard Lonergan, Mongeau argues that every culture is the product of “the dialectic of ‘human-centered’ and ‘cosmos-centered’ meaning” (36). In every culture, agents attempt to negotiate and renegotiate the relation of these two poles as new social and economic contexts arise. One way Christians did this in the ancient and medieval world was through teaching rhetoric, the “science of aesthet- Book Reviews 713 ic-dramatic meaning” (39). Mongeau observes that if this recent proposal about culture is correct, then we will surely find evidence that “Thomas in the Summa is concerned with forming persons to exercise a certain cultural agency,” that is, to renegotiate the way the Church mediates its teaching about Christ in the thirteenth century (29). Chapter 3 addresses the historical context that informed Aquinas’s pastoral concerns and pedagogy. Drawing heavily on Mary Carruthers’s studies of medieval memorial practices, Mongeau argues that Aquinas adopted memorial schemes in his writings. These memorial strategies were often based on the movements of the liturgy. Teachers of rhetoric described them as a ductus: the movement of the student’s mind through the rhetorical and literary contours of a composition (43). Then Mongeau surveys some of the social, cultural, and economic changes in the medieval world that drove intellectual developments, including the reforms of the monasteries of Cluny and Cîteaux and the rise of the merchant class: these, along with the problems of a poorly catechized peasantry, drove the need for the reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council and the Dominican order’s concern for preaching and education . Aquinas understood his own vocation as a theologian within this context and became involved in the educational reforms and spiritual renewal of Lateran IV (80). Chapter 4 covers the literary and rhetorical tools he deployed to these ends. Mongeau examines some of Aquinas’s underappreciated opuscula theologica, where Aquinas is theological consultant, explaining Lateran IV’s reforms to a bishop. Mongeau explores Aquinas’s role as a preacher and catechist by examining his sermons. Aquinas was also a polemicist who defended the rights of mendicants to be in the universities, and a teacher whose office participated in sacra doctrina, God’s self-knowledge given to us (79). He also aimed to reform pastoral education to meet the aims of Lateran IV’s goals. After being assigned to begin a personal studium at Santa Sabina (1265), he became dissatisfied with the Lombard’s Sentences as a theological textbook, and began to dictate the Summa to replace it. In this process, Thomas developed a poetics and rhetoric to aid student memory for preaching and pastoral care. Chapter 5 presents some of these rhetorical stylizations; it also begins the second part of the book, which contains the exposition of the Summa’s rhetoric. By the use of prologues, Aquinas determined the scope of a theological inquiry with precision. His use of short, simple sentences maximized the efficacy of his words for communication with clarity (87–89). Furthermore, Aquinas designed metonymic devices to instill his teachings in memory. The structure of the Summa as a whole is, on Mongeau’s reading, designed to induce the same effect. That structure upholds three points of contemplation derived from Augustine’s De Trinitate: the vesti- 714 Book Reviews giae Dei in creatures (the prima pars), the imago Dei in human beings (secunda pars), and the fully realized imago Dei in Christ (111). Thus the climax of the Summa is in the person of Christ, “whom we seek to imitate and who is our most perfect way into God” (125). In chapter 6, Mongeau claims that Aquinas used a pedagogy developed in Super Ioannem to argue that the Word is the ordering principle of the spiritual exercises in the Summa (118). He canvasses the entirety of the Summa, tracing the Augustinian progression outlined in chapter 5. Chapters 7–9 attend to the rhetoric of Aquinas’s Christology in the tertia pars. Mongeau does not expound the doctrinal content per se. Rather, he explores “the transformations of the person intended by the theologian’s collaboration with God’s teaching activity in history” (145). To this end, chapter 7 examines questions 1–6 of the tertia pars and argues that the convenientia arguments of the first question and his reference to Christological errors in the second are pedagogical tools that increase the student’s participation in sacra doctrina. Chapter 8 provides a close reading of the mysteries of Christ’s life (ST III, qq. 27–45) and how Aquinas used of rhetorical tools to imitate Christ. Chapter 9 argues that Aquinas intended his presentation of the mysteries of Christ’s Passion, death, resurrection and Ascension to help students hold the mysteries together in the mind as a single whole. Aquinas follows Scripture and the Church Fathers closely in these sections, and he does so to instill theological wisdom in the student. Chapter 10 concludes the book. Rhetorical readings of theological texts can be useful for theologians because they force us to attend to “the way the words run” patiently. Chapters 8 and 9 in particular are exemplars in this regard. Mongeau convincingly shows that Aquinas structured his presentation of the mysteries of Christ’s life in the Summa to instruct the memories of his students and to form them as imitators of Jesus Christ. Moreover, Mongeau’s use of recent research in memory studies and cultural studies illumines Aquinas’s text in a profound way. This book is a contribution to our understanding of the spirituality of Aquinas’s theology precisely because of this interdisciplinary research program. Yet the book’s rhetorical reading of Aquinas raises questions for me, particularly with some interpretive claims Mongeau makes. I will note one example. Drawing on Eugene Rogers’s Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, Mongeau claims that the sed contra is a “metonymic device.” That is to say, it quotes a “part” of a text which bids the student to recall the whole of that text which should have been committed to memory (98). Aquinas was able to use this device to create an interpretive horizon for his arguments in the respondeo. This horizon would solidify key theological teachings from Book Reviews 715 the authorities that Aquinas wanted the fratres to remember. Thus, for the students, as Mongeau observes, “what was previously known according to the order of a catena or florilegia is now reappropriated according to the ordo doctrinae” (98). With this in mind, Mongeau analyzes Aquinas’s pedagogical use of Augustine’s De Trinitate in the first question of the Summa. Aquinas cites De Trinitate 14 in the sed contra of the second article of that question. Since the sed contra was a metonymic device intended to invoke the whole of a memorized text, Mongeau claims that Aquinas in this sed contra identified scientia with the person of Christ as Augustine did, even though Aquinas does not explicitly make this connection there. Mongeau’s reason for this is that Aquinas was certainly aware of the whole of book 14, and so he would have known that Augustine makes this argument. The upshot, then, is that ST I, q. 1, a. 2, anticipates the Christological climax of sacra doctrina in the tertia pars. But there is a doubt to be raised here. It is unclear just how much of De Trinitate Aquinas had available to him. As Bruce D. Marshall has noted (and Mongeau recognized), most of Augustine was available to Aquinas through the Lombard, the glossa ordinaria, other florilegiae and catenae.1 Mongeau seems to assume that Aquinas directly engaged the whole of the De Trinitate, but he does not provide historical evidence for this. Since we do not know the range of Augustine’s texts Aquinas possessed, Mongeau’s interpretation of the sed contra here may be underdetermined historically. This concern notwithstanding, this book is a perceptive and illuminating reading of the Summa as a whole and the tertia pars in particular. Every student of Aquinas’s Christology should take up and read it; Catholics and Protestants alike will benefit from it. But what makes this book truly a gift is Mongeau’s pastoral concern for the Church. Like Aquinas, Mongeau desires that priests, pastors, and lay leaders study Aquinas’s teaching so that they too might follow Christ in the way of wisdom. N&V J. David Moser Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX Note the similar concerns of Bruce D. Marshall with D. Juvenal Merriell’s confidence that Aquinas mastered the De Trinitate, in “Aquinas the Augustinian? On the Uses of Augustine in Aquinas’s Trinitarian Theology,” in Aquinas the Augustinian, ed. Michael Dauphinais et al. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 41–61, at 48n17 and 49n18. 1 716 Book Reviews Lo Spirito Santo “anima” del Corpo Mistico: Radici storiche ed esempi scelti dell’ecclesiologia pneumatologica contemporanea by João Paulo de Mendonça Dantas (Lugano, CH: Eupress FTL, 2017), 607 pp. The title quotation of de Mendonça’s The Holy Spirit, “Soul” of the Mystical Body is our first indication that complexity is afoot. Augustine’s Sermon 267, given on the feast of Pentecost, is the first appearance of the perennial axiom “the Holy Spirit, soul of the Church.” Along with the “complementary analogy” of the Church as “temple of the Spirit,” the expression recalls both the Church’s mysterious Trinitarian origins and how the Spirit continues its work of “unifying and vivifying” (528, 521). Nonetheless, the axiom must be distinguished, as a divine person does not (strictly speaking) inform the created reality of the Church. De Mendonça’s work takes up this question, by first studying the axiom’s historical roots and then reviewing selected examples from the last century. The Brazilian-born author completed his dissertation in Lugano, Switzerland, under Manfred Hauke in 2009. While his research enabled him to engage the Christological dimension of ecclesiology, he was only able to “touch on pneumatology” (9). Thus for his Abilitazione (Habilitationsschrift), he heeded the call of John Paul II to “breathe with both lungs” and undertook the present work of pneumatological ecclesiology (9). The 607-page Italian work is truly exhaustive, though intermittently repetitive. It consists of four chapters: biblical foundations, historical-theological development, seven contemporary authors, and lastly, de Mendonça’s own systematic observations. The expression “Holy Spirit, soul of the Church” is not explicitly scriptural, but does have biblical “foundations” (545). After reviewing a series of Old and New Testament passages, de Mendonça concludes that the image of the Holy Spirit as the soul of the Church is principally based in the somatic ecclesiology of Paul (128). He then turns to the historical development of the axiom, explaining that, long before Augustine, Irenaeus and others had already begun to theorize between the Spirit’s presence and activity in the Church and that of the soul of a body. Along this same line, Origen first concluded Christ to be the soul of the Church. But the medieval tradition appropriates Augustine’s formulation, most especially in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Here we find the axiom both qualified and complemented; qualified by the refined Aristotelian understanding of soul (i.e., principle of unity), and complemented metaphorically with the Spirit as heart and personality of the Church. The axiom declined following Robert Bellarmine until it was featured Book Reviews 717 in the nineteenth-century ecclesiological renewal of Johann Adam Möhler and Matthias Joseph Scheeben. These two men helped lay the foundations for the ecclesiology of the mystical body, one that provided a conducive framework for the expression. Magisterial appearances then followed; first in the encyclicals of Leo XIII (Divinum Illud Munus [1897], §1309) and Pius XII (Mystici Corporis [1943], §§205–6), and followed thereafter by the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium, §7, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §797. The second half of the volume features seven twentieth-century authors: Heribert Mühlen, Charles Journet, Yves Congar, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, Leonardo Boff, and Leo Scheffczyk. The final author, though perhaps the least-known, is one worthy of attention. Scheffczyk, a seminary friend of Ratzinger and long-time professor in Munich, continues to gain attention in Italy; one hopes that his writings will soon be accessible to the English-speaking world. De Mendonça’s selection of contemporary authors is indeed striking. Mühlen and Boff, along with the late Congar, strongly highlight the pneumatological dimension of the Church, to the detriment of the Christological (503). Journet, von Balthasar, Ratzinger, and Scheffczyk, as well as the early Congar, continue the more traditional Christological emphasis, to the detriment of the pneumatological (503). The proper balance lies in the right relationship of these two dimensions: for within the Church, the action of the Holy Spirit always “originates from Christ and leads to Christ” (524). Louis Bouyer once remarked that the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution of the Church had a “lacuna” of the Holy Spirit (Church of God, 178).1 If this is indeed so, it bespeaks of a western penchant to overlook the pneumatological. All the more then is de Mendonça’s study timely and appreciable, a helpful contribution to the ecclesiological N&V exigency of our day. John Nepil St. John Vianney Theological Seminary Denver, CO 1 Louis Bouyer, The Church of God: Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2011), 178. 718 Book Reviews Soundings in the History of Hope: New Studies on Thomas Aquinas by Richard Schenk, O.P., Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy series (Ave Maria, FL: Sapienta, 2016), x + 332 pp. Consisting largely of a series of essays and articles previously published elsewhere, Richard Schenk’s Soundings in the History of Hope engages a variety of current theological conversations by making use of the resources presented by Saint Thomas Aquinas and his contemporaries. The book unfolds in three parts, all variously attempting to point the way forward for Catholic theology through a discerning retrieval of the Church’s rich theological past. Thematically uniting the whole, however, is Schenk’s manifest desire to take up that past in a way that avoids any and all theological oversimplification, whether that be in repristinationist or progressivist directions. Schenk brings the past and present into conversation in such a way that the cherished ideas of both are challenged and made better for the exchange. The first part, coextensive with the book’s opening chapter, is a case in point. Here Schenk suggests specific ways in which Catholic theology, in general, and both Thomism and the Dominican Order, in particular, might best utilize and stay true to the multi-faceted past communicated to them, and this precisely by bringing that past into an open two-way conversation with the present. What Schenk says with respect to Thomism there proves programmatic for the book and his vision of Catholic theology overall: “Thomism as a whole cannot live without a vibrant communication with what is outside it, nor will it flourish without a reflective diversity of methods within it. Genuine Thomism is necessarily collaborative” (25). The rest of the book is the concretization of just that conviction. The second part of the book, then, opens with a chapter that takes up anew the question of how faith’s interiority—what is proper to the faith itself—should engage with those truths experienced as exterior to, or only “indirectly expressive” of, the faith. Beginning with Melchior Cano and moving to Saint Thomas’s treatment of how all Christ’s acts are variously instructive for us, Schenk proceeds to make the case that properly neither “interiority” nor “exteriority” should be pitted against one another, as has too frequently occurred in recent theology. Rather, “faith lives in its own way from a basic sense of exteriority (here the donum Dei) that makes a qualified interiority of human understanding and its openness to the other possible.” (68) In the book’s third chapter, Schenk explores what he takes to be the occasionally underplayed Platonic elements in Thomas’s thought, espe- Book Reviews 719 cially with respect to Thomas’s alleged “realism” and the idea that “grace builds on nature.” In so doing, he shows how Saint Thomas was able to bridge the divergent Proclean and Porphyrian streams of Platonic thought as they had been taken up in the West by Dionysius and Saint Augustine, respectively. Father Shenck opines that only by shedding light in this way on how Saint Thomas deployed and developed the Platonic tradition can one truly grasp “the programmatic nature of Thomas’s own thought” (70). What is more, such retrievals have added theological benefit in terms of helpfully addressing present concerns, such as, for example, perhaps providing “an alternative to today’s antithesis between demythologizing doctrine into our prior experience of humanity and remythologizing as the more genuine faith allegedly new experiences of the Trinity drawn from private revelations” (83). Continuing to seek new convergences where divergence has been presupposed, Father Shenck moves in chapter 4 to reexamine the question of whether or not human labor is chiefly to be seen as a perfecting participation in divine blessing or an ongoing degenerative, post-lapsarian curse. As before, Schenk enters into conversation with Saint Thomas and the broad historical tradition to problematize potential answers to that question which would minimize any aspect of work’s theocentric, anthropocentric, or cosmocentric character, or slight its function as avenue for grace. Schenk’s fifth chapter makes use of Saint Thomas’s commentary on the Gospel of John to sketch a theology of mourning which means to avoid the imbalance in much contemporary practice between a stoic profession of resurrection hope in the face of death, on the one hand, and despairing in the hard reality of loss and pain, on the other. Schenk highlights how when commenting on Christ’s tearful reaction to Lazarus’s death (John 11:35), Thomas attributes feelings of sadness, anger, and even fear to Jesus, stressing the first of these as having been most prominent. Saint Thomas’s account of the significance of Christ’s sadness, argues Schenk, helped the Angelic Doctor develop a theology of mourning that advanced beyond the ambivalence of death, and did so in a manner that serves as a helpful model for present growth in a Catholic approach to hope and suffering. Part 2 ends with Schenk’s speculative engagement with a question arising from the popularity of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s universalist hope: “What are the [theological] costs of bracketing out the likelihood of final loss?” (142). While entering into conversation with Karl Rahner, Schenk provides an analysis of what he takes to be at least four methodological alterations that result from adopting (something like) Balthasar’s position. 720 Book Reviews The first has to do with the indirect and deleterious effects such a view has on other theological doctrines (e.g., God’s antecedent and consequent will in relation to the good of creation). Relatedly, the second effect is to undercut the Catholic tradition of affirming both sides of apparent doctrinal antinomies (in this case, the real possibilities of both final loss and universal salvation) by the functional denial that “hope” could ever truly be compatible with both tensed affirmations. The third has to do with properly relating narration and argument, something Schenk suggests Balthasar failed to achieve insofar as he reinterpreted the texts of Scripture and Tradition selectively for purposes of bolstering his position. And, finally, bracketing off the possibility of final loss limits and directionally overdetermines any related arguments one might attempt to make on the basis of Anselmian “fittingness.” The third part of the book begins in chapter 7 with a turn to certain medieval accounts of “the discipline of ambiguity” (wherein “the allowance to theological language of as much ambiguity as necessary for theological objectivity” was held in tension with “restricting theological language to as little ambiguity as possible in the interests of conceptual precision” [165]) as a guide for thinking through the continuity and discontinuity existent between the Old and New Testament. Drawing on the related work of Robert Kilwardby, Robert Grosseteste, and Saint Thomas, Schenk appreciatively but soberly concludes that “a view must be sought that can show the two covenants to be in only partial continuity with one another” for genuinely fruitful interreligious dialog between Jews and Christians to occur, the best hope for which depends perhaps on a studied pursuit of the discipline of ambiguity (190). Continuing the more programmatic theme of the previous chapter, Kilwardby is featured again in chapter 8, wherein Schenk compares the English Dominican’s understanding of circumcision with that of Saint Thomas, showing how both began with similar footing in the thought of Saint Bonaventure but then variously moved in differing directions. Given the common medieval view that circumcision served as a rite of initiation into the old covenant oriented to the removal of original sin, Schenk argues Aquinas and Kilwardby sought to answer three interrelated question: “Why such a difficult demand, with all its regulations? What did it actually accomplish when removing original sin? How did it differ from the Christian dispensation?” (195). Here as before, Schenk’s aim in presenting this bit of historical theology is to draw from the past in order to signal new theological avenues for the present, in this case towards helping Christians better to acknowledge the “otherness of the older company within God’s encompassing providence” (231). Book Reviews 721 With an eye to improving ecumenical relations, Schenk’s ninth chapter takes up the debate between Erich Pryzwara and Karl Barth regarding the analogy of being (analogia entis). The chapter’s stated purpose is to assist in better locating paths of theological divergence and convergence between Christian traditions as these both affirm and admonish self-critically and across the aisle. As a start, Schenk explores how Pryzwara’s theology of the analogia entis both was and might now be variously thought harmonious with a theology of the Cross (theologia crucis), the driving issues at base being how one understands grace’s nondestructive perfection of nature, on the one hand, and the distinction between law and gospel, on the other. After discussing the contributions to this query by Saint Thomas, Saint Bonaventure, Gottleib Söhngen, and Balthasar, Schenk concludes, in large measure, that the blurring of the distinction between nature and grace in more recent Catholic theology along these lines has made ecumenical conversation with Protestants more difficult. If a more productive “fugal theme” in ecumenical discussion is to be realized instead, more reflective work will need to be done on both sides in reevaluating and distinguishing what each brings to the table on topics like the analogia entis. The book’s penultimate chapter engages a number of different theologians in its analysis of the ways in which the Eucharist may rightly be thought a sacrifice. In presenting the current configuration of the question of how to think of the Eucharist as a sacrifice, Schenk first presents the thinking of Eberhard Jüngel as it relates to ecumenical conversation on the topic, following this with a word about how theodicy and René Girard’s theses on scapegoating have shaped the discussion. Schenk then turns to Richard Fishacre, Kilwardby, and, at greater length, Thomas Aquinas to uncover the historical “prefiguration” of current thought on sacrifice. For Schenk, a studied look at these leads to one’s embracing an ambivalence about sacrifice that consciously downplays neither its negative nor positive elements. Because of this need to avoid single-mindedness, Schenk argues, Rahner’s and Balthasar’s “refigurations” of the notion of sacrifice prove insufficient precisely for their softening of its negative aspects. Pope John Paul II’s ecumenically informed encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharista (2003) is proffered as a better way forward for its refusal, like Saint Thomas’s, to sideline either the positive features of sacrifice (as Fishacre and Kilwardby did) or its negative dimensions (like Rahner and Balthasar). Concluding the book is a chapter focused on the ways in which interreligious dialog and one’s understanding of “non-Christian religions” influence and shape one’s thinking on both Christology and Christianity itself. Kilwardby again makes an appearance, this time serving as the primary 722 Book Reviews lens through which Schenk means to show how better understanding this relation of influence might aid in grasping the current instability with respect to systematic thinking about Christianity and non-Christian religions, especially given the recent problematization of the “inclusivist” and “pluralist” positions of recent decades. Medieval theologies treating non-Christian religions, in fact, display an ambivalent mixture of ideas that might be thought exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist, something Schenk shows is evidenced in the development in Kilwardby’s theological work. While situating Kilwardby’s thinking among his contemporaries in their broader medieval context, Schenk traces the specific ways in which Kilwardby’s changes in thought regarding non-Christian religions directly impacted his views on a variety of Christological matters. Here, as elsewhere, Schenk takes up the task of historical theology in ways both instructive and suggestive with respect to the current situation. As to the work overall, it must be said that Schenk’s writing style often makes his argumentation more difficult to follow than it needs to be. And he tends to assume no small amount of relevant background knowledge on the part of his readers, a particular challenge for those engaging his work from contexts less attuned to the happenings of the theological scene in Germany or of modern Catholic theology. For these and related reasons (e.g., copious amounts of untranslated Latin, French, and German), Schenk’s book is not well-suited for undergraduate applications, though advanced graduate students and professional theologians will find it a useful, if occasionally unwieldy, tool. That said, Soundings in the History of Hope is almost always worth the effort necessary for plumbing its depths. Its emphasis on diachronic and synchronic development, its consistent use of a hermeneutic of charity, and both the openness it displays with respect to the present and the faithfulness it exudes in terms of the past are a model not simply for Thomists or Catholics, but for the practice of N&V Christian theology in general. T. Adam Van Wart Ave Maria University Ave Maria, FL Book Reviews 723 Saint Thomas d’Aquin: Lecteur du Cantique des cantiques, by SergeThomas Bonino (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2019), 284 pp. In recent decades biblical Thomism has become one of the most vibrant perspectives on the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Its aim is to draw attention to Saint Thomas’s primary occupation as a reader of Sacred Scripture and his biblical commentaries as a result. In doing so, biblical Thomism further aims at contributing to overcoming the typically modern gap between exegesis and speculative theology.1 The new book by the French Dominican Serge-Thomas Bonino, who currently serves as the president of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, adds a new perspective to this line of research. Saint Thomas’s biblical commentaries are limited to a few Old Testament books (Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Psalms 1–54), the Gospels of Matthew and John and the Pauline corpus. What would happen if one wanted to extend this list by going through all the references to one particular book of the Bible in the writings of Saint Thomas on which he did not write a commentary? This is precisely what the author sets out to do. His choice of the Song of Songs, one of the most enigmatic books of the Bible, is well founded because some of Saint Thomas’s earliest biographers, as well some medieval catalogues of his works, ascribed precisely such a commentary to him and two versions were printed in his opera omnia. Volume 14 of the Parma edition (1863), for example, contains both these commentaries: Salomon inspiratus divini spiritu (14:354–386) and Sonet vox tua (14:387–426). Although these commentaries are now regarded as inauthentic, their supposed presence contains a grain of truth according to Torrell, insofar as it shows Saint Thomas’s keen interest in this book of the Bible. Consequently, Bonino has analyzed all 314 explicit references to the Song of Songs in Saint Thomas’s writings, and a large part of his book (145–263 [annex I]) consists of a full list of these references placed into their context. Given that for Saint Thomas a biblical verse reveals its full meaning within the whole of Scripture, the majority of these can be found in his other biblical commentaries. The systematic part of the book starts with an introduction outlining the author’s method and Saint Thomas’s reading of the text as a celebration of the union of love between Christ and his Church, a reading which shows the influence of the Glossa Ordinaria, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Origen via his (Origen’s) commentary on Matthew. It should be noted 1 For more on this, I refer the reader to my “Biblical Thomism: Past, Present and Future,” Angelicum 95 (2018): 263–87. 724 Book Reviews that for Saint Thomas the Song of Songs is in its literal sense a description of the relation between Christ and his Church. Moreover, and inspired by Origen, Thomas sees the three books Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs as a unity, attributed to king Solomon, and describing a three-stage path: Proverbs informs the beginners on the acquisition of the virtues, Ecclesiastes next instructs the more learned about the true value of this world, and finally the Song of Songs leads the perfect to the self-gift in love to God. In order to assess the general sense of the biblical text, the author felicitously analyzes Hugh of Saint Cher’s prologue to his commentary on the Song of Songs (a transcription is given in annex II [265–68]) as the interpretative context of Saint Thomas’s reading. The remaining four chapters (45–144) arrange the references topically. First, there is the beauty of Christ, following “Behold thou art fair, O my love” (Song 1:16; Douay-Rheims) and manifesting itself primarily in the Incarnation and the Passion. Next, there is the Church in support of which the Song of Songs is able to establish that she maintains a “constitutive connection to Christ and the Spirit,” that she is one, that this unity is a hierarchically organized whole and finally that she will consist of good and evil members until the end time (65). Apart from an ecclesiological interpretation, the Tradition has also given a Mariological interpretation of the Song of Songs. “Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee” (Song 4:7) does lend itself to an immaculist reading. Song 4:4 (“a thousand bucklers hang upon it [thy neck; collum tuum]”) supports Mary’s universal mediation. In support of this, I would add the following: Later Thomists such as Peter of Godoy (1677) and Vincent de Contenson (1674) used the image of Mary as collum Ecclesiae, an image that already appears in Hermann of Tournai (1137), De incarnatione, to argue that, as all movement and energy reaches the rest of the body from the head only by going through the neck, so the life of Christ reaches the faithful only by passing through Mary, the supernatural organ which connects the mystical head with members of the body. The final and largest chapter is entitled “L’âme fidèle” (89–134) and discusses the ways in which the Song of Songs is used to analyze the nature of love and charity and its influence on the specifically Dominican adage contemplata aliis tradere. One notable reading concerns Song 5: 1—“eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved”—a verse which Saint Thomas reads as referring to the Body (eat) and Blood (wine) of Christ which, consumed by Christ’s friends, as it were inebriates them. Or as Saint Thomas writes in the Summa theologiae, referring to the same biblical verse: “Hence it is that the soul is spiritually nourished through the power of this sacrament, by being spiritually gladdened, and as it were inebriated with the sweet- Book Reviews 725 ness of the Divine goodness, according to Cant 5:1: ‘Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved’” (ST III, q. 79, a. 1, ad 2). We may also think of the popular prayer Anima Christi, in which one prays: “Sanguis Christi, inebria me.” This Eucharistic reading seems to be particular to Saint Thomas. One could add that this reading figures prominently in Albert the Great’s De corpore Domini.2 Another typically Dominican reading occurs when reading Song 7: 11: “Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us abide in the villages.” As a Dominican preacher, Saint Thomas emphasizes the duty of the preacher to let that which has been contemplated shine forth to the people. In the conclusion, Bonino summarizes his findings by way of four aspects of the spiritual doctrine of Saint Thomas which come to the fore in his use of the Song of Songs: (1) a “dynamic tonality” of his doctrine insofar as it describes a way towards union with God; (2) the eschatological dimension of the spiritual life; (3) the affective dimension of a theologian who is sometimes regarded as “too intellectual,” and finally (4) the intimate connection between contemplation and predication. In giving us a concise but penetrating analysis of Saint Thomas’s use of Song of Songs through the use of a meticulous investigation of all the references, Father Bonino has given us another demonstration of the fact that Saint Thomas is not a rigid, rationalistic thinker but a passionate theologian and exegete! He has given Thomistic scholarship, moreover, a new method and a new impetus which promises to bear more fruits in the future. In this regard, I would like to make three brief observations which point to possible future research. While the inauthenticity of the two commentaries mentioned above is now a settled matter, both Pierre Mandonnet and Martin Grabmann3 still considered the possibility that Sonet vox tua, which is attributed to Gilles of Rome, contains Gilles’s revision of Thomas’s commentary. While I am not aware of any recent work4 being done to refute this claim, it becomes highly unlikely given the fact that the two typically Dominican readings of Song 5:1 and 7:11, mentioned by Father Bonino, are entirely absent from Gilles’s commentary. Gilles is entirely silent on a Eucharistic reading of 5:1 and he reads 7: 11 (“Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field [in See Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord, trans. Albert Marie Surmanski (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2017). 3 Martin Grabmann, Die Werke des hl. Thomas von Aquin (Münster: Aschendorff, 1949), 257. 4 See Wilhelm Vrede, Die beiden dem hl. Thomas von Aquin zugeschriebenen Kommentare zum Hohen Liede (Berlin: Germania, 1903). 2 726 Book Reviews agrum], let us abide in the villages”) as a plea to Christ to come to the aid of the Jews “who are an uncultivated field” (qui sunt ager incultus) and, as little ones in the field, unable to ascent to Christ (quia Judaei adhuc parvuli in fide non possunt ingredi ad te, et ascendere). 5 This brings me to my second observation. The Municipal Library of Salins (France) contains a manuscript (Ms 3, incipit: “Donum sapiens poscens . . .”) with a third commentary (fols. 1–86) on the Song of Songs attributed to Saint Thomas (Explicit postilla super Cantica Canticorum edita a S. Thoma de Aquino). Although discovered by Grabmann already in the early twentieth century and acknowledged by Mandonnet and Palémon Glorieux,6 an analysis of its content still remains a desideratum. All the more interesting is the fact that the explicit notes that the transcription of the commentary was done in 1339 “per manum fratris J. Berlueti, provinciae Turoniae, ad usum fratris Joannis de Raffola.” At that time, however, there existed only a Franciscan province with that name. Moreover, and based upon my own preliminary look into the manuscript, it seems the explicit is written by a different hand than the commentary, which could cast further doubt on its authenticity. A final observation: the same method employed by Father Bonino could be used to focus on the presence and use of the book Ecclesiastes in Saint Thomas’s writings. With almost one thousand references, such a project would constitute a much more elaborate one, in particular when the outcome would be compared to Bonaventure’s commentary on Ecclesiastes. N&V Jörgen Vijgen Major Seminary St. Willibrord Tiltenberg, the Netherlands Gilles of Rome, In Cantica Canticorum Commentarii (Rome, 1555), 16 Palémon Glorieux, “Essai sur les Commentaires scripturaires de saint Thomas et leur chronologie,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 17 (1950): 237–66. 5 6 Book Reviews 727 In Defense of Conciliar Christology by Timothy Pawl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), xiv + 251pp. In this delightfully well-researched book, Timothy Pawl aims to defend the logical consistency of “Conciliar Christology” from the allegations of inconsistency which have been made against it, mostly in the context of contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. By “Conciliar Christology,” Pawl means the conjunction of all Christological propositions solemnly taught by the first seven Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Church, which Catholics, the Orthodox, and many Protestants accept as authoritative Tradition. Pawl aims not to show that this conciliar Christology is true, or even possibly true (2), but only to defeat arguments which attempt to show some contradiction in conciliar Christology. The organization of the book is straightforward: after examining the content of conciliar Christology (ch. 1), the definitions of key terms used therein (ch. 2), and fleshing out the integrated Christological theory in a broadly hylemorphic fashion (ch. 3), Pawl examines “The Fundamental Problem” for conciliar Christology (ch. 4), and examines three ways of avoiding this allegation of fundamental contradiction (chs. 5–7), before concluding with an examination of additional metaphysical objections which aim to show that conciliar Christology is inconsistent with divine immutability, impassibility, or atemporality (ch. 8), or that conciliar Christology is committed to just one nature, intellect, or will in Christ (ch. 9). Pawl’s book has many merits to recommend it, perhaps the most important and praiseworthy of which is his slavish commitment to the conciliar texts which constitute conciliar Christology. As Pawl himself notes, it is an unfortunate and far too common occurrence in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion to “discover articles wherein a view condemned as outside the fold in days of yore is propounded as a novel answer to a theological problem, with apparent ignorance on the author’s part that the view has such an ignoble history, or any history at all” (3). This phenomenon has the unhappy consequence that a significant fraction of the work being produced in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion is dead on arrival amongst Christians who are well acquainted with the history of the Church and take seriously the Tradition contained therein. Pawl’s book is a refreshing and outstanding exception to this lack of engagement with the doctrinal history of the Church: he has appeals to the conciliar texts and careful interpretation of them sprinkled generously throughout the entire book, and certainly seems to take them to constitute the Christology that must survive scrutiny, thereby setting himself a significantly harder task than those less devoted to these doctrinal authorities, while also position- 728 Book Reviews ing his book to be more useful to Christian philosophers who take these Councils as a definitively authoritative rule of faith. On the other hand, Pawl also demonstrates an excellent facility with the logical analysis which is the hallmark of contemporary analytic philosophy. At places, his book is full of page after page of careful deduction and explanation of the arguments against conciliar Christology which he is attempting to refute. One never wonders exactly which premise Pawl is denying or which inference he thinks is fallacious. For philosophers familiar with the most common forms of argument, this will likely border on the tedious. But it will be very advantageous to the lay reader or the theologian without a background in logic. I am a believer in conciliar Christology, and therefore in its consistency, but I do have some worries about Pawl’s solution to “The Fundamental Problem.” It would take too long to set up this problem here in the same way or with the same precision as Pawl does in the book, but basically, the claim is that that the predicates which are true of Christ in virtue of his divine nature are inconsistent with the predicates which are true of Christ in virtue of his human nature. But conciliar Christology asserts that many pairs of such predicates (e.g., “passible” and “impassible” or “mutable” and “immutable”) are indeed all true of one and the same supposit, the eternal Word. Therefore, conciliar Christology posits contradictions, and is false. This is the basic thrust of this fundamental problem as understood by Pawl. One of my worries about Pawl’s solution to the fundamental problem is that it is unnecessary; the other is that his solution does not work for all the predicates we must predicate of Christ. I will take these worries in that order. Before arriving at Pawl’s favored solution, I have a concern that Pawl’s solution is unnecessary. On his way in the book to his own solution, Pawl rejects a multitude of variations on the famous qua strategy that has been historically employed to avoid Christological contradiction. This strategy qualifies the assertions we make of Christ in such a way that contradiction is avoided. So, for example, we may say that Christ is passible qua man, but also that Christ is impassible qua God. To Pawl’s great credit, his treatment of this strategy occupies the longest and most thorough chapter of the book (ch. 6), in which he examines four ways in which qua clauses might be interpreted. He ultimately judges them all either to fail in solving the fundamental problem, or else to have a prohibitive high theoretical cost to adoption. But it seems to me that Pawl gives somewhat short shrift to the “modifying the assertion” interpretation of the qua clause (121–23). Pawl claims that, on this interpretation of the qua clause, “the ‘qua’ functions as a Book Reviews 729 tool for noting that nature in virtue of which a certain predicate is apt of Christ” (122). Given that this is all the qua clause is doing on this interpretation of it, Pawl concludes that is cannot save conciliar Christology from inconsistency, since, “If the ‘qua’ merely tells us in virtue of what it is that the thing is a certain way, then the thing’s being that certain way follows” (122). This conditional is true, but I do not see why we should interpret the qua clause in such a way that it does nothing more than tell us in virtue of what it is that the thing is a certain way. Rather, we should interpret the qua clause as specifying the respect in which the assertion is true. This shall be sufficient to save conciliar Christology from contradiction, for we have a contradiction if and only if we have the same predicate being both affirmed and denied of the same subject at the same time and in the same respect. Now, one might reasonably object here: yes, if we can distinguish the respects in which a Christological assertion is both true and false, we will have avoided contradiction, but what exactly are the metaphysical mechanics behind such qua clauses? In other words, what are the truth-makers for assertions containing such qua clauses? This is a sensible request. But it can be resisted by the one who seeks nothing more than the avoidance of contradiction, for two reasons. The first reason is that the refutation of an attempted demonstration of inconsistency in a theory is an exercise in logic, not in metaphysics. We need not give the metaphysical picture that our theory paints if all we seek to do is show that an attempt at showing the theory to be inconsistent fails. We need only show that our theory does not contain any pair of assertions both affirming and denying the same predicate of the same subject at the same time and in the same respect. The second reason is that, insofar as an opponent of conciliar Christology pleads ignorance and demands further explanation of what the theologian means by the qualification of the claims of conciliar Christology using qua clauses, to precisely that same degree the opponent of conciliar Christology also loses the ability to make a credible allegation of inconsistency against conciliar Christology, for one must understand a contradiction to recognize it as a contradiction.1 But I will not dwell any further on this point, since this is really just a longwinded way of saying that Pawl’s project is at least implicitly more metaphysical than perhaps he realizes and tells us in the introduction to the book. He seeks to give us a metaphysics of the Incarnation, and not merely to defend conciliar Christology against 1 Of course, this is not to endorse obfuscation as a strategy for refuting accusations of inconsistency against conciliar Christology. It is simply to note that accusations of inconsistency and accusations of unintelligibility cannot be made simultaneously. 730 Book Reviews charges of inconsistency, for these charges are easily and adequately met by the distinctions in respect traditionally made by qua clauses. The hard job, and the one Pawl is undertaking at least in part in this monograph, is that of explaining the metaphysical import of such clauses. So what is Pawl’s preferred solution to the “fundamental problem”? He thinks we should reinterpret the truth conditions of the problematic predicates (154–59). So, for example, rather than “passible” being true of a subject just in case it is possible that at least one other thing casually affect that subject, Pawl argues that we should instead understand “passible” to be true of a subject just in case that subject has a concrete nature that is possibly causally affected by at least one other thing. And likewise for every other problematic pair of predicates that we might apply to Christ: rather than understanding such predicates of being true of Christ just in case Christ has the property to which that predicate refers, Pawl believes we should apply such predicates to Christ just in case at least one of Christ’s natures has the property to which that predicate refers. This is quite clever, for it removes even the prima facie appearance of inconsistency when we say that Christ is both passible and impassible. For on Pawl’s interpretation of the truth conditions of these predicates, this is to say nothing more than that Christ has at least one passible nature and one impassible nature, which of course presents no specter of inconsistency. One might object here that it is only supposita and not natures to which predicates apply, but Pawl argues persuasively in the early chapters of the book that the early Councils and Fathers of the Church did routinely speak about Christ and his natures in a way that entails, for example, that Christ’s human nature literally suffered on the Cross, and not just the Person of Christ. But Pawl’s revised truth conditions for the Christological predicates do seem to lead to some unintended consequences that Pawl does not address. For example, Christ is eternally begotten of the Father, but neither of his natures is eternally begotten of the Father. The divine nature is not begotten by the Father because it is the same nature which he already possesses. So here we seem to have a predicate apt of Christ, “eternally begotten of the Father,” but on Pawl’s truth conditions, this can only be true if one of Christ’s natures is such that it was eternally begotten of the Father, and yet this is true of neither of his natures. Here is another problem case for Pawl’s revised truth conditions: Christ is identical to exactly one divine Person, but neither of his natures is identical to exactly one divine Person. His human nature is not identical to any person, divine or otherwise, and his divine nature is identical to Book Reviews 731 three divine Persons, not one. 2 My purpose here is to illustrate that there certainly seem to be predicates which are apt of Christ, but not in virtue of either of his natures possessing the property to which that predicate refers. And Pawl gives us no principle by which to distinguish which Christological predicates’ truth conditions get revised and which do not. A selective revision of just some of the Christological predicates’ truth conditions might seem ad hoc. My reservations about the necessity and success of Pawl’s solution aside, his book represents a compelling argument for the consistency of conciliar Christology supported well by copious research in ecclesiastical history. It should prove a fruitful read for logically curious theologians and historiN&V cally curious philosophers alike. Christopher Tomaszewski Baylor University Waco, TX The Indissolubility of Marriage & the Council of Trent by E. Christian Brugger (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2017), xiii + 295 pp. On February 21, 2014, in the presence of Pope Francis, Cardinal Walter Kasper gave the opening address to the extraordinary consistory of cardinals held in Rome. The talk, intended as background for the upcoming synod of bishops concerning pastoral challenges to the family, was titled “The Gospel of the Family.” Toward the end of his talk, Kasper proposed a solution to the “problem of the divorced-and-remarried” in the Church. While admitting that sacramental marriages are indissoluble, he nevertheless suggested that the Catholic Church could adopt the Eastern Orthodox Church’s custom of dispensing with the first marriage and blessing a second, non-sacramental marriage. Kasper anticipated the obvious objection that such a position is tantamount to Church-sanctioned At least, this is true on Catholic theology (because of divine simplicity). Given only the first seven ecumenical councils with which Pawl is working, one might think that that the divine nature is not identical to any of the divine Persons. But the point remains that no plausible theological framework, either current or historical, posits an identity between the divine nature and exactly one divine Person. 2 732 Book Reviews adultery; but he defended his position by asserting that, while the Council of Trent had intended to condemn Luther’s teaching on the dissolubility of marriage, it intentionally avoided condemning the pastoral practice of the Eastern Church. Kasper concluded that since the Council avoided condemning the Eastern practice, the Catholic Church could make use of this practice. Kasper’s permissive reading of Trent, however, is almost entirely dependent on the work of the relatively little-known Flemish theologian Piet F. Fransen, S.J. (1913–1983). In the late 1940s, Fransen had written his dissertation at the Gregorian University on Trent’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, and he went on to publish eight articles on this topic, arguing that Trent’s teaching on indissolubility has been misread for nearly four hundred years. Central to Fransen’s account was the development of canon 7 of Trent’s decree on marriage. On August 11, 1563, a delegation from the Republic of Venice asked that the Council not define the indissolubility of marriage in such a way that the customs of the Orthodox would be directly condemned. The Venetian legates explained that within Venice’s control were Greek Christians who were in union with the Catholic Church. Their Catholic bishops permitted them to follow the Eastern custom whereby they could dismiss one wife and marry another. The delegation feared that anathematizing this custom could potentially cause these Greek Christians to break from Rome, so they pleaded with the Council to modify canon 7’s language. The Council accepted this proposal, changing the original direct condemnation—“If anyone says, that on account of the adultery of one of the spouses a marriage can be dissolved . . . let him be anathema” (8, 95)—to an indirect condemnation: “If anyone says the church errs, when she has taught and teaches, in accordance with the evangelical and apostolic doctrine, that the bond of marriage cannot be dissolved on account of the adultery of a spouse . . .” (9, 112). Fransen argued that the change in the wording of canon 7 has two important implications. First, the Council did not intend to condemn directly the Orthodox practice. Second, canon 7 was not doctrinal, with the intention to define the absolute indissolubility of marriage as a matter of faith, but merely disciplinary. Therefore, Fransen’s argument leaves open the possibility that the Eastern practice remains a possible pastoral solution in the Catholic Church. Fransen’s arguments were influential and were adopted even by International Theological Commission’s 1977 Propositions on the Doctrine of Christian Marriage (14). Brugger’s book, The Indissolubility of Marriage & the Council of Trent, directly challenges Fransen’s central thesis and his interpretation of historical events. Brugger’s work has five chapters and three appendices in which Book Reviews 733 he seeks “to determine what the Council intended to teach on the question of indissolubility and with what authority it intended to teach it” (xi). His book is primarily concerned with tracing the development of canon 7. In chapter 1, Brugger examines Luther’s and Calvin’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage and the Council fathers’ knowledge of the Reformers’ teachings. Fransen had argued that in The Babylonian Captivity (1520) Luther’s principal objection to the Church’s teaching on marriage was that the Church had exceeded its competence in dealing with the marriages of Christians. Fransen’s reading of Luther was important to his account, since he then used it to argue that the Council fathers were concerned with replying to Luther’s rejection of the Church’s competence over marriage rather than to Luther’s rejection of the indissolubility of marriage as such. Brugger clearly demonstrates that before the Council met at Trent, Luther not only had denied the Church’s authority over marriage, but he had also clearly rejected the indissolubility of marriage (23–25). Moreover, Brugger also shows in this chapter and in chapter 3 that the Council fathers were well aware of Luther’s errors on indissolubility (53–54). This is clear from the inclusion of Luther’s errors on indissolubility in the list of Reformers’ errors presented to the congregatio theologorum on April 26, 1547, which formed the basis of the canons drawn up and presented to the Council fathers (29–30, 53). In effect, Brugger demonstrates that Fransen had seriously distorted both the nature Luther’s error concerning indissolubility and the Council fathers’ understanding of it. In chapter 2, Brugger outlines the development of the Orthodox custom and doctrine with respect to indissolubility. Relying on the work of the patristics scholar Henri Crouzel, Brugger notes that the early Church was unanimous in teaching on the indissolubility of marriage (38). Eventually under the influence of imperial law, the Eastern Church came to hold that there were, besides adultery, other legitimate causes for divorce, including enmity between spouses, heresy, and desertion (46). The “first unambiguous evidence” for the Orthodox rejection of indissolubility was the collection of laws attributed to the schismatic Patriarch Photius of Constantinople in 883 (44). Brugger’s point is that in effect the Eastern position was not merely a disciplinary accommodation to a pastoral challenge, but it also involved some of the same doctrinal errors later seen in the Reformers. In chapter 3 Brugger treats the Council’s first discussions of the indissolubility of marriage, which took place not at Trent but in Bologna where the Council had temporarily transferred due to an outbreak of typhus at Trent. Brugger chronologically examines the views of both the congregations of theologians and the congregations of bishops. His history breaks 734 Book Reviews off when Paul III decreed a suspension of the Council’s deliberations on February 16, 1548. Throughout this examination, Brugger contests Fransen’s characterization of the Council’s meetings during its time in Bologna. First, he rejects the claim that the Council fathers were only concerned with defining “intrinsic indissolubility,” that is, the authority of the spouses to dissolve their marriage, and not with “extrinsic indissolubility,” the Church’s ability to dissolve a sacramental marriage. He demonstrates that at every turn the fathers did not make this distinction and rather affirmed the absolute indissolubility of marriage (74). This is made clear in the three successive drafts of canon 3 (the content of which become incorporated into the later canon 7), which condemned Luther’s view on the dissolubility of marriage. Second, Brugger challenges Fransen’s thesis that the Council fathers were principally concerned with a disciplinary matter rather than a dogmatic matter, persuasively concluding that “the vast majority of Council fathers” believed that indissolubility was a “dogmatic truth, revealed by God” (88). Chapter 4 picks up in the third period after the Council returned to Trent in 1563 and began working on marriage again. At this point the original draft of canon 7 contained a direct condemnation: “If anyone says, that on occasion of the adultery of one of the spouses a marriage can be dissolved . . . let him be anathema.” After the intervention of the Venetian delegation, 71 percent of the Council fathers (106) accepted the Venetian delegation’s indirect formulation: “If anyone says the church erroneously taught and teaches, . . .” Brugger correctly notes, however, that the Council fathers did not simply accept the delegation’s proposed canon; they changed it in two important ways. First, the Council added “in accordance with the evangelical and apostolic doctrine” (112). Second, they changed “one should not contract another marriage” to “one cannot . . . contract another marriage” (113). Brugger rightly concludes that both of these changes show that the Council clearly intended canon 7 as doctrinal and not just disciplinary. These two changes survived two subsequent drafts of canon 7 and made their way into the final version of the canon. Brugger calls chapter 5 “the heart” of his book (20), and he even suggests that readers only interested his conclusions “may happily skip” over chapters 3 and 4 and go directly to 5 (20). Brugger’s work to this point has focused on the historical development of canon 7, but here for the first time he offers a treatment of the doctrinal chapters which precede the canons, affirming that they too teach the absolute indissolubility of a consummated, sacramental marriage as a divinely revealed truth. He concludes, however, that the doctrinal chapters are not solemn definitions (128). Brugger then moves to a detailed exposition of the doctrinal content Book Reviews 735 of canons 5 and 7 and interprets Trent’s indirect formulation as defining that even in cases of adultery the marital bond cannot be dissolved and that this teaching is part of “evangelical and apostolic doctrine” (132). This insertion makes it clear that the Council thought that this teaching is dogmatic. He also tackles the meaning of the indirect formulation: “If anyone says the church erroneously taught and teaches . . . ” Fransen had argued that the term “error” was best understood as “to exceed one’s competence” rather than as a doctrinal error. Brugger argues that Fransen’s reading is completely unwarranted given the context. For Brugger, then, when the Council used the term “error” it used it in the sense of “cognitively going wrong” (136). Finally, Brugger also includes three appendices. Appendix A contains all the scriptural, patristic, medieval, and early modern authorities referenced by the theologians and Council fathers during the discussions on indissolubility. This is particularly useful since the acta often contain either mere allusions or simple summaries of the supporting text. Brugger helpfully provides lengthy quotations so that the reader may better see the full context of the debates and discussions. He also includes texts not cited in the acta but which are relevant to the issue, as well as commentary on a number of difficult or controversial passages in the authorities. Appendix B is the longest of the appendices and is divided in two parts. The first part contains the Latin text and an English translation of the Venetian delegation’s intervention in 1563. The second part contains in both English and Latin the three successive drafts of the doctrinal preface. These are followed by nine tables that summarize the statements of the Council fathers on each of the four successive formulations of canon 7. Fransen had frequently ascribed various positions to the “majority” of the Council fathers. Brugger’s tables are incredibly useful since they allow one to see clearly what precisely the view of the majority of the fathers on indissolubility was and that Fransen was often incorrect. Appendix C is entitled “Schedule of the Council of Trent,” but this title is misleading, as it is actually a schedule only of the public sessions of the Council. While Brugger successfully demonstrates that Fransen’s thesis regarding the Council’s position on marriage’s indissolubility is erroneous, his work suffers from a number of historical and theological defects. Even though Brugger states at the beginning that he offers his book “as a theologian, not a historian” (xi), a number of his decisions make the work difficult to follow historically. I will give only three examples of historical problems which can be frustrating to the reader. First, Brugger often describes the working of the Council incorrectly. He frequently misuses the term “session” when speaking of meetings of the bishops and theolo- 736 Book Reviews gians. “Session” (sessio) is a technical term for a public meeting of bishops in which some important event takes place, such as the opening or closing of a council, subscription to the creed, or the promulgation of a decree. He repeatedly speaks of the “Bologna sessions” (20, 50, 51), but sometimes he is speaking of the sessions and other times he seems to be principally referring to meetings of the congregation of bishops (congregatio generalis) and the congregation of theologians (congregatio theologorum). He also speaks of “the third Bologna session” which took place on September 14, 1547 (77). There was actually no session (sessio) that day; instead, a general congregation (congregatio generalis) was held which prorogued—that is, postponed—the session that was to be held on the next day to some future time. Second, Brugger is maddeningly inconsistent in how he refers to Council fathers. He identifies the bishops sometimes by their vernacular names, sometimes by their Latin names, sometimes by their vernacular names followed by their see names, and sometimes merely by the names of their dioceses. He refers to Charles de Guise the Cardinal of Lorraine, for example, sometimes as “Lorraine” (48, 98), sometimes as “Charles de Guise, cardinal of Lorraine (Lotharingus),” (97), sometimes as “Lotharingus” (110), sometimes as “the cardinal of Lorraine” (28), and finally sometimes as “the cardinal of Lorraine (Lotharingus)” (104, 129). Even in the index there are two separate entries for Charles de Guise with different page references, one under “Guise, Charles de” (289) and one under “Lotharingus” (290). Moreover, in Appendix B, Brugger claims to give the “Latin name” of the bishops, but this is not so; he identifies them by their see names. It is common in literature on Trent to identify bishops by either their name in the vernacular or as the bishop of their see given in its vernacular. This label becomes even less clear when he records the heads of the represented religious orders. This appendix is arranged by title of office with the office holders’ “name” given next. Brugger identifies the various heads of religious orders’ title as “General” even though the various orders have different titles for their heads. Strangely, he then gives their names as “Dominicans,” “Franciscans,” “Augustinians,” “Jesuits,” and so on rather than using their Christian name or surname. For Diego Laínez (1512–1565), the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, for example, his title becomes “General” and his name becomes “Jesuits.” Laínez is not found by name anywhere in the book. If Laínez had been the only Jesuit present at the Council in the third period, this perhaps would be forgivable. Other Jesuits, however, were present in the third period, including St. Peter Canisius, S.J. (1521–1597), Jean Couvillon, S.J. (1520–1581), Jeronimo Nadal, S.J. (1507–1580), and Juan de Polanco, S.J. (1517–1576). It is Book Reviews 737 unclear to whom Brugger is referring when he uses the name “Jesuits,” let alone orders such as the Dominicans or Franciscans, who had many more members present. Third, Appendix C was intended to be useful by providing a basic timeline of the Council, specifically when the question of marriage was discussed. Unfortunately, it is really a list of the public sessions and the months in which marriage was discussed. Brugger should have provided not only a list of the months in which marriage was discussed but also a chronological list with reference to the general congregations, the congregations of prelate theologians, and the congregations of minor theologians as they discussed the absolute indissolubility of marriage. Brugger also makes a number of questionable claims concerning both dogmatic theology and ecclesiology. He gives, for example, two reasons why the doctrinal chapters on marriage which preceded the canons are not solemn definitions. First, he argues that the doctrinal chapters of the twenty-fourth session cannot form dogmatic, solemn definitions since they use hyperbole and metaphor (128). Second, he argues that these doctrinal chapters cannot contain solemn definitions since the Council did not discuss the doctrinal chapters but voted only on the whole text (128). There are a number of problems with Brugger’s argument. First, even if it were true that the use of hyperbole and metaphor rendered magisterial propositional claims not solemn definitions, it would only follow that those portions of the text which used either would not be solemn definitions. In fact, the presence of “hyperbole” (“senseless men”) and “metaphor” in themselves do not render magisterial texts not solemn definitions. Second, what Brugger labels as hyperbole, “senseless men,” is actually an epithet. There is no good reason that a solemn definition could not include epithets, nor is there any good theological reason epithets could not be employed in a dogmatic definition. Recall that the primary object of infallibility includes the content, extent, and meaning of Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition. Now, Sacred Scripture repeatedly employs analogies to explain divine realities, and it also contains large numbers of epithets. In the Psalms, for example, David wrote, “The fool has said in his heart: ‘There is no God’” (Ps 14:1), and Jesus calls Pharisees and scribes “fools” (Matt 23:17). The magisterium could dogmatically define that atheists are indeed fools or that the Pharisees were fools. In these contexts, these epithets serve as a type of theological censure. Moreover, the magisterium can also dogmatically define the language in which the truths of divine revelation can best be expressed; consequently, it could decide to use proper or improper analogical language in its decrees. The magisterium has in fact issued 738 Book Reviews dogmatic definitions in documents that contain “metaphor.” Take, for example, Boniface VIII’s Unam Sanctam (1304), which contains at least one dogmatic definition and repeatedly uses the metaphor of the two swords in order to describe the relationship between ecclesiastical and temporal power.1 Brugger’s second argument is that the Council fathers failed to discuss the doctrinal chapters and therefore they cannot be solemn definitions. It is, of course, better for the bishops to consult one another and thoroughly discuss doctrinal declarations before their promulgation. Theologians like Melchior Cano, O. P. (1509–1560), and St. Robert Bellarmine, S. J. (1542–1621), state that the magisterium indeed has a moral obligation to do so. There is, however, nothing that obliges the Council fathers as a strict condition for the exercise of either papal or conciliar infallibility to discuss or study drafts of the solemn definitions before approving them. The only conditions necessary for the exercise of conciliar infallibility are that the Council intends to speak (1) in union with the pope, (2) for the universal Church, (3) on a matter of faith or morals, and (4) to be held definitively (Lumen Gentium §25). Brugger suggests that the canons contain solemn definitions but the doctrinal chapters do not (128). This assumption is completely unwarranted for several reasons. First, there are a number of canons even in the Council’s doctrinal decrees which are clearly not solemn definitions. Second, the Council itself does not privilege the canons over the doctrinal chapters. In its other decrees Trent has given us its thought on the relationship between the doctrinal chapters and canons. In session 6 on justification, for example, Trent is quite clear that adherence to the doctrinal content of the chapters is just as necessary as adherence to the canons. Thus, Trent states, No one can be justified unless he faithfully and firmly accepts [ fideliter firmiterque receperit] the Catholic doctrine of justification, to which the holy council has decided to add the following canons, so that all may know, not only what they should hold and follow, but also what they should shun and avoid.2 Thus, to use the technical terminology of dogmatic theologians, the doctrinal chapters are in forma positiva while canons are in forma negativa. 1 2 Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum [DH], ed. Peter Hünermann; 43rd ed, no. 875. DH, no. 1550; cf. nos. 1650, 1700, 1770. Book Reviews 739 The difference between the chapters and canons, as Trent itself teaches, is not one of authority but rather one of a positive versus a negative doctrinal formulation. One may notice, moreover, that adherence to both the doctrinal decrees and the canons is required for one’s justification and ultimately one’s salvation. The individual propositions within the doctrinal chapters and canons must be examined one by one in order to determine whether they are solemn definitions or not. Brugger’s error on this point is rather unfortunate, since it caused him to neglect the doctrinal weight of an aspect of Trent’s decree that would have substantially strengthened his argument. There are other problems with Brugger’s method, especially in light of his larger corpus on moral issues, particularly capital punishment. Take, for example, Brugger’s treatment of the teaching of the Fathers of the Church in this work. Brugger repeatedly notes that the Fathers of the Church were virtually unanimous in their teaching on the absolute indissolubility of marriage (3, 38). Indeed, he cites approximately twenty-two Fathers of the Church and anonymous patristic texts in support of his position (38). Later in Appendix A, he is at pains to show that those few patristic texts which others read as supporting toleration of divorce and remarriage in fact do not support this. In his earlier work, Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition (2nd ed.), however, Brugger devotes an entire chapter to discussing approximately twenty-two Fathers and anonymous patristic texts. The title of the chapter on the Fathers is entitled “The Patristic Consensus,” in which he demonstrates that this consensus was “unanimous” (94) in teaching that capital punishment is permissible. Despite this admission, he concludes that the patristic consensus on the permissibility of the death penalty can simply be swept aside. One must ask why the consensus of twenty-two Fathers is sufficient in the case of the absolute indissolubility of marriage, while the consensus of twenty-two Fathers is not for the permissibility of the death penalty. The answer lies in the fact that Brugger is principally driven by his adherence to the New Natural Law theory rather than by a concern for the purity of Catholic doctrine. In any case, Brugger’s argument is that Trent’s doctrine cannot change, since canon 7 is a solemn definition, and therefore proposals like Kasper’s are moot. It is hard to understand how Brugger could make such a claim given his own work. Kasper freely admits that Trent’s doctrine on indissolubility cannot change. In this he agrees with Brugger. Instead Kasper argues that his proposal would be a “development of doctrine” rather than a change. Brugger in effect makes exactly the same argument as Kasper in his work on capital punishment. Brugger admits that the tradition is one 740 Book Reviews in affirming the permissibility of capital punishment but goes on to argue that a rejection of this unanimous consensus is really just a development of doctrine. Brugger describes this development concerning capital punishment as “a reasoning process from A to B (that is, from pro to con vis-à-vis the morality of capital punishment).”3 Of course, this is not a process of A to B but rather a process from A to not A, that is, a contradiction just like Kasper’s. Vincent of Lerins warned that in a development, “the Church of Christ, the careful and watchful guardian of the doctrines deposited in her charge, never changes anything in them, never diminishes, never adds.”4 It is difficult to see on what principle Brugger can reject Kasper’s argument of the development of the Church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage and yet accept and employ the argument of development in Church teaching to support a change in the traditional teaching of the admissibility of the death penalty. In the end, the basic problem is that Brugger is a moral theologian, not a dogmatic theologian. These weaknesses, however, do not fundamentally undermine Brugger’s main thesis that the Council of Trent intended to define the absolute indissolubility of a ratified and consummated marriage. Indeed, Brugger’s thesis would be strengthened by recognizing the dogmatic importance of the doctrinal chapters. Theologians such as Cardinal Kasper and the International Theological Commission, who have tendentiously adopted the view of Piet F. Fransen, would do well to rely no longer on Fransen. Brugger’s timely and important book has replaced Fransen’s as the standard work on the doctrine of indissolubility at the Council of Trent. N&V Christian D. Washburn Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity University of Saint Thomas St. Paul, MN E. Christian Brugger, Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), 163. 4 Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium 23.59, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 11:148. 3